Suzuki, Kudo and Oda kick off the show by talking about August 9th which is Hug Day in Japan.
Kudo says that she’s often the one on the receiving end of hugs, whereas Oda and Suzuki are the ones who like doing the hugging. Suzuki says she specifically enjoys hugging Mizuki, but unfortunately doesn’t go into further detail as to why that may be. Oda says that hugging people is supposed to remove 60% of one’s stress, but then realizes that it must instead be a pretty stressful day for the people who don’t like being hugged. “It’d be like the person hugging them is just passing their 60% of stress right on to them,” Oda laughs. Kudo points out that it must suck if that person’s stress level was already at 100% to begin with — a 160% stress level can’t be pleasant.
Next, they talk about how August 10th is their senior Abe Natsumi’s birthday. Kudo remembers singing Abe-san’s “Tomorokoshi to Sora to Kaze” at Hawaii once, whereas Oda has sung “Iki wo Kasanemashou,” “Sweet Holic” and “Senkou Hanabi” at her solo events. While Suzuki hasn’t sung any of her songs yet, she was really happy recently when they were appearing on a music program together and Abe-san waved at her in the dressing room and went “Suzuki~!” while blowing her a kiss.
Speaking on her first impression of Abe-san, Oda recalls how during the 11th gen auditions the auditionees were doing training together at the office building, and Abe-san just suddenly stepped out of an elevator near where they were filming Oda. Oda was caught off guard, just thinking to herself “It’s Nacchi! I met Nacchi!“
Moving on to the topic of summer homework assignments. Last year, Kudo did independent research regarding 100% orange juice. She bought lots of orange juice from different makers, compared their taste, detailed the differences in their ingredients, etc. Oda likes doing a diary/schedule type thing of her daily activities, but since joining Morning Musume, it’s now just filled with days like “woke up, put on make-up, performed concert, returned home.” Suzuki doesn’t want to be so detailed so she just writes “woke up, went to work, returned home.“
Song: Morning Musume – One Two Three
…But before the song begins playing, Kudo and Oda suddenly start singing “Happy Birthday” and the staff brings in a cake to the studio — Suzuki just turned 16 some days prior to the broadcast of the show. Suzuki, after she gets over the surprise, is asked by Kudo about things she’d like to achieve or do on her 16th year. While Suzuki says it’s nothing terribly interesting, she says she’d like to become a better singer. Kudo and Oda both agree that it’s a great thing to strive for.
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