If I had realized when one of my new wota friends that I met at karaoke offered me a ticket, that it was the ticket for Berryz's final Hello!Concert I would have accepted the offer with greater weight I think. I had originally thought that this was just going to be my first Hello!Con, seeing Berryz perform at least once before they stopped activities, instead it ended up being so much more.
I'm not very good at doing reports in the traditional way, since I can never remember all songs performed and the order so I will bring up some of the highlights of the show, the ones that stuck out to me the most.
Lovelys: Upfront Kansai's idol group Lovelys opened for the concert. I wish we saw more of them, they were incredibly cute and energetic. I really liked the song they performed as well.
The New Unit: MC Makoto introduces the new unit, having everyone say their names. Afterwards he asks if anyone had wanted to ask something. Nomura Minami raises her hand. Her question is "Can anyone tell me how amazing I am?" I sense a great character being created. She carried it off perfectly. Ogawa Rena takes the bait, "Well Nomura has always been so cold to me..." there is laughter, "but lately she's started being really nice!" Dawww. Makoto looks at Nomura as if to say if that's enough, but she goes, "Can I get one more?"
Taguchi raises her hand this time. She says that Nomura has many good points, but there is one thing she did wish she would fix about herself. The delivery seems like it's going to be a friendly sting, but instead turns into "You're always trying to make sure that everyone is enjoying themselves and having fun, but I please must as you... please, you need to enjoy yourself as well." Taguchi is being absolutely adorable, Nomura goes pink. She replies with "Oh god.. I didn't expect an answer like that, my hearts going all pitter-patter now..."
Masaki: During Bitter & Sweet's performance (Gesshoku is way too beautiful for words, live), Masaki spent Renai Wars being super pumped up and dancing/playing around with Kananan. They tried to get Kanyon and Riho in on it as well, but neither of them are those type of people. There was a lot of jumping from Masaki and Kana, however, and they both almost fell down a couple of times, bursting into laughter. During Gesshoku, I couldn't help but notice that Masaki was following Asahi's piano playing with her own hands. I hope that Maachan plays piano at her birthday event again. I remember her being pretty talented.
Happy Emotion's Presentation Corner: Hosted by Chisato and Maimi, they asked for volunteers among H!P to show off something they're really good at. Ogata's hand is up first. She is super nervous and adorable, the older girls are totally loving it. When she introduces herself as being 16 now, her birthday being today is acknowledged. Her specialty, of course, is figure skating, and she says that she could show off something that is "figure skating-like" for everyone. A Kenshuusei brings out a tile of some kind and Ogata explains that she can do spins on it. She takes off her boots and socks and then proceeds to complete a spin that I would say rotated about 2-3 times. Everyone cheered, but Ogata then mentions that that was just the spin and she had wanted to show off her jump as well.
Now this was truly impressive. She takes a running start and does a spin jump that blows her spin on the title out of the water. Everyone is really impressed. I mean it was really awesome, I want to see it again.
Next up to raise their hand is Inaba Manaka. She comes down and is using super polite speech with Chisato and Maimi, Maimi definitely is starting to remind me of Sayu with the way she's fangirling over how cute the younger members are. Inaba's specialty is dance, and she says that she's especially good at dancing to any music they put on. We have of course heard this specialty before. I noticed Maachan looking over at Riho immediately and gesturing about it.
The music starts, it's an H!P song, but unfortunately I've already forgotten which one. At first it seems like Inaba isn't able to get into at all, but then she catches on to when the break-down of the song happens and boom! She.... just hits it. The wota are speechless at how frickin' good she is. Riho has sat up and is paying VERY close attention to this, as are all of the older members. Honestly I would say that Inaba has down this better than any other H!P member that has attempted this as their specialty. Yes, I would say she did better than Riho, and I last time I remember Riho doing this, I remember her being good. Three or four of the Berryz members (I remember that Risako and Kumai were two of them for sure) and Airi start trying to copy one of Inaba's moves. When Inaba winds down there is great applause from everyone.
As she goes to sit down, it's mentioned that the Hello Kids were idols from such a young age that they don't really have any specialties at all, there was just no time to develop any. The hosts look over to one side and the C-ute/Berryz members nod in agreement, when they look over to the other side however, where Risako, Kumai and Airi are, Berryz and Airi do the Inaba move they copied perfectly in-sync, either proving that they too can get down, or that they just weren't paying attention, haha.
C-ute's new song: I do not think that this song was Tsugi no Kado wo Magare, the title seemed longer than that, I think it might have been that final piece of the triple A-side, but maybe I'm wrong, I'm sure there's a report somewhere with it, it was so long I wasn't able to catch it. Anyway, my first impression of this song is that it's so mature! Not in a "mature sexy" way but in a "mature sound" way. It is not the sound of childish idol voices, no this was something much fuller. I really like it, it feels very C-ute.
Ça va? Ça va? : As I mentioned before, this song is really, really good. The sound has an obvious French theme to it, in both melody and in lyrics. There is quite a bit of French in it. I'd say it's similar to Black Butterfuly, Hadaka no Hadaka no Hadaka no Kiss in some of the ways it's done. The singing is very evenly split (Everyone has loads of lines) and I remember Tomoko having some very complicated melodies to sing. I think it's a step up in complexity for them. The dance has almost got a story to it, with Tomoko and Sayuki going off together and Akari running over to Karin, both of them not looking happy about it. I haven't liked a Juice=Juice song this much since Samidare, though I can't assume everyone else will like it as much. It got a good reception at the concert, however (I can't say the same for their other new single, which I heard from other wota is not very Juice=Juice-ish at all, it doesn't seem like it's very popular)
Encore: It doesn't seem like Encore's a really a thing usually in Hello!Cons. When everyone left the stage however, the wota immediately launched into a Berry-C-ute! call. It only took a minute for the Hello Kids to file back on. They started singing Ganbacchae. Airi was crying the most. She couldn't even sing some of her lines. Miyabi and Risako were both obviously crying as well. It was an amazing performance. I cried. Captain, takes the microphone after they are done and tells us that the very first song that they ever sung onstage was Ganbacchae at a Hello!Concert. Thus, they had requested from the staff today that Berryz Kobo could sing this song with C-ute as their very last song at a Hello!Con, coming full circle. Even though Momoko wasn't there, she believes that they had sung as if all twelve members had really been there.
She then addresses Maimi. She says that now Berryz Kobo will be gone Maimi will be the head of the most senior group in Hello!Project and she passes the baton of keeping the Hello Kids legacy alive. Maimi is crying, but agrees.
They say good-bye now. After they leave the stage, wota take up the call "Berryz SAIKOU!" Then they start going through the member's catchphrases, before ending with an "OTSUKARESAMA!" call.
Berryz. Otsukaresama deshita. Thank you for all your hard work at every single one of the Hello! Concerts you have participated in. I'm very thankful I had a chance to see you at least once.
