Discovering Morning Musume

[Haru]

Hi how's it goin. :3



I know a lot of you guys have been with Momusu since the 2000s, and my question is...how? I know some Japanese groups have had somewhat successful careers in America, Shonen Knife and Pink Lady come to mind; but Momusu is really just becoming known in America. So like...how did you find out?

Secondly, I downloaded a .rar of OG Momusu photos, and found a bunch of stuff from third gen up to fifth gen. I noticed that Ishiguro Aya, who always impressed me as being this kind of sassy girl from watching her in some of the PVs and looking at her photos, actually had a pierced nose. I know in Japan ear piercing is kind of a no-no (plus the whole tattoos = yakuza thing), so was this like...so hardcore and so rebellious? Or as it cool because America did it?



The latter might not be a question meant for this thread, but it just came to my head.



Thanks erryone. :)

[Shoujo Q]

This is a question meant for a thread. We've had some in the past but really, do you want to bump something that old? <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... wheely.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':wheely:' />





Anyway, my simple answer, The internet is for porn, illegal music/movie downloads and discovering Morning Musume. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... umbsup.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



For me it was about around the time of the 6th gen. auditions and Kei was still in the group. Koko ni Iruzee had been released. That was my official Morning Musume/H!P start date.



Mink and Jko (Original BBS members) are the reason for me becoming a fan. They both had AOL Mailing Lists. Back in the day such things were common ways for people to share music and videos. I think I still have some PVs and clips on CD somewhere. For me this was before I really learned how to use a web browser and a search engine. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... R#>/8o.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='8o' />



Napster also played a key role in learning about H!P. In a time before Wiki, I had to rely on poorly designed websites to learn about who was who. It took me a full year to finally tell the different between Tsuji and Kago. Kago was the one I liked, Tsuji had the fangs.





Oh and also, 2002 was a big year because Morning Musume also had a manga series that was published in Kodansha and Naoko Takeuchi had just come back with a new series called Love Witch. So I bought that issue of Kodansha and it had a little Morning Musume pencil case in it. (Which I still have, actually I now have two of them. Because I was fortunate enough to find someone who traded me a bunch of Kodansha Morning Musume items for some anime crap I had a few years ago.) Though at the time I had no clue Morning Musume HAD a manga series. It wasn't till later that I was able to put piece A and B together.





As for the Aya thing, she had it in the beginning right? Because it seems at the time when they started to become more idols that she lost the piercing.

[Duncan]

Before YouTube, there were still ways to get Japanese videos online. (I'm pretty sure "Do It! Now" was the first video I'd seen of the group.) My brother was also really into J-rock music around 2001 and 2002, and imported as many Japanese music mags as he could afford. Around that time it was almost impossible not to see Morning Musume being mentioned or interviewed. Although I admit I really didn't seriously follow them until around 2003 or so with 6th gen, much like PKyu.

[momoirosaya]

When I was in middle school in like early-mid 2007, I began watching Shugo Chara and KiraRevo, and I got into MM because of Koha, and then also was really into Buono! which made me look up Berryz and C-ute. Although I was really confused at the time about the whole process of H!P when they had shuffles for animes and other stuff because I thought the girls were in a lot of multiple groups. I used to be Berryz fan and didn't really follow MM, but back in 2008-2009 when I heard they were having a concert here, I watched their videos like crazy to learn all their songs, and watched millions of Utaban and HaroMoni eps. Then I knew they were the best <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... umbsup.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



Actually I started watching KiraRevo first. The reason I started watching it was because I had bought a pencil case when I was at the Kinokuniya stationary store, with Kirari on it. I though it was cute, but figured it'd be for little kids, even though 11-12 is little to me now haha, but watched it anyways. That's how I found out about MM.



EDIT: Oh yeah I also randomly found a Nochiura Natsumi video, and started liking them, but I didn't know they were part of H!P then. And randomly downloaded Doki Doki Love Mail, but it said the artist was MM which I knew was wrong. Then after I already knew about Ayaya, I was like "This sounds like Ayaya..." and it was!

[Milly]

I downloaded the 'Do it! Now' PV from a site that usually had weekly anime direct downloads. I loved the song and Maki Goto and wondered why there were so many girls. I then searched around on the internet and read their history which I thought was really interesting (also found out Maki Goto had recently graduated <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... ryalot.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':cryalot:' />) . What followed was a download spree on IRC and various web-sites downloading anything from Hello Project. I loved the sillyness, variety and music Hello Project offered (still do, even though H!P is distincly less silly and varied these days). I loved Hello! Morning even though I just started learning Japanese and couldn't understand most of it. I was one of the first people to download the 6th gen audition special from IRC and joined the mm-bbs to give my comments on the new girls. This was in 2003...damn, time flies!

[JPope]

There were fan websites and forums that disseminated content back then, not to mention IRC, Napster and newsgroups. In my case, I was tired of US pop music and made a conscious effort to seek out Japanese pop, which pretty quickly lead to discovering MM. This was in 2000, and RR21 was the current single. You really had to work hard and spend long hours to feed your fandom back then, but it was worth it, as the content was so much better.

[Gerald]

Around 2004/5 a friend introduced me to Anime, looking around the Interweb for more information I stumbled across a picture of Nacchi and being a straight male I fell in love. I saw she was a member of a group called Morning Musume but I took it no further.



Browsing Newsgroups one day in early 2005 I saw a posting of a Hello! Morning episode starring Morning Musume, I guess the name had stuck in my head as, at the time, I thought it was unusual that a Japanese group would have an English word in their name.



I downloaded and watched the Hello! Morning episode and the rest, as they say, is history.......

[showraniy]

I don't really qualify for your original question of fans circa the ancient time of 2000, but I'll go ahead and offer my two cents. I wish I could remember something more interesting than this, but here it is anyway:



I'd always known about Morning Musume since I first got into Japanese music around 2002 or so, but I think I'd only heard one song (of which I can still remember the music video, but haven't been able to figure out what song it was). That one song scared me away from Japanese music for a while (minus Utada Hikaru) and so I swore off Musume as the plague until 2008 when I saw the dance version PV of Resonant Blue. I checked out more music videos of that line-up since I knew enough about them to know the line-up changed, and then I believe I found this forum and started visiting frequently as a guest to read all the interesting things about them here. Then Shouganai Yume Oibito came out and the rest is history... or on this forum, at least.

[freezingkiss]

I got into them through Sera Myu, as at the time (this being late 2003/early 2004) I would look up videos and pictures of the musicals, and somehow, a picture of MM circa 2001 came up. I instantly thought Maki and Yuko were gorgeous, and tried to find out about them, putting something ridiculous into a search engine like 'girl bands with (insert number here) members' - and of course at the time there was no AKB48 or anything so I came pretty quickly to MM.



The single that was out at the time my fandom started was Roman ~ My Dear Boy.

[mrsross]

It was mid 2008 (somewhere around Resonant Blue being relesed). I was watching some videos on youtube. The first song I heard from them was Rainbow Pink. I didn't even know what Morning Musume was and I thought Koharu and Sayumi were just in a group together. Long story short, I wasn't hooked until I heard Do It! Now, Egao Yes Nude, and LOVE Machine on Imeem.

[Farrah]

I came in right as everyone pretty much decided to start hating Momusu, LOL. It was 2006 and I was already a devoted J-rock listener. I discovered Momusu through Google Video, because back in those days, Youtube wasn't the big deal it is now and didn't have many videos, actually.



I was simply looking at J-rock videos, and a clip of Yossie and some member I can't remember jeering two others as they flipped out on some sort of roller coaster showed up as a related video. I thought it was funny, so I looked further into this Morning Musume thing and found the Go Girl and Roman ~My Dear Boy~ PVs (once again, on Google Video).



I realized then that I had checked out this group one upon a time back in, oh 2003 due to a recommendation from a friend on Deviantart, but at that time, information on english language sites was scarce and I was basically a fetus so it never went anywhere. But in 2006, it stuck. I got pretty obsessed and basically became an 11 year old emo wota. The most recent single when I discovered Momusu was Sexy Boy ~Soyokaze ni Yorisotte~. My favorite members were Mari, Mako, Yossie and Kaori.

[al kusanagi]

Sit down, brats. Let grandpa tell you a story!



So I went to Japan as an exchange student at the end of 98, and like most people into Japan at that time, it was basically because of video games and anime. I listened to a lot of Japanese music, but it was all from anime soundtracks, like image songs and seiyuu stuff. Once I was in Japan, I started getting into non-anime stuff, especially through Detective Conan which, at the time, was one of the few anime that had music done by "real" groups. Hikaru Utada was coming in, Speed was breaking up, Seiko Matsuda was on a comeback tour, TM Revolution, Glay and X Japan were all getting big. MM, however, pretty much sucked back then. Furusato was the oldest MM song I really like, but that wasn't even out then, and most of their other stuff was boring. There was a pretty awesome three girl group that caught my eye called Tanpopo, though. They did a great song called Last Kiss that was used for the anime Orphen, which I bought the single, but then forgot about once I returned to the US. HAd I been around another month for Furusato, or even longer for Love Machine, things might have been different, but I went back to the US with thoroughly in the Giza Studio camp with Rumania Montevideo, Garnet Crow and Mai Kuraki still being all time favorites of mine.



Skip ahead to July of 2001 when I return to Japan to begin working there. Dreams of working in Japan in the heart of Osaka or Tokyo were quickly dashed when I ended up in a tiny town in Shimane in a small house on top of a mountain with my job not starting for three weeks, absolutely nothing around, and just a TV with six channels. One day, there was a 24 hour charity marathon on it, and one of the segments was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen working with a young handicapped boy that was learning to walk. I didn't know anything about her, but seeing her help that boy, weeping with him when he failed and her tears of joy when he succeeded, was amazing. At the end of the segment, her and a bunch of other girls sang a song which has since been one of my top three songs of all time, even though she could barely sing as she was crying. Thanks to the internet, here is that moment that literally changed my life.



I found out her name was Maki and the group was Morning Musume, but this was not the days where the internet was the bastion of information that it is now. I went out the next day and found them on the cover of Girlpop Magazine, got my kanji dictionary out and started to learn everything I could about her and the group. I got their whole discography, found them on TV every day, and pretty much spent a month getting to know them.



Then, on August 26th, 2001, the day after my birthday, live on TV there was a show all about picking new members for the group! I watched and immediately singled out a junior high school girl from Fukui named Ai. I just pointed at the TV and said "Her. She's going to be a star." She got in along with three other girls and the 5th generation were kind of "my" Musumes and my fandom basically followed and grew with them as they integrated into the group.



I could go on and on, but since i lived in the middle of nowhere in an area that literally had no people above the age of 18 or below the age of 40, I had no social life outside of work, so Hello Project became my life for the next two years until I finally moved to Osaka.

[Noa]

I didn't get into MM until sometime mid 2008. I had been watching ninja warrior one day and Abe Asami was on it and they said she was a singer, so I decided to look her up. And so I found gyaruru, and how Tsuji was supposed to be in it, but got knocked up. So naturally I looked up Tsuji and found W, and then Berryz. I didn't actually find out about Momusu until after I started dubbing and someone asked me to sing as Sayumi in Amibitious Yashinteki de ii jan.

[Pi Mako]

Back in 2001, I was getting into jpop music and faithful Napster led me to download some Morning Musume songs. While I listened to the group's music, I didn't bother to find out who was in the group or anything like that. I just knew that their music was catchy, and it was a guilty pleasure.



It wasn't until spring of 2003 that I randomly watched some clips of the making of Mini Moni's movie and for some reason I found Mari really interesting. Watched some more clips of the group, and boom, the rest is history.



Funny thing is, I downloaded a bunch of Maki Goto songs from her solo work maybe around 2002 and was completely shocked, several months later, to find out she used to be part of Morning Musume ;P

[Mukuro]

I got into anime when I was around 10 (2007), which lead me into anime songs. At some point I started getting into fanmade videos for animes? (I'm trying to remember this as i go)



Sometime after this I found a dubbing group, and they covered Hello!Project songs. Basically, the first Musume song I heard was the instumental to Naichau Kamo and I found it awesome. So then I started listening to the actual groups versions of the songs and I found them really interesting. The first song I heard from them was Naichau Kamo (late 2009) and I loved it. I later on listened to their older songs, and I was really new with the generation idea so I got confused about all this and wondered how they stayed in then group so long.



Now I get everything though.

[Mukuro]

I got into anime when I was around 10 (2007), which lead me into anime songs. At some point I started getting into fanmade videos for animes? (I'm trying to remember this as i go)



Sometime after this I found a dubbing group, and they covered Hello!Project songs. Basically, the first Musume song I heard was the instumental to Naichau Kamo and I found it awesome. So then I started listening to the actual groups versions of the songs and I found them really interesting. The first song I heard from them was Naichau Kamo (late 2009) and I loved it. I later on listened to their older songs, and I was really new with the generation idea so I got confused about all this and wondered how they stayed in then group so long.



Now I get everything though.

[Miss Moonlight]

Around 2002-03 there was an international channel on my local cable that was Japanese for an hour every night, and on Monday nights they played HEY!HEY!HEY! I was a pretty big anime fan at the time and I watched it religiously just because it was Japanese. I listened to some Japanese music but it was also all music I found via anime. One night on HEY!x3 MM was on and they performed Souda! We're Alive, and it was exactly the kind of song I loved back then. I downloaded some random MM songs at the time and enjoyed listening to them, but I didn't really start paying attention enough to know all the girls until about 2005. My college roommate, who was more into Japanese music than I was, showed me the Mr. Moonlight PV because she wanted me to see how terrible it was. Except I fell MADLY in love with it (and Yossi <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... #>/wub.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':wub:' /> ) and that was that.

[Tsuki]

I started around 2005/2006 when I found google videos (Like Farrah) of MM with Ayaka's surprise english lessons. Instantly endeared me to them, so it was my gateway drug to all their other material. I realized though that they had always been lurking at the edges of my subconscious since at least 2002, since I already had quite a few of their songs and even sang, I think it was Happy Summer Wedding, at karaoke when I was in Japan at the time (terribly, of course).



I have no recollection of how I found my way here though.

[Haru]

As for the Aya thing, she had it in the beginning right? Because it seems at the time when they started to become more idols that she lost the piercing.

Yeah, and she also had it in the Tanpopo days.



Holy god, I wasn't expecting a whole thread; especially one this active.

I am so flattered~

Thank you for your answers guys.

I was pretty young back when Napster was the in thing, so I was too busy thinking about old music I liked back then like Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys and didn't think about the fact you'd have foreign music on there.



Welp, everyone else is telling their stories. I feel so new right now though.

I discovered Morning Musume because one of their songs was used in an AMV for an anime I liked (because the video also featured a K-pop song, I got into K-pop around that time as well. Yu Chae Young <3), and "Say Yeah ~Motto Miracle Night~" was the song. I think this was around late 2007, early 2008.

Then the next song I heard was "Koi no Dance Site," then "Osaka Koi no Uta" was where I really fell in love. Then from there I started checking out more J-pop, and unsuspectingly found myself downloading more H!P (Dakishimete Dakishimete, then Shochuu Omimai fricking long title hurf). Then I just got on ProjectHello and downloaded stuff from every artist I could think of.

[kitaoji]

I didn't start liking non-anime Japanese music until the beginning of 2007, when my anime love was tapering off. Until college I had virtually no contact with anything ~popular~ or ~contemporary~ (and I still don't have much of one) other than anime, and the only reason why I had even heard of Morning Musume was because I would spend way too much time in CD shops looking for anime CDs. (I did find Fujimoto Miki's solo CD and mailed it to a complete stranger, which is probably the first piece of mail I sent in the US.)



Anyway, I got really hooked with Mr. Moonlight Ribon no Kishi and 4th gen in general, since 4th gen were important and cool and all that, and also because I had read a blog reviewing the Ribon no Kishi musical. Somewhere along the way (of Google?) I stumbled onto MM-BBS with Hana's (and Sadude's) awesome summaries of Hello!Morning, as well as a whole bunch of subbed Utaban episodes. Then over the years I started to like 5th gen and Eri a lot. I used to like Berryz for most of 07-08 (starting with Munasawagi Scarlet), and I seem to clamber back to the MM ship during some adverse time.



I used to really keep up with the H!P repertoire; for the record, my first H!P purchases were the Bokura ga Ikiru My Asia and Matsuura Aya's 'Sougen no Hito' musical (still can't figure out why I love this song so much) but never got into Maki's works. But since their AX appearance (ironically) I haven't been keeping track, and I really didn't recognize a substantial amount of the new setlist. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... nfused.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[eri]

1998 or 1999 I was watching Heyx3, which was an introduction of 2nd gen. It was too hard to find much more as we had no internet. Wrap your minds around that kiddos. My fandom only picked up in college when i.got a comp and reliable internet....which was dial up netzero. i bet you bitches don't even know what netzero is haha.

[momoirosaya]

[quote name='donut' timestamp='1301892525' post='96534']

i bet you bitches don't even know what netzero is haha.

[/quote]

I remember when we got highspeed netzero and I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I was only like 8 then though.

[rob]

Just after 3rd generation joined a friend of mine started sending me mp3s and videos of Morning Musume, instantly hooked I did what everyone else did and tried to find more, p2p applications etc before finally settling on an IRC channel somewhere, not sure it still exists.



I was the Hello! Morning bot for years, I still have EVERY DAMN EPISODE on CD... CD!!!!! at home.



I liked Mari, then Sayumi, then Junjun and now Kanon.

[strawberryjam]

I always grew up with Jpop, but I guess I started listening on my own in 2001. My brother was religiously into Japanese music/anime/girls/everything. Guess he researched a lot on the net and downloaded it. We also bought whatever we could when we went to HK. We also used to have a Japanese rental store by our house. We rented recorded video tapes of music countdown shows. I remember watching one episode and thinking why the heck is this stupid looking cartoon's song #1 FOR WEEKS (Maybe months, can't remember?). That song ended up being the Pokemon opening that would later infect the American market. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... dammit.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':dammit:' />



My first Jpop song was Puffy's Asia no Junshin. I was so amused by the fact that it named all this countries' names in Engrish. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... hahaha.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':hahaha:' /> Since my brother and I decided we were both into cute girls, he would download random stuff to show me especially since he studied some Japanese.



Anyways, one day, it happened to be Minimoni's Telephone Ring Ring Ring. It was the most hilarious thing ever. I decided it was the best thing and he started downloading just about everything for me that was H!P related. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... nceman.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':danceman:' />



And yes, I remember Netzero. Our parents were tired of us using the internet and hogging the phone line so they stopped paying. Well, good thing there was Netzero and Earthlink. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /angel.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> MY SAVIOR! I always woke up at like 8am to use the internet when no one was making phone calls, haha.



BTW:

The end of the story is... My brother got married. And his wife doesn't like Japanese stuff. Now he's afraid to ever admit he ever liked anything Japanese related. And now we have nothing in common anymore. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... dammit.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':dammit:' /> <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... dammit.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':dammit:' /> <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... dammit.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':dammit:' /> <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... dammit.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':dammit:' />

[Gerald]

[quote name='Al Kusanagi' timestamp='1301873225' post='96514']

Sit down, brats. Let grandpa tell you a story!



Stuff.

[/quote]

You've let me down there Al, that was actually interesting <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... umbsup.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />.

[alita87]

Well probably back in late 2001 I would always watch the Japanese News show that was on the international news channel (beginnings of digital cable) once a week and they always had a segment introducing some form of pop culture be it music, movies etc. So they showed about 30 seconds of Mr. Moonlight, I thought "Damn those girls are gorgeous" and instantly remembered their name.



Now, I didn't get anything of theirs until later in the year when I moved to a new city and started high school where I became friends with one of the few Japanese exchange students and asked her about Morning Musume. She didn't like them (was more into Da Pump and R&B) but knew of them, so I knew they had to be something big ish. I had been using Napster and Winmx (ah the good old days when you could actually find good stuff on them for free) and actually had a few Ayaya and Minimoni PVs and songs from there. But it was only after talking to my new friend that I thought to really search out the group and within a week had downloaded enough to fill my hard drive. And then I came to study abroad right before the 8th gen auditions so happened to partake in them and see my Yossi graduate.



However, unlike many who became fans that far back, I have not seen a decline in Musume's power or skill or liked them any less, I have always been ok with the changes and loved seeing the group evolve in its various stages. Was I sad when the girl who got me into the group left, yes. Was I doubly sad when the girl who I had been following since the concert she was shown at left, yes. But then the 9th gen came and their adorable spunk made me realize I could never give this group up. Not, that I was planning to. But I did have a feeling that if there wasn't something amazing about the new gen Smileage would probably become the main Hello!Project group I followed.

[Haru]

[quote name='Saya' timestamp='1301894117' post='96535']

[quote name='donut' timestamp='1301892525' post='96534']

i bet you bitches don't even know what netzero is haha.

[/quote]

I remember when we got highspeed netzero and I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I was only like 8 then though.

[/quote]



Yep. We had the original, then we got high speed.

Then we got AT&T.

Sometimes I wonder if we'd be better off with NetZero.



Continue on your nostalgia trip. I just had to put that in.



But oh my god, I completely forgot about Puffy Ami-Yumi! Anyone remember when they had that ridiculously bad show on Cartoon Network? Lasted one season.

[rob]

[quote name='strawberryjam' timestamp='1301914018' post='96539']



BTW:

The end of the story is... My brother got married. And his wife doesn't like Japanese stuff. Now he's afraid to ever admit he ever liked anything Japanese related. And now we have nothing in common anymore. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... dammit.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':dammit:' /> <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... dammit.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':dammit:' /> <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... dammit.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':dammit:' /> <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... dammit.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':dammit:' />

[/quote]



My wife HATES Hello! Project stuff with a passion....

[JPope]

H!P kinda sorta brought my wife and I together.

[rob]

[quote name='JPope' timestamp='1301981935' post='96578']

H!P kinda sorta brought my wife and I together.

[/quote]



Do tell. :)