Nouciel

My favorites (2024 edition):

MM:
1. Haga Akane
2. Ishida Ayumi
3. Yokoyama Reina

4. Rio Sakurai

Angerme:
1. Kawamura Ayano
2. Ise Reira
3. Sasaki Rikako

Juice=Juice:
1. Danbara Ruru

2. Uemura Akari

3. Matsunaga Riai

Tsubaki:
1. Akiyama Mao
2. Fukuda Marine

3. Niinuma Kisora

B4Z:
1. Ichioka Reina
2. Shimakura Rika
3. Kobayashi Honoka

Ocha Norma

1. Nakayama Natsume

2. Yonemura Kirara

3. Hiromoto Ruri
 

Here we are again, huh? Since I read this thread I've been considering what to post, because I don't want to fall into the same trap that many people here do and post the same statements slightly reworded 2,680 times. "Hey everyone, it's July 10, 2008 and yes I do still in fact only like Golden Era Morning Musume!"

The problem with these threads is that the only people posting are people who already agree to some extent. It becomes a unanimous wail of bitterness. While that might be great for some people's egos it doesn't lend itself to any kind of balanced discussion. I think there are many people all over this board who don't see any decline in quality and still enjoy current Morning Musume just as much as anyone in this thread enjoyed old school Morning Musume. Okay, so why don't they come defend their position? But why should they? If you're in the midst of enjoying something, I doubt most of you take the time out to go justify your opinion to complete strangers.

So, what we end up with is a mob of folks who don't particularly agree on when, why, or who caused it, but are all certain that the magic is gone.

I guess what I find most sad about these threads(Including the 2 year old "Future of Morning Musume" thread that begins with a picture of a sign with "Is this the end?" written on it) is that some of you don't seem to find ANY enjoyment anymore. It's all anger and and resentment and finger pointing. I've seen this happen a lot when an obsession stops providing the same high that it used to, and I admit even I've felt that way before, and I guess the only advice I can give is to say, "Just move on."

Some guys that lose their fandom feel superior lol Like, "I got over that already"
That annoys me. It doesn't annoy me that they stop being a fan one day. That's normal... it happens. When you're a fan you feel it, and if one day you don't feel the same, it's okay. What annoys me is the attitude some people have REGARDING that.

For some reason, H!P is usually like a platform for many people lol
At first they're big fans of H!P but then they go to, I don't know... k-pop, AKB or something
It's like they learn and train themselves with H!P lol

I'm not trying to fuel the MM vs. AKB fire or anything, but after reading things like "Just ignore xxx. he is just trying to make forum members angry and forcing people to become AKB48 fans" just by them posting hard statistical facts, while in all truth poll results shouldn't effect your fandom of a specific group if you really like them... It's a little ridiculous.

People are in such denial about AKBs popularity and that they're "cheating" by have more members and doing handshake events and giving more fan-service and so on and so forth simply because they can't admit to themselves that it's okay to like a group that isn't very popular, or is growing less popular with time. MM has been sort of unpopular for many years now and has managed to make the charts almost purely because wotas are buying copies, even multiples, not the general public (not to say that non-wotas don't buy some, I'm talking about the majority of sales). The only exception to this would probably be their 40th single, which I think brought in a lot of nostalgic consumers who liked the song (it's a good song), but this was also coupled with some great marketing and promotion, so we can see that if MM is treated right, they can perform. Unfortunately, they aren't being treated right, and while this may seem pessimistic, I doubt they will start being treated right any time soon.

The heart of the matter is, AKB is more popular right now and they are selling a ridiculous amount of CDs (the only other groups off the top of my head that can manage 600K+ sales are Arashi and EXILE). Does that make them better? That's up to you. Personally, no matter how unpopular MM gets, how few they sell, how badly they're treated by management, how crappy their songs get (this song was pretty mediocre), I will like them anyway. Some people feel like they need to justify their reasons for liking MM by deluding themselves into thinking that MM is still a popular group but in truth, they're really not. Does that stop me from following them? Heck no. And it shouldn't stop anyone.

I honestly don't understand the distribution/lead thing. It's not like the girls write the songs that they sing, so it has absolutely no impact on whether or not I actually enjoy the experience of listening to a C-ute song. I don't listen to C-ute to hear the sound of Chisato's voice, and her being my favourite member has nothing to do with C-ute's music. So yeah, I think "fair" line distribution is overrated, and discussing it doesn't do a thing except take us around in a big circle.