{"id":41,"date":"2006-12-15T14:16:51","date_gmt":"2006-12-15T11:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/?p=41"},"modified":"2006-12-15T14:16:51","modified_gmt":"2006-12-15T11:16:51","slug":"all-i-want-for-christmas-is-sayu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/?p=41","title":{"rendered":"All I want for Christmas is Sayu"},"content":{"rendered":"

An apology goes out to Ray Mescallado<\/strong> of the excellent American Wota. The subject of this blog is certainly less than profound. Ray Mescallodo, as I\u2019m sure you know, goes through the painstaking task of reading and rating most of the notable jpop\/rock blogs currently out there. I can\u2019t say he\u2019d be too moved by a discussion on Sayu<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Prologue<\/strong><\/p>\n

University has all but finished for the year, the beer and wine flow more regularly and I\u2019m finding myself out of pocket more than usual. My brain has switched off and I\u2019m ready to get back home to friends and, well, drink more beer and wine finding myself out of pocket. Am I making excuses for writing a blog solely on Sayu? Yes I am. However, Zush, headman of Kakko-ii.com is not only my \u2013boss\u2019 I consider him a good friend. I always strive to write good blogs for him, even if they won\u2019t change the world. I think it\u2019s safe to say\u00a0none have.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Who likes Sayu?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I absolutely hated this girl when I first saw her. My god, she was so sweet it was sickly. She was certainly Kawaii in every sense of the word but to the point of annoying. I understand why she played it up, after all, if you want to stand out in Morning Musume<\/strong> you better have something interesting to say. She rarely did in my opinion. Many love her; I was once in a situation with four crazy super sayu lovin\u2019 bastards, this being before my marriage to Kakko-ii.com. This being a forum that never held back. I admired those four plucky members for having the guts to say how they really felt, but a lot of it was beyond perversion. Oh sweet lord no, the things they did to Sayu in their minds. My stay at that forum (not named for good reason) was short and not so sweet.<\/p>\n

She certainly has fans then, many drawn to her undeniable cuteness. I could never see why though. Like I said, it seemed over played and over reacted. At the same time, when she wasn\u2019t putting on the show and allowed herself to settle into the background she rarely seemed happy. There were no boundless smiles, no puppy eyes, just a surprising amount of restraint. What was going on in her mind? I don\u2019t know. But I found this more interesting then her catalogue of trademark poses.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Being Ordinary<\/strong><\/p>\n

At present, Sayu is slowly growing on me. I can say \u201cI like her\u201d which I find interesting and a little scary, a bit like my old gym teacher \u2013\u00a0who was\u00a0old, sexist, surprisingly funny with a workout regime that left onlookers wondering if we were the gay parade. I don\u2019t know what he thought a workout was, but, I had trouble running in the manor he suggested. I\u2019m not even sure his methods would\u2019ve made the grade in clown school. But respect your elders\u2019 right? Even if they\u2019ve been hitting the crazy pills.<\/p>\n

Sayumi Michishige. There\u2019s a name I could never pronounce in full and little has changed \u201cMich-i-shige?\u201d I\u2019m sure its simple phonetics but I never wanted to know. I\u2019ll make a note to self \u201clearn Sayu\u2019s full name\u201d though I\u2019m sure any one of you could easily coach me, or simply point, laugh and hey, I\u2019d be right beside you doing the same.<\/p>\n

In all respects of the media, Sayu has calmed the adorable beat within. I\u2019m seeing a more subtle side to her which for me, goes a lot better with her sweetness. It sounds odd but being a little more ordinary has made her more intriguing. Sayu still fits the colour pink with ease of course, Rika-chan<\/strong> would be happy. The big difference for me, it\u2019s bearable now. Maybe Sayu\u2019s given up her quest to rule the world, I\u2019m pretty sure she could get anything she desired by just being \u2013Charmy\u2019. It\u2019s probably simpler, less speculative and less crazy than that though.<\/p>\n

A more grounded and settled Sayumi Michishige seems to have taken root in Morning Musume. I\u2019m glad. She\u2019s learnt that trying to act Kawaii can be down right narcissistic. Being herself is more than enough for a girl who\u2019s made the word Kawaii her own. Sayu will still exaggerate, I think it\u2019s a reflex action to be honest, but I\u2019m enjoying the moments where she\u2019s just cute instead of acting it.<\/p>\n

You know what though? When you learn to like this girl you\u2019ll go a long with anything she says (I still think she could rule the world). I\u2019m relaxing my annoyance at seeing her over play things. Who knows? Maybe one day I\u2019ll actually, can I say it? Like her pantomime cuteness \u2013 I\u2019m running out of alternative words for \u201ccute\u201d as you can tell.<\/p>\n

The age thing has never bothered me either. There\u2019s only a three year gap between us so morally, it\u2019s something acceptable to announce in public. Plus, as long as you\u2019re comfortable with yourself and know that you\u2019d never do anything wrong by these Idols (those 4 member\u2019s comments on that forum still haunt me) then it\u2019s all fine. H!P have one or two younger groups nowadays, and fans that stay on from past years will be a few good years older, give or take. I\u2019m sure there are millions of crushes harboured around the globe for them to, some less pure and innocent than others sadly. But that\u2019s not my problem, it\u2019s theirs. Plus, if any of the H!P girls needed a knight in shining armour to save them from the hordes of sadistic fans, it gives me something to do.<\/p>\n

About the title \u201cAll I want for Christmas is Sayu\u201d. That would be silly, a man in my position with massive student debt. Santa knows its money I need, but as Santa knows, he died quite a while ago. So if there\u2019s a fat man going around your rooftops on Christmas Eve, its not milk and cookies you should be putting out by the fireplace. It\u2019s funny, when my little cousin asks me about Santa Claus I dare not dispel his idea of Christmas \u201cHe\u2019s real\u201d I say, and he was. But I think I\u2019ll leave it to his class mates to drop the bombshell. I can\u2019t bring myself to say \u201cHe was real, but there were no elves and flying slays, oh and if history is correct, he\u2019d be very dead by now, either that or very wrinkly\u201d.<\/p>\n

Of course, when Christmas day arrives and one of the presents I happen to unwrap is in fact Sayu, I wouldn\u2019t complain. If she started singing however, then I\u2019d be hoping she came with a receipt. Seriously though, she has gotten vocally stronger after all that \u2013voice coaching\u2019 but how well can you craft a voice that has no raw potential in the first place? Still, she is getting better and I applaud her for the effort she\u2019s put in, keep at it is what I say.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Making Sayu aborable<\/strong><\/p>\n

As H!P would have it, and I\u2019m sure there were no complaints from Sayu either, wrapping her up in an aesthetic matching her personality was always going to be a given. There have been wardrobe choices which have left me, rather baffled at times. I remember watching one concert and thinking \u201carh ok, shes gone for the porcelian doll look\u201d. Connote the ass off implied meanings all you want, the answer will always give the same resolve \u2013Cute\u2019 \u2013 I need a thesaurus badly.<\/p>\n

When you stargaze at the facts, is there really anything wrong with this? Not really. Sadly the world isn\u2019t as honest as we\u2019d like. It\u2019s easy to be suspicious about a person or persons. Am I too overcritical of H!P\u2019s fan base? Yes. It\u2019s easy to forget about the good fans (there\u2019s something very Neanderthal when using the term \u2013good\u2019 in this context) because of the dreaded fanboy. Unfortunately \u2013fan service\u2019 comes to mind when I think of the whole \u2013adorable\u2019 image. If you take everything for what it is then, I see no problems. But the imposition, reputation and myth of the fanboy has badly tainted an otherwise perfectly fine principle of being a cute (stop using this word) idol in the Jpop industry. Saying fan service feels so taboo, and what we symbolise with the meaning, maybe it should stay taboo. It\u2019s a shame because Sayu fits the mould so well, but my human conscience tells me there are some pretty scary shadows out there who have less than innocent intentions. I shouldn\u2019t need to feel guilty is what I\u2019m trying to say. Yet I think it\u2019s an understandable worry to carry around. Enough with the politics, I\u2019ve covered H!P\u2019s fan base before and this is about Sayu \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n

A Future Sayu<\/strong><\/p>\n

Who knows what the future holds for Sayumi Michishige? I\u2019d imagine her development as a personality will mature with age. I can see her treading the same footsteps as Rika Ishikawa in many ways, though calling them similar in all aspects of character would be misguided and misjudged. It\u2019s a good thing I\u2019m warming to Sayu then, as I can\u2019t see her being out of Morning Musume for a long time. She still continues to act Kawaii a lot of the time rather than just be Kawaii which bugs me to no end. But I\u2019m definitely warming to her as she begins playing around with the concept of being one\u2019s self. I can just about handle an \u2013Usa-chan peace\u2019 from her, oh hell, who am I kidding? I actually find it endearing now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An apology goes out to Ray Mescallado of the excellent American Wota. The subject of this blog is certainly less than profound. Ray Mescallodo, as I\u2019m...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mm-hello-project","category-wu-sans-mix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kakko-ii.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}