SEMI-POSTM0DERN Q

I love you, Maru-chan.

Henkka: For many years, my girlfriend (more recently, wife) used to hate Hello! Project and idols altogether. When I say she hated them, I really do mean she hated them; this wasn’t mere disinterest or anything cute like that. Being Japanese, she knew exactly what idols were and Hello! Project were about and she fiercely hated everything about it. She didn’t want to hear about it or know about it, and if given the choice, I reckon she probably would’ve rather had me not be a fan of Hello! Project either. (She never did actually ask me to give up my hobby because, thankfully, she isn’t a shitty person.) In other words, she was the last person you would’ve expected to ever be into idols in any meaningful way, and this remained the case for several years after we first met.

(Can you sense a “but” coming?)

But, much like myself, she had always been a big music lover. So one day in when Tsunku put out another one of his recent masterpieces — a song I would to this day describe fucking amazing — I figured I had to have her hear it. Remembering her dislike of idols, I did the sensible thing and played her the instrumental version.

That’s pretty much all it took. It wasn’t a very long process from that day until her hate of Hello! Project had entirely transformed into love. She discovered her first oshi, sang her first H!P songs in karaoke, began watching their TV appearances and such regularly, bought her first H!P books, and attended her first event — when I explained to her that the event itself was free to attend and you only had to buy a CD if you wanted a round of handshakes with Morning Musume, she quickly explained to me that she would be buying the CD because, as she put it, “I want to touch them.”

The other day, I asked her if she remembers how she used to deeply hate H!P not that long ago. She did, and she couldn’t explain why exactly this had been the case. Obviously a big part of her overcoming it was the music, but then the good music has always been there: we’ve since gone through the archives together and she’s realized she loves old H!P music (from the time she was supposed to hate them) just as much as she does the newer material. So why did she not realize the music was right up her alley until I pointed it out to her? Surely her musical tastes hadn’t changed that much over the years, we agreed.

I proposed something that she did not necessarily fully agree with, and yet, she agreed I might’ve been on to something. I said that perhaps she’d simply been at the right point in her life to finally become a fan: maybe she hated me being a fan of idols five years ago because some part of her figured they were somehow in direct competition with her; that she thought I enjoyed them in part because they had something that she did not; because she felt inferior to them.

I was reminded of the interview with Inuyama Kamiko I translated some time ago.

Inuyama: The fact that I can now say “I like H!P” is because of my new way of looking at them, or rather because I’m not trying to compete with them anymore. Back when Momusu was first popular I was the same age as them, so it was difficult for me to cheer them on. I knew they were cute and everything but because we had our ages in common, it somehow made me not want to recognize that. But now at this age the only thing I have in common with them is my gender. Now when I see a cute girl like that, I can genuinely say “aww, she’s so cute!”

[…]

When I watch them, it’s no longer my 31-year-old self; it feels like I’m back to being the same age as them. […] For people who in their student days got the appeal of idols but didn’t want to admit it to themselves, people with regrets like “I would’ve wanted a life of sparkles and glitter like that“, people who despised cool or sexy girls, thinking of themselves as somehow inferior — for people like that who have grown up and who can now finally freely admit that they like idols, it might be something that allows them to feel like they’re reliving their youth.

Some years ago I had my wife watch a °C-ute music video and and I asked her what she thought. All she really had to say back then was that she thought they looked ugly. Now: she wishes she could sing like Airi, that she could be friends with Okai, and that she could somehow have Maimi’s face. (She still thinks Nacky kind of looks like a fish, but doesn’t everyone?)

All of which is just a long-winded way of saying: for this particular woman, her becoming a H!P fan was — in more or less equal parts I suppose — thanks to the music and the passage of time.

Wota in Translation / Really though: why does H!P have so many female fans nowadays?

Wakatteiru no ni gomen ne is soooo good! Can’t stop listening to it!

Oh, a video of MM’15′s Dschinghis Khan performance? I don’t like this song but I remember hearing a Zukki solo line in the concert rip, so let’s watch it anyway.

Zukki (and Eripon) on the centre platform with the three main front girls? That’s cool! I wasn’t expecting that.

Ahhh there it is, there’s the solo. That’s what I’m here to see.

Wait Zukki where you going after that solo?

THE FUDGING CENTRE?!

OMG