Ganbarimasu

Long time no see all, no surprise school has been keeping me more than busy. And with the way I blog, that would take way too much time out of my routine schedule, so no insightful posts. Tonight is an exception, assuming that I can finish the draft before I get sleepy or have to do something.

While sitting on the bus traveling back to the shore, I was being contemplative.  Have no idea why, but it tends to happen when I look outside windows in the dark while moving. Auto vehicles do that.

So what pray tell have I been contemplating about? I’ve been thinking about the word “がんばる”. For non-Japanese readers that word is “ganbaru”.

Never Forget

“Retcon”, it’s a word in my list of favorite words to use for no real reason. Though, when I say no real reason, I am usually (there are rare instances) using the word correctly. Actually I have a lot of words that I love using when there are simpler words that could’ve done the trick. But I digress.

Retroactive Continuity. The word, “retcon” is a portmanteau of retroactive continuity which simply means to alter established facts on purpose. Usually it is to clean up existing continuity or to correct for happenings that would cause a review of previous established continuity. Retconning as far as I know only applies to fictional works. I suppose for non-fiction works retconning would just be erasing or altering history. But retconning sounds SO much cooler than erasing history. Maybe we can make a new word … erastory, altestory? Nah, that doesn’t have a good ring to it.

So if you’ve gotten this far I will now proceed to the meat of the day. What I want to talk about today is: retconning in Hello! Project. You see the other day when the horses started neighing, thunder was striking all over the place, goldfishes around the world were swimming in figure eights, and pandas started walking into bars and shooting patrons and abruptly leaving before they paid their bills… So the other day, I was looking at this picture. And that’s when I decided I wanted to talk about retconning in Hello! Project.

An Unprecedented Development

Today is unprecedented. That’s how I feel about today. I woke up around 5:30am because it was really hot. I had started getting summer sickness just the other day and was intentionally trying to heat myself to oblivion so I my body could take care of the rest. Well indeed it woke me up from a good sleep. After going to the bathroom and getting rehydrated I decided to check the tweets that had accumulated since around 12:30am. The cyan light of the trackball stopped as I unlocked the screen to my N1. I activated Twidroyd and was surprised to see …

I was surprised to see that the most recent tweet wasn’t the last one I made. I was under the assumption that Twidroyd would start me at the last tweet I had seen so I could progress throughout the day and not have conversation/news lag. Rather the first thing I read was:

“@SQKIsiggy I’m waiting for announcement of 9th gen audition or eggs being added in momusu.”

That was square in the middle of the screen (I tend to look at the center first). At first I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Mind you I’m barely awake and still adjusting to artificial lighting. The reply on Twitter had nothing to do with the previous thing I was talking about with my friend, which was commission on ticket sales. So then I scroll down to get back to my previous tweet to start the catch up. Here’s a sample of what comes up along the way in no particular order. Also note, I’m assuming that these are all in reaction to the development, if they weren’t I apologize for misquoting you.

“so are we taking bets on when c-ute will be disbanded? =)”
”Well at least we still have Aika”
”LOL.”
”Can anyone remember when good stuff happened with Morning Musume?”
”OH SHIT GRADUATIONS”
“Yo Pandas and Eri, I’m sad and I’mma let you graduate, but let me just say that KagoTsuji had the best graduation of ALL TIME”

and the one that presumably set everything off, courtesy of Hello! Online.

“Tsunku announced @ today’s H!P con & on his blog that Kamei, Jun and Lin are graduating. There will be a 9th gen audition.”

I would like to note that the next time Morning Musume goes to some expo in some foreign country, we best brace ourselves. America = Koharu, France and Shanghai = Kamei, JunJun and LinLin. Do I smell a conspiracy? Also, notice the date of the announcement, 8/8. The Chinese like to use 88 to say bye. Coincidence?

*Please remember that all non-facts here are my opinions and should be treated as opinions.*