Masahiro no Kinsuma SP Morning Musume’21 & OG (Utaban reunion)

So remember all the fuss last year over Ishibashi and Eripon? Take one social media platform, post one 30 second clip with no context and sit back and feel the rage. Well the show has been subbed by some users of the H!P translations discord server (Twitter here). As a love letter to the history of Momusu and the talent and hard work of the current members this show can’t be beaten.

Anyway, credits:

And relevant for later…

Fun early on that will come back to annoy Twitter later.

There’s some really nice segments about the talent of their dancing, Oda’s singing styles (yes styles, different to fit each song) and about the Rock in Japan festival 2019. It really is a love letter to the current line-up.

There’s some lovely compliments paid to the members and some good points made. Such as that they have so many of their own songs to learn plus other H!P groups and how this gives them great flexibility in performance styles and a great way to learn and grow. I’m paraphrasing but it’s true they need to know all their own songs (even just the singles makes that a huge number) plus for summer/winter concerts often other groups songs too. The nicest thing here though is Kaori’s obvious love and pride for the group after watching the festival segment.

Honestly this is a feel-good show and moving on you have to respect Maria’s baseball love. She is a baseball wota for sure.

There’s some fun Panda stuff with Mei and mock indignation…

Ishibashi is then on a recorded video talking about the OG including some good-natured digs at Johnson, Yasuda and Yaguchi which they take correctly as affection…

And then the big surprise. He’s here…

This is a big deal. Just look at Rio’s face.

Seems like it wasn’t just a surprise to the members…

Ayumi is the first to get the Ishibashi treatment. I have to say the members get so little variety show work that they aren’t so used to it and Ayumi has to really lean on Kaori when she doesn’t get the baseball reference. Her look of total confusion is quite funny.

There’s a quite nice bit with Kaede…

It turns out Ishibashi’s stylist worked with Momusu and gave him Kaede’s history of being in the sushi for years.

And then there is a long segment looking back at the old Utaban appearances (I have to say, Ai-chan had such nice hair back then? Often these days she reminds me of Chika in Love Live Sunshine. It always looks unwashed. Still love her though. Not her clothes style but the less said…).

It is interesting seeing how much Yasuda loved all the fun that was poked at her. Can you imagine that kind of treatment today? Twitter would explode with rage.

And then onto the 30 second clip of Twitdignation…Eripon’s spell…

So…Yasuda talks about being the victim of teasing and loving it. Ishibashi talks about how it helped the less obvious members stand out and suggests the current Momusu need to think about such things. Erina then says she wants to stand out so she casts a spell on him (after some chat between Nakai and Ishibashi about the spell mentioned earlier). Eripon does the over the top idol style spell cast and Ishibashi reacts…

This clip was all over Twitter when it happened, but just the few seconds of Ishibashi. None of the build up, none of the context. My Twitter feed exploded. Nobody seemed to mention that she had asked for something, nobody mentioned the spell. Whether you like the humour or not there was a context. It didn’t just come from nowhere. One of the funniest tweets I read was someone saying you could see the OG, especially the ones with kids, were not laughing and that’s why they cut away. Filter things through your own beliefs and you can believe anything. The camera is covering two groups of idols and ex-idols, one presenter and one guest so it goes from shot to shot a lot but you still see enough to gage some things. Yaguchi is laughing hardest of all. Also when they cut to Eripon (23 then) you can see Maria laughing hard. Reina looks like she is wiping away a tear at one point, or just rubbing her eye. Well I’ll filter it through the lens of my mind and say she was crying with laughter. There. It’s a fact now. Actually I have no idea.

There still plenty of show left including a really sweet ending. Most of the rest of the show is another highlights package from the ghost of Utaban past. The only negative about all of this is Reina joined at a time when Utaban appearances were winding down. They only showed one clip of hers and that was one where it was partly about Kaori. I don’t think Reina herself actually spoke in the studio at all. Well Ai-chan didn’t get much to say but at least her tettekette bit was quite long.

The ending of the show is a current Momusu medley. Again Kaori is crying in the background. You can see how proud she is of the members and the group she was such a big part of for the formative years. Ishibashi’s Utakata Saturday Night dance is funny too.

And then surprise time for the OG…

At the end the OG perform Renai Revolution 21 which is a bit difficult for Aya as she had left the group by the time it was released so struggles a little to follow. It was a fun way to end things though and I have to say this show, although it did the old clips thing it had a good enough balance. The Platinum era suffered from the OG always being there for their Utaban appearances and most of the shows would cover the old clips. This show gave the new members some coverage at the start and the medley at the end. Truthfully I’d have liked maybe another 10 minutes giving to them but even so there are some really nice moments for them. There are several talking head moments with people praising their skill levels, they get to fool around with both Nakai and later Ishibashi and there is so much love toward the current group in the show you can’t help come away with a feeling of pride in them. They might not get the variety show appearances so much these days but the future of the group is in safe hands. Oh and the past was awesome!