Not Nine Smile's photosets though. These are Morning Musume's 2010 calender photosets.
According to some fans, yesterday, while the announcement for Koharu to graduate was being made, Eri had teary eyes. Guess it must be really painful for the 5th and 6th generation since Koharu is their 1st junior to go especially for Sayu, who was Koharu's educator. Lets leave that for now and move on to the concert itself.
So, yesterday the fans got to watch "Kimagure Princess" performance for the very first time. "Kimagure Princess" lead vocalists are indeed Aichan and Eri. In fact, during the song performance, Eri was dancing and singing right in the centre. Watching Eri stand in the centre, a fan was so happy that he cried. Other fans wrote on their blogs that they are glad that Eri's hard work had paid off. As for the expressions for the song, as usual, our little turtle melted the fans' hearts with her adult-like expressions.
As for the return of "Haru Beautiful Everyday", moved by the performance, the fan cried again. After not having to hear Eri sing "Suki yo" (I love you), a fan was totally satisfied with the performance. The costume for "Haru Beautiful Everyday" is said to be very cute. I'm looking forward to the pictures!
Moving on to "Aruiteru", for the 1st half of it, Sayu performed the song alone. The members were to joined her halfway through the performance. However, our little turtle messed up her timing and went on stage when it wasn't even her turn ^^; Eri then returned to the backstage as though nothing had happened but obviously lots of fans saw it (Quite a number reported on this incident). Hees, looks like all 6th generation has a timing problem eh? If only this was included in the DVD...ah, but that's impossible. It sounds really funny though, from the way the fans reported about the matter.
"Sakura Mankai" was performed too and the group consists of mainly the 3 Sakura Gumi members (Takahashi Ai, Niigaki Risa and Kamei Eri) with the addition of Aika and Linlin. A vocally strong group. Eri had a very sexy expression when singing and fans were totally blown away. I personally like the returns of Sakura Gumi and Otome Gumi in Morning Musume concerts. It has been sometime since the last time the two groups' songs were performed in a Morning Musume concert. If you're worried about Otome Gumi because they seem vocally weak, fan reports said that their performance was very enjoyable, so stop worrying! (:
During the coupling/with songs medley, Eri certainly got hyped up and gave her best smile, as usual. Looks like we have got to look out for Eri's expressions. Lots of talk about her expressions this time round. I personally like this medley since I had never expected "Bonkyu! Bonkyu! BOMB Girl" to be performed again. Also, I love "Handmade City". Eri is awesome in that song and Gaki-san's outstanding vocals can be heard clearly in it (Re-watch Morning Musume Concert Tour 2007 Autumn to get what I mean).
Here's one more happening. Somewhere during "Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari" performance, Eri messed up her dance choreography. Eri fans who had their eyes fixed on her caught that moment. Eri gave an embarrassed smile after that mistake. Seems like Eri must have been very nervous for the first concert. It isn't like her to make so many mistakes. But heh, since the mistakes she made sound as adorable as Eri (lol), its of course forgiven!
That's about it for concert. Another thing would be that Eri's younger sister went to the concert yesterday. The fan who saw Eri's sister had met her in concerts several times. He had a short conversation with her about Tomodachi Collection yesterday (Refer to this translation to know what about the Tomodachi Collection). Apparently Eri's little sister is still crazy over the game.
Here's my short personal review after listening to Eri's microphone recording for yesterday's "Kimagure Princess" performance. Her first line, "Samishii otome kokoro wo" was very sweet and sounded like an otome (Young lady) indeed. I love the change between her "Kuchibiru" and "wa~" for the "Wagamama de iijanai kuchiburi wa~". Frankly, I didn't expect them to sing the chipmunk lines live. I thought they would just lip-sync for those lines but surprisingly, the girls sang them live and did pretty well. For Eri, her chipmunk line is the 1st line of the 2nd verse, "Kimagure bijin wa nayameru ohime, yoru naka ni nattara shikushikushiteru jan~" Again, I like the switch between "Shiteru" and "jan~". My favourite is still "Ii janai" of course. Eri's vibrato for that line is fantastic. Another favourite moment would be the way Eri sang the "ni~~" for the "Utsukushiku kagayaki na hoshi no you ni" line. Overall, I'll give Eri a 8/10. Still lots of room for improvement, but she certainly proved that she was ready to take up more lines all this while. Personally, I don't really pay much attention to the quantity of lines. Quality of lines matter more but...with more lines, Eri gets more opportunities to display her ability...so I guess it matters after all ^^; Oh yes, I'm giving her 5 stars for the 2 adorable pants she gave after the performance ended. She sounded so cute when panting! (Okay, everything she does is cute to me) We don't hear her panting often, so its a rare moment :P
I'll translate the concert MCs later if I get the time too. Enjoy yourselves, people!
