Ikemen Paradise
26 March 2008
Alas, it wasn't to be. It was highly improbable that this week's Haromoni@ would be anywhere near as good as last week's and it was proved right. There are far too many 'cute' animal clips which might appeal to Morning Musume but doesn't really interest me too much. Not that I have anything against animals, they just aren't that impressive unless they can do something totally unbelievable. Regular tricks just don't cut it sadly. At least there is one good thing to come from this - I don't have to spend hours typing up a synopsis like I do when it's a good episode. My eyeballs are mighty relieved, I'm sure.
The theme for this week's outfits is ikemen (good-looking males) so they're all wearing trouser suits with ties. Though it would have been better if they were all wearing the uniforms from Hanazakari no Kimitachi e instead, and had a special guest appearance by Horikita Maki! Only in my dreams, huh? Nevertheless, I have to say some of the members look quite handsome in trouser suits, Niigaki Risa in particular, but I'm not sure those animal ears fit in with the ikemen image. I'd love to see some high-flying City boy walking into work wearing one of those on his head. Or even better someone like Alan Sugar with a pair of white bunny ears. Now that would make for some good boardroom meetings.
Quite a poor start to the show so there's not much to write about. Just some self-massaging cat and a JCB digger going on a date (not in the same clip). There was a mildly interesting video of a guy doing aerobics while on a road bike. This wasn't just the usual bike-surfing trick that everyone and their grandma can do, this guy could do some genuinely neat tricks. The following clips went downhill a bit until they got to another quiz clip. This time it was a guy doing head-spins and the girls had to guess how many revolutions he could do. Lin Lin really got herself noticed in this part of the show. She guessed 31 spins and illustrated this with three fingers and one ear of her headband. The expression on her face was priceless. It certainly got some laughs from the other members. Surprisingly she got quite close to the answer which turned out to be 33 spins. Good job, Lin Lin!
There was a reappearance of Princess Wai Wai with another illusion. Sadly, for me at least, it wasn't quite so spectacular. It involved turning water in a glass to ice by stirring it. Tanaka Reina picked up on the fact that the water had changed colour between shots and it kind of ruined the suspense /laugh. Not much else of note until the last part of the episode where it was time once again for the memory test. Jun Jun was back with the challenge of remembering the Katakana names for twenty-five different breeds of dogs. This must have been immensely difficult because not only were they in Japanese, they were the Japanese pronunciations of English names (most of them anyway). This was clearly evident when she started the challenge. She had trouble pronouncing 'Retriever' in Japanese. It did make for some hilarious moments but you couldn't help feel some sympathy for her.
This challenge must have been really tough because at the end of it Jun Jun had tears in her eyes. It was a brilliant effort to complete it without any mistakes and I'm sure it's endeared her to many fans. Even I'm becoming quite a big fan of hers. Jun Jun seems to fit in with the rest of the members really well. I've also noticed that they've got her hairstyles absolutely perfect. None of this embarrassing 'new member haircut disaster' the other generations seemed to have. Seems like I'm singing praise for the Chinese members every week but I really like them. It's a big 'up yours' to all the people who doubted their ability when they were introduced. I bet they're all crying into their porridge right about now. Well, carry on crying, suckers!
Posted byHocchan at 5:48 pm
