HelloProject :: Morning Musume & Aya Matsuura News

UFA staffs refused personnel from a number of western H!P fansites and blogs, include Hello!Online from interviewing Morning Musume at Anime Expo 2009 Press Junket.

UFA staffs refused personnel from a number of western H!P fansites and blogs, include Hello!Online from interviewing Morning Musume at Anime Expo 2009 Press Junket.

As many of you already know, Morning Musume appearing at Anime Expo 2009 is their premeire stage debut. Hello!Online being one of the major English Hello!Project fan community on the internet, would not miss this for the world.

Being a member of the press at AX (Anime Expo), we attended the Press Junket (A press only event which allow different media outlets to have one on one interviews with the AX Guests of Honors). We were overjoyed to have this once in a life time opportunity open up to us and we prepared a good number of question for Morning Musume that we think fans would be interesting in finding out the answers to. Seeing how important this meant, not only to us, but to all the western fans, we arrived early to ensure an interview with Morning Musume (We ended up being first in line).

After waiting three hours, the Press Junket organizers called our names but pulled us off to the side. To our surprise, they had bad news for us. We were then told that Morning Musume staff had looked over the interviewer sign up list and decided to refuse Hello!Online an interview with Morning Musume. This sudden revelation caught us completely off guard and dumbfounded. We pleaded with the Press Junket organizers to ask Morning Musume’s staff to reconsider their decision.

30 minute pass by and we were denied again. No explainations were ever given as to why Hello!Online was not allowed in. Needless to say, we left the Press Junket empty handed and disappointed.

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This unfortunate turn of event came as not only a shock, but an insult to Hello!Online and its members, and the western Hello!Project fandom we all embody.

The reason Morning Musume came all the way from Japan to LA is to break into the western world and improve their relationship with western fans. By preventing Hello!Online from the supposingly open opportunity for all press outlets, it is like slapping all western fans in the face and over-riding the efforts our nine beloved girls are giving.

We are not putting blame on anyone. The staff and organizers have been a great help and more than polite in this whole ordeal. And certainly, it was not up to Morning Musume to decide who gets to interview them.

I just can not comprehend why only we were denied without reason, while other western fansites and blogs were granted access.

I fully understand that UFA have all the rights to refuse anyone from interviewing their artist without giving any explaination. Personally, I have lost a great deal of (if not all) respect for UFA as a company.

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Updates

Paul from Hello!Blog, who also attended the Press Junket has reveiled that UFA refused interviewing opportunities for many fansites and blogs after rejecting Hello!Online.

Read more about it at: http://www.helloblog.co.uk/comment.php?commentID=476

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Hello! Project supremo and all-around enigma Tsunku♂ is in Los Angeles to take part in Anime Expo. To celebrate, we bring you a special look inside the inner workings of a madman’s mind in the form of his official blog entries covering his time in LA

Hello! Project supremo and all-around enigma Tsunku♂ is in Los Angeles to take part in Anime Expo. To celebrate, we bring you a special look inside the inner workings of a madman’s mind in the form of his official blog entries covering his time in LA. For now, he discusses his arrival, and his thoughts on day one of the con – more entries will be added as they’re posted. Enjoy!

2009-07-03
LA.

After 10 hours’ flying, I arrived safe in Los Angeles.

“The streets of LA”

I only got one meal on the plane. I was so tired, I slept through breakfast.

I thought I’d watch a bunch of movies, but I only saw one.

The seat and my ass didn’t get along, and now it’s hurting.

2009-07-03
Breakfast.

It was after 11 when I got to LA. By the time we drove to town, it was 12. Whew. I was starved. So we went straight to a Japanese restaurant. I wanted to eat a tonkatsu set, which I wouldn’t normally choose in Japan, so I ordered.

“The tonkatsu set I ate!”

“It was delicious pork!”

The rest of the staff had mixed udon an teriyaki chicken sets. Ginger fried pork sets.

“Mixed udon!”

“Teriyaki chicken!”

“Ginger fried pork set!”

Whew, the white rice was good. I wonder if they ship it in from Japan.

2009-07-03
Morning Musume.

Morning Musume are appearing at Anime Expo, so I’ve come to LA to supervise.

Today the members had a Q&A session, so they got to have a panel discussion with the American fans.

“The fans put their hands up to ask questions!”

It was just like with the Korean fans, everybody understood Japanese pretty well.

Amazing.

When the members were talking, the fans would react before the interpreter could speak.

2009-07-03
Cosplay.

So there were a lot of anime fans doing a lot of cosplay in the hall.

“A photo outside Anime Expo!”

“Anime Expo is full of cosplay!”

There was even a No Face.

“No Face”

“Naruto” is really popular. And Pokemon.

Also, Astro Boy and Gatchaman both really handsomely affected American animation.

“It sort of looks like Taisei in there…”

Morning Musume had a booth too, and it was really bustling!

“There was a Morning Musume sales corner too.”

“There were people everywhere!”

It’s still a weekday here, but the weekend starts tomorrow, so things are going to heat up. And it’s the American Independance Day, so the country is in a cheerful mood.

And I heard that there was a dance unit here that came from Japan. They like cosplay too, so they came all the way to LA just for this.

“They came all the way from Japan!”

That’s great.

More entries to come over the next few days. Stay tuned…

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