Aa Niigaki-san Kiite Kudasai
17 February 2008
I've discovered something quite surprising. I've found myself looking forward to Haromoni@ each and every week. Lately the 'MouTube' sections have really got me hooked. There are some pretty amusing clips to be found on it. The best ones are probably the videos the girl make themselves. This week's episode was pretty good. It started off with a performance of Seishun! Love Lunch. I absolutely love this song! It's so jolly and bright. It's a song that I never get tired of no matter how many times I put it on repeat. Plus Niigaki Risa looks positively adorable in that outfit she's wearing.
The first video of the show features a group called 'Cube' doing various keepie uppie tricks with a football (that's FOOTball, not soccer ball, since you kick it with your FOOT). Apparently they performed in front of 50,000 people in the 2006 World Cup in Germany. They were fairly entertaining, I'd give them 7/10. Next up was a guy doing a juggling act with one of those cup and ball toys, only the balls weren't tied on with strings. It had a nice Taiko drum beat to it. I heard something about the Guinness Book of Records but didn't fully understand what they were saying about it. Not a bad video, 7/10 again.
Then a kid did some paper-cutting to produce a butterfly and the Chibi King. Good skills but not particularly entertaining, 5/10. The next video was slightly better. It featured a skateboarding doing some jumps and flips in a skate park. I'd give him 6/10. After that came a video of some wild boars jumping over vaulting horses and balancing on car tires. Not a fan of the animal tricks so only 4/10 for this. What followed was a hilarious gag involving a play on words. First a guy made a cigarette disappear, then the next guy made a pen disappear. Finally, the guy at the back held up a piece of paper and repeated the trick. Only he took off his cap and revealed his balding head, hahahaha! You see, the word for 'hair' and 'paper' are pronounced the same. Therefore, he made his hair disappear instead of the paper. A bit of a cheesy joke but it was well performed. I loved it, 8/10.
I didn't quite get the next video. It was a guy doing an impression of someone. As I don't know who it was meant to be, I can't really judge how good it was, 4/10. That was followed by a woman placing a rubber glove over her head and inflating it until it popped. Not very funny in itself, but it's the bit that followed that made it amusing. They asked the girls to try inflating the same type of glove (though not whilst wearing it on their heads). Most of them couldn't do it but Koharu and Aika managed to get theirs quite big. Aika's glove inflated so much the others couldn't help backing away in fear of it popping. Thankfully, for them, Aika gave up and it deflated with not so much as a whimper. 4/10 for the video, 8/10 for the studio reaction.
There was a boy who did a trick with a spinning top on his tongue but it wasn't very interesting or impressive, 3/10. The guy who did the twirling with various objects was good though. He was a former baton twirling world champion. First he twirled a broom (they called it a mop but I swear it was a broom), a walking stick, and a couple of leeks. The end of the video was amusing when a woman rode past in the background on a bike, accompanied by the ringing of the bell. Impressive act to watch and the ending was brilliant, 8/10.
Finally, we got to a Morning Morning video featuring Niigaki Risa imitating Kojima Yoshio's 'Oppapii' gag. Except she did it all in Korean. She also wore a traditional 'Hanbok' dress whilst doing it. It really looked good on her. The gag was about her addressing Tsunku with an informal greeting, followed by a comment about how her name can be read Aragaki. I don't really find the original comedian to be that funny but when Niigaki Risa does it it's a lot more entertaining. Might be highly biased but I give it 9/10! The following video was of Kusumi Koharu doing an impression of Hirai Ken singing Ookiina Furu Tokei. I think Yoshizawa Hitomi did a much more accurate impression of Hirai Ken so I wasn't too impressed with this. Only a 6/10 for me.
As they were on the subject of impressions, Risa brought up the fact that she can do an impression of Lin Lin. The whole arm flapping was hilarious and seemed quite accurate. Not content with one imitation, Sayumi stepped up and did her version too. This one was a lot more hyper but just as funny. It must have been embarrassing for Lin Lin but I think she took it well. It followed on nicely to a video from Lin Lin doing a continuation of the Air-??? skits. This time it was a Sumo match. Not as good as the previous ones but not bad. I'd give it 7/10, if only for the defeated sumo lying on the floor bit.
We're finally onto the last video but it's another disappointing animal one. This one features a monkey from a small restaurant that can dance and bring drinks to customers. I'd give it 6/10 at best. And that was the end of the show. They voted on their video of the day which was the keepie uppie footage from the beginning of the episode. A small preview of next week's show and it looks quite good. The girls seem to be wearing some new outfits and Tanaka Reina is dressed up as a detective. I can't wait!
Posted byHocchan at 7:20 pm
I like looking at all the pictures but they seem out of order. The girls are all so cute I'm jealous :). I also love your new header. It's very pretty and sparkly. Michael and I watched a mini moni movie that I thought was really cute:
"Mini Moni ja Movie Okashi na Daibouken!" I thought it was really cute. Michael got sick of the cuteness and I couldn't finish watching :( Have you seen it?
The first few pictures do appear too early in the text. The reason I did that was because most of the events they depicted came towards the latter half of the programme. I didn't like the big block of text at the beginning of the post so I decided to break it up a bit with pictures. It sorts itself out towards the end but it is a little out of sync at the start.
Arigatou. I spent ages making that header. I had to make it twice from scratch after GIMP 2.4 decided to trash my .PSD file. The second one (the current one) turned out better though, so it might have been a blessing in disguise.
I saw it on Stage6 after Michael mentioned it in Messenger. It was definitely aimed at a young audience but I think it was enjoyable. The last bit was quite touching.
If you have time you should watch Mechaike Field Trip, Mechaike Test and/or Mechaike Sports Day. They're all quite long but they're a great insight into the "golden era" of Morning Musume, when the 3 members of Mini Moni were still in the group. The guys in it are a comedy group and they're really funny.
I adjusted the screenshot order so that the first two pictures appear a paragraph down from where they originally were. That makes them above the paragraph that mentions it. That should make more sense when reading it through.