Cuca's 1. 2. 3. I'm not even going to pretend like I'm not fangirling

Before it gets into it I'm going to make something clear. Cuca is dancing the full dance while singing averse to doing the lead singer-arm-wave-gesture thing. Further she decided to sing the entire song averse to going back and forth like the girls do. If you don't believe that's hard; please look up the song Wannabe by the Spice Girls and do a step half kick back and forth while singing every line. It's really deceptive how little you get to breathe sometimes.

Is it the most amazing performance ever in the world? No. No it is not; she's a raw talent at the age of 10. It is worthy of being noted? I honestly think it is. She hits notes that Riho needs to still be robo'd into until the end after dancing and singing everyone's line despite the fact that...well, Riho and Reina don't dance while they're singing. Singers usually do modified half moves in order to prevent the sort of thing that her voice does towards the end. Let's not mince words; this is a ten year old who in between school and life has memorized a dance from a dance shot video which came out 6 days ago. There's no downplaying talent here with a straight face. You can say you personally don't like Cuca but you can't say she doesn't have the talent or dedication to get into this group.

She's no where near as clean as Ayumi is who both is an incredibly gifted dancer and actually went to a dance school. Is she good enough to have blended in with everyone despite this being her training method?



I think so. And I think if she wants to get into MoMusu the video above was the most valuable video ever released.

There's NOTHING Japan loves more than a hardworker whether the person is naturally gifted or not. As North Korea is to childlike innocence (...I don't really get it but, sure, whatever's your thing North Korea) so too is Japan to talented people working hard. It's, so I'm told, one of the big appeals of most of 5th generation; you have these incredibly hard working girls that put 110% into being idols regardless of their talent level. Takahashi never coasted and it wasn't a mistake when the company released videos of her practicing and training by herself to show that hardworking girl image that seems to be nigh irresistible.

Eri went over as Eric Kamezo early with her short cut there was this video that happened to show her working hard.


We as people like seeing people grow and work and learn - I dare say that's a good 90% of the appeal to Morning Musume to me sometimes: I feel like a proud aunt as I watch Riho and Kanon and Fukumura and Ayumi and all of the girls develop into full idols. I feel like somehow I contributed to Sayu and Reina becoming the people they are today with my support. It's that sort of stewardship feeling the fans have to the members that the Hello!Project is very careful to cultivate... and it's for that reason that despite what people may think, I think Cuca has a shot.

A lot of the common knowledge says that the company won't take girls who've already performed (Ayumi/Riho) or who were signed onto other things (Niigaki/Ogawa/Masaki/Haruna), or who are very talented or strong at the beginning (Maki/Aibon/Ogawa/Reina/Riho/Ayumi) or even refuses people who had a web presence beforehand (Junjun). But part of me wonders how much of that is really true and how much of that is really just fan-sour-grapes at not seeing our favorites. Tsunku loves his project girls we say derisively sometimes but... Do we really wish that he'd never picked Nono? Never picked Konno or Sayu? Aika's generation hit us rough because so many of the girls went on to other stuff but... isn't it better to have girls who are 100% Musume... not just idol-wannabes-who-happen-to-be-in-Morning-Musume?

(This isn't to say they can't like other groups. That's silly. I just want the girls to be Musume in the end, not idols who happened to have been in the Musume. Reina could have gotten in another group certainly - she had the talent and got far despite having sort of broken the age rules. She came back the second year to try again. )

Cuca LOVES Morning Musume. That's pretty apparent to anyone and I think that counts for a lot. It's not just her talent or her skill that is something I look forward to seeing. It's that I have a particular place in my heart when it really feels like people are achieving their big dreams and that's not a story we have right now. Certainly the girls we have dreamed of idoldom. Certainly Fukumura and Kuduu love the Hello!Project and Morning Musume... but there's something about someone who came from just memorizing every move on TV from being an itty-bitty one, someone who had their grandmother make costumes for them and practiced the moves by her laptop just because she loved the group so much... that's a story right there.

And the idol world loves someone with a good story.