Wings of My Heart 3.0

When you’re deep enough into a fandom, it’s natural to have some powerful memories related to it. You put so much emotion into it that you draw associations to certain periods or moments in your life when the fandom was significant to you, or you might easily recall all of the details of a fandom-related moment. From learning about an important piece of fandom news, to finally getting your hands on a wanted piece of merchandise, to seeing your idols live for the first time, anything can become a cherished memory of your time in a fandom - or a painful memory you’d rather just forget.

The following are three of my personal memories related to my Super Junior fandom. All of them occurred in 2007, my first year in the fandom, and the year in which I spent the most time on these boys. While I have plenty of other Suju-related memories, I feel that these three are probably the most significant. And surprisingly, none of them particularly feature Heechul.
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While the fact that there is little English language information on Thai pop artists to go on may be a valid complaint, it really could be worse: since new music videos are regularly uploaded to Youtube, at the very least I can follow my dear Faye Fang Kaew’s latest releases. (That said, I happened upon a couple of English articles about them last night and discovered that all three members of the group are YOUNGER than I am, and the always hot Kaew is only SIXTEEN. My mind, it has been blown.) In any case, when I discovered and clicked on FFK’s “Your Girl” the other night, I noticed a result in the related videos featuring a screencap with a very Kpop girl group look to it. That group is Seven Days, and the song is called Luv. My interest was further caught when I saw that one of the group’s members is none other than Faye of FFK! Faye in a larger girl group with a cutesier image? Congratulations, Seven Days, you have now convinced me to watch your music video!
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As a tribute to Koharu and to celebrate her H!P career, I’ve decided to make recordings of myself singing every song from her first solo album, Mitsuboshi (which I own and love). I’ll also be singing some other songs that aren’t on Mitsuboshi, including a few duets! I’ve never posted my recordings on Wings of My Heart - I usually just upload them to Youtube and then share them on Stage 48 and my LiveJournal - but for Koharu’s graduation, it seems appropriate to share these here.

I’m also pretty sure that I’m going to bring back my Koi Kana cosplay that I wore to Anime North in 2007. I’ve been wanting to wear it again ever since, but I’ve always wanted to wear something new and different to every convention since then. Koharu graduating seems like the perfect excuse to finally pull it out again. Plus, there’s a convention the month she’s graduating, so the timing will be apt. I’m going to have to mend some parts of the outfit; a part of the skirt started to rip by the end of the AN weekend, and a couple of the bead strings need to be resewn, and I need entirely new footwear to go with the outfit since the old shoes are too dirty now and the stockings wore out. I don’t mind doing those things though, because the outfit is worth it, and that’s still way less work than I had to do to put it together in the first place, anyway. It’ll be a nice little project to work on when I need to take a break from my college assignments.

Anyway, including this week there are eleven weeks until Koharu graduates. There are ten songs on Mitsuboshi, so I’ll do one song a week, and one week I’ll do something else. I’m kind of in the mood to try groupdubs right now, and I’ve actually signed on to do one on Stage 48 next month, so the duets in particular should be fun! But of course I’m going to love singing all of the Mitsuboshi songs, particularly my favourite of all of Koharu’s songs, the appropriately titled “I miss you”.

So! Without further ado, here’s the first track off Mitsuboshi, the one and only “Balalaika”, to kick things off! Hope you enjoy!

The picture in the background of the video is of me in my Koi Kana cosplay at Anime North 2007, posing with a Balalaika cosplayer I bumped into! Her outfit was amazing. Mine was kind of falling apart at that particular moment…oh well!

Mitsuboshi Song Project Track 1: Balalaika

Late at night when you’re falling asleep is probably a stupid time to try to write something of substance, right? LET’S SEE HOW THIS GOES.

Koharu has been my favourite current Momusu pretty much since I got into the fandom; she was second to Gaki at first, but she quickly surpassed her, and no one else has ever threatened her spot. Now that I no longer have the affection for Aibon and Nono that I once did, I think it’s safe to say that Koharu is my favourite member of Momusu ever. At first I only heard her solo lines in singles and believed her to be a particularly good singer, but even once I’d discovered her not particularly impressive idol voice, I still loved her. I bought her first two solo albums without a second thought and cosplayed her Koi Kana outfit for Anime North in grade ten. I’ve always appreciated her hyper, Tsukino Usagi-like personality, how much she plays that up for her Kirari character, and also the other side of things, the more mature persona she began to portray in Momusu as time went by. Seeing how she fit into the group was always really exciting to me, as both she and Momusu as a whole grew, developed, and changed. I’ve wanted to write entries about why she’s my favourite so many times, but I’ve just never known how to start (and I’ve tried).

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It’s funny now, looking back on a certain memory I have of singing the Wonder Girls’ Nobody with a friend on the school bus back from a choir performance in March. Sitting at the back of the bus, belting out the song in my questionable pronunciation of Korean, I had no idea that I would be seeing the girls live at the end of the summer. At first they were only scheduled to do a small number of tour stops with the Jonas Brothers, but the fan response must have been overwhelmingly positive, because they wound up going on the entire tour, news that I was delighted to receive. Days after I had found out that they were coming here, I had ordered my ticket and was ready to go. Today was the day I spent the whole summer waiting for, and guys, I was not disappointed.

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It was announced at the end of this weekend’s big AKB concert at Budokan that the teams are going to be restructured, effective some time in October. The three teams will still be called Teams A, K, and B, but the members have been shuffled around within them - permanently. Some members remain on their current teams, but numerous others have been shifted to other teams, and they themselves learned this on stage in front of tons of fans. This cruel surprise was sprung on them in public, for all to see their tears. One member had to be helped off the stage after learning she was being moved.

The above picture is kind of heartbreaking in light of those girls having no idea what was coming to them on August 23rd, 2009.

I’ve ranted about this pretty much since I woke up today, and I’m going to spare you guys the expletives and exclamations of shock and anger. For now, you can check my Twitter if you really want to see all of that. I can honestly say that I’ve never been this shocked about any piece of news in any of my idol fandoms before, and I don’t think any other AKB fan has, either. Stage 48 has pretty well exploded with posts, and we’ve already set a record for the most members online at one time since the forum has been created, thanks to this announcement. There’s a lot of shock and rage, though also some optimism about what positive effects these changes may have on the group. Still, I think the word “devastated” is appropriate right now, describing both the members’ and fans’ reactions.

In addition to many members being shuffled around, a number of kenkyuusei (research student) members have been promoted to teams, including Kikuchi Ayaka, the former Team B member who came back as a kenkyuusei after her scandal, though she’s now been added to the new Team K. What I will say about my reaction is that I wish that Ayarin had gone to Team B, and not Komori Mika, who I’m really not a fan of. She’s essentially my least favourite member of AKB right now - I’m sure she’s a nice girl, but I’m just not into her “I can barely move” performance style and the amount of exposure she gets regardless - and I never wanted to see my least favourite member added to my favourite team. Meanwhile, Ayarin belongs with Team B. But it’s barely Team B anymore, anyway - a few core members have stuck with each team, but that’s it. My second favourite member, Miyazaki Miho, is now on the same team (B) as my favourite, Hirajima Natsumi, but I can barely work up any excitement about that right now. (I should also be happy that Nacchan being kept on Team B kind of says that she’s now finally considered a core member, but again, I’m not exactly jumping for joy at all of this.)

Plus, the four AKB members who are also members of the new Saturday Night 48 (SDN48) are now only members of SDN. That means Noro Kayo, Sato Yukari, Ohori Megumi, and Urano Kazumi - Cindy, who was essentially the leader of Team B, for all intents and purposes. Each team now has an official leader, as does SDN.

None of us knows what’s going to happen next with AKB’s current stages. Everyone seems to be at a loss. Some Japanese fans seem to be starting a petition on mixi, but who knows how much good that’ll do.

Click to read the rest of the entry for the lists of who’s on which team now, copied from flagator21’s post on Stage 48.

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Here’s a meme I just filled out about my top ten artists on my Last.fm account, because sometimes you’re just in the mood to do memes. I’ve had my Last.fm since the summer of 2006 and have never reset it; sometimes I wonder what my charts would look like if I’d switched accounts at some point, or if my Last.fm had started counting my iPod plays before I installed it on my new MacBook. (It’s only been counting iPod plays for the last two weeks, and I’m very curious to see how that might affect my play counts from now on.) Leave it to me to take something like a meme, something you can answer with very few words when you don’t feel like thinking, and be wordy about it, even when I’m exhausted.
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Reading the blog entries and forum posts of guys who’ve been to over one hundred AKB shows and have built relationships (of sorts) with their favourite girls sometimes reminds me that I’ve never had that close a connection with any of my favourite idols. I think AKB wota actually living in our near Tokyo have a much easier time being AKB wota than anyone around the world; they’re there in the middle of the action, able to keep up with all of the latest buzz and rumours, and beyond that, they can go see their idols on a regular basis and even meet and speak to their favourite girls multiple times. (This is changing, of course, as the landscape of AKB adapts to their growing fan base, but that’s the way it’s been up until now and hopefully will continue to be for as long as possible.) Being over here in Canada, I don’t have the freedom to do that. Kim Heechul is my number one idol, and the way I feel about him is probably the same as the way those AKB theatre MVPs feel about their oshimen (the girls they support), but I’ve never seen him live, met him in person, or anything like that. I haven’t dedicated that much time and money to him; I haven’t been given the chance to build a relationship with him. Of course, that rarely happens outside of the AKB fandom, but it’d be nice to at least see a live or too.

This does lead me to remember, though, the live shows I have seen and the people I admire whom I have made contact with, no matter how briefly: Read more

It’s been far too long since I’ve seen some good old fashioned Hello! Project conspiracy theorizing - although Wendy came up with an Ooki na Ai de Motenashite Curse the other day that’s exciting to me, even though I don’t want to see C-ute completely fall apart. Theories like the Love Machine Curse and the Sakura Gumi Curse take me right back to my early days of H!P fandom. Oh, the warm and fuzzy feelings the memory of those days brings me. I could just snuggle it. *Snuggles Love Machine Curse*

…Anyway. Hopefully all you H!P fans are up on your knowledge and thus familiar with a little Egg unit called Tomoiki Ki wo Uetai (Tomoiki Wants to Plant Trees), or Tomoiki for short. The group was officially formed way back in 2005, and you should be able to spot a few familiar faces among its ranks.

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