mnhuik

Happy birthday sweet Junjun, forever my favourite! Expat wota and expat idol, it could only be love at first sight... I miss you!

Well done you. I am happy to have contributed at least partially to your inspiration. After my brief stint, I have left the fanfic scene indefinitely, so it's good to have younger writers keeping the scene alive.

Well, it's not yet my anniversary of joining H!O, but I wanted to post anyway because today is the first anniversary of my idol fandom. It all began on the 2nd of January 2010 (it might have been early morning on the 3rd... it makes little difference) when I stumbled upon the My Boy PV on YouTube... a remix, to be precise. The funny thing is that I was watching something that had nothing to do with music, or girls, or Japan, yet the My Boy PV appeared among the related videos and caught my eye. I can only explain it with a bug in YouTube or (far more likely, if you ask me) a supernatural intervention by the Idol Goddesses.

Anyway, I quickly found the original PV and I watched it once. Twice. Three times. And again and again, during the following hours and days. Then I looked for other songs of that mysterious Buono! group, and began learning about Hello!Project and idol culture as a whole. Initially I tried to resist my interest towards those worryingly young girls, but I soon surrendered and admitted that I'd always been "idol fodder".

I discovered Hello!Online and joined, at first just for the tracker, ignoring the forum. Soon after I began reading all the posts of two blogs that would become seminal in my wota apprenticeship: Wotaku Now! and the now sadly inactive Omame.co.uk.

The news that Morning Musume would come to Paris finally pushed me to write my first post in the forum, and to make arrangements for seeing my idols live for the first time. The trip to Paris was epic, and culminated in seeing MoMusu, and in particular my all-time favourite Junjun, up close in very unusual circumstances. I also met many fellow wotas and forged long-lasting friendships. Well, they lasted up to now anyway.
During the endless queues at Japan Expo I also wrote the first pages of what ended up being (shameless promotion) my only multi-shot fanfic on H!O.

Barely a month had passed from those epic days when the news of the JunLinEri graduation hit me really hard. I had discovered Hello!Project just weeks after Koharu's graduation, so I had been spared the pain up to then... but it was another chapter of my wota initiation that had to happen sooner or later: knowing that your favourite would soon be gone.

Then, in autumn, came my first trip to Japan, to meet again some of the great people I had met in Paris, and get to know some new ones. During my time there I managed to be at a C-ute musical (twice), a S/mileage concert, a TakaGaki theatre show (first row!), a handshake event with Momo for the release of her new photobook and an AKB48 Team A performance (first row again!). That's right, my love for idols goes across companies.

And today, one year after that little YouTube miracle, new life is injected into MoMusu with four new members. Another cycle begins. Like last year, whatever happens will be nothing short of awesome.

Thanks for reading this far, and happy idol worshipping to you all!

Also, any ideas on how to comment? I'd love to, but it seems like you need an account to do so, am I right? Any helpful tips or tricks?

I think her current blog allows for anonymous comments:

• Go to the post you want to comment by clicking on its title and scroll down to the bottom of the page.
• Click the 匿名评论 (anonymous comments) checkbox on the right-hand side.
• Enter your message.
• The 昵 称 (nickname) field is automatically filled.
• Click in the 验证码 (code) field below the nickname one, and enter the numeric code that will appear.
• Click the red button to send the comment.

That's it. These instructions were figured out with an automatic translator, so please don't be mad at me if I got them wrong... any correction/confirmation by Chinese speakers is welcome!

It's nice that Junjun's parents came to watch the final concert! To have come all the way from China, I'm sure Junjun must have been happy to see them! Even though they didn't
understand the grad. speeches they still cried

I think she grew up to be the Junjun we all know and love also thanks to her wonderful, supporting parents. It's good to know they'll be there for her during this delicate phase of her life.