Country Girls no Tadaima Radio Housouchuu!! #42 (2016.01.17) (guests: Yanagawa Nanami & Funaki Musubu)

Yamaki thanks Nakanishi-san, Takeuchi-san, and Kamikokuryo-chan for passing on the baton from the AS1422 episode that aired before this show. Talking about Kamiko-chan, the new member with the complicated surname, despite having joined H!P before her, Ozeki thinks of her as being from the same generation as herself, as Kamiko-chan was together with her at the Morning Musume。´14 12ki auditions. Mai was happy to see Kamiko-chan get into ANGERME, and with the Hello! Con rehearsals, has also had opportunities to chat with her backstage: ‘It’s been a while~’ ‘You’ve gotten taller, haven’t you?‘

At the training camp period during the auditions, Yamaki had many opportunities to interact with Kamiko-chan as well. So even though she’s just joined, Yamaki feels that she’s quickly gotten used to her.

The two girls agree that Kamiko-chan’s really tiny and adorable, yet she has this calm atmosphere to her. Looks like another lovely member has joined Hello! Project.

And speaking about new members, the girls introduce their guests for this week: continuing on from last week, they welcome Country Girls’ new members Yanagawa Nanami and Funaki Musubu!

We start with an introduction from Yanamin. She feels like she’s gotten a bit more used to being on radio after her appearance last week, so she’d like to do her best to be more proactive with talking.

Next is Funakki. She had also been on the show last week, and hopes that she’ll be able to engender a good mood as a member of Country Girls.

Now that the two new girls have gone through the New Year Hello! Con rehearsals with the rest, Yamaki asks if they’ve gotten used to being in Country Girls.

Funakki feels like she’s talking more with the others when they’re in their dressing room. In the past, she’d only give curt greetings such as ‘Good morning’ or ‘Right’, but now she feels that she’s gotten more used to the situation.

At first, Yanamin thought that Country Girls were quiet and peaceful. Yet now, she thinks that they’re a lively bunch, in the best sense of the word. While she was nervous about breaking the atmosphere, they’ve had more opportunities to work together recently through activities like this radio show, so she feels like she’s gotten used to chatting with the Country Girls senpai.

Next up, they’re asked if they’re close with any H!P members who aren’t part of Country Girls. Yanamin picks the aforementioned Kamikokuryo Moe-chan. Despite Kamiko-chan being in her first year of senior high, they share something in common: the both of them used to be in the wind instrument club in middle school. Kamiko-chan played the drums, while Yanamin played alto sax. The topic came up when they first met: Kamiko-chan didn’t really seem that nervous, and her first words to Yanamin were to ask if she was fine talking in casual language. That made Yanamin really happy. Along with Musubu, Yanamin considers Kamiko-chan as part of the same generation – they made their first concert appearance at the same concert, and the announcement of their acceptance into their respective groups was just a week apart. In that way, she feels that it increases the ties between Country Girls and ANGERME.

Funakki picks Kobushi Factory’s Fujii Rio-chan. They’ve been friends ever since they were in the Kenshuusei. Despite the age gap – Funakki’s in her first year of middle school, while Fujii’s in her second year of senior high – she’s close to RioRio, who’s like an older sister to her.

So far, Risa has been fielding the questions. She turns the tables towards Mai, who asks the rookies there was anything that surprised them when they joined Country Girls.

When she was a Kenshuusei, Yanamin had the impression that Country Girls were really cute, with outfits to match, and that they were graceful and pure. The senpai are already laughing, with Mai thanking her for her words. For Yanamin, that image of cuteness hasn’t changed, and she’d be happy if that image remains in the minds of us listeners. But she’s discovered that Country Girls weren’t really as calm a group as she had initially thought – they were completely high-spirited, the members were really close, and they constantly talked with one another. With the constant chatter and noise, Yanamin felt that she had joined a fun group. Yamaki thinks that it’s a happy thing to be surprised about, and Mai agrees that Country Girls do have a good flow in the dressing room. They’re always chatting, taking photos, messing about as much as possible.

To sum up, Yanamin declares that Country Girls is a truly euphoric group. Risa-chan is impressed that Yanamin knows such a complicated word. Mai, however, is a bit bewildered. Risa-chan has to explain how ‘euphoric’ is spelt, while Yanamin explains its meaning. Funakki’s just having a good laugh in the background.

Based on Ozeki Mai-san’s looks and stylish figure, Funakki always thought that Ozeki was mature (Ozeki: ‘But of course‘). But upon joining Country Girls, she discovered that Ozeki was the little sister of the group, who needs things like the word ‘euphoric’ explained to her. It turned out, unexpectedly, that she was really funny. As agreeable as Mai is to Funakki’s earlier assessment, that image came crashing down after Funakki joined. But Mai’s still happy that Funakki thought that way.

♫ Country Girls – Boogie Woogie Love ♫

An euphoric group

The radio programme has been asking the listeners for suggestions for a new talk corner. If you’ve been following along with the radio show just like how Funakki and Yanagawa-chan claim that they have, you might know that the radio programme used to have a ‘Path towards the world’ corner. The idea was based on the original vision of the group, aiming to face the world stage, but that corner ended up becoming a corner where they read out lines from Hello! Project lyrics, and not much of a hit.

The first suggestion is for an ‘I can relate to that! – H!P edition’ corner. For this corner, the listeners would submit observations that they made about H!P, and the girls would judge whether or not they could relate to the observation.

One example given by the listener was misreading Inaba Manaka’s given name as ‘Aika’. The girls bring up another common mistake with Manakan’s name – her family name is sometimes written with the wrong kanji, 稲葉 instead of 稲場. And while we’re talking about family names, Risa’s less common Yamaki (山木) sometimes gets written as Yamamoto (山本), which has even happened in magazines.

Who wouldn’t want a photo of Yamamoto Risa-chan?

Next suggestion is ‘New single: [Insert something here] de gomen ne (temporary)’. Following on from Country Girls’ two ‘…gomen ne’ songs, listeners would send in song titles in the same vein, along with an explanation of how the song would be like. The members would judge whether or not they would like the suggestion to become a song, and they can either accept it, or refuse it with a ‘Gomen ne’.

For example, ‘For becoming incoherent during handshakes, gomen ne’ would be a ballad about a fan getting nervous during handshakes and not knowing what to say.

Yamaki is pretty excited with this idea, since it sounds like a proper radio programme corner. Mai’s a bit lost again, so Risa has to explain the concept to her.

On the topic, Yamaki had been expecting a ‘… gomen ne’ somewhere in their new single, to make a trilogy. Yanagawa thinks that the words ‘gomen ne’ are really Country Girls-ish. In a word, Country Girls = ‘Gomen ne’. She feels that it’s a nice suggestion, befitting their image.

♫ ANGERME – Dondengaeshi ♫

The next proposal is for Country Girls to do a H!P Great Dictionary. They’d pick a H!P member at random each time, and talk about that member, or an incident they’d had with that member. Through it, they’d be able to convey the charms of Hello! Project.

While Yamaki understands that it would allow the listeners and the other hosts to get a different view of the members, she’d actually be more interested in what the fans themselves talk about with the other members at events such as handshakes. It would show the girls a different perspective about those members, and let them find out fans’ thoughts about those members – to see aspects of the other members that only the fans know about.

And we arrive at the ending. How did the 2 rookies find it, having participated in the radio programme for 2 weeks in a row? Based on their responses, they enjoyed it.

The 2 new members were seated between Yamaki and Mai-chan, which felt a bit weird to the senpais, who’d usually be close to one another. Yanamin’s thankful that the senpai were there to follow-up to their statements.

Looking back on the first time she was on a radio programme, Mai-chan feels like she just said what came to mind. However, the 2 newbies were really level-headed, already having sorted out in their minds what they wanted to say before talking. Yamaki agrees – compared to when she was in her second year of middle school, these girls were a lot calmer.