Restarting the Old Rusty Engine
(For the 2nd Time too)


Click here to read more



Monday, April 23, 2007

Before There Was Morning Musume - Tokyo Performance Doll

Multi-membership. Graduations. Sub-units. Happy-poppy songs. Outrageous costumes. Dances with smiles. Energetic performances.

These are the things that are trademark to Morning Musume. But who started it all? In actuality, Morning Musume was not the original multi-member girl-group type of idols, and certainly the things that they do aren't new either.



During my researching for the article about the relationship between UFG Chairman Yamazaki Naoki and Tsunku, I came across this group that was supposedly Tsunku's initial motivation to become producer for Morning Musume. This group is called "Tokyo Performance Doll" ~ 東京パフォーマンスドール.



Tokyo Performance Doll or TPD for short was formed on April 1990, with Epic-Sony Records. It started out with 3 member unit called "Golbies" as core members, where the remaining future members of TPD will develop on. An interesting trivia is that the unit name "Golbies" was named after then Soviet Union's leader Mikhail Gorbachev nickname "Gorby", with intention of bringing about a "music revolution" within the entertainment industry. TPD's producer was Nakamura Ryouji.

The initial concept for TPD was "girls-next-door idols", but as the concept switched to "pro dancers" it gave them a neo-Takarazuka outlook, TPD's popularity soared to greater heights and attracted many more fans. TPD had since disbanded in 1996 but it became one of the many idol and musical influences to future entertainment acts. I find that Morning Musume is similar to TPD's style and concept in various ways.



Group Building
TPD's method of choosing a few core members, then building the group around them by recruiting more members was a new technique at that time and was copied by other entertainer producers. Among them was Okinawa Actor's School from which many popular acts were born, such as Super Monkeys (Amuro Namie and MAX), SPEED, D&D, Folder5, Y'z Factory etc. And of course, Hello! Project's Morning Musume.

Morning Musume started of with but 5 members, but the leads were mostly given to Fukuda Asuka and Abe Natsumi, while the others (Nakazawa Yuuko, Ishiguro Aya and Iida Kaori) provide the seconds and harmonies. With Fukuda's graduation, the main vocal was mainly Abe Natsumi even though the 2nd generation members were recruited, as noted in "Summer Night Town" and "Furusato". When the heat ran out, another ace was required, so in comes Goto Maki for "Love Machine". The entire Momusu act was built around the "aces" and "leads" as core members.


Sub-Units and shuffle units
When you have a big group with many members to play with, you can't resist shuffling them up to create new musical products. TPD had 8 sub-units where the core members and the "backing members" were shuffled together. Among them - Golbies, UL-SAYS, ViVA... etc. Hello! Project have many of these sub-units like Tanpopo and Pucchi Moni. And also the now defunct summer shuffle units. One interesting info is that one of the TPD sub-units is called "TWO TOPS". Sound familiar? Yup, that's the nickname that Okamura Takashi of manzai duo Ninety-Nine, gave to "unofficial duo group" of Mechaike Okajo Girls School series -> Tsuji Nozomi and Kago Ai.


Trainees
One element that sets TPD apart from other entertainment groups is the use of "trainees". Additional members that would join TPD were scouted and trained. These young hopefuls were normally used as back-dancers for TPD on live shows during their internship and training. After a period of observation and evaluation, gradually they would be included into official groups. A "newcomer's performance" was held in Harajuku Ruido 1 to 2 times per year where the trainees performed songs from the TPD official groups.

Again, sound familiar? Why, it's the Hello! Project Eggs of course. These young talents were in the Hello! Project grooming stables for some time now, and were normally used as back-dancers for Hello! Project concerts. The H!P Eggs are now preparing for their first "Newcomer's Concert" in May, where they will perform song from Hello! Project official acts.
Joining them are Jyun Jyun and Rin Rin(an H!P Egg herself), two Chinese girls added into Morning Musume as "exchange students"... or should we say "trainees" of sorts.



Conclusion
Seems like Tokyo Performance Doll's "music revolution" movement had influenced Hello! Project in more ways than one. From the looks of it, Hello! Project is now returning to its roots and the original reason why Tsunku accepted the role of producer and main songwriter for Hello! Project works in the first place. It would be a matter of time till the Summer Shuffle Units are brought back.... I think. ^_^

Through the many marketing strategies employed by UFA, this girl-group concept was brought to a higher level, and appealed to the fans more than TPD could have done. From my personal view, if TPD was a "revolution", then Hello! Project has expanded the concept through "evolution".


Thanks for reading. (^_^)/




Additional Info: Other 'Performance Dolls'
Following with the success of Tokyo Performance Doll, there were other 'Performance Dolls' that try to imitate their path. For example, four Chinese girls formed Shanghai Performance Dolls (SPD) and Yoshimoto Kogyo Co. Ltd produced a sister group to TPD called Osaka Performance Dolls (OPD). It is with OPD that an indirect connection between TPD and Hello! Project was created. Because the one of the founding members of OPD later became a member of Hello! Project group 'Taiyo and Ciscomoon'(later renamed to T&C Bomber) -> Inaba Atsuko. Inaba is currently Hello! Project chorus singer, MC, and dance choreographer.


And now, here are some of the videos of Tokyo Performance Doll in action.



"Catch" (1992)



Pocky Girls? No... it's Pretz Girls. They're both Glico products though.



... from the single "Hokago wa itsumo party" 放課後はいつもパーティ (1992)



Ex-member Miho Yonemitsu's solo single in 1998 - "Orenji" (Orange)



Wikipedia entry of Tokyo Performance Doll
"from IDOL POPS" entry of Tokyo Performance Doll
List of Youtube videos of Tokyo Performance Doll
Wikipedia entry of Osaka Performance Doll




Footnote:
In an upcoming post, I will discuss about yet another all-girl performing group that has been an influence to Hello! Project works, and is certainly one that I regard as the mother of all girl groups - the 52-member Onyanko Club. I had wanted to combine them with this post, but it felt like a little more research was deemed necessary before it gets published.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was interesting. I'd never heard of TPD before. But I have one complaint: it's a pet peeve of mine that so many people think that Asuka and/or Natsume and/or Yuuko were the "leads" of the original 5 MM. (Sources seem to vary which 2 or 3 of them were the "leads".) Its not true. The number of solo lines was divided pretty evenly among the original 5. Somewhere on the net (I can't find it anymore) there was a color-coded chart or set of charts that totalled up the solo lines of all the girls in every song (or at least every single). When I saw it, it confirmed that they were all really pretty equal in solo lines.

Anonymous said...

After watching the videos:

TPD was a pretty good group. I'd have been a fan. Any idea why they didn't just continue graduating old and adding new members to the present day? Did the records just not sell?

The costumes are simpler than MMs and it doesn't look like any of them go in for dyed hair or elaborate hair-dos.

Their faces are not as beautiful as the faces of MM, but they are better dances, on the average, then the MM girls. Only about 5 or 6 past and present MoMusu could dance as well as these girls.

Mick a.k.a. jinryuichi said...

Thanks for the comment, Rikki. Actually, that's exactly what I am going to discuss about on my next post - about who is the lead in Momusu from Ai no Tane till now. :) I'd love to read your input once i publish it.

In response to your opinion..... and a little preview from my next writing ^_^ -->
The way I look at who is the "lead" is not only through the number of solo lines given. There are other factors, like who takes the main melody, dance position/formation, length of solo line, camera appeal time... etc.

For example, in the early singles, Nacchi and Asukacchi mostly took the main melody while the others provide harmonies. (But not all the time)

It will be great if you can find that color-coded chart you mentioned, to supplement more facts to the article. I'll credit you for it. ^_^

Mick a.k.a. jinryuichi said...

On TPD, ditto to what you said. They're good, I woulda been a fan too.

Why they disbanded I don't know for sure. The Japanese Wiki just said that they "dissolved naturally". Probably due lack of follow-up after the graduation of the founding members.

Anonymous said...

As I was reading the article about TPD I immediately thought of Onyanko Club. Then I saw you mentioned it at the end of the article. I recently purchased a 4 disc set of their music. I love it. Have yet to get or see videos of them. If you want info on them and other 80's Japanese music check this site.

http://www.idollica.com/onyanko/OnyankoClub.html

Be warned the website owner hates musume and modern Jpop. Very one eyed. But it does give useful information.
As for me I'm interested in looking at TPD.
Cheers Graham.

Mick a.k.a. jinryuichi said...

Yeah, I know that site. I first found about it way back when I was searching for info about Noriko Sakai. But thanks anyway. ^_^

The webmaster have strong beliefs on his love for 80's idols, especially Onyanko Club.
But who could blame him, we're all just as passionate to our own preferences as well. ^_^

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.