Hah i woudnt say love at first sight but for sure, ive been hard core rika fan since the begining. Which is kinda a long time ago. I first noticed mm while they just debuted, and on Heyx3 Matsumoto made asuka cry, but i generally ignore them. But who really stood out was Kaori. i didnt know her name at all but i happened to catch their first performance of tnapopo on that show, and she was so tall spacy and said the wierdest stuff. I didnt know japanese at the time but just her super serious face as they were obviously teasing her cracked me up. So i decided to check a bit more about this mm, manatsu no kousen (still a fav) was one of the first songs i caught, but then furusato came and ugh hearing nacchi warble live singing this song made me cringe. And then seeing them on 1998 kouhaku siniging daite hold on me, i thought god this group is HORRIBLE! So i knew about them but generally ignored them.
Then maki came on and LOVE MACHINE was a huge hit, and it was hard to ignore them, and hell that was such a catchy song. But after awhile i just kinda got out of mm and japanese music on the whole. Koi no dance site was kinda bleh and up to this point even though i found kaori the most hillarious was an ayappe fan so when she got knocked up and left i just ingored them again. But I mean i cacth their shows sometimes like pucchi moni, but i generally didnt know all their names or who they were.
I heard they got like 4 new members and I thought woah they are NUTS! And i saw when they first came out and I didnt pay much attention. ANd i saw some stuff like I WISH, and happy summer wedding, but again for me they were pretty under the radar. But then by chance I caught the Record Taisho awards for 2000 and I saw rika singing I WISH, and i thought wow who is that girl shes SUPER DARK (compared to the other girls at them time) and she was dancing really well, though she was in the side corner not really in the front she had alot of energy and I noticed her the whole way through. THen suddenly near te end of the song they did a close up of her and she flashed a huge smile and i thought "wow she has the best smile" For some reason im not sure but it was kinda refreshing? It really just made my smile unconciously.
So after that I looked through all my tapes (cuz sometimes id randomly tape heyx3) And found an otome no pasta ni kandou perf and i heard rika sing, i was like ouch! And i also saw some clips from when their first apperaed and they made fun of rikas voice, i couldnt belive her voice. And after that I went on the dancing love site (which i was kinda a member cuz i joined just to find out kaoris name, but i never posted any topics) and started participating more in the boards, and i even started downloading stuff. And generally got really into japanese music all over again.
So till now ive been a rika fan and will be till the very end. ANd even though i was a mm fan i honestly still didnt even make that big of an effort to learn their names or anything, i really was more of a rika fan than an mm fan. And there isnt really another member i could say i even like 1/100 that which i like rika.
Though alot of peopel hate rikas fake cute (including me) and there are tons of stuff about rika which are irritating. I like alot about her, her competitiveness, her unfailing ability to try her hardest, hoer profressionalism, and how she tries her best even when everyone says shes sucks at it, i also feel sorry for her failings, her obvious detachment from reality (a normal human being would be able to recognize when someone is irritated by your fake cute) and how she lives in a place where its encouraged. But ill always be a rika fan for now and forever because yeah she got me back into japanese music and into japanese stuff period, and its probaly changed alot about me.
Topic: Love at First Sight? (Favourite member stories) (Read 19564 times)