SS1422 #94 (2014.11.02)

By | November 17, 2014

ss1422

Cultured Leader Wada-san

The discussion starts off today with the question, “What is culture?” Kananan responds quickly with, “Japanese food, Japanese clothes, Japanese art… which means Wada-san!” Takechan is incredibly impressed and asks her if she looked this up beforehand. She did, of course, but all of this was just an elaborate segue to talk about everyone’s favorite leader, Dawa. Meimi says that she has made plans with Dawa to share their respective hobbies. They went to see Wicked together (since there are few things Meimi loves more than Wicked) and they’ve been talking about visiting different temples together. Takechan, on the other hand, reports that she made a bet for the winner of a Central Baseball League game and her team lost, although she wants everyone to know it was a very, very close game. As a punishment, she has to make a written report of her thoughts on Dawa’s book, A Maiden’s Guide to Paintings. She has not started yet. Rinapuu says that Dawa recently bought her and Takechan some Harry Potter merchandise since their both such big fans. Meimi begins to pout, “She didn’t get me anything…”  Kananan points out that earlier when Dawa was out with Meimi, though, they met up with Kananan and took purikura without Rinapuu or Takechan, so it evens out.

blog, Nakanishi Kana, Tamura Meimi, Wada Ayaka-502524No Takechan or Rinapuu in sight

Personal Updates

Moving on, Takechan asks if anyone has done anything interesting lately. Meimi immediately chimes in with, “Religious study!” Yes, this is true: Meimi went on her own personal time out to a temple to do a day of training with the monks. Rinapuu thinks this is weird, but Kananan might like to go and try it once. Meimi says it was really intense, as she ran so much she thought her legs would give out and they hiked so far she couldn’t breathe and then she did some waterfall mediation. She was about to give up halfway through but then she realized she might never get the opportunity to do waterfall meditation ever again so she gave it a go. She thinks that if she had stuck with it she really might have considered becoming a monk.

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A monk actually took this

While her generation-mates sway her away from the path of a monk, Meimi informs us that she did take away something very important from the experience and that is gratitude. She ate a meal with the monks and said that they spend a long time doing prayers before eating and always make sure to express their thanks for receiving anything. She emphasizes how difficult the waterfall meditation was, though, as it was very chilly and she can’t imagine doing it in February like the monks do. She also notes how very few women ever do the hike up to the waterfall so she feels special for being able to do it. Takechan doesn’t think that first year high school students ever do anything like that, either, and mentions how strange Meimi is.

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Konya mo Usachan Peace #415 (2014.10.06)

By | November 17, 2014

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The first concert of Sayu’s final tour with Morning Musume took place on September 20th, and Sayu repeats here the announcement she made that day about taking a leave from the entertainment industry following her graduation from the group. She wants to emphasize again that although it may seem like a big deal, what it really means is that she just wants to take a break after these 12 years, and following that, she’s going to start thinking about what she wants to do next.

Interestingly, the allotted rehearsal time for this tour was really short — in fact, Sayu reveals it was the shortest of any tour she’s ever done in these past 12 years. She kind of felt like she wanted to rehearse more considering how it’s her last tour, but thanks to everyone focusing even harder than usual she felt confident even with the smaller amount of practice time. While there was the initial nervousness on the first day of the tour, she didn’t feel scared at all when it was actually time to get on stage. She says this is thanks to all the fans: the moment she walks on stage and sees everyone there to see them, it blows away all her worries.

Sayu also loved how the members all wore pink Michishige T-shirts at rehearsal that day, and it reminded her how strong the unity is between the members of this current line-up.

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Konya mo Usachan Peace #414 (2014.09.29)

By | November 16, 2014

konya

Sayu begins by talking about Morning Musume’s recent guest appearances at the Budokan concerts of Berryz Koubou and °C-ute. While she did have fun appearing, there was one slip-up she made prior to °C-ute’s performance. Before they got on stage, everyone there including the members of Berryz Koubou, Morning Musume and the Kenshuusei all gathered around to do °C-ute’s signature call before the show: “zenin sorotte hajikeru zoi!

The way they usually do it is, Maimi says “zenin sorotte“, Nacky says “hajikeru” and everyone yells the final “zoi” together. Despite this being explained to Sayu beforehand, she nevertheless got confused and mistakenly joined in too early, saying the beginning of “hajikeru” with Nacky, much to her embarrassment. What made it even worse for Sayu is that Momochi and Ikuta gave her looks that made it clear they’d heard her.

This embarrassment fresh on her mind, Sayu made sure not to repeat the mistake the next day before Berryz Koubou’s performance.

Listener requested pose: "Sayu fighting through sleepiness to update her blog"

Listener requested pose: “Sayu updating her blog while battling sleepiness”

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Trattoria Buono! #84 (2014.11.08)

By | November 14, 2014

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♪ Buono! – Zassou no Uta ♪

Momoko announces that November 8th is ‘Ii Hada no Hi‘ – ‘Good Skin Day’. Again, it’s wordplay related, as you can read November 8th as ‘Ii (11) Ha (8) Da‘.

Miyabi complains about her skin getting dry now that they’ve entered winter. They start talking about what they do to keep their skin healthy – Miyabi uses facial packs and body cream.  To avoid tearing the facial packs, Miyabi makes sure not to move her face when she’s got one applied. The other two are impressed by her regular use of facial packs.

Airi talks about a recent job she had, related to facial health. For that job, her face got washed by an expert. As a result, it gave her face a significant lift and her face became completely different. Miyabi wishes that she’d get such jobs, while Airi continues to rave about the effects of the face wash, which lasted for about a week. Classes were also available to teach people how to perform the face-washing.

Airi also points out that an excess of keratin can lead to bad skin in dry weather.

Miyabi: I must be riddled with keratin then.
Momoko: To the extent that your face can’t move, eh?

The others agree that it must be pretty horrible for her.

Momoko sums up by noting that it’s tough to take care of the skin in this season, particularly for girls. So they hope everyone properly takes care of their skin.

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BZS1422 #115 (2014.09.28)

By | November 14, 2014

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This is the last broadcast of September and autumn is fast approaching. And since autumn is (apparently) the season of good appetite, Chii asks Kumai-san if there’s anything she finds “gourmet” about herself. Kumai-san says she’s not good at resisting seasonal limited editions when it comes to food. Chii asks if Kumai-san’s answer has anything to do with her being gourmet or not, and points out that the staff is laughing at her answer. Kumai-san protests by saying that she’s sitting next to the most gourmet person in the world and Chii agrees that her presence does raise the bar.

To begin with, Chii always takes pictures of the delicious meals she has at restaurant so she doesn’t forget about them. Also, she used to collect business cards from restaurants as well. (She was influenced by their ex-manager who was apparently very gourmet themselves, but she got bored of it at some point.) They agree that Berryz is pretty gourmet overall as a group, but Kumai-san insists that Chii is definitely no. 1 — even when they go to restaurants together, Chii will tell Kumai-san which sauce goes best with which food. Chii is also very picky about her soy sauce: she’s very adamant about only using soy sauce that’s housed in an air-tight bottle.

Kumai-san suggests that Chii ought to get some sort of a certification. “What, like a Gourmet Master certification?“, Chii asks. She doesn’t like the idea because she figures if someone was a qualified Gourmet Master, they’d probably get fat very quickly. Chii mentions there’s actually a person on the staff of BZS1422 who’s kind of plump. Kumai-san laughs and one-ups Chii by saying there’s even a member in Berryz Koubou who suddenly gained a lot of weight, too.

How about becoming a certified Soy Sauce Sommelier?“, Kumai-san asks.

chiifat

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Konya mo Usachan Peace #413 (2014.09.22)

By | November 13, 2014

konya

Sayu begins by talking about her recent activities with Morning Musume and how they’re starting to remind her of her approaching graduation: she’ll now often realize she’s doing all kinds of work with them for the last time, the recently ended Hello!Con or Naruchika tour as an example. She didn’t feel very aware of it at the time her graduation was announced, but now it’s starting to hit her with all these “lasts.” While it does make her feel lonely, she also doesn’t want to end up having any regrets so she’ll continue having fun talking with the members everyday, and trying to leave the fans with lots of great memories.

And speaking of lasts, Sayu brings up Morning Musume’s 57th single which is the last one featuring her and says tonight’s broadcast of Konya mo Usachan Peace features the first-ever broadcast of “Shabadabadoo.” Her initial reaction to the song title was one of confusion — “Shabadabadoo? What, does it have something to do with Kudo?” But now she actually likes the title and how its similar to the pointlessness of the title of her previous solo song, “Lalala no Pipipi.” She thinks that one, too, doesn’t really have any real meaning, and yet it very accurately represents the image of “Sayumi.”

Commenting on the difficulties Sayu had recording the song, she says her first recording session for it took five hours (usually a single only takes her just an hour or so.) She recorded all the vocals in the song herself, including the whispered and background vocals. Afterwards she received some pointers from Tsunku, so she did another recording session for the song improving some of the parts which took her a further three or four hours. So all in all, she spent eight or nine hours in total recording her vocals for just this one song.

Since she gave it her everything, she hopes the listeners will reciprocate by listening to the song so much that their ears begin hurt — though Sayu adds that since it’s her singing, that might actually only require one listen.

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BZS1422 #114 (2014.09.21)

By | November 12, 2014

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Kumai-san begins by talking about having a cake smeared on her face on her last birthday. It was the first time in her life she’d experienced it and she discovered that having cake all over her face made the task of breathing much harder. It was something she’d wanted to experience at least once in her life, but she can now safely say that it wasn’t very pleasant.

Chii looks back on their Tanabata Live and says she felt a huge sense of accomplishment in pulling it off successfully since Berryz had a larger than usual role in its planning. This among other things made her feel like she’s really grown up some, but adds that on the flip side, she still feels like a complete newbie when it comes to doing BZS1422. Even now she feels really nervous on the days leading up to the recording, and earlier today, she still hadn’t come up with material for a corner on the show even when arriving at the studio to record — luckily, she just found out that they don’t actually have that specific corner on the show today.

September 10th & 11th

Since this is actually the first time they’re recording BZS1422 after Berryz Koubou’s concerts with °C-ute at Budokan on September 10th and 11th, they want to talk about that now. Kumai-san says she had so much fun it felt like the concerts were over in a flash, and Chii says she was probably more nervous on °C-ute no Hi even though Berryz only appeared for a couple of songs, and that her nervousness continued even afterwards when they were just watching °C-ute’s performance backstage.

blog, Kumai Yurina, Natsuyaki Miyabi, Sugaya Risako, Tokunaga Chinami-488564

Kumai-san was watching °C-ute’s dress rehearsal in the audience when she realized that when the performing artists walk on the middle runway stage, they’re actually really, really close to the audience — she could even see Maimi’s sweat! It made Kumai-san feel embarrassed thinking about how she, too, could be seen so up close. Chii says this is the first time in years that she properly watched a full °C-ute concert live, and the first thing that struck her about it was how much movement there was compared to Berryz; °C-ute’s choreographies looked a lot more intense to her.

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We are Juice=Juice #56 (2014.11.04)

By | November 9, 2014

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“November”

Because it is. Like there’s no explanation given for why Tomo chose this word and it’s probably best that way.

Anyhow, they move on to talking about their new play, Koi Suru Hello Kitty, which is about what life for Hello Kitty would be life if she turned into a human (she’s already not a cat so we’re halfway there) and went to school, but I like to imagine that it’s just a Koi Suru Fortune Cookie dance cover set in Puroland. Tomo mentions that she’s really nervous to be acting on stage for the first time so she defers to Sayubee, who is far more experienced in this realm. Sayubee says it’s a bit too early to say how things are going, but she’ll do her best to make it good. Tomo is also playing a male role in the play, an attractive young man on the soccer team. To prepare for this role, she’s been watching a lot of music videos featuring soccer boys to get an idea of how to act. Sure, we’ll go with that.

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I dig it.

Song: Juice=Juice – Date ja nai yo, uchi no jinsei wa
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