Small Fish, Big Pond

A while ago I thought if Morning Musume ever came to America I’d drive to where they were playing and go to see them to show support even if I only really like about 20% of the songs. Driving around the city today A href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUmcalXzoB8>Shanimuni Paradise came up in the random playlist (From the “happy” playlist) and reminded me that they’re in the US this weekend.

Funny how things change over 5 years, although not too surprising with a musical group whose roster is constantly rotating. All I could think was, “Too bad they waited till their popularity was waning before they tried to get more overseas fans”. It seems all big label bands wait until they’re in dire straits until they start reaching out to larger audiences to try to stabilize sales. Not surprising MM has painted themselves into a corner in Japan by appealing to only whacked out idol fans. Too bad too, they have the ablility to broaden their fans there if they didn’t keep sticking to the whole idol image.

So good luck in the US, but I won’t be there. They killed or cut off all their groups they have an appeal beyond giggly prepubescent girls, unless they grow up their fans overseas will be the same narrow genre they have in Japan, and there are even fewer idol otaku here.

Now bring back Biyuuden, bring over Melon Kinenbi, or create a group with the maturity closer to what Morning Musume had during Daite Hold on Me, and I might be bothered to take notice.

Besides it seems like UFA is keeping a tight leash on their products on a tight leash even over here where 0.00001% of the people know who they are.

Update: Hmm… I bad mouth the Cutsie ,idols path that Hello Project takes but I was just listening to some blacklog of my music and “My Boy” by Buono is pretty good (PV is a little absurd though)… I guess I’ll shut up now.