Momusu creator Tsunku♂: ‘I’m kind of touched’

Morning Musume’s historic July 3 concert at the Los Angeles Convention Center was more than just a performance – it was a seamless merging of two cultures, revealing a side of composer/producer Tsunku♂ seldom seen in public, and never in the West.

 

In short, Tsunku♂ is a class act, a tremendously friendly and giving person who clearly stretched himself and his flagship ensemble, Morning Musume, to their limits in this cross-Pacific venture. But the payoff was fantasic – for fans, for gracious host Anime Expo 2009 and hopefully for Morning Musume, Hello! Project and UFA.

 

So ... What makes Tsunku♂so special? More on that here:

 

http://bloggerparty.com/content/tsunku%E2%99%82-hello-project-greatness-upon-greatness

 

“It [the concert] was a 90-minute battle, but the Americans there received them [Morning Musume] perfectly,” Tsunku♂ writes in his blog, lovingly translated courtesy Hello! Project News Blog (that's also where these disarming insider snapshots came from as well). “The roughly 7,500 guests already knew the songs. So they were in perfect unison with the ‘fu fu’ and ‘wow wow’ parts of 'Love Machine.' ”

 

You can count my glowsticks as part of that. “Love Machine,” a monster hit in 1999 for Morning Musume, has never grown old as a song.

 

“Amazing,” Tsunku♂ wrote. “I’m kind of touched.” Well, we are, too, Tsunku♂. By you, your countless spectacular songs and your lovely, living works of animated art.

 

The time difference between Los Angeles and Tokyo was problematic for Tsunku♂, he said earlier, and the air quality made his throat dry.

 

But, overall, it looks as if Morning Musume’s excursion to the crazy land of the United States, Michael Jackson memorial and all, was a positive and exciting one for the ensemble.

 

May it be the first of many to come. Let the light shine, the light of Japanese idol music and the universal message of optimism, hope, peace, love and compassion it carries.

 

This is Rad♂ signing off – for now.