Talk:℃-ute/@comment-181.209.246.186-20160624071149/@comment-46.5.63.28-20160629100536

Hey. I will summarize what I think of Berryz, C-ute and Hello! Pro Kids in total, step by step.

'''The story of Hello! Pro Kids'''

H! Pro Kids started with an audition of over 27.000 applicants - 15 girls were chosen. First they planned to rotate the members of one group "Berryz Koubou". But later they dropped this idea and created instead a second group +added an egg, Kanna.

So C-ute used to be in a big delay and had many drawbacks. They released a bunch of Indies while Berryz got it all - and Berryz improved rly quick. Everybody thought they´ll put Momusu. in shame if they continue this way.

C-ute started to look more and more like the secondary group... like ... oh yeah... the other kids over there... you know... who weren´t chosen immediately for Berryz, straggler.

Both groups get their seperated identities and traits

While both had their different kind of concepts, this is how it was over the years:

Berryz concepts and general story from then to now:

Berryz started as the cool kids with their 1st single.

Then had typical kid-like songs... Piriri to Ikou and Fighting... something nobody liked. They weren´t seen as Idols at the beginning due to their young age and didn´t sell to well back in the days... so ... fighting something stayed their worst selling single for obvious reasons.

Then these kids started to be taken seriously with singing about love and things they for sure didn´t yet understand and created HITS rly, cool berryz and romantic berryz worked great.

Starting with the cover song Dschinghis Khan it got more crazy and DK as being not a double A-Side and still selling this amazingly well is for me definitely the obviously best selling. It didn´t need another song. Or promo. It made Berryz popular. They were breaking out and at the high of their career.

Followed by the Monkey Dance and all kind of Inazuma Eleven Songs, the cool and mostly less romantic but crazy Berryz who were all rly different worked great.

But after Inazuma Eleven... they had no clue what to do with Berryz... obviously... they tried to be sexy (lmao, Berryz and sexy) with Ai no Dangan... cutesy in a cool way with "be genki nazeba naru" ... Heroine ni naru ka was just... a weird way of being cool, compared with Dakishimete Dakishimete for example... and then they were hitting and missing rly hard in a clusterf.... of all previous Singles over and over again until the very end.

They all seemed to get less and less energetic and especially during Golden China Town something seemed to be obviously wrong and they didn´t care anymore, it was getting worse with time, Maasa gained more weight than ever before, Risako was getting even shier and everybody else who performed their songs seemed to be much better in comparison. Even in older concerts they were in better sync all the way - expression, dance and singing-wise with almost no mistakes back in the days and now full of mistakes and boredom, a big mess ... first I thought it was the age... but no... they even told us by themselves that around Golden China Town when C-ute in a total was rising and getting Budoukan they thought "what about us?" and in the end decided to disband.. oh I mean being temporary in hiatus. Yurina tried here and there and Momoko as Momochi tried rly hard to promote the group, Japanese loved her created character... she got the most groundless hate from westerners for this. I think she rly saved the group with this and carried a lot onto her shoulders desperate of Miyabis and Risakos declining popularity at that point. Not a fan of Momochi but rly respect her - I was expecting her to continue and was not the only one, so she did. Actually you rly can´t blame them... nothing changed for them... they stayed in the same line-up likely for the longest teneture of Hello! Project. Everybody said they like Miyabi... but in general they were rather hanging out with C-ute members according to their blogs and had a so-so relationship. When I watched their last concert (live-stream) my bf was just asking me what I was watching and laughed immediately when he saw them on stage, saying "They all look like they rly want to be somewhere else". ...when I thought they were doing better than in the past few years before... so it was rly obvious for quite a lot of people, also at YT (reacting channels) and on several forums people mentioned it.

C-utes history and concept in comparison:

C-ute´s concept was always rather steadily.. fairly cute at the beginning, bland and quieter but with more sex-appeal in general over their whole career. With rising age they were going more and more into the sexy direction and got less bland, still being also into cute things (kokoro no sakebi etc.). Finding a great balance. Rising in popularity with rising age and sexappeal and getting more and more powerful songs. Unlike everything sexy that Berryz tried (with exception of ROCK Erotic) it works pretty well for them, they aren´t to different, they could pull of their emotions better and looked like they actually enjoyed themselves.

In comparison with Berryz, C-ute seems to have a more bonded relationship. They lost a lot of members over the years and still, on their first Budoukan all 3 ex-members posted somewhere that they´ve all been together again after such a long time. It got more and more obvious that they all were still in contact (Kanna and Erika postet a bunch of stuff together before all of this, but still it wasn´t clear if they were still close to C-ute unlike Maiha who left Berryz rly early). They grew from the underrated secondary group to a super-group, praised everywhere, controlling the emotions of their fans at concerts, getting better at dancing altogether - raising in sales and getting stronger together - total opposite of Berryz.

The sales, MV quality etc. :

Obviously... UFP is cheap. They put a lot of money into their new groups, but when something is getting stable and stagnating (Momusu often and Juice=Juice recently, Berryz in general) they don´t feel the need to put more effort into the MV - it sells anyway.

With C-ute, they are still not sure how far they can get in sales, they won´t be in Hello! Project forever, there is not much time left and the increasement came pretty late and is still here and there happening - so they´re keeping their push and great MV quality, just can get better not worse, even if it´s stagnating. Even Berryz last which was somewhat cheap sold better than everything before that, ofc, it´s their last single. C-ute´s last single will likely be a feast for UFP and they totally know it.

Berryz sales increased always in the early days, shortly before Inazuma Eleven time highly and was stable at this point until this route ended (they likely had some more money for all Anime PVs as it seems probably they had a deal with some of these agencies and thus anyway more money for all of this). At this point there is also the chance that they tried to increase the sales - didn´t happen. Then they didn´t know what to do but as soon as they figured out what makes the sales a bit higher again they kept it all mostly quite cheap.

An exception is obviously ROCK erotic.

Why did ROCK Erotic work unlike everything else of Berryz that tried to be sexy? - Because they splittet the girls in "guys" and "girls" and this was probably one of their greatest decisions ever in the last years of Berryz Koubou. It was creative, addicting and just in general wowing, unexpected and well balanced, not too boring at all.

Their last single was the most boring and cheap s.... I´ve ever seen in the whole time BK existed. They knew it would sell well. Why investing in a group that is already over? Just make some emotional shots and it will work well... the only cool thing I can remember was these triangle-postpone-face shots and how boring everything else was, super bad. Yet best selling ofc.

The lesson is clear: 

C-ute started as the secondary Kids group.

Berryz as the young underrated kids that were growing into the coolest thing ever.

C-ute was always about these concepts: cute, love, bland/plain things, sex-appeal (rising with age).

Berryz went from Cool to childish over to cool/romantic - cool/crazy - cluster of concepts cause they didn´t know anymore what to do with this group.

While C-ute fighted to get at least some recognition and had a hard time losing one after another member, still being in contact with them... growing together in hard times.

Berryz popularity raised strongly, but they were getting bored of eachother, they haven´t contact to Maiha anymore....

everything was stagnating.... Hello! Project didn´t do so well in general until One - Two -Three...

...until C-ute released their Kimi wa ji.... blah train song.

...and Berryz didn´t know what to do since Inazuma Eleven ended. They were trying a lot... but didn´t grow at all as a group... were they already at their career high? Seems to be the case. It was the beginning of THE ENDING.

C-ute increased, got more and more powerful, it was amazing. Their fight finally made sense. They just STARTED their career at this point, it turned all well for them and they inproved possibly more than they ever did in every aspect, while Berryz turned into a mess, vocally, visually, dance-like.

As for many other Hello! Project cases... the first shall be the last is absolutely the case here. Out of everybody who joined around this time, MM 6th gen, Berryz and C-ute... C-ute was the winner in the end and Berryz the loser. Sayu and Reina a good middle, having a hard career start and a pretty ending - who would´ve thought something would outsell Shabondama after such a long time? - Not UFP for sure, whatever they did in the absence between the previous single and Pyoko Pyoko saved the whole Agency... Berryz with a quite good start, a high and a sad ending - and C-ute with a poor start and amazing outcome.

But what should Berryz have done? I totally understand what happened just pushed them away... They couldn´t just make a new group and add more members like S/Mileage. - Ok yes. They could, but remember that the Kids were something special and many wota didn´t accept  Kanna since she was "not a real kid" either. So this would´ve made more complaints than doing good to them. Their group climate wasn´t optimal and their wota... excuse me... are just rly amazingly delusional and mean. Srsly after they announced their leave suddenly at every event everything was full of wota more than ever before just to see them (oh yeah how unexpected - if you´d have followed them more properly it would´ve been just obvious and you all didn´t feel the selfish need to just see them once again because you didn´t so and thought they´d exist forever in your unrealistic mind...) - and still they didn´t manage to sell like ... "last - single - push - in - sales - 7 people - the whole - group - needs - 100.000 copies" -like as expected. It´s like the opposite of K-Pops T-ara where they added members when no members were needed and the whole career was done afterwards.