NMB48: Random Thoughts 11/7/2013

1: Jou’s back.

I know you!

Man, I’m really excited for this. Things were tough on her. “I know you’re 12, but you’re gonna be the next Maeda Atsuko. Here, you can be the first KKS to get a solo song at Seibu Dome.”

You wanna talk about pressure?

I think this is better for her. Instead of being gifted everything she’s now working as a KKS in an established group. She’s not Jou-senpai but Jou-chan to the 4th gens. It’s a much better way to unleash her potential.

The other thing is that I wonder if her old character of acting all wide-eyed and innocent will still work. Her stuff on Geinin 1 wouldn’t be funny if any other member did it, but because it was Jou flashing the adorable kid smile, it was funny in that cute-kid way.

I’m very excited for her return. However…

2: Shibuya Nagisa.

You ever get that feeling where you forget to breathe?

I’ve been so hypnotized by Nagisa lately, but I never really wrote about her here. She’s like the girl that would sit next to you in class and was strikingly pretty but not necessarily popular. The one that you would get a crush on, and sit at home and think of various ways to deliver the perfect line or confession to ask her out.

But you wouldn’t act on it, because you were too nervous.

Yet, you would see her every day, and it would eat you inside, and you allowed it to happen because thoughts of her would just make the day better.

Of course, there’s some incongruity, since now I’m old(er), and I don’t get crushes. If I like someone, I talk to them right away and try to get things squared away quickly instead of developing these strange fantasies, because they will inevitably be crushed by reality, in either a positive or negative way.

In this case, that can’t happen. She’s too young for me and the reality is that I would be bored.

But when I look at her, I imagine my younger and dumber self that gets love-struck so easily, and I get crazy feelings of nostalgia of the good ol’ innocent days.

I’ll definitely continue to follow her, but for how long, I don’t know. Maybe until the child inside me dies. Hopefully I’ll have a real girlfriend by then!

3: Paying attention to Team BII.

I want to like B2 because they’re the scrappy underdogs of the franchise, but unfortunately they don’t get very much coverage outside of stages, so I’ll have to watch more stage shows. I probably should, because my Japanese listening skills are horrid, and MCs are good practice.

The other day I watched their Shonichi for Tadaima Renaichuu just to get to know them better.

-Uuka seems to be looking better. I think she’s getting taller? Either way she seems more and more ready to try and challenge Shuu for center. She’s rapidly moving up in my book.

-Mako changed her style, she looks cuter now. No more forehead girl, I guess.

-Anchu always manages to amuse. She has this ego about her, but she’s also so willing to let it go for laughs and general entertainment.

Hanging out like bros.

-Yuuri looks adorable. Like heart-meltingly adorable.

-Emichi seems very capable as a singer, she’s the only one that seemed to capture a song with Junai Crescendo. Muro is the opposite… she looks really good, but her actual performance is meh. I’ve also generally liked leader types with Takamina, Sayanee, and to some extent even ShimaRena and Akimoto Sayaka, and she does look like a good leader type.

-My favorite part was during the introductions when everyone’s kinda excited and lastly Konomin goes up with this spacey look and does her introduction and everyone starts laughing, she gets disturbed and asks “WHY IS EVERYONE LAUGHING?”

Enoki! Bombaye!

-I like Shuu but she seems to be lacking in terms of performance. She’s entertaining in variety, though.

Overall the stage was mildly interesting. Now, I wasn’t a big fan of AKB back in the stage days, so I had to watch this concurrently with the original to see how it’s done, and there was some disappointment.

They look so good, but they need that strange vocal range that Itano has.

I really wanted to like Faint. I usually like the cool songs and when it started playing I got a bit excited. Plus, Uuka and Anchu! (Uuka is actually known for dancing really well, during one of the MCs, Yuuri and Mako admitted to imagining themselves as Uuka in order to learn the dance.)

But… there’s this weird vocal range hits that Itano has, and that no one else in the entire franchise has, and because of that the song is missing the “epicness” that it had in the original.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalmost.

Like I said earlier, Emichi actually seems to add her own style to Junai no Crescendo. Muro looks good but her voice doesn’t seem to be all there, and Kurokawa is decent but doesn’t possess you. It’s also hard to compare when the original is none other than No3b. But I like that Emichi stood out.

Other than that, there are my typical complaints of lip synching, but overall I’m coming out positive on B2.

4: Joe is back… for now.

I decided to stick with this hobby. It’s one of those things where I reached a crossroads… “Is it boring because I’m not putting enough of myself into it? Or because it’s intrinsically boring?” I’m gonna assume the first one, because I’m having somewhat of a crisis with my hobbies, so I’m just gonna pour a ton more much energy into this and see if it is rewarded.

So yeah, I’ll be here to stay, though I don’t really know how many of you actually miss me. Maybe the blogs, but me?