Berryz Koubou (or sometimes BerryZ Koubou or Berryz Kobo) is the current Hello! Project kids group. It now consists of 7 members: Saki Shimizu (leader, 14), Momoko Tsugunaga (13), Chinami Tokunaga (13), Maasa Sudou (13), Miyabi Natsuyaki (13), Yurina Kumai (12), and Risako Sugaya (11). The former member is Maiha Ishimura (13), who “graduated”, left, in October 2005 to focus on her schoolwork.
Berryz Koubou (which translates to Berryz Workshop) was announced as the newest Hello! Project kids unit in early 2004. They were originally going to constantly rotate member of the Hello! Project kids into this unit, but this didn’t happen and the remaining Hello! Project kids formed their own group, °C-ute (although, °C-ute hasn’t released any singles).
Berryz Koubou is said to be Hello! Projects newest Morning Musume and will grow up very strong, vocally. So far, Berryz has released 9 singles, 2 albums, and a mini-album is coming in early December. This article will mainly focus on their singles, although a complete discography will be included. Sometime later, I’ll post articles on their albums!
Their first single, Anata Nashi de wa Sekite Yukenai, was released on March 3rd, 2004. It’s a very funky, cool hip-hop song with lots of interesting instruments and sounds. I personally love this song. I believe it’s made very well - if you’re wearing headphones and only listen to one side, it’s almost a totally different song. They really put different instruments on different channels and whatnot to make it a really fun musical experience. I’m not particularly fond of their voices, but I love their songs and I got used to their voices that I don’t mind much anymore. Plus, I’m around their same age (13!) so I don’t really feel there’s anything too special about their age.
Their second single, Fighting Pose wa Date Janai is a bit of a contrasting upbeat, cute, poppy song. It was released on April 28th of 2004. The girls singing definitely fit this style of singing and songs better. This song is filled with fun tons of cutesy
instruments, creepy man voices, and “woo!”ing. Pretty much the standard Hello! Project song, right? XD
Their third single, Piriri to Yukou is another very fun song. Released on May 26th of 2004, it has a big Okinawa style influence to it, with the various instruments and even Okinawa words and chants (and a very catchy chorus!). Even the choreography and outfits fit this fun Okinawa theme.
On July 7th, they released their first album, 1st Cho Berryz. The album contains 12 tracks, which includes their 3 singles, a remix of their first single, their version of the Hello! Project theme song, and 7 previously unreleased tracks.
August 25th of 2004 continued their busy year with the release of their 4th single, Happiness ~Koufuku Kangei~. This single is another very fun, energetic, upbeat, and fun song.
Their 5th and last single of 2004 was Koi no Jubaku, a nice vacation from the wholly poppy songs they had released previously. Koi no Jubaku is an upbeat “mysterious” song with a very good beat and percussion instruments. Koi no Jubaku does translate to “Love’s Curse” or “Love’s Spell” so the composition of the song does match very well with the lyrics and song title.
2005 was/is another great and busy year for them. Their 6th single, Special Generation, was released on March 30th. Special Generation is one of my personal favorites from Berryz Koubou. It’s an upbeat, catchy, yet DIFFERENT song of theirs. It has got a bit of the same mysterious feeling as Koi no Jubaku has, and yet it’s different. I don’t really know how to correctly descrbe this song, but it is excellent and you should listen to it for yourself.
On June 8th came another single, titled Nanchuu Koi wo Yatteru YOU KNOW?. This song is another odd song, which is a total trance/dance song. It striked me as really strange when I first heard it, but it soon grew onto me. I didn’t know how Berryz Koubou could pull off this style of song, but they managed to do it well. Sometimes, though, the background instruments drown their voices (which may or not be a good thing XD). But I really do like this song, another one of my personal favorites.
Berryz Koubou released their 8th single on August 3rd, titled 21 Ji Made no Cinderella. This song brings Berryz Koubou a little bit back to their earlier energetic poppy songs, although it still has a hint of the other songs. This is another really great song for Berryz, with its catchy verses and equally catchy choruses and “dere dere cinderella”s.
On November 16th, their second album, Dai 2 Seichouki came out. It contains 12 songs, including 5 singles and 7 other tracks.
Their 9th, and latest, single is titled Gag 100 Bun Aishite Kudasai and was released on November 23rd. I am constantly listening to this song, it’s plain awesome. I think it just might be my favorite Berryz Koubou song. This song has a really great upbeat, fun beat with very catchy lyrics and notes, especially when they do this “suki nan da, suki nan dakke?, suki ka kikasete” thing where the notes go higher and higher than lower and higher and yeah. It’s really awesome.
This song is also very exposed since it is the theme song for a highly anticipated movie called Pretty Cure Max Heart 2.
Their third release within 3 weeks time is another album, but it’s an “extended play CD”, titled Special! Best Mini ~2.5 Maime no Kare~. It’s much like a best album. It includes Gag 100 Kai Bun Aishite Kudasai, Special Generation, 21 Ji Made no Cinderella, Piriri to Yukou, Anata Nashi dewa Sekite Yukenai, and a new song titled Arigatou! Tomodachi.
Berryz Koubou really proves to be a great addition to the Hello! Project and is always releasing something. Throughout their under 2 year career (which is growing), they already have many releases under their belt, and at such young ages!
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