Harajuku Gakuen’s Three Day One-Man Lives

Harajuku Gakuen, my current favorite idol group, has been busy lately.  Leader Aoyama Nanako and Amakawa Mio both released solo singles on September 23.  They’re really good songs too!  Then on October 3 to 5 the group performed three one-man lives with all six members - Nanako, Mio, Matsuda Karen, Akizuki Rio, Sato Momo and Takanashi Miku - for the final time.  This is because Karen will be leaving the group on November 3.

I’d first like to share the music videos for Nanako’s and Mio’s singles.  I need to let you all know about something before you watch Mio’s video, though.  YouTube has been auto dubbing select Japanese and Korean videos for a few months now.  What that means for most overseas fans is that you need to turn this feature off to properly hear the music.  If you don’t then you will hear an AI (artificial intelligence) voice that translates the lyrics while the music is muted.  You can turn this off in your channel’s settings.  Thankfully, Nanako’s video isn’t affected by this.  Here are the videos. 

Seeing Harajuku Gakuen perform all the songs that they knew before Karen’s send-off was a bittersweet experience.  In all, the group sang sixty-five songs over the course of three days!  It was announced by SPIRAL MUSIC that all the songs that they were performing would be original songs, which I guess is true.  I thought that meant Harajuku Gakuen were performing only the songs that were written for their group.  As it turned out, they performed songs written for other SPIRAL groups, including Negaigoto, Omatsuri Shoujyo, and Runup!!, as well.  The three concerts didn’t go off without a hitch, either.  On the first day Karen became ill and left the stage early.  On the second day Miku had a hair malfunction and Karen had one on the third day.  Despite the problems, I enjoyed watching the videos.  Sure, it would have been nice if everything went perfectly, but then again, when does that ever happen?  Here are the three concerts. 

I’m really going to miss Karen when she leaves.  I have become attached to all six members of this wonderful and underrated group.  They have some of the best, most exciting songs that I’ve heard.  Harajuku Gakuen may not be very well known, and they may never be extremely popular, but they sure hit the right spot when it comes to independent Japanese idol groups.  I hope you’ll think so too.

Once again, thank you for reading my blog.