Crouching Idol, Smitten Gaijin

OCHA NORMA – “Koi no Crouching Start”

Debut singles always come with a bit of heightened anxiety, certainly for the group, but also for fans who have followed their journey from trainees to debut. Group members want the buzz and momentum of a strong debut to carry them forward, and fans want a return on their ground-floor emotional investment, not to mention a reason to double-down on it. As Up Front has a solid track record of launching H!P units with exciting new music that sets them up for immediate success within the fandom, it’s somewhat baffling to me that they chose a five-month old song as the lead track for OCHA NORMA’s first single.

“Koi no Crouching Start” began its life back in January as the opening theme for TV Tokyo’s H!P-centric drama Mayonaka ni Hello!, and it really should’ve been released digitally during the show’s run to capitalize on it while it was fresh. Sand-bagging the song for OCHA’s inaugural single seems penny wise and Yen foolish to me, because its familiarity saps a bit of fun from their debut, and that risks quelling the wota’s natural desire to go all-in on a new group from the jump. Instead, the effect is like a first date that goes well, but not quite as well as you’d hoped.

On the positive side, “Koi no Crouching Start” is a winner of a track, and it’s nice to finally have it complete and in hi-fi. Hoshibe Sho delivers another upbeat pop gem that, in typical Hoshibe fashion, offers a bit of the comfortable with a dash of the off-kilter. Verse melodies cribbed from the horn part of KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Celebration” ground listeners in the familiar, while the 3/4-time waltz version of the penultimate chorus is prime Hoshibe WTF?! Shunsuke Suzuki’s arrangement adds the requisite funky elements — horns, bass, wah-wah guitar and syncopated rhythms — to make it unmistakably H!P. Seriously, everything about this song says this is the HELLO!, motherfucker.

The video relies a bit more on the charity of debut excitement and heart-string visuals than I’d prefer, but it’s not in any way insulting, and the sole track-and-field setting is obviously suited to the song. Incorporating the door from Mayonaka ni Hello! is a nice, if equally obvious, touch. Overall, it feels like a debut, and since it is, I’ll be charitable. The by-product of such charity, however, is elevated expectations for the second track, “Omatsuri Debut da ze!,” and I suspect I’m not alone in that regard. The radio-rip has me properly pumped, because I’m an absolute junkie for H!P’s neo-traditional Japanese songs. The music for this one offers a bit more space to get creative with the video, I think, so UF would probably be wise to pay it backwards and deliver the goods.

Despite the minor buzz-chill, “Koi no Crouching Start” is a fantastic song that achieves its goal of presenting OCHA NORMA as a ready-for-prime-time posse that looks and sounds like a legit addition to H!P’s stable of idols, and if this gaijin is any gauge, that should be enough to keep most harowota sufficiently smitten to pay for the second date.