Author Archives: Henkka

As it is the last broadcast of 2014, the hosts wish to introduce the kanji characters that best represented the year for them. Kumai-san mentions that the official Kanji of the Year for 2014 — as selected by the Japanese Kanji Proficiency Society — was “税” (zei, tax), referring to Japan’s consumption tax increase from 5% to 8%. Kumai-san still feels that 8% is huge, and she hates it when some prices are listed only as e.g. “5000 yen plus tax,” wishing that they would just list the full price as-is, tax included.

Kumai-san’s kanji of the year is “瞬” (shun, moment/instant). For her, it felt like the year was over in an instant. Also, after their hiatus announcement, she has been treasuring each and every moment with the group more than before. Chii praises Kumai-san’s kanji as being very deep and agrees with her choice: she can’t believe that it was only earlier this year that they went to France or released “Diet Oukoku” — she says she probably wouldn’t be able to do the choreography right now if asked to.

Chii’s kanji of the year is “思” (omo, think/consider/reminisce). Chii explains that she thought about things a lot, what with their hiatus announcement, their trip to France and such. Plus, she felt that she made lots of memories with the group this year, like going to Disneyland together, sleeping in the same room with everyone, etc. Kumai-san is impressed with Chii’s kanji choice, too.

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There’s three days until Christmas Eve, and our hosts can now finally reveal that the Berryz gift exchange discussed last week will take place this year as well! The two groan about how difficult it is finding a present that could make all of the other members happy, but somehow they must try.

S/mileage has just announced their name change, and the hosts are impressed it was Kananan who actually came up with the new name. Kumai-san thinks that whereas S/mileage sounded cute and energetic, ANGERME brings to mind an image of grownup women. She thinks this name means they might now mostly have songs that sound more “grownup” as well; Chii, however, points out that their new songs have already been announced and they’re titled “Taiki Bansei” and “Otome no Gyakushuu.” Learning this, Kumai-san is relieved that perhaps not much will change after all.

Recently announced were also the top buzzwords of Japan in 2014. While these were the hot words of 2014 among the general Japanese public, Chii proposes that they in turn announce the buzzwords among the members of Berryz Koubou.

Unsurprisingly, Kumai-san says her buzzword of the year was “enjoy.” “Isn’t that your buzzword for every year?” Chii deservedly asks, but Kumai-san explains that this year the word permeated not only to the fans and the other members more than ever before, but also to her private life: even her friends would use the word around her with no rhyme or reason, leading to frequent curious looks from passersby.

For Chii, she thinks her buzzword was “rap.” On Berryz’ autumn tour, Chii got to sing “Loving you Too much” with Maasa. The song includes a brief rap part; Chii says this made her “awaken” to rap, and she now tries to rap in her private life as well. She wasn’t sure if she should reveal this information on the radio — the staff appear to be looking at Chii quizzically, wondering what on earth she’s going on about — but she swears it’s the truth.

Kumai-san says she has actually noticed improvement in Chii’s rapping. She then gets a great idea: Chii should showcase her skills right now on the show! Chii hesitates, saying she already knows people on Twitter and elsewhere are going to laugh at her, but eventually gives in — she’d been practicing in their dressing room just yesterday, after all. Kumai-san offers to provide her a beat to rap to.

Chii: Wanna eat crab / Wanna eat sea urchin / Wanna eat salmon roe / If that’s the case, HOKKAIDO IN THE HOUSE!

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Chii announces that we’re now entering December which means there’s only a month of 2014 left. She then spends a good thirty seconds praising herself for having been able to successfully read that aloud from her script.

Song: Berryz Koubou – Towa no Uta

Moya Moya Tokkuma
Listeners try to answer questions posed by
the hosts and other listeners

Old question #1: The first answer is to a question Chii asked last time on this corner. It was concerning her problems with blogging; fans complain if she doesn’t blog enough, but they also think something must be wrong with her if she blogs too much, so just how often should she then blog?

Fan answer: The listener says that as a fan, the more often their favorite idols blog, the happier the fans are. The listener has also noticed how Kumai-san has become more active with her blog, and that her uninterrupted run of daily blog posts since the end of October has become a hot topic among fans. They look forward to continued frequent blog posts from the two.

Chii: … What happened to you, Kumai-san?!?
Kumai-san: I don’t know! I just feel like blogging more!

Right now, Kumai-san has been blogging every single day for more than two weeks. Chii can’t seem to believe this, sounding just a tiny bit betrayed. Kumai-san explains that now that she’s been at it this long, she just doesn’t want to give in anymore — though she does say she’s going to need a break at some point. Chii recommends that Kumai-san follow up this sudden spike in activity by in turn taking a full month’s vacation away from blogging.

Chii has found some joy in her blog as of late, too: rather than waiting for something significant in her life to blog about, she finds it easier to just post quick, Twitter-like updates, such as writing about what she just ate. Thus, Chii makes a grand declaration: she will begin blogging daily starting in 2015.

We’re now three weeks into 2015, and so far Chii has miraculously been able to keep this promise: she’s blogged at least once every single day except for one small slip-up when she posted 30 minutes past midnight, and she apologized profusely, going to bed feeling angry at herself for that.

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There’s only a month to go until Christmas, and Chii says she wants Santa to bring her more toys this year. Kumai-san can’t decide what she’d like, but she nevertheless wants to spend this Christmas like she used to enjoy them as a child, meaning eating cake at home, going to sleep while eagerly anticipating Santa, that kind of thing. Chii points out, though, that it’s a bit of a challenge now at their age to get as anxious about Santa Claus.

Kumai-san asks any children listening to the show to cover their ears for a moment. Kumai-san did believe in Santa Claus until well into elementary school, and even though she knew who it was acting as Santa each year, she just didn’t want to crush that dream of hers so she kept believing that the real Santa Claus lives somewhere out there in Finland or so.

But the cold truth of the matter is that Chii and Kumai-san will undoubtedly be spending this Christmas being busy with the Hello!Con rehearsals, so they only hope that the staff will have Christmas cake prepared for them.

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The signs of winter are starting to show. Chii asks Kumai-san what to her signifies the beginning of winter. To Kumai-san, it’d be when she starts wearing sweaters, and as it so happens, both of the hosts are doing just that today. Plus, she also feels that way when seeing the lineups at clothing stores starting to include things like mufflers and outer wear.

For Chii, it’s when the city starts to look grey: everyone switches from their brightly-colored summertime clothes to grey, black or white. This is why she prefers the summer. Still, as she points out, it’s not all bad: there’s Christmas, New Year’s, illuminations, otoshidama and New Year foods.

The two talk about the preparations they take for winter which among other things include buying lots and lots of HEATTECH products. This, the both of them say, is something absolutely necessary for winter. Kumai-san is still trying to get by without using them, but Chii has already given in to the temptation. There are also HEATTECH tights out there, and Kumai-san says that if she’s wearing them it simply doesn’t matter how cold it gets outside.

Kumai-san: Bring it on, winter.

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