Entry #1: Koharu Kusumi

Working backwards from the July 15th Wikipedia births list the first person I am exploring is quite easy for me: Koharu Kusumi from the schoolgirl style J-pop group Morning Musume (Morning Princess) and now in the group Dream Morning Musume a group formed from ex-Morning Musume members now that they are women not girls.

Morning Musume is one of the group that epitomises what most people default to in their thoughts of Japanese music: lots of school girls jumping about singing quite high pitched and singing about love, happy times and boys.

I had not come across Dream Morning Musume before but seeing how popular the original band and it's individuals are/were in Japan it makes good marketing sense. A few of the girls have aged well with their voices, some sound the same, some even sound as if they now have futures in enka or anime voice artist worlds.

Here is the comedy song "Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari" in which the girls, introduced by the game-show-host-sounding man, sing about themselves and slander the other girls whilst defending themselves from the others repostes. Subtitled video

Other than being 10 years younger than me, it seems Koharu-san likes volleyball and blogging, so we have those two in common if nothing else. Currently in Japan other than signing she is an anime voice actress and advertises food and health products in various commercials.

Here she is playing the nee-san or older sister to a cute little japanese sprog. The product being a fluffy white crustless bread.