[2016.05.11] Morning Musume '16 - Tokyo to iu Katasumi/The Vision/Utakata Saturday Night

[kitaoji]

http://fast-uploader.com/file/7013335414145/
 
Guys it's been 48 hours and no one's talked about the new single?  Fine then, here we are, with a link courtesy of the good folks over at Jplop.
 
It's a mixed bag for me, and if that new song from the fall tour gets thrown in as one of the other sides I will get upset over the lack of variation.
 
First things first: the Back Three (Eripon, Zukki, Harunan) get solo lines!  Plus Ayumi!  Mizuki and Duu are handling the middle backup.  And 12th gen gets shafted, again.  
 
I'm calling 2016 the year of the TeddySakura and Maachan Show, as this song showcases Sakura's soft solos instead of her Shabondama-esque headbanging (someone find that clip from GMML, please).  They tapped Maachan to use her Big Girl Voice for the power lines, which  I like because I'm not going to say anything if she loses control during those.
 
Style wise, I'm not sure if this is Tsunku, but reports say it is.  For comparison, it's a good mashup of Otome no Gyakushuu, Lullaby Game's violins, and a lack of a consistent percussion line means that this song has a tendency to fly everywhere with perceived tempo (see: Dondengaeshi).  I am also hearing a lot of rock guitar in here, so maybe that's Nee-san supplying the guitar solos.
 
(am I making sense here?)
 
Also: NO TO THOSE CANDY STRIPE OUTFITS.  
 
 

[Banana]

Sounds more like the Sakura and Mizuki show to me, which is what pretty much every song is like now. 
 
 

[Solarblade]

http://www.helloproject.com/release/detail/HKCN-50481/

Title is "Tokyo to Iu Katasumi / The Vision / Utakata Saturday Night"

The 3rd A-side's title is still not finalized, tracklist order is also undecided

EDIT: Page was taken down...

[Elpis]

I'm not going to listen to the rip yet (mainly because the website url looks sketchy) but from what I've read about it, I really don't think I'll like it. Whatever style they've been doing lately hasn't been that good.

[WonderBuono]

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Solarblade" data-cid="195645" data-time="1457921519">
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.helloproject.com/release/detail/HKCN-50481/' class="bbc_url" title="External link">http://www.helloproject.com/release/det ... -50481/</a>


Title is "Tokyo to Iu Katasumi / The Vision / Utakata Saturday Night"


The 3rd A-side's title is still not finalized, tracklist order is also undecided


EDIT: Page was taken down...</blockquote>


They just made a mistake and accidentally switched it with the Angerme single. xD Here's the new link: <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.helloproject.com/release/detail/EPCE-7217/' class="bbc_url" title="External link">http://www.helloproject.com/release/det ... E-7217/</a>

[Derby]

I really need Morning Musume to do something interesting for this year... I won't stand 2015 all over again.

[kitaoji]

less sketchy link, here.

[Elpis]

Surprisingly I didn't hate it like I thought I would. I don't really know if I love it either, but it at least sounds better than a lot of their recent releases. I'll see how I feel about it when the MV comes out.

[yuzuriha]

I think I like it.

[JPope]

As usual, I'm gonna wait for a proper radio rip. It's gonna have to be really fucking good to keep up with the new ANGERME track.

[Elpis]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3yswxx_20160319-hello-project-ひなフェス2016_music

At 4:56. It's bad. The dance is lame, the outfits are bad and the song is just boring in general. It's better than wakacchanai though.

[TicTacAnyone]

Wtf are those outfits oh my gooooooo.... And the "woah wooah woah"s that I so wanted to hear live sound so much like a backing track. Not a strong start to the year for MM, especially with Riho MIA. I didn't think I'd really see the day I'd rather be a part of almost any other group than MM if I were to join, but today is that day.

[JPope]

<div>Those outfits are so bad. It's like someone at U-F thought "how can we mak Zukki look as big as possible for her final single?" They legitimately look like a Jr. high school sewing project.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I like the song except for the chorus, which is a total let down based on the build-up to it. Resolving it on a major chord just seems like it's odd for the sake of being odd, without any thought behind it.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The dance is really frantic, with seemingly little direction. I can hear JC Chasez telling the girls "I don't want to see you walking to your next position, I want to see you working to your next position."</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Still not sure how ANGERME got the killer EDMusume sounding track instead of, you know, Morning Musume.</div>

[Revangelis]

Okay, those dresses are so... very... ugly... what on earth were they thinking when they decided on those things? I mean, for real, they look like they're made out of cheap plastic bags!
Aside from that, don't like the dance, it looks messy, and as for the song itself... I don't really know, it has some nice elements, but as a whole... nah...

[MejraThea]

I had no intention of seeing this but my mother, the Zukki oshi she is, wanted me to show it to her.
 
Ok, let's be honest. I was going to hate this song no matter what. But this. This is a level unprecedented. Wow, this is horrible. The outfits are shit, the dance (from what I saw in the corner of my eye) is shit, and the song is all over the place. 

[momoirosaya]

The songs is boring, but the outfits aren't as bad as everyone said. Also Kanon has been gaining more weight than ever lately so that might contribute to why she looks bigger? Because it's not like that dress is an unflattering design. It has vertical stripes and a sinched waist.

[strawberryjam]

I guess a new dark age begins. Would be nice to get a platinum era like purge of members too considering like half the group is dead weight..

[TicTacAnyone]

[quote="Saya"]
The songs is boring, but the outfits aren't as bad as everyone said. Also Kanon has been gaining more weight than ever lately so that might contribute to why she looks bigger? Because it's not like that dress is an unflattering design. It has vertical stripes and a sinched waist.
[/quote]
 
While those things are usually slimming, I think it's the material/pattern/cut that make it so unbearble. That belt is just god awful with those bright stripes... It's not even fashionably mismatching. The blue ver. & the pink ver. don't really even match. Between the stripes is sheer material, but the stripes themselves are shiny and glow in the dark. It seriously kills me lol. It's like they went to the discount section of the fabric store and bought a roll of what no one else wanted/could find a use for. It's got a (not well executed) vintage or at least early 2000's vibe to it, too, but the song is very modern.
 
Kanon can look good in a cinched waist, but when all the other girls have cinched waists as well it can make her look bigger, simply in comparison. 

[yuzuriha]

[quote="JPope"]
 
<div> </div>
<div>I like the song except for the chorus, which is a total let down based on the build-up to it. Resolving it on a major chord just seems like it's odd for the sake of being odd, without any thought behind it.</div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
 
[/quote]
 
Yeah this is basically my exact thought on the song.

[Mugi]

I have determined from watching the video again that I do like the song but I'm not a fan of the dance.  Also when it comes to the outfits they aren't so bad.  I think if they had just went with the blue version it would be ok.  The pink version is the one that's kinda ugly to me.

[JPope]

[quote="TicTacAnyone"]
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Saya" data-cid="195894" data-time="1458511259">
<div>
The songs is boring, but the outfits aren't as bad as everyone said. Also Kanon has been gaining more weight than ever lately so that might contribute to why she looks bigger? Because it's not like that dress is an unflattering design. It has vertical stripes and a sinched waist.
[/quote]
 
While those things are usually slimming, I think it's the material/pattern/cut that make it so unbearble. That belt is just god awful with those bright stripes... It's not even fashionably mismatching. The blue ver. & the pink ver. don't really even match. Between the stripes is sheer material, but the stripes themselves are shiny and glow in the dark. It seriously kills me lol. It's like they went to the discount section of the fabric store and bought a roll of what no one else wanted/could find a use for. It's got a (not well executed) vintage or at least early 2000's vibe to it, too, but the song is very modern.
 
Kanon can look good in a cinched waist, but when all the other girls have cinched waists as well it can make her look bigger, simply in comparison. 
 
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Yeah, and the way the dress is cut, there is no definition from her bust to her waist to her hips. Because of that. the belt actually serves to accentuate how large she is compared to the other girls. The longer sleeves aren't helping her, either. I mean, it might just be a case where Zukki has decided, "Fuck it, I'm leaving anyway" and really is just bigger than ever, so no styling short of a straight-up empire waist is gonna help her that much.

[Anderei]

Empire waists are dated looking anyway imo. She was noticeably bigger than the others when I saw them in Houston but she's still kind of small in her own way. Like I wouldn't call her chubby because she's still smooth and proportional. She's just thick.


The outfits kind of make them all look like blobs of just different sizes. A cinched waist only does so much if you don't have much of a waist to cinch.

[Meikochi]

I quite like the song but I think it'll sound better on CD. But I'm not feeling at all Ayumi getting more lines (putting aside the fact that having more lines means more screentime and, to me, her stare to the cameras is still weird, even after 4 years).

About the outfits, even if it seems to be one of their tour outfits, blue version is ok but yes, pink version is quite bad.


 

[WonderBuono]

You guys are harsh. xD I like the outfits and the song! I agree with Meikochi that it'll probably sound way better recorded.

[MejraThea]

The Vision rip.

[Elpis]

The song sounds better than I was expecting and I prefer it over Tokyo to Iu so far. It feels like it's lacking something though, and the song seems to drag on for a while. Overall, compared to their last releases, its not that bad.

[Noa]

Kanon deserves to go out on something better than this.

[Shoujo Q]

The Vision reminds me of Toki wo Koe Sora wo Koe. So I'm wanting a PV that's as pretty as that one was. That PV made the song much more interesting to me. 

This is that type of song.

[TicTacAnyone]

That "nai" around 1:10 kills me... UGH. I don't mind it, I don't love or hate it yet. It feels the other releases from other groups so far have outshined it, though. The piano parts around 2:12-2:20 that repeat throughout the song are my favorite parts lol... It somehow feels nostalgic? I'll probably end up really liking it since I like ballads.

[DonJuan]

The heavy bass effects pretty much ruined it for me. Aside from that it's fine.
 
Sadly Tokyo to iu wasn't too much for me either. Another MM single I'll probably skip.