H!F have subbed C-ute’s Alo-Hello dvd. So it’s time for C-ute Hawaiian action. Did I spell “Hawaiian” right? Probably not. Anyway when the first scene in an hour and thirty-eight minute production is this…

You know it’s going to be a good one.

And there’s certainly no waiting around as the five members of the then soon to be 5-nin C-ute run off to the water-slides. Literally…

Like I said, it’s going to be a good one. And really there’s not a lot to say about the first five minutes. It’s C-ute on water-slides. It’s as you’d expect…

After that Nakki-chan announces it’s time for C-ute’s Hawaii tour branch manager contest. This basically involves lots of challenges pitting the members against each other. The first contest involves riding a banana boat while holding glasses of juice and then seeing who has the most juice left in their glass at the end. So it’s onwards to more water fun…

After the competition they then get to ride some more inflatables. So here we see Airi, Nakki-chan and Maimi bouncing along the waves…

And then here we see Airi, Nakki-chan and…huh?

Well there’s a turn up. The athletic, beautiful, long-haired, long-legged all-rounder fell off? What next? A drastic new haircut?

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! Hmm…it’s a bit Single White Female between Maimi and Captain. Who’d have thought Maimi would be the one doing the copying? I hope Captain doesn’t have a dog. Or a boyfriend come to think of it. It looks like Maimi’s wearing high heels too. That’d be one in the eye for any partner of Shimizu’s. On a separate note isn’t Mano’s hair lovely and glossy? She’s been at the dog biscuits. But enough of that meeting of the H!P summit leaders, back to Hawaii. What’s next?

Without going into too much detail I never want Nakki-chan to make me a sandwich. She can do a lot of other things for me, and in another 88 days the list will grow to a lot more again, but making a sandwich is not on the list. Although she can keep hold of the whipped cream for 88 days or so and then use it.

I’d eat both of them and leave the sandwich.

After making sandwiches they then grab some random old surfer dude who happened to be passing by so that he could judge whose was the best. He is a very lucky random old surfer dude in one sense, however he also has to eat the sandwiches so maybe it’s yin and yang.

Help yourself? I’d eat Maimi and leave the sandwiches.

Help yourself? Well I’d…well you can take it as read for all of the first four.

So that’s the first four.

Help yourself? Well I’d…eat the sandwiches. Hey I may be sick but I’m not that sick. I’d wait for at least another year or two.

So after the sandwiches it’s 27 minutes and 5 seconds into the dvd. The relevance?

There’s your relevance. It’s a one-on-one pool battle. Who can reach the floating flag first? Some highlights…

I have to interrupt just to say, Maimi…really…wow. Just…WOW.

Hmm…Maimi who is the tallest member against Mai who is one of the shortest and who can’t swim. I wonder how that’ll turn out?

Following that bliss the swimming heaven continues with a 25 metres battle. However it’s not a straight swimming battle as each member draws a card that tells them either which swimming technique to use or what item they have to swim with…

I don’t think Airi will be winning this battle somehow. Mind you since she can’t swim neither will Maimai. She has to have Nakki-chan & Chisato alongside her for support…

Mind you it turns out that Airi can’t swim either. Still I don’t think there’s any danger of her drowning…

As for Nakki-chan well…

Damn right.

After that contest the next one is another 25 metres swim battle. This time there are no conditions and the members can race anyway they want. Of course the fact that two of them can’t swim kind of limits things for them.

I suddenly fancy a swim. Anyway the swim battle has one disqualification. It was a good call from the invisible referee and leads to one member who can swim being given last place behind two who can’t.

So leaving the pool behind it’s time for something called a ’scattered quiz’ on the beach. In other words there’s some capsules with questions in them buried in the sand. The first person to find and correctly answer three questions is the winner. Or to put it another way, ‘hey everyone run around the beach for a while’. It’s a good game…

What I love about that picture is Maimi hugging Chisato in the background. They’re all so happy. Unlike with Morning Musume where, despite the fact they always say they are like a family, you always get the feeling it’s a slightly dysfunctional one that argues behind closed doors a lot, with C-ute you really do get a sense of friendship. These girls have grown up together. They are always so supportive of each other. It’s just so heart-warming and lovely.

Even in the middle of Hawaii there’s always time for a Reggie Perrin impression…

The next competition is…frankly made irrelevant the moment they appear on screen looking like…

And so it’s time to take a break from the competitions and just have some fun in the bikinis pool.

Okay. I’ll just find my passport.

I don’t know what they are doing but it sure looks like fun. Passport…passport…now where is it?

Maimi’s taking over from Kanna. Leader’s prerogative I guess. You wouldn’t think members would have to keep leaving just to get a good fingering (I should add that’s entirely the belief of ‘The Chris’ over at Hello!Blog).

Now for an editing balls-up competition. Can you spot the mistake?

Please send your answers to the “there’s one at the top but five at the bottom then one at the top again” competition. P.O. Box 8765, Hawaii.

Well just over an hour into the dvd and it’s time to do some…

Yes the girls get to dry off in the sun while I get to dry the saliva off my pants with a paper towel. So the rules…

It’s fun to watch the members trying to communicate in English but not as much fun as them messing about in bikinis. Mind you Nakki-chan found another way to communicate. Something used for communication since the time of the cavemen…

No not kanji. A drawing.

After the shopping it’s time for C-ute to reflect on their experience. It was certainly one full of fun…

Told you.

After that the branch manager winner is announced and then that’s the end of the fun. Except it isn’t. For there is still twelve minutes of the dvd left. So what’s left exactly? Well there is a bedroom scene with all five members. No it’s nothing like that but I won’t give anything away. Let’s just say it’s nothing to do with any thoughts The Chris might have about what the C-ute members get up to in their spare time…unfortunately.

Then for the final seven minutes it’s ‘making of’ time. Well it’s more bikini fun so who’s complaining? Not me that’s for sure…

And so as the sun sets on this dvd it’s time to say sayonara to our fabulous five or alternatively start watching the whole thing from the beginning again. Something you may be tempted to do. In the past year or so all three main H!P groups have been to Hawaii. I honestly think this C-ute trip was the best to watch. The members are all having so much fun. They are clearly enjoying their first time there. Morning Musume and Berryz Koubou had fun too of course but with C-ute the element of competition made it interesting to watch while at the same time the close bonds between the members shone through at all times. There was a lot of laughter for all five members and it really was like the best family holiday you could ever wish for. It’s a pure joy. Every member came across really well. Every member played their part. Except Umeda obviously. However I have to say I never really thought of her at all while watching this. The five remaining members are still such a tight unit that even the loss of Umeda and Kanna in the space of a few months can’t impede them. Like I said, pure joy. Ten out of ten. Well maybe that should be five out of five.

As I continue to bugger about with subbing programmes I decided to sub what to me is Country Musume’s best song, Iroppoi Onna Sexy Baby. This time I’ve figured out (with kind help from ggliff at Musume-Central) how to do more than one set of subs. So here is the pv with English and romaji subs. You can direct d/l here and here.

I have to say that as well as loving the song I also love the pv. All the members look great. Toda Rinne looks really cute with her hair bunched, Ishikawa Rika looks as beautiful as she ever looked, little Kimura Asami looks adorable and Satoda Mai has her usual strong presence. The pv also has Rika in glasses and a sexy business suit and the others get to dress up too. Add to that the sexy dance moves and the sexy clothes they’re wearing during those sexy dance moves and we have a pv that’s…well it begins with “s”, has four letters and ends in “exy”.

Carlsberg Hello! Project don’t do holidays. But if they did they’d be the best damn holidays in the world!

Okay first of all an explanation. I’d been looking to find a subbed version of W’s excellent Koi no Vacance single and couldn’t find one anywhere. I’d also been wondering recently how hard it is to add subtitles to a video. You can see where this is leading. I have to admit I suck. I tried several different programmes and simply couldn’t work out how to add a second set of subs. So there’s no romaji. Yes this is horrendously basic. At the same time having ripped the pv myself from my dvd of W’s early pv collection W no Eizo no Sekai Vol. 1 the quality of picture is good.

Anyway I was going to keep the pv sub to myself. It’s hardly up to a subbing groups standards. I don’t think H!F have anything to worry about from me. But then I realised that my next blog post would be my 350th. I’ve also recently just passed the 250,000 hits mark (mainly because of people arriving here looking for something entirely different to what they found no doubt). I’d like to celebrate with my thoughts on C-ute’s Alo-Hello pb but Yes-you’ll-get-it-eventually-Asia haven’t sent it yet. I could also have celebrated with my thoughts on my first ever Junjun t-shirt but sadly the slip came through the letterbox today telling me it’ll be delivered when the customs charge has been paid. Bloody Government. If they can show me somewhere in the UK where I can buy a Junjun shirt I’d happily keep the money in this country. So instead I figured this would make a good 350th post. And so ladies, gentlemen…and miscellaneous I present you with a very basic sub of a great song and pv. You can direct download here or here if you wish. The subbed version of the dance shot is available here. It may well have already been subbed. I don’t know. I looked but couldn’t find. And to be honest I was hoping to sub something of Mano’s instead but couldn’t find any translations for her songs. So instead it’s back to a time when Kago wasn’t a byword for skank and Tsuji…didn’t look any different to how she looks now except now she has really big hair. I hope you enjoy…

Double Kago. Lock up your fathers.

How I love that pv. It’s just so much fun!

Tonight for the first time ever I actually watched a close-up live dvd from beginning to end. I do have Buono’s Hybrid Punch dvd but I haven’t even thought of watching the second disc of close-ups. Yet for Nakki-chan…well I could stand to watch an hour and ten minutes of Nakki stalker action from the ABC tour. It’s a strange experience. Sure the girl is cute. Very cute. No I mean REALLY STUPENDOUSLY CUTE. Even so it’s still strange to spend over an hour not looking at anyone else. Then again watching the normal ABC live dvd I spent most of my time looking at her anyway so wtf.

Having watched this solo version of the concert I’ve decided to show those of you who have never experienced the delights of a solo close-up just what you have been missing. So here is Nakki-chan singing Aishiteru Aishiteru with the unseen Umeda Erika (as Kanna was otherwise unavailable seeing as she had a foot problem. Although she’s probably the one who was filming the Suzuki Airi close-up version of this concert. If not she’s probably watched it about 50 times by now anyway).

Good evening and welcome to BBC1. The time is just coming up to 8:15 on 30th October. Now it’s time for cute Halloween pictures, presented by H!P. While looking at the pictures perhaps you’d like to listen to the BBC Concert Orchestra…

We interrupt this broadcast to take you over to our news room…

Hello I’m George Alagiah. Reports are coming in of an unidentified object causing terror in Tokyo. We take you straight to Roland Buerk, the BBC’s Foreign Correspondent for Japan…

Hello. People are coming out onto the streets from bars and cafes to see what is happening. An unidentified object has appeared during a concert by popular Japanese pop group Morning Musume. Giant screens across Tokyo, usually reserved for advertisements, are showing the scene of confusion within the Tokyo Kousei Nenkin Kaikan concert venue. Now wait a minute! I see something on top of the stage. No, it’s nothing but a shadow. Now the troops are on the edge of the stage. Seven thousand armed men closing in on an ugly…something. Wait, that wasn’t a shadow! It’s something moving…so ugly…kind of like the face-huggers from the Alien films…it’s going higher and higher. Why, it’s standing on legs…actually rearing up and giving a grotesque smile. The searchlights are on it. Hold on!

Well we seem to have lost pictures and sound from Tokyo so we’ll return you to the scheduled programme until a connection has been resumed…

We interrupt this broadcast to take you back to Roland Buerk in Tokyo.

Good heavens, something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a snake. Now it’s another one, and another. They look like half made dreadlocks to me. There, I can see the thing’s body. It’s small but frightening and it glistens like wet leather. But that face, it…ladies and gentlemen, it’s indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it…

Once again we seem to have lost contact with Roland Buerk so we will return you to the scheduled programme of cute idols dressed for Halloween…

Contact has been restored with Tokyo so we will once again take you to the terrifying scenes inside the Tokyo Kousei Nenkin Kaikan concert venue.

Roland Buerk here. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The head cowled. The mouth is slack jawed with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate. The monster or whatever it is can hardly move. Or sing. It seems weighed down by…possibly gravity or lack of talent or maybe even a realisation of it’s own lack of worthiness or something. The thing’s raising up. The crowd falls back now. They’ve seen plenty. This is the most extraordinary experience. I can’t find words…I’ll pull this microphone with me as I talk. I’ll have to stop the description until I can take a new position. Hold on, will you please, I’ll be right back in a minute…

We return you to cute idols until contact can be re-established…

We now return you to the scenes of terror in Tokyo.

Streets are all jammed here. Wait a minute…enemy now sighted near the Tokyo Imperial Palace. There’s still no word on the numbers of dead inside the concert venue but it’s thought only a few troops managed to flee. Oh God military planes are coming down, seemingly blinded and then the machinery jammed by a thick black smoke coming from the mouth of the beast. Wait. A second beast has been spotted. Oh…

This is the end now. Smoke comes out…black smoke, drifting over the city. People in the streets see it now. They’re running away…thousands of them, dropping like rats. Now the smoke’s spreading faster. People trying to run away from it, but it’s no use. They’re falling like flies. Now the smoke’s crossing towards me…one hundred yards away…it’s fifty feet…

Hello? Hello Roland? Well we seem to have lost contact with Tokyo. Wait…we’ve just lost the rest of Japan. Now other cities throughout Asia are disappearing from our satellite links. Singapore’s gone. Beijing too. Now whole countries. China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam. Reports are coming in of further unidentified objects in other parts of the world. Wait…now we’re losing American cities. Los Angeles, New York…whole states are going down. Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Texas, California, Washington. Now European countries seem to be affected. Russia has gone. Poland too. Wait…Austria, Germany and Belgium have now gone. Also Switzerland so it’s not all bad news then. Spain has gone. France has gone. My God. People of Britain prepare yourselves. Arm yourselves. look to th…

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This is Morningtime Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that The War of Mitsui has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be. The Morningtime Theatre’s own internet version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo! Starting now, we couldn’t soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night…so we did the next best thing. We annihilated the idol world before your very eyes and utterly destroyed the U.F.A. You will be relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn’t mean it, and that both institutions are still open for business. So goodbye everybody, and remember the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch Mitsui Aika, and if your doorbell rings and nobody’s there, that was no Idol…it’s Aikawe’en.

Scary stuff huh? Well finally here’s Morning Musume doing a spooky production of Michael Jackson’s Thriller amongst other things. Actually I’m not much of a Jacko fan but I’d love to see the girls doing the dance for the whole song…

Hello and welcome to When Idols Go bad. I’m Greg Evigan. This week, what does that dress say? What does that dress say? I WANT TO KNOW.

Join me again next week for When Idols Go Bad. Where Yajima Maimi will be showing some attitude…

I MADE THIS.

The disappointing thing about the net is that no matter how long you know someone you don’t really actually know them at all. So it turned out with the person who got me into H!P. This “person” for want of a better word (although I can think of several better words) I had known for five to six years. Certainly for a long time before either of us got into H!P. I thought I knew her/him pretty well. So at the start of last year when she/he started asking me to get H!P stuff from the net and she/he would pay me later I thought sure why not. I turned down the lovely chance of sending items in advance of payment (thank god) but it’s funny really. Only one payment ever came through and even then I had to pay p+p to the US. Which in effect meant that of the album and single/dvd that got sent I’d paid as much in postage as the single/dvd cost. So promise after promise and excuse after excuse came. Originally everything was to be paid by June or July last year. It became by the end of summer this year and then by the end of September. Then late October because aww she/he had been robbed and didn’t have the money. I don’t know what the next excuse would have been. The dog ate the cash? Robbed again? Couldn’t work the extra hours she/he was supposedly going to work to get the money (although from blog posts and the like it’s clear money doesn’t seem to be a problem when it comes to this person buying other stuff. Even when I was expecting payment there were posts about buying cd’s and dvd’s or iTunes stuff). So now I’ve had enough. She/he (I say she/he because although this person claims to be a woman the only time I ever sent stuff to her it was addressed to a man. Which gives food for thought) is basically an untrustworthy nobody. Somebody who, when a very popular JPH!P member tragically died shortly after the MM LA convention, only had thoughts of herself and how he’d died before she could forgive him for some imagined wrong he’d done to her. Yeah never mind he’s dead and that’s a tragedy but he died before you could forgive him. Poor you. You must be feeling really bad…about yourself. Well she removed that Twitter post really quick when she realised she was giving too much away. A common theme that runs through her net life.

So now the time has come to say goodbye to this person. I know she/he are getting others to buy stuff for her/him due to posts I’ve seen here and there. Well I learned the hard way that you never really know someone on the net. Especially someone whose blog moves often and whose username changes all the time.   Hmm…maybe it’s time I changed my name everywhere. Inaba is fugly has quite a ring to it.

I’ve edited this as within a week I should know if I’ll finally get what’s required. It’s now been promised. If not I’ll reinsert the whole post as why bother with more delays? There’s only so much that’s believeable.

Edit:

Originally I was supposed to be paid for ALL the items by the end of June…LAST YEAR. Then when no payments had come I refused to get her any more items. I also turned down her kind request for me to lend her $60 towards a new laptop and I turned down her kind request to send her the stuff before she’d paid. Anyway then payment was going to be by July…LAST YEAR. Then of course nothing happened.

Now as well as giving no reason for not paying she also made many posts on her old blog about all the stuff she’d bought from iTunes. Like spending $40 there and listing all that she’d bought. Including digital copies of many things I’d got physical copies of for her at her request. After July no firm dates were ever given for payment. It was always “soon”. No reason for not paying was ever given either. Stupidly come the release of Resonant Blue on the promise of being paid very soon I actually got her two of the releases. Well I was getting myself copies anyway and I was still giving the benefit of ever increasing doubt. Come December I was weighing stuff with a promise of payment in January. Payment never came but I stupidly sent her some Fugly pics as a birthday present. Still giving the benefit of that doubt. Eventually by early summer payment for everything was promised by late summer. Just a year late.

When around late July I queried when exactly the payments would be made (something I’d hardly ever done) she said I should just sell everything as she “doesn’t like being pressured”. You call waiting a year pressure? But again she said she’d like to pay for everything so I gave her to the end of summer. Through this stage contact was non-existant. We’d basically stopped talking to each other. Then at the end of September a message. Oh no she’d been robbed so she couldn’t pay me. She’ll work extra hours and then pay me by the end of October. What I love about all this is that on her new shared blog another blogger had said to her during the summer months “hurry up and pay me for all this Linlin junk”. So it’s not just me then. I’d love to show a link to that message but strangely her blog has been ‘redesigned’ and now only shows two posts. Her old blog with all her mentioning of purchases (both physical and digital) is also gone. Well when someone changes their username all the time and moves around so often where’s the surprise in that? In fact two years ago she got a new MSN address due to people ‘pressurising’ her. Everyone rallied round to tell her to ignore people and it’s not her fault. I even did it myself. Tried to comfort her. Now I wonder. Is this all just some repetitive thing for her? Ducking and diving. New names. New addresses. New people to try and con. There’s a part of me that hopes that’s not the case but the fact she never once apologised for not paying, nor gave any reason for not paying makes me wonder.

Well today a few hours after first posting on this subject she starts making friendly comments for the first time in ages via Facebook. She also pm’s me to promise payment in another week. So early November. Well what’s another week when you’ve waited nearly a year and a half? I have to admit though that I was kind of expecting it to be a trick. I thought wait an hour or so and then she’d pm to say she’d been told about my blog post and now mwaaah waaah. It seems I was wrong though…I had to wait about four hours. So I guess payment won’t be coming. Hmm I can see at least one giveaway coming.

Another edit: Hilariously it’s now all my fault for not being “patient”. Aww I’m treating her like crap apparently. Whatever. Patient? Nearly two years is pretty patient. I love how she now blames me so she can carry on as always without having to face up to herself. Yeah blame the other person.

Are we all ready for the release of the year yet? Tomorrow is the day. Well my anticipation is now truly heightened by these latest pics to surface…

It’s heading towards winter here in the UK. A fact I like for I love the dark nights coming in. I love that whole thing of getting wrapped up warm to go out and then coming in for a cuppa and getting all warm and snug. In fact this country pisses me off for the amount of people who complain about the weather at this time of the year. “Oh it’s drizzly and dull”. “Oh it’s cold and horrible”. Nope. You are drizzly and dull. You are cold and horrible. I mean fancy the weather being like that. In winter. It’s not as if being British you haven’t had decades to get used to it. Go jump off a cliff. Ahem. Rant over. Yet depite my love of the clocks going back and the dark early nights I look at these pics and the only thing that comes to mind is the Muppets in their Christmas Carol movie. You know the bit where Michael Caine threatens his staff of rats with the sack because they want more coal for the fire and they all respond with…

“HEATWAVE. This is my island in the sun.”

Well these pics make me feel suddenly very hot and sunny. Release of the year. Photo book and dvd. It’s gonna be great. I wouldn’t mind seeing some preview pics of Chisato mind. She has a good err…upper body shape.

Edit: More C-ute pics have surfaced. Yay!

Chisato is really coming on. I love the way she has her hair in that pic with Maimai too.

This is just great!

There is nothing about this I don’t like. Yossie looks better than I’ve ever seen her before. Rika is as Rika always is. Yes gorgeous. The song continues the style from their mini-album and consequently sounds fresher than anything H!P has done in years. As they are playing Paris on Halloween perhaps it’s only fitting that they are virtually stomping all over the corpse of H!P with this song. I love this song. I love this group. Oh and I love Rika but you probably already knew that. I have MM’s return to form with Kimagure Princess soon to be on it’s way to me. I have C-ute’s Alo-Hello pb soon to be on it’s way to me and come 11th November I’ll have Hangry & Angry’s first full length album Sadistic Dance winging it’s way to me. Oh and then on 18th November C-ute’s best of is released. I may need to start robbing banks. The next month is going to be great.

Oh and I only just looked at H&A’s track list for their album. Look here. The Peace? Really? Win! Win, win, win, win, win! WIN!