How (or more importantly, why) to be overly obsessed with H!P (pt. 1)…
We’ve all heard the comments.
“So you like little Asian girls now. I see.”
“What are you, gay?”
“Dude, you’re a @#$%ing pedophile!”
I always get some version of one of the above when I attempt to discuss H!P with non-wotas. It’s either confusion, a question of my sexuality, or abject disapproval and accusation of pedophilia. Pretty tough critique, really, since I’m neither gay nor predisposed to be sexually aroused by children. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised though considering the cultural identity of my country. But, if not the above then what? What is it that I like about these little girls so much that allows me to open my mind enough to appreciate music that I’ve shunned until now or drives me to scour the internet for footage of television appearances and interviews or <gasps> Saturday morning children’s programs.
Well, for me, the answer turns out to be much more complex than I imagined. It tells a long and intricate tale informed by a concept called “moe“, my own personal history and childhood, my interest in the linguistic character of the Japanese language, and more. I guess we should go back to my first encounter with H!P and a guy named Mat Swadling.
When I first started studying Japanese language and culture I was obviously most interested in things like Samurai and Ninja and Yakuza (still am, really). These are the introductory images of Japan that every westerner who is interested in the land of the rising sun finds so fascinating and intriguing (and indeed they are!). I would do all the typical things you would expect a person studying Japan to do: I watched a lot of Akira Kurosawa, read the Book of Five Rings, and even took Ninjutsu for a spell (shout out to sensei Corey Froelich). I ate sushi every week and went to the Japanese market in my area all the while reading through Japanese for Busy People and saving up for a trip to Tokyo.
At some point I began taking my linguistic pursuit more seriously and discovered that it would be beneficial to me to study children’s material and thus I found NHK and the myriad of programs available to help Japanese kids strengthen their English language skills. I realized how helpful it was to hear Japanese explanation of English and so I embarked on a little search for videos or audio of Japanese English teaching programs. My search found something called “Ayaka’s Surprise English Lessons” （「あやかの突撃英会話」） translated by a guy named Mat Swadling. Here’s the first one I saw:
Hahahaha! Oh, that Aibon! 僕も可愛いさに負けたね。
Needless to say, this video fascinated me. Who are these people? Who is this super hottie Ayaka and her zany, uber-genki little friend? Why is she being quizzed? Why is this little girl so crazy? Thus, my friends, began a long and continuing relationship with the works of Mat Swadling and Morning Musume (particularly Aibon).
I went on to watch every episode of “Ayaka’s Surprise English Lessons,” starting with the Aibon episodes. Then it was a quick jump to discovering Yaguchi-san and thus Mini-Moni and Tsuji-chan. I started to understand what I was really dealing with here and did more study on Morning Musume and ultimately Hello!Project. I started collecting data on all the different members and eventually found Hello!Morning and Utaban, the shows that would provide the most information on all the characters’ histories and specific traits. I learned that Iida “Johnson” Kaori could channel aliens and that Abe Natsumi often spoke to her hand and referred to it as “okaa-san.” I also learned that Nakazawa Yuko is really an oni. Then I found some fantastic supplementary shows like Mecha-Ike and HeyHeyHey, which of course spiraled me into the world of owarai combi. It’s a snowball effect, you see?
While this gives an indication of how I got into H!P, it still doesn’t quite explain the why part. Why was I so fascinated by Aibon’s hysterical daffiness or Yaguchi’s small but strong gutsy attitude? Well, this will be the content of part 2 of this post.
Tags: aibon, ayaka, hello project, japanese idol, Japanese language, moe
