Thursday, September 20, 2007

What's next

Well my PC broke down so I haven't been able to watch everything I'd like to to get the reviews in. So for now I'll let you know what I'm planning on writing next:


Concert Tour DVD Reviews:


Morning Musume Sexy 8 Beat Tour(Hitomi's graduation concert)
KAT-TUN Live of Real Face



PV/Single/album reviews:


Aya Kamiki's new single
Melon Kinenbi's Onegai Miwaku no Target(PV)
Maeda Yuki's Ai Ai Daiko(PV)
B-U-DEN's Jaja Uma Paradise(PV)
B'z - SUPER LOVE SONG(Single)
Otsuka Ai with LOVE PiECE(Album)
Leah Dizon's Destiny Line

Looking forward to:

AKB48's new album
Mr. Children's Tabidachi no Uta

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Idols should be managed better

What started out as a simple thought from a weak single release has turned into a big rant about the management of idols in Japan. Read on, it's good.

Leah Dizon's newest single, L.O.V.E. U is out. It's been out for awhile actually, about a month. The song is about as generic as it gets. While generic songs sometimes don't bother me I find this one annoying because Leah Dizon isn't a great singer, but she has a fan following and has potential. When she's on stage she seems pretty confident, and she's giving a real effort to learn Japanese, so I feel they're wasting her. Like I said she's not a great singer, so they need to make up for it in other areas. They seem to think this means "let's release a photobook!". She has as many photobooks as singles, so that tells us the real reason she's here is because she's hot. Don't get me wrong, she's hot and makes an AWESOME photobook, but my problem is that it's not the only thing she can do. She's suppposed to release a new album, Destiny Line, which is due in a few days. Since all her songs have been pretty generic, with Koi Shiyou being the best of all(having a nice PV too), the rest of the album feels like it's gonna be boresville, and it's really only too bad because if Leah gets strong singles, she'll be on top. She has the looks, confidense, talent, and she's already in the oricon charts. All she needs is a BIT more exposure, showing her fans and others who aren't yet that she's giving a real effort to learn their language and trying to appeal to them, and a really strong single. PBs, they'll come and sell anyway, but Leah doesn't deserve to be just that.

While we're on that note it seems like the only idol management group that aren't doing what they're doing to Leah are the people behind AKB48. Hello! Project seems to be relying mostly on what they used to do, which is feed the wota with concert tours and PBs. That's good and all, but due to scandals Morning Musume lost a very valueable member, Fujimoto Miki. Their singles are great to me, but they're weak to the general public. The mismanagement of the idols isn't limited to just Momusu though. There's a great idol group with C-ute, which is growing up and in my opinion is a lot better than BerryZ Koubou, which have also been harshly mismanaged with extremely weak singles. Then we have GAM. Fujimoto is out of Momusu, but she had GAM which was a gold mine. Aya and Miki couldn't loose. All of their songs were great, they had an excellent album release, and even did their own concert tour. GAM was telling me Hello! Project and UFA were ready to start doing things right, but then GAM hasn't announced anything concrete for new things, which is completely dissapointing. The only thing that would've been better for GAM would've been having Goto Maki join them to remake Gomattou, which would've been win. Speaking of Maki, I think she's probably the biggest victim of mismanagement in the whole of UFA/H!P. She has it all. Looks, singing talent, charisma, dancing talent, she's probably the best thing H!P has in their roster. But her last singles were either really whoreish(which I actually liked the songs), or a really weak balad. She's not getting the exposure she deserves, and she's ahd plenty of exposure to prove that she can be on top. Let;s take for example joining Momusu and making her debut single #1. Or how about a successful solo career(back when her singles were good), successful releases for the subunits and shuffle groups she was in, photobooks that sold through the roof, and concert tours that sold out. What more do they want?She's literally a money maker and has the capacity to out shine any of Johnny's boys in the charts.

I wish they would stop trying to sell their bodies, and started selling talent. Don't get me wrong, I love bodies as much as the next guy, but that's not all they should do. Look at Koda Kumi. Everyone complains because she goes out and does the slut thing. News flash: EVERY OTHER IDOL OUT THERE DOES THE SLUT THING! The difference between them and Kumi is that she has talent with singing, dancing, and confidense, and they mix it up. How many photobooks has Koda made and sold? How many singles and albums has she made and took them to the top of the oricon charts? Ask yourself that, and then replace it with other idols who are doing the slut thing with photobooks and stuff. Koda sells just as much talent as she does body, and come to think of it so is Tamaki Nami(from my previous post), so idol managers, PLEASE, sell me talent. I wanna see my favorite idols going to the top!