You bastards.

You waited until the last possible moment, when Biyuuden is disbanded and two out of three members will likely never be seen again. For years, you’ve been dressing them in tinsel and tulle, mixing cowboy hats and bunny ears with taffeta and rhinestones, sparing them the ruffles only when they’re in lingerie, and now you let them get in front of a camera in actual clothing. You didn’t even dye their hair unnatural shades and staple bows to their heads!

Or is this why they seem happy to break up? Quick! Someone get word to Aya, before she gets eaten by tribbles!

[again]

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Apparently the competition was just too fierce in the adoring-little-sister cafe market, so Nagomi has gotten tough: it’s now a tsundere cafe.

(once the pretty-girl commercial is over, skip to about the 50-second mark)

[Update: added amusing machine translation of the lyrics, along with commentary]

Okay, so a link to a link to a link to a Youtube video got me started on this, and now I have six videos of the song セーラー服を脱がさないで.

Apparently, it all started back in 1985, when someone formed the idol group おニャン子クラブ (literally “kitten club”). The title of their debut single was “Please don’t strip off my sailor suit” (school uniform, that is), and their first album included songs like “Teacher, stop that!” and “Oh, no! Molester”. They lasted long enough to grow to over 50 members, and inspire future generations, including Morning Musume.

Videos and lyrics below the fold.

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It’s cute that you like Morning Musume so much that you want to sing and dance like them in public, but may I offer you a bit of cautionary advice?

1. Your performance was uploaded to Youtube with the title "Shock! 10-year-old lolita in a sailor suit". You may not understand why this is a problem, but you should make sure you've got a trustworthy adult with you when you go out singing.
2. Please, however much you admire Morning Musume and wish to emulate them, ignore their fashion sense. You'll thank me later.

[Her role models perform the song here]

The first two generations of Morning Musume, frolicking happily on the beach after making a movie about fighting back against stalkers. My, that’s a young Mari.

[Update: Oh, my, I’ve never seen this one before. It’s a short clip of a more recent edition of the group singing a song called “please don’t strip off my sailor suit”.]

Someone with a stronger stomach than I has taken on the task of documenting the worst abuses of the Hello!Project costume designers.

I give up. You have destroyed my will to live. I know this, because the first thing I objected to in this picture was the boots.

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You’ve left Hello!Project behind. You’ve got a new manager, a contract with a real record label, and tens of thousands of fans had idolgasms just seeing cellphone camera pictures of your recent training trip to LA. You’re positioned to take over the world.

Could you at least pick up a decent dress on the way to the show?

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