Welcome to this Baka's blog on his fave Japanese Pop Culture interests.
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Juice=Juice: "Wonderful World" single tidbits plus so much more....
This is going to be a very long post but one Juice=Juice devotees will really enjoy, I'm hoping to get their fan base up here but that sadly hasn't worked so well with C-ute.
Good to take a few days away from Nogi now and again though will be back Thursday with plenty of new happenings. As you may have noticed they're my fave J-Pop group and have been since 2014, easy to see why as their songs are terrific, there are so many mag spreads, promo events, cards, variety shows.... they're seemingly everywhere.
But if I had to base my fave group just upon the music the #1 spot would be occupied by C-ute and have been saying that for a few years. Also have mentioned for the last few months that my second fave group to listen to are these gals here, Juice=Juice. When C-ute disbands in June there's an excellent chance they'll be my fave group to listen to, if Saki can be a fan then everyone should!
What will help too is that the group has a new single coming out on April 26th, last year they only had two which was a bit of a disappointment. The new single is titled "Jidanda Dance" while the flip side is "Feel! Kanjiru yo", there also may be a third song. No covers or promo pics out for the single yet but will keep group's two fans here updated.
Hope a few of you read the recaps for the group's 2016 drama "Budokan", I thought it was a very enjoyable series. The story was about the five members and their quest to play a concert at the famed arena, in the last episode they achieved that dream. In real life they hadn't played there but they finally succeeded as last November they finally headlined a concert there.
Above is the cover of the DVD for the concert which came out on February 22nd. Have watched it a few times and what a terrific show it was. they played close to thirty songs plus there were some behind the stage footage as the total running time was over 140 minutes.
"First Squeeze" is the only album so far from Juice=Juice, if you don't have it then your J-Pop collection is not complete! It's easily my most played album over the last year, it's a 2 CD set with 23 songs. All of the group's singles are on it along with their B-sides and a few new tunes. It came out in July 2015 reaching #5 on the Oricon charts though only selling about 20,000 copies. That's too common for Hello Project groups, they all sell well their first week or two out but sales drop off too quickly and even the most popular groups don't come close to what AKB or Nogi sell.
As mentioned this is going to be one of the longer posts I've done, not going to call it a 'singles series' post but it's the length of one. Have done a few solo posts already for the members, two still haven't been done but will do them soon. Sure many of you have viewed Akari's posts, she's the youngest member but probably the most popular one(easy to see why). All of the members have a group color, she's melon.
Did one post for Tomoko but will have more as she's my fave from the group and she's steadily climbing my list of 'Fave Idols', she'll be turning twenty two on July 2nd with her color being apple.
The team leader is Yuka, she doesn't look it but she'll be turning 23 next week! Her group color is peach and wish she would do more of what she's doing in that first pic which is eating, what a thin woman she is.
Karin is probably the second most popular member of JJ, she's their best singer as she is the center for almost all of their singles and her group color is grape.
Think I prefer smaller groups like JJ, it's easier to get to know the members plus in concert it's much easier to focus on a member and they all have more turns in the spotlight. Will admit I don't know enough about Sayuki, her group color is lemon and she'll be turning twenty next month. Do remember her well from the "Budokan" drama as she thought she was too overweight, her face looks it a bit but in the show she didn't appear to be nearly as heavy as she thought she was.
On to the "Wonderful World" single, it's B-side was "Ca va Ca va", I actually may enjoy that song more. Have heard at least thirty songs by JJ, think their worst song still gets a 9/10 as they've never had a bad tune. It was their ninth single and to date it's the only one by the group to hit #1 on the Oricon charts, even C-ute has never done that or at least not yet. But like all Hello Project groups sales fell off after the first week though it has sold over 40,000 copies. There were six versions of the single, here are some covers.
Wish there were more H!P cards for the group, think C-ute has more than all of the other H!P groups combined. Do have some here and in order it's Akari, Tomoko, Yuka, Karin and Sayuki.
Whew, this did end up being a very long post but that's fine by me as I really enjoy posting about groups or gals that are huge faves of mine. Almost forgot to mention it but the song came out on April 8, 2015. On that same date the group had a promo event for the single and they performed both songs. The mini event was at the Ikebukuro Sunshine City fountain square, hope they have some events for the new single. Pics here are from the event and you'll see in the bottom one they're drinking juice with their individual group color.
Naturally there has to be a video and was undecided which one to play. The obvious choice would be the A-side but I prefer, by the smallest of margins, "Ca va Ca va". Have the PV after these pics and the video is subbed in English.
No comments:
Post a Comment