Morning Musume – Fantasy! Juuichi (review)

(Normal and limited edition)

Fantasy! [Regular Edition]

Morning Musume

Artist: Morning Musume (モーニング娘。)
Title: Fantasy! Juuichi (Fantasy! 拾壱)
Release date: December 1, 2010
Editions: Normal, CD + DVD (Limited)
Oricon: 16 (Normal, Limited)

Track list:

1. 女と男のララバイゲーム（AL Ver.）

Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game (Women and Men’s Lullaby Game)

2. ブラボー！

Bravo!

3. Fantasyが始まる

Fantasy ga Hajimaru (Beginning of Fantasy)

4. 女心となんとやら

Onna Gokoro to Nan to Yara (A Girl’s Heart and All That)

5. 愛の炎

Ai no Honoo (Flames of Love)

6. I’m Lucky girl

7. すんごいマイバースディ

Sungoi My Birthday (Wonderful, My Birthday)

8. １から１０まで愛してほしい

1 Kara 10 Made Aishite Hoshii (I Want to Love from 1 Until 10)

9. 愛しく苦しいこの夜に

Itoshiku Kurushii Kono Yoru ni (This Dear, Painful Night)

10. 電話でね

Denwa de ne (On the Phone, Right?)

11. 青春コレクション

Seishun Collection (Youth Collection)

Ouch. I don’t think anyone was expecting miracles from this album, considering the way it appears to have been put together, but I don’t think people expected it to fare quite so poorly, either. Debuting at #16 on the weekly Oricon albums chart, selling just 10,554 copies in its first week, it can hardly be considered a success. It’s a good 1,500+ copies behind 10 MY ME’s first week sales and a whole seven places lower on the chart. It’s rather a shame… while it certainly won’t be considered a classic album in any way it isn’t terrible, especially considering how it came about, especially only roughly eight months after their last album.

1. Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game (AL Ver.)

Like Erina Mano’s recent album’s opening track, Fantasy! gets a slightly “remixed” version of a single to kick things off. Unfortunately, this was not a terribly good idea. The song has a new intro, consisting of strings, which just sound rather dull. The majority of the song remains the same after this, except for some guitar thrown in (why?) and some exceptionally long inserted silences in the middle of verses. I did not enjoy these. I’m glad I have the single so I don’t have to listen to it, to be honest. There was no reason to mess around with it. The original song was a step in the right direction, especially after all the slow and/or melancholy songs that MoMusu have been releasing since around last summer. I really don’t like the way the edits sound. They just seem to grind the song to a halt and it loses what flow it had.

2. Bravo!

This song seems awfully familiar, somehow. I don’t know if it’s because it shares a similar title to a Buono! song, or the fact that it sounds like it was written for Buono!… but it just doesn’t sound right. It’s definitely more rock than I’m accustomed to from MM. It almost sounds like one of the anime units’ songs. It’s very, very upbeat. I’m also starting to wonder if Tsunku doesn’t have a thing for certain words such as “arashi” and “bravo”. Stay on the look-out; there will be more. I’m sure of it.

3. Fantasy ga Hajimaru

This is one heck of a catchy song, and one of my favourites from the album. I wasn’t too sure about it at first, but after listening to it a few times it grew on me. It’s very dance, with VERY heavy vocal effects (far, far too many in my opinion… a few here and there help the song, but this is just overkill). Someone seems to have been having fun with an auto-tune. I quickly found myself nodding my head in time with the song… I don’t know the lyrics yet, it’s the best I can do for now. I had to do something!

4. Onna Gokoro to Nan to Yara

Be prepared for lots of guitar in this one. It’s rather a strange combination of cuteness and rock, heavily involving Eri and Risa, which on paper shouldn’t work but really isn’t bad at all. The song doesn’t really stand out much, but it’s not bad. Parts of the song even border on rap before abruptly veering back to the sugar, which somehow sounds quite good.

5. Ai no Honoo

This one does start out promisingly. The introduction is nice. Then Reina starts singing. Somehow it just doesn’t work. I don’t think Reina is really the right one for this song. There is also definitely overuse of echo (someone in the studio was having fun with the toys when recording this album, it seems) and although it sounds like it could be a good song it never really gets off the ground. I was waiting for some big punch to come out of nowhere and elevate the song, but it didn’t happen, which was disappointing.

6. I’m Lucky girl

Before I say anything else I want to note that I like this song. Rather a lot. While the backing music is a little strange to hear on a MoMusu song (it sounded to me something like Polyiscs or someone like that would do), but it works nicely. It’s yet another faster-paced dance song. If you can learn to overlook the title, and the fact that it sounds an awful lot like “Unlucky Girl”, you will probably enjoy this song. Extra credit for throwing in a couple of solo lines here and there for Sayumi and the Pandas. It was nice to hear them.

7. Sungoi My Birthday

Yet another song I really enjoyed. When I saw the title and heard the introduction I was bracing myself for a cake made of sugar, iced with sugar, topped with sugar and sprinkled with sugar, with some sugar on top. I was pleasantly surprised. Aika is alive! I admit, until this song I had totally forgotten she existed. There are also more solos for Sayumi and the pandas along with Aika (Linlin is great as usual; Junjun surprised me in a good way) and much less Ai and Reina than usual, which was a nice touch. It sounds to me almost like the song could have come straight from COVER YOU; it has a vaguely “classic” pop feel to it. I also love the “churururu”ing going on.

8. 1 Kara 10 Made Aishite Hoshii

This could well be the most boring song on the album. It sounds rather “kiddie” for the girls. I hear it more as a S/mileage song than a Morning Musume song. It just sounds like pure filler to buffer the track list leading towards the end. It isn’t a bad song; the problem is that it isn’t a good song, either. Obviously with the sheer lack of singles space was going to have to be filled somehow, so one track like this is alright. I’d let it play in the background but I wouldn’t choose to listen to it, and I wouldn’t go back to it.

9. Itoshiku Kurushii Kono Yoru ni

Another song I really like. This time, though, I really can’t explain what makes me like it so much. Eri’s voice sounds absolutely wonderful. I absolutely love the instrumental and, importantly, it’s a faster-paced, upbeat song without a tonne of cute dripped all over it. It just sounds good. Another thing to its credit is more use of Linlin. This song, out of all of the songs on this album, is the one that makes me most upset about losing Eri’s vocals and Linlin, who proves again what she could have done… had she been given a proper chance.

10. Denwa de ne

And we’re back onto another track I don’t like. I really, really don’t like this song at all. It’s just plain boring; there’s no way around it. It does nothing for Ai’s voice at all, and she just sounds like she has a bad cold throughout most of it. Perhaps she did. Either way, it doesn’t sound good at all.

11. Seishun Collection

The final song on the album, and the second of only two singles. It should be obvious what’s coming next… it’s boring. It’s fine for a little while but it isn’t memorable in the slightest. It makes very little impact, sounds far too generic and similar to recent singles, and has a relatively short shelf life. It’s also a return to the slower songs, a trend that started last year big time, which I’m getting really tired of. Nothing really stands out about it. It also doesn’t seem to fit on the album – whether it’s placement or theme I don’t know, but it didn’t feel right to me.

*

It’s really not a bad album at all. It’s far from their best, but it’s not a failure either. There are a few stand-out tracks in there that are really enjoyable. There is still too much Reina and Ai for my liking, but I know that people could scream about this until they were blue in the face and nothing would happen, especially with Eri leaving soon. I’m interested to see what role Aika plays on albums after the triple graduation, though it’s unfortunately likely that barely anything will change, or the new girl(s) will swoop in and get the lines. Another problem I had with parts of the album was the backing instrumentals… at times it felt like less of an album and more just a pure showcase of the instruments. It was almost as though the instruments were competing with the singer, to jam as many into one song as possible and to sound as flashy as possible. It’s too busy. My final note, a side-note, is on the covers. I really don’t like them. They don’t look good at all. This is, of course, a small thing, but I just don’t like to look at them. Reina actually kind of creeps me out… it’s the stare.

*

Taking into account just how quickly this appears to have been put together, especially less than a year since their last album, it’s almost an impressive effort. Of course, it could have done with more time to perfect, and some things feel like they’ve been grabbed from the cutting room floor behind the cupboards, but I’ve certainly heard much worse.

★★★☆☆