As H!P’s last soloist (currently), ManoEri started with humble terms. She begun as a 2nd Generation Hello! Pro Egg member before shortly joining into Ongaku Gatas in 2007. A year later, she graduated from the group but unlike many others, she was given a chance to debut as a soloist and it worked…first couple of singles were indies but her 4th single, “Otome no Inori” brought her into the leagues of H!P. At least until 2013 where she decided to graduate from H!P to focus on her acting.
Style of Music: When she first began, she was known amongst the wota/fans as the piano girl because her early work focused primarily on her skills as a pianist. After a while it shifted to more like cute, idol-happy music with a little of her piano playing.
Discography
Singles
Manopiano (indies)
Lucky Aura (indies)
Lalala-Sososo (indies)
Otome no Inori
Hajimete no Keiken
Sekai wa Summer Party
Kono Mune no Tokimeki wo
Love & Peace = Paradise
Haru no Arashi
Onegai Dakara…
Genkimono de Ikou!
Seishun no Serenade
My Days for You
Dokidoki Baby / Tasogare Kousaten
Song for the DATE
NEXT MY SELF
Albums
FRIENDS
MORE FRIENDS
More Friends Over
BEST FRIENDS (best-of album)
This is the sort-of PV for ManoEri’s 2nd indies single, Lucky Aura…To be fair she didn’t have PVs for any of her indie songs and this was kind of a bonus. Erina was in Guam for this and I’m surprised they would make it look so…normal with her enjoying a car ride and shopping.
This is the 2nd to last PV ManoEri did and it’s Song for the DATE which is pretty much favored amongst the fans as it has a sort of deeper meaning to it than others before it.
Top 10 Favorite Songs:
Song for the DATE
Lucky Aura
Onegai Dakara…
Arashi no Mae no Candle (album song from “MORE FRIENDS”)
Uchi e Kaerou! (B-side from “Genkimono de Ikou!”)
Glory days (album song from “More Friends Over”)
Hajimete no Keiken
Haru no Arashi
Jasmine Tea (B-side from “Sekai wa Summer Party”)
Minna, Arigatou. (album song from “BEST FRIENDS”)
Overall: ManoEri had a pretty good run during her career within H!P. Started off little but quickly became a name in the company even when she joined Ongaku Gatas. Even though her graduation was last year, she’s still performing every once in a while and she definitely found her place at the end.
Today we look at the beginning of what would be known as the Platinum Era which has the title for longest time of no members changes in Momusu’s history. At Yossie’s graduation, we got the announcement that we would be getting two new members, though Tsunku was wanting to tackle Asia so these were to him, “foreign exchange students”. We ended up with Junjun and Linlin (the latter was a H!P Egg). Of course after that Miki was caught in that scandal so it brought the group to the same number of members after Yossie and Mikitty left. In this post, I will be talking about 5 PVs (though stretched to a VERY long era) for both the Platinum 9 DiSC and COVER YOU eras: Onna ni Sachi Are, Mikan, Resonant Blue, Pepper Keibu, and Naichau Kamo
Onna ni Sachi Are
The Song: Like I said above, this song came out right when we gained the Pandas but also lost Miki and it shows because this song screams Miki and Ai-chan throughout and I think Tsunku was in a slight panic after she left so he gave more lines to Ai (or gave them to Koharu). Also the Pandas first song together and they kind of were pushed in the back but they had some lines in the song
What Genre is it?: It’s a Eurobeat song or Parapara it can go either way, but definitely a more serious sounding song.
The Premise: None to be had here
The Setting: Well most of the PV was shot on a stage with a LOT of gold curtains and bright lights which did make it look slightly cheap and the close-up shots with the ladies seem like it was backstage maybe, where they were kind of chilling out. Not an elaborate set, but I guess it fits the color scheme.
The Outfits: Back then, there really wasn’t much to compare it to. They were flappers with a lot of gold on them. Though the outfits were gold, they had to be accented with yellow feathers. Nowadays it just looks like a combination of “Kono Chikyuu no Heiwa wo Honki de Negatterun da yo!” and “Pyocopyoco Ultra” which is a bit of a turnoff…this PV had TOO MUCH gold for me to enjoy and while a lot of the members looked really good in their outfits…I just couldn’t with all that yellow/gold.
The Choreography: I actually liked the choreography as it was pretty much step-by-step and it was aggressive. Pretty risky to make Koharu be the center of it all as she’s not known for those kind of skills but she did well. However, the dance looks muddled because of those goddamn outfits…it was hard to follow what hand movements and such were going on because they had those feather whips (as I like to call them) flying about. Still good dance!
PV as a whole: I would say that the song did fit the style of the PV, but I think it was executed poorly. Those outfits were a bit too overdone and got in the way for the dancing, but the close-up shots were beautiful, especially with Ai-chan, Gaki, Sayu, and Kame….wow they look great! The pandas could’ve gotten some more face-time (though Junjun looked ODD in this PV). Not bad though of a PV.
Mikan
The Song: Well, Mikan for a while was known as the group’s least selling single (at least until 2012)…and it’s surprising because I kind of enjoyed the song fo being a little more upbeat and happy and has such a positive message, yet it sold poorly. I will never understand why a Mandarin Orange has to do with the song, but hey it’s Tsunku…he’s done weirder things xD.
What Genre is it?: Definitely a positive idol song…very poppy…slightly 80s cheese, but mostly your happy H!P song.
The Premise: Not really any, but it does show the girls when they were all infants (last time they did that was in “Furusato”). So the song is kind of about perserverance so I suppose it worked around that.
The Setting: Well since the PV is another that’s focused on the dance-shot, but the stage is VERY green-screened. It makes it look like they’re on a roof dancing in a bustling city (not like “Help me!!” mind you). Also there’s that Mikan slapped on top of one of the buildings. Then there are the solo/mini-group shots where it’s all white but with the groupings they get this rainbow ring surrounding them as well. Later on in the PV, we see the group laying down with the Earth moving underneath them (reminded me of “Go Girl ~Koi no Victory~ and “Ai Araba IT’S ALL RIGHT”) mixed together. Quite more than in their last PV that’s for sure.
The Outfits: They also stuck to one outfit for the PV and I quite liked them even though it was surrounded by a colorful PV. They wore a silver outfit with black outlines. I liked them for being simplistic but also looking stylish too.
The Choreography: Some of the dance actually came off pretty well, which was basically everything but the chorus xD. Something about that chorus dance didn’t work like the hopping around or the raising of the fists lol. Still it’s not a bad dance for a song like this.
PV as a whole: I don’t get why Mikan did so poorly in the charts, especially since the song’s lyrics are like “Aruiteru” and that did pretty well. The PV is OK, a little standard in the idol world but still pretty nice. Like with Junjun in the last PV, I thought Kame looked a bit odd in some of her shots…but either way…still good.
Resonant Blue
The Song: While I’ve became a fan of Momusu when “Onna ni Sachi Are” was released, it actually took Resonant Blue to glue me into the group and start reviewing them on my other blog. Resonant Blue is such a depressing and yet energetic song to listen to and due to nostalgic reasons, I find myself listening to this WAY more than I should. It’s not without its problems…this was when us fans figured out that the Platinum Era was really going to be mostly about Ai-chan and Reina and that didn’t help things out since they were the only ones that really got solo lines (with a little from Koharu and the final ~help me~ being from Sayu. Of course the video above is the “Another ver.” because they promoted the dance-shot mainly and not this…sounds like another case like “THE Manpower!!!”.
What Genre is it?: The tune kind of reminds me of 80’s pop but at the same time more modern, not sure where it’d be lol.
The Premise: It seems there’s a sort of premise made in the song with all the girls doing different things but at the end they all feel the same kind of loneliness which I suppose is cool to see.
The Setting: Most of the video is on the dance set which is dark and caries a bluish hue which follows along the other areas a lot. For other things, the group is off doing their own thing like Reina walking, Ai-chan exercising, Koharu singing autographs, and etc. Also there’s a couple shots where the group is together in a studio practicing the choreography. Different but not by much.
The Outfits: Not counting the normal wear during the “story” scenes, the dance-shot has some nice outfits with majority of the members wearing black and white, howver Ai-chan and Reina has more of the white showing in comparision. Add on that the dance-shot was already dark as it is made it difficult to find member, at least the camera seemed to focus a lot on Gaki and Kame…hmmm.
The Choreography: Like the outfits due to how dark everything was it was hard at points to follow the dance but it looked pretty wild and the chorus has them flailing a bit. My favorite was during the mid-8 where they did the line formation. I liked the dance but the room should’ve been brighter…
PV as a whole: Despite being another PV where the PV promoted was the dance-shot, Resonant Blue is a pretty exciting video even though “Mikan” slightly did better for me. I loved the dark motif but maybe it was a little too dark and the bluish tone gave it that sad feel. Good song though!
Pepper Keibu
The Song: At the time, it was a surprise that Tsunku was letting Momusu cover another song, this time from Pink Lady, their big hit, Pepper Keibu. What we didn’t know that this was a lead-in single before the group would release “COVER YOU” a tribute to Yuu Aku. Pepper Keibu is a good song though the only solo lines belong to Reina…but the group sung duet lines most of the time so that’s pretty good too..
What Genre is it?: Well it’s a song that was made in 1976…during the haydays of Disco.
The Premise: None with this one
The Setting: I didn’t think they were going to get cheap for the PV but they did! It’s like they took “Onna ni Sachi Are’s” PV ripped the gold out and replaced with silver streamers and tiny disco balls…wow. There’s not even a close-up area it’s a glorified dance-shot basically!
The Outfits: Even the outfits are somewhat bland here. There’s all wearing blue dresses (not the “Summer Night Town” ones mind you lol) but they have some silver jewelry to make it pop more and made the outfits more sparkly. That’s really about it lol.
The Choreography: Being a cover, I wasn’t surprised they would keep the original dance to go with the song and while it’s not as energetic as others, they did it right. They did add their own dance during the mid-8 section which showed a hint of the group wanting to do more, but repressed lol.
PV as a whole: Sadly, Pepper Keibu isn’t all that good. The song is pretty faithful to the original, but the PV lacked life and it felt very cheap all over from the set to the outfits. It even showed in some members that they were way over this song. At least I enjoyed the song enough, but the PV is something I wouldnt praise too much on.
Naichau Kamo
The Song: The final song on this post is the single that finally ended the era after taking that side path with “COVER YOU”. Naichau Kamo continued this streak of songs that many people have coined the Emo-musume string of singles. The song has a bit more vocal variety including Kame, Gaki, and Sayu this time though by this point the fans have started to notice the Pandas have been shown off less and less which isn’t good as well.
What Genre is it: In the same boat like “Resonant Blue” unsure but it fits the whole emo dance style that the group is going towards lol.
The Premise: Well the song goes by its lyrics and you see the ladies crying outside in the rain. So they’re showing heartbreak basically, but it isn’t too much of a focus.
The Setting: Talking about the dance-shot first, I like that they tried to not be so bland with it but the “Pepper Keibu” streamers return but they aren’t the focus. I was wondering what the set was until I figured out it was surrounded by umbrellas since the song is abundant on the crying and sadness. The solo shots though were shot outside with the ladies crying up a storm. Simple, but at least it’s effective.
The Outfits: I actually liked the outfits from the PV for the most part. The girls are split into two colored outfits, White and Red leather outfits with black clothes underneath. In the solos though, the girls are wearing rainwear formal so it’s nothing too big, though all but Junjun looked good in them xD….sorry, green turtlenecks are a nono!
The Choreography: Out of all the PVs in this post, I actually felt like this had more effort and push from the girls. A lot of movement throughout and some swift formation. I really liked that out of the dance, just a lot of movement…nothing like the current era, but this was something when it came out.
PV as a whole: After “Pepper Keibu”, Naichau Kamo came in and quickly impressed me with a fast dance and cool number despite being all depressing lol. I loved how they made umbrellas worked in the dance set and the raining scenes ae nice albeit too sad to watch sometimes lol.
Iroppoi Twilight Game 