Friday, February 20, 2009

Maeda Yuki's 9th single "Kenchana ~Daijoubu~"

The PV for "Kenchana ~Daijoubu~" has been released on Dohhh UP! This single will be released in CD and audio cassette formats on February 25.



Link to video on Dohhh UP!

From reading the forums on Hello! Online I gather that "kenchana" is a word with a similar meaning to "daijoubu" (in English it's something like "I'm all right"). The B-side also apparently has a Korean theme as it's called "Seoul no Ame" (rain in Seoul).

I can't tell if the PV is actually taking place in Korea as I know very little of Korean architecture. It doesn't help that, according to Wikipedia, many traditional Korean buildings were replaced with Japanese-style ones during the first half of the 20th century. The only other clues would be in the signs, which are all in Chinese characters. Like the Japanese, the Koreans adopted the Chinese writing system before developing their own, and during the Japanese occupation hangul (the Korean writing system) became all but outlawed.

But really, I doubt that UFA shelled out the money to cross Nihonkai for the filming of this PV.

The song itself is nice for an enka (or possibly teuroteu?) track. Maeda Yuki has a beautiful voice, but I am really not the target audience for this type of music.

I liked her outfits (she had three, which is more than we've seen in a Hello! Project PV since "Meguru Koi no Kisetsu" if I recall correctly), but none of them were as pretty as her bi-ploar-kimono-inspired one from "Ai Ai Daiko."

If singing is what makes her happy then I hope she continues to release music after she has graduated from Hello! Project. She still young though (turning 30 in August), so if she decides that enka isn't really her life's calling she has plenty of time to find something that is.

1 comment:

  1. Kenchana is Korean for 'fine' as in "I'm fine' or "it's okay/good" depending on context. In hangeul it's written as 괜찮아, and pronounced more like "kwaen-chan-ah". Hope that helps.

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