How I Got Into H!P
#In 2002, one of my friends at the time recommended Hamasaki Ayumi. Being young and impressionable, I took pretty much every music recommendation completely seriously and I started getting into this Hamasaki person. After that, I started entering stuff like "jpop" into the KaZaA search engine. I liked some of the stuff I downloaded, some people stayed one-hit-wonders in my mind (like Namie Amuro and her song Alarm--I love that song, but I never could get into Namie.) Some people I was really into at first, and then just sort of stopped (like Nami Tamaki; I watched her video 'Prayer' way too much to be healthy.)
From this random searching, I found BoA. After downloading some BoA songs, I realized I really liked the song Kimochi wa Tsutawaru. I proceeded to download every single file labeled with Kimochi wa Tsutawaru. I found a file called "BoA in elevator with Morning Musume". It was this video-- it had Kimochi wa Tsutawaru live at the end.
Since it was KagoTsuji, I thought it was the most adorable thing ever. I thought Morning Musume was just these two girls, so I searched for Morning Musume on KaZaA. I was surprised when the stuff downloaded, because it wasn't just two girls singing. I found Minimoni and I totally loved them too. I was more into Minimoni than Momusu at first, but gradually I got more interested in Momusu. I listened a lot to golden era Morning Musume, and I know a lot of the b-sides to the earlier singles because they were tagged with "Morning Musume" and I pretty much downloaded every MM song file I could find.
(I also remember having some Ayaka's English Lessons on my computer. I downloaded and watched the Kago ones over and over again. Kago was always my favorite member.)
Those were the dial-up days... So I really replayed the songs that I did manage to download (stuff like Happy Summer Wedding and Koi no Dance Site). When I finally got DSL in January of '05, that was when I started following them more seriously (because I had a DC++ hub full of friends with high def Musume stuff, and I could actually download it faster than one video every two weeks.) I remember THE Manpower!!! being the first high definition PV that I downloaded.
My fandom fades every now and again, but I always come back to H!P. I wonder why that is? Probably because of the music. It certainly isn't much because of the idols... I can't enjoy the full experience. I don't know Japanese well enough to watch every release that comes out (and understand it that well, that is). I'm starting to get more into the idols that actually sing the music, so if you ask me...
2002-2004: Casual listener
2005-2009: Listen for the music
2010-2011: Start to pay attention to the idols
Something like that.
From this random searching, I found BoA. After downloading some BoA songs, I realized I really liked the song Kimochi wa Tsutawaru. I proceeded to download every single file labeled with Kimochi wa Tsutawaru. I found a file called "BoA in elevator with Morning Musume". It was this video-- it had Kimochi wa Tsutawaru live at the end.
Since it was KagoTsuji, I thought it was the most adorable thing ever. I thought Morning Musume was just these two girls, so I searched for Morning Musume on KaZaA. I was surprised when the stuff downloaded, because it wasn't just two girls singing. I found Minimoni and I totally loved them too. I was more into Minimoni than Momusu at first, but gradually I got more interested in Momusu. I listened a lot to golden era Morning Musume, and I know a lot of the b-sides to the earlier singles because they were tagged with "Morning Musume" and I pretty much downloaded every MM song file I could find.
(I also remember having some Ayaka's English Lessons on my computer. I downloaded and watched the Kago ones over and over again. Kago was always my favorite member.)
Those were the dial-up days... So I really replayed the songs that I did manage to download (stuff like Happy Summer Wedding and Koi no Dance Site). When I finally got DSL in January of '05, that was when I started following them more seriously (because I had a DC++ hub full of friends with high def Musume stuff, and I could actually download it faster than one video every two weeks.) I remember THE Manpower!!! being the first high definition PV that I downloaded.
My fandom fades every now and again, but I always come back to H!P. I wonder why that is? Probably because of the music. It certainly isn't much because of the idols... I can't enjoy the full experience. I don't know Japanese well enough to watch every release that comes out (and understand it that well, that is). I'm starting to get more into the idols that actually sing the music, so if you ask me...
2002-2004: Casual listener
2005-2009: Listen for the music
2010-2011: Start to pay attention to the idols
Something like that.