Mano Erina- Genkimono de Ikou!

Recently, on the Upfrontchannel (the YouTube for Hello!Project related videos) the PV to Mano Erina's newest single (or at least one of the PVs...?), Genkimono de Ikou!, came out.



I actually really like the song. In my opinion, Mano Erina's two last singles (Haru no Arashi and Onegai Dakara) were actually pretty boring songs. The only reason I really watched the Haru no Arashi PV was to see my favorite H!P Egg (Sekine Azusa) get SOME semblance of spotlight. In Onegai Dakara I really didn't like ManoEri's voice (when she sings the high notes of "Onegai dakara" I can barely stand to listen). However, this is a really fun, catchy song that doesn't even sound like some of ManoEri's slower (and quite frankly a bit more boring) music. I saw a review of this call it just typical idol music, and I kind of agree. But unlike that reviewer, to me it's a positive thing. I LOVE positive/happy idol music. It's why I'm blogging about idols and not about other artists. This is probably one of my favorite ManoEri songs to date.

The PV is... I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I can tell a great deal of work, effort and money went into this. The PV has been talked about for some time because a fairly well-known film director actually directed it and it shows. The PV has an actual story and it's shot well. My main issue is that it doesn't really read like a normal PV, I guess. I mean, ManoEri's in it and has a fairly large-ish role (as the "Genkimono trainer"), but in both of the stories of the "Genkimono" (watching the PV it's the guy in red) ManoEri doesn't have the main focus and is kind of an after thought; like the story's about these people getting slapped around by the Genkimono.....but oh yeah, he needs a trainer... right? The PV isn't really ABOUT ManoEri or focusing on or featuring her, which is odd considering it's HER PV for HER song.

Honestly, though, I'm confused with UFA right now. Mano Erina's sales have been tanking hard from Otome no Inori, despite all kinds of exposure, press and publicity. Yet they give her an interesting song and a PV that obviously has a decent budget behind it, whereas Morning Musume gets a PV with pretty much zero budget like Seishun Collection to a fairly uninteresting song. My theory is that this is pretty much the last ditch effort to make ManoEri mainstream and interesting. They're throwing everything they have into it. The song would appeal to wota, I think, and the PV should appeal to more mainstream audiences. If this one sells worse than Onegai Dakara and continues her downwards trend, I have a feeling that UFA is going to put ManoEri on the back burner and put much less effort in promoting her.