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sonofgodzillaIt’s December! Whilst we don’t really have any big Morning Musume related event to celebrate this year, I still just... kind of want to talk about the group, about my memories of the group, because now this already feels like a festive tradition for me having done it last year. There is a dearth of Christmas songs, events, concerts, photobooks from Hello!Project, and in many ways, the idol industry thrives on a mix of borrowed nostalgia and romantic home-grown traditions about the season, but rather than talk about any of that right off the bat, I’m going to begin this year’s entries by introducing you all to Nakazawa Yuko.
When I was younger, when I first became far too emotionally invested in idols, I felt there was a great distance in-between my own age and experiences and those of the members I was supporting. The idol industry makes everyone seem young, it is in their best interests to do so, the promise of youth sells, and yet yesterday, as of the time of writing, when watching a Kojima Haruna video, I realised that the difference in our ages is pretty insignificant. I always worried about the appropriateness of following idols, but the age gap between me and NyanNyan is nothing. I guess, what I’m trying to say is, call me, Kojima Haruna, I’m available. Similarly, Yuu-chan is actually older than me, and was already possessed of greater determination that I when, in 1997, she saw adverts for Sharam Q’s female vocalist auditions in Osaka, and went for it, becoming one of ten finalists. Had she won, we would be living in a very different world. Preparing to return home, along with fellow contestants, Iida Kaori, Fukuda Asuka, Ishiguro Aya, and Abe Natsumi, she was instead presented with a counter offer: Morning Musume.
You do not need me to tell you how important Morning Musume were to both pop culture and the idol industry at the height of their fame. Several months after the debut of the group and the release of Morning Coffee in 1998, her agency began pushing her towards a solo career in enka, which Yuu-chan initially resisted before deciding to take up the challenge. This little detail is kind of important to me as it suggests that despite entering auditions alone, Morning Musume had already become a group, each member supporting the other to such a degree that Yuu-chan may have felt that her being offered a chance to be an enka singer might jeopardise that. Instead, the popularity of those recordings, and their fierce promotion brought in an older audience to Morning Musume, and thus their popularity exploded.
Right off the bat, Yuu-chan was touring as a soloist alongside the work she was doing as a member of the group, building up an enviable body of work. By 2001, with Ishiguro and Fukuda having graduated, the landscape had changed considerably; not only was Morning Musume a big deal, but her enka career was pretty huge as well. Possibly struggling to maintain a balance between these two, her graduation was announced in Mach of that year as taking place at the end of the following month—a turnaround so swift by today’s standards that we only usually see this kind of quick exit when there’s a scandal of some kind. Passing on leadership to Iida Kaori, Yuu-chan became a fully fledged solo artist within Hello!Project, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Matsuura Aya and Fujimoto Miki, and remaining so until 2008, when UP-FRONT AGENCY announced the graduation of all older members, the “Elders Club,” from Hello!Project. Still, Yuu-chan continued to perform live, riding out the attempts of her former agency to start anew long enough for a wave of nostalgia to break and for the announcement of Dream Morning Musume—a gathering of formerly graduated members performing and recording new material—to become a reality.
I was super, super excited for DMM, and whilst I don’t think songs like Shining Butterfly really lived up to the quality and vigour of earlier material, I was still over the moon to see Yuu-chan and the other members on stage again. The candle burnt brightly but briefly, however, with DMM never really intended as a long-term endeavour for older and former members as SDN48 had been for AKB, after which Yuu-chan got married and the group disbanded.
Now a mother of two, Nakazawa Yuko is still working in the entertainment industry, and I swear, every time there’s a Morning Musume anniversary, she’s there with them on stage, which makes me tremendously happy. I’m a huge fan of Yuko. Because she’s older than me, I can say that I look up to her without it sounding weird. Everything is so immediate and streamlined now, even in the idol industry, but I still want to talk to you about these moments when I first fell in love with Morning Musume, about the impact that songs like Morning Coffee and movies like Pinch Runner made on me; I still want to talk to you about how much I love Nakazawa Yuko, and, even though we’re both far older than we were in 1997, how I’m still supporting her.
When I was younger, when I first became far too emotionally invested in idols, I felt there was a great distance in-between my own age and experiences and those of the members I was supporting. The idol industry makes everyone seem young, it is in their best interests to do so, the promise of youth sells, and yet yesterday, as of the time of writing, when watching a Kojima Haruna video, I realised that the difference in our ages is pretty insignificant. I always worried about the appropriateness of following idols, but the age gap between me and NyanNyan is nothing. I guess, what I’m trying to say is, call me, Kojima Haruna, I’m available. Similarly, Yuu-chan is actually older than me, and was already possessed of greater determination that I when, in 1997, she saw adverts for Sharam Q’s female vocalist auditions in Osaka, and went for it, becoming one of ten finalists. Had she won, we would be living in a very different world. Preparing to return home, along with fellow contestants, Iida Kaori, Fukuda Asuka, Ishiguro Aya, and Abe Natsumi, she was instead presented with a counter offer: Morning Musume.
You do not need me to tell you how important Morning Musume were to both pop culture and the idol industry at the height of their fame. Several months after the debut of the group and the release of Morning Coffee in 1998, her agency began pushing her towards a solo career in enka, which Yuu-chan initially resisted before deciding to take up the challenge. This little detail is kind of important to me as it suggests that despite entering auditions alone, Morning Musume had already become a group, each member supporting the other to such a degree that Yuu-chan may have felt that her being offered a chance to be an enka singer might jeopardise that. Instead, the popularity of those recordings, and their fierce promotion brought in an older audience to Morning Musume, and thus their popularity exploded.
Right off the bat, Yuu-chan was touring as a soloist alongside the work she was doing as a member of the group, building up an enviable body of work. By 2001, with Ishiguro and Fukuda having graduated, the landscape had changed considerably; not only was Morning Musume a big deal, but her enka career was pretty huge as well. Possibly struggling to maintain a balance between these two, her graduation was announced in Mach of that year as taking place at the end of the following month—a turnaround so swift by today’s standards that we only usually see this kind of quick exit when there’s a scandal of some kind. Passing on leadership to Iida Kaori, Yuu-chan became a fully fledged solo artist within Hello!Project, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Matsuura Aya and Fujimoto Miki, and remaining so until 2008, when UP-FRONT AGENCY announced the graduation of all older members, the “Elders Club,” from Hello!Project. Still, Yuu-chan continued to perform live, riding out the attempts of her former agency to start anew long enough for a wave of nostalgia to break and for the announcement of Dream Morning Musume—a gathering of formerly graduated members performing and recording new material—to become a reality.
I was super, super excited for DMM, and whilst I don’t think songs like Shining Butterfly really lived up to the quality and vigour of earlier material, I was still over the moon to see Yuu-chan and the other members on stage again. The candle burnt brightly but briefly, however, with DMM never really intended as a long-term endeavour for older and former members as SDN48 had been for AKB, after which Yuu-chan got married and the group disbanded.
Now a mother of two, Nakazawa Yuko is still working in the entertainment industry, and I swear, every time there’s a Morning Musume anniversary, she’s there with them on stage, which makes me tremendously happy. I’m a huge fan of Yuko. Because she’s older than me, I can say that I look up to her without it sounding weird. Everything is so immediate and streamlined now, even in the idol industry, but I still want to talk to you about these moments when I first fell in love with Morning Musume, about the impact that songs like Morning Coffee and movies like Pinch Runner made on me; I still want to talk to you about how much I love Nakazawa Yuko, and, even though we’re both far older than we were in 1997, how I’m still supporting her.
