{"id":1178,"date":"2015-06-28T20:37:53","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T02:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intlwota.com\/happydisco\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2015-06-28T20:37:53","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T02:37:53","slug":"a-week-with-momoiro-clover-z-day-4-becoming-momoiro-clover-z","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mescallado.com\/happydisco\/index.php\/2015\/06\/28\/a-week-with-momoiro-clover-z-day-4-becoming-momoiro-clover-z\/","title":{"rendered":"A Week with Momoiro Clover Z \u2013 Day 4 \u2013 Becoming Momoiro Clover Z"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>2011 was another big year; they released four fantastic singles (though Z Densetsu Owarinaki Kakumei and D&#8217; no Junjou were pretty basic as far as singles go) and they put out their first album, the stellar Battle and Romance. While I&#8217;ve reviewed Battle and Romance before so I won&#8217;t do that again (it&#8217;s a phenomenal album, though), the biggest things that happened this year were the graduation of Hayami Akari and the rebranding of Momoiro Clover to Momoiro Clover Z.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u3082\u3082\u3044\u308d\u30af\u30ed\u30fc\u30d0\u30fcZ\u300c\u306f\u3058\u3081\u3066\u306e\u3082\u3082\u30af\u30ed\u3000\u30c0\u30a4\u30b8\u30a7\u30b9\u30c8\u7248\u300d &quot;Momoclo for Beginners&quot; Abridged Ver.\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rZaleCVQ4Zk?start=476&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As a fairly early fan of MomoClo, the video where Akari talks about her plans for graduation honestly breaks my heart a little bit. While I&#8217;ve been a fan of Sasaki Ayaka from the start, I like all the members of Momoiro Clover a lot, so hearing Akari say that she doesn&#8217;t feel suited to be an idol hurts. She&#8217;s been relatively active post-MomoClo and has had a reasonably successful career, so I&#8217;ve been glad to see her doing well. Still, I just hope she&#8217;s been happy.<\/p>\n<p>The main thing that I think is interesting, though, is the rebranding from Momoiro Clover to Momoiro Clover Z. While Momoiro Clover gained traction as a group, Momoiro Clover Z is where they skyrocketed. So my question is &#8211; without this rebranding, would Momoiro Clover still be where it is today? It&#8217;s a really tough question. I want to say yes, but at the same time becoming Momoiro Clover Z is when they started to get more and more experimental and more out there with their music and presentation.<\/p>\n<p>I think it shows a great deal about how much Stardust focuses on the members, though; rather than continuing on without Akari, Momoiro Clover chose to change to Momoiro Clover Z, almost because there isn&#8217;t a Momoiro Clover without Hayami Akari. And while Battle and Romance features Z versions of all the songs (so you don&#8217;t get the Akari versions of Ikuze, Pinky Johns and Mirai Bowl) I think it&#8217;s a lovely way to show how the group valued Akari. Momoiro Clover Z doesn&#8217;t shy away from remembering Akari (their first Kouhaku Uta Gassen performance included Akari in the chant for Ikuze! Kaitou Shoujo).<\/p>\n<p>The rebranding did, however, allow them to adopt a more super sentai image (rather than the lingering traditional Japan image) which I think suits their current music and style. Even when their current music doesn&#8217;t focus on sentai heroics, it still fits MomoClo Z as a group.<\/p>\n<p>Even though I was unsure of the rebranding at the time, and kind of went back and forth as to whether I even liked &#8220;Momoiro Clover Z&#8221; as a name, I think it&#8217;s served them really well and was ultimately a good call on management&#8217;s part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2011 was another big year; they released four fantastic singles (though Z Densetsu Owarinaki Kakumei and D&#8217; no Junjou were pretty basic as far as singles go) and they put out their first album, the stellar Battle and Romance. While &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mescallado.com\/happydisco\/index.php\/2015\/06\/28\/a-week-with-momoiro-clover-z-day-4-becoming-momoiro-clover-z\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-week-with-momoiro-clover-z","category-momoiro-clover"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mescallado.com\/happydisco\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mescallado.com\/happydisco\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mescallado.com\/happydisco\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mescallado.com\/happydisco\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mescallado.com\/happydisco\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mescallado.com\/happydisco\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mescallado.com\/happydisco\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mescallado.com\/happydisco\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mescallado.com\/happydisco\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}