Sunday 18 December 2011

24 days of singles day 18: Beginner and Boku Dake no Value

Just a warning, if disturbed by violent images don't read the summary of Beginner.

Senbatsu
Team A: Kojima Haruna, Sashihara Rino, Shinoda Mariko, Takajo Aki, Takahashi Minami, Maeda Atsuko
Team K: Itano Tomomi, Oshima Yuko, Minegishi Minami, Miyazawa Sae
Team B: Kasai Tomomi, Kashiwagi Yuki, Kitahara Rie, Watanabe Mayu
Team S: Matsui Jurina, Matsui Rena
The song talks about getting rid of the baggage of experience, and following your own path, getting rid of the controlling chains, questioning if they're really living, or even want to live, but says in the end to start again as a beginner. The PV is just the girls dancing, and I quite like the style they went with here for the uniforms, and this is mixed quite poorly in places with behind the scenes footage. Thats it.

OK I'm lying. That is the official PV, but the original PV can be found on Tudou at least, it was changed due to controversy about it's nature. So let's watch this (at time of typing I can pretty much guarantee this will be up too late my time. I'll make it up to you tomorrow). The girls are playing some kind of virtual reality immersion game. We first see Mariko knock a sphere, which knocks her over before becoming a cube and crushing her head. Mayu shoots a few spheres surrounding her, but the rest then extend into spikes and stab through her. Kojiharu is crushed into a wall by a giant lollipop, which becomes a cleaver and cuts off her head at the mouth. Yuko shoots a small pyramid while agaisnt a wall, which stabs through her. Acchan goes to pick something up, only for her to be pinned to a wall by a clamp from the pyramid pinning Yuko. Her hand is the stabbed by another spike, and the Acchan playing the game reacts to this, and blood drops onto the dropped game controller. Yuko looks at Acchan and shoots the claw away, smiling slightly before her spike becomes a block and crushes her. Reacting from her pain, Acchan stand sup, pulling out of the reality plugins, and then screams in pain for like 20 seconds, the virtual Acchan does so as well, before pulling her hand off, and replacing it with a giant spike. She attacks blocks, causing it to defeat itself as in the real world some of the girls stand up. Jurina appears with her own arm spike, and helps destroy the block as the girls standing up drop their controllers and pull of the virtual immersion features. Yuko, still under the effects starts walking, but Acchan stops her an hugs her, as Acchan's controller declares game over, and Yuko's unplugged.

Undergirls
Team A: Iwasa Misaki, Oota Aika, Katayama Haruka, Nakagawa Haruka, Maeda Ami,
Team K: Kikuchi Ayaka, Nakatsuka Tomomi, Nito Moeno, Fujie Reina, Matsui Sakiko, Yonezawa Rumi
Team B: Ishida Haruka, Oku Manami, Komori Mika, Sato Sumire, Hirajima Natsumi, Miyazaki Miho
Team S: Kizaki Yuria, Yagami Kumi
Team KII: Ishida Anna, Takayanagi Akane, Mukaida Manatsu
The song talks about being in love, but here it's not with a beautiful young girl, it's a fairly average girl, your not close but it's still her you'd choose over the more popular girls. The PV tarts with most of the girls, before the music, bitching about a few (5) of the girls fashion sense, when those girls overhear it but carry on walking. As revenge they later say the same thing about one of them whilst right next to them, a couple other see this. Later all of them are in a large race. The music starts here, and the dance section has them in these white outfits on a rooftop. The story is mostly the racing, they stop for water at one point and a teacher finds Moeno's avoided racing. At the water stop one girl deliberately trips another, this causing a bit of a fight. As some of the girls begin to finish still others are struggling, and apparently it starts raining mini gobstoppers, which i think cause two of the girls to make up.

The A-type B-side is Kimi ni Tsuite, sung by MINT which was formed as part of a deal with what I think is a MMORPG similar to Habbo (not that I've played it), the campaign will have to be looked at at some point.
MINT
Team A: Katayma Haruka, Maeada Atsuko
Team K: Nito Moeno, Matsui Sakiko
Team B: Kasai Tomomi
The song is about a one-sided attraction between the singer and a girl, and how he knows so much about her, and wants to know so much more. In the PV we start pre-music with Maeada, Moeno, Chiyuu and Sakiko (I think) together in a room as Sakiko updates the MINT Blog, and the two discuss something. When the music starts we have a mix of the girls dancing and of images of the blog, when the singing starts we shy away from the blog. We see Acchan sit down at the laptop to look at the blog, after she goes back a few posts we're treated to faux dance footage of their 5th single INDIVIDUAL, accompanied by a behind the scenes photo. We then see stuff from the 4th single, but I can't tell what it's called. We then get some from the 2nd single, and finally their st single 'by myself'. It seems to me they look happier the further back we look. We then see the other 4 looking at the laptop, and finish with a shot of the blog showing the dance background as an image, I'm guessing Maeda decided to put more happiness in then.

The B-type B-side is DIVA (not to be confused with a later development) with Nakeru Basho.
DIVA
Team A: Oya Shizuka, Kuramochi Asuka, Nakata Chisato, Nakaya Sayaka, Matsubara Natsumi
Team K: Akimoto Sayaka, Uchida Mayumi, Umeda Ayaka, Tanabe Miku, Nonata Misato
Team B: Kobayashi Kana, Sato Amina, Sato Natsuki, Suzuki Nariya, Chikano Rina, Masuda Yuka
Team S: Oya Masana
The song talks about coping with the loss of the one you loved the most, wanting them to still be with you, looking at old phone photos and the like. The PV starts pre-music with the girls on a bus, which happens to past a poster advertising the song. The first part with music still has the girls on the bus, mostly ignoring each other, before coming to where they're performing. A large group of fans show they're support as they walk past. We get to see the girls practicing they're moves backstage, before melting into the actual performance, and toward the end we see them walking past the fans again, the girls seem happier or more appreciative this time around. We also see the fans being all excited.

Done, and with 3 minutes to spare

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