FirstLoveMovies

...Hopefully I formatted this all correctly...

Before Baby Metal there was Buono!(who admittedly were never nearly as huge as Baby Metal) a pop punk-inspired J-pop group I fell in love with waaaaaaaaaay back in 2008 and I've occasionally gone back to when I need a pick me up.

My 3 favorite videos:







The three performers are Airi Suzuki (youngest), Miyabi Natsuyaki(middle), and Momoko Tsugunaga(oldest), and they were around 14-16 when the group began. Miyabi and Momoko were from a goofy/up beat group called Berryz Koubo and Airi Suzuki was from a more cool/serious group ℃-ute who were both under the umbrella of Hello Project, an idol agency that was absolutely enormous in Japan in the late 90s and early 2000s, but were ultimately surpassed by Akb48 in the later part of the decade.

I actually ran a (non-monetized)Hello Project clip channel on YT back then where I clipped short meme-able/cute moments from their shows/dvd magazines/etc, but the (imo) backward-thinking company behind the groups was notoriously hardcore for hunting down fan channels and it was ultimately perma-banned.

Anyway, just wanted to share a group I loved, I actually still have all three of their photobooks stored somewhere around my house.

Thanks for sharing your musical appreciation, marvingray! I enjoy reading about individual's histories of what they liked.

Perhaps it's because I never grew up with it, but I am completely out of the loop with J-pop and K-pop and idol bands. I watched and listened to all 3 of the videos you posted and I can see why they might provide a restorative. I find the overall sound of this type of music to be somewhat sweet, but I understand that is the intention.

I enjoyed the harmonica part in KissKissKiss when they all sat down to eat.

Yeah Jpop is def an acquired taste I'd never deny that and it was a total fluke that I got into these particular groups, I just happened across a series of videos called Ayaka's Surprise English Lesson, and quickly became addicted to watching videos of these Japanese girls trying (and mostly failing) to speak English.



...And then it was just one of those rabbit holes where you go from watching 2-3 videos to reading wikipedia articles, to watching music videos, etc,etc.