The Kouhaku Uta Gassen is NHK network’s big New Year’s Eve music show, now in it’s 59th iteration. You can read more about the show on Wikipedia. Being on the show is considered an important milestone in the career of a singer, as traditionally, the show has a very wide audience. Morning Musume has performed on the show ever since their debut, with last year’s appearance being their 10th.
Today, the list of this year’s participants was announced, and Morning Musume wasn’t a part of it. Fellow Hello!Project acts C-ute & Berryz Koubou, who have appeared on Kouhaku in the past, were also absent from the list. Many things could have factored in to why Morning Musume wasn’t chosen, but their decreasing popularity is probably one reason. Fellow idols AKB48, who appeared on the show last year, were also ignored.
The sole H!P representation will be from Satoda Mai, whose group Pabo will be performing as a part of the (predominantly male) White team.
Here are the participating acts:
Red TeamRed team host: Nakama Yukie
aiko (7)
Thelma Aoyama (Debut)
Junko Akimoto (Debut)
Ayaka (3)
Angela Aki (3)
Ikimono Gakari (Debut)
Sayuri Ishikawa (31)
Ai Otsuka (5)
Miyuki Kawanaka (21)
GIRL NEXT DOOR (Debut)
Kumi Koda (4)
Natsuko Godai (15)
Sachiko Kobayashi (30)
Fuyumi Sakamoto (20)
SPEED (4)
Yoshimi Tendo (13)
Mika Nakashima (7)
Mitsuko Nakamura (13)
Ayumi Hamasaki (10)
Perfume (Debut)
Yo Hitoto (5)
Ayaka Hirahara (5)
Ayako Fuji (16)
Fujioka Fujimaki and Nozomi Ohashi (Debut)
Kaori Mizumori (6)
Akiko Wada (32)
The #’s on the side mean how many times they performed at Kouhaku. Well this is a bummer! The last time they performed with C-ute and Berryz Koubou was amazing! I wonder is this is becoming a bad sign. But AKB48 didn’t even make it so thats ok. lol.
I serioulsy laughed my head off. There is like 3 skits performed and then at the end it talks about Koharu’s debut. Out of the 3 skits though im not sure which one is my fave. I laughed the most with the Mikitty & Goto Maki skit though. So I hope you enjoy.
Abe Natsumi will be releasing her latest concert which was the Abe Natsumi Concert Tour 2008 Autumn ~Angelic~ tour. It will be released on 2009-01-28. I really want to see this, Nacchi is AMAZING!
THE Possible will also be releasing there 2008 Aki – Sexy Generation – tour. It will be released on 2009-01-30. So ya Nice Girl Project is basically going to be a H!P. It’s sorta small right now, but I hope there will be that time where they’re the biggest group in Japan like how Morning Musume was. But NGP still has to go against MM BK and C-ute. I wish them luck.
Mano Erina stated in her blog that she is working on her 3rd indies single!! She said that she won’t say the title yet but….we already know lol. La La La So So So will be the title but the release date is still unknown. Mano Erina will also be in a new dorama called 4 Sisters ~Dasenai Tegami. I think Mano Erina will soon become one of my fave H!P stars. I think it would be awesome if she is the next Ayaya, but Aya’s voice is to amazing to beat.
Ya. So this is called Ice Cream Musume? ya. Sorta kinda WEIRD. but i’ll get used to it. This is the group of girls who won the New Star Auditons. I heard they are making their debut at the 2009 Winter Concert. The guy in the middle is Country Musume’s old producer. I hope if he’s their producer he’ll make some awesome songs like Uwaki no Honey Pie & Shining Itoshiki Anata.
Gosh, these have to be the best artist photos i’ve ever seen!! They all look amazing. Linlin is gorgeous!! Risa, stop getting old!!! lol . So yep. They look incredible!
