Factory Standards

Tsubaki Factory – “Yowasa ja nai yo, Koi wa”

There’s a reason I’m only now getting around to reviewing this song, a full two weeks from the day the video went live, and it’s not because life got in the way or I was taking a break from H!P. It’s because I didn’t have strong feelings one way or the other about the song or video. When we last left Tsubaki Factory, they were introducing a new song, a new video and a new image. “Adrenaline Dame” saw H!P’s most vulnerable girl group displaying an attitude and confidence that belied the softer image that had defined them to that point, which left many fans fearful that one of the major elements that attracted them to TF from the beginning might be gone for good. Those fears should be allayed a bit with “Yowasa ja nai yo, Koi wa,” because I can confidently say that this is one of the more TF-feeling non-album tracks since “Ima Nanji?” At the same time, it’s the least H!P-sounding song of any Hello! Project group since “Saijoukyuu Story” from their own 2nd STEP album. As with that song, the characteristic H!P 16-beat rhythm gives way to a more comfortably orthodox 8-beat feel, but unlike “Saijoukyuu Story,” “Yowasa ja nai yo, Koi wa” is maybe a touch too conventional for my tastes, at least for an H!P group. I’ve seen more than one person drop the name Nogizaki46 as a touchstone for this song, but my mind went immediately to ZONE based on the chorus. Still, a bit of the old TF vibe remains, albeit less vulnerable and more hopeful than before.

Curiously, “Yowasa ja nai yo, Koi wa” seems to confirm my theory that the agency is moving TF’s image away from Kiki Asakura and towards Yumeno Kishimoto. Despite this being exactly the sort of song you’d expect to be a Kiki feature — both as a singer and center — she gets a grand total of two solo lines while, once again, Kishimon dominates the center position. Saori Onoda and Mao Akiyama get a couple of center cameos, and all three of them get more solo lines than Kiki, as do Runo Yofu and Yuumi Kasai. I can’t think of another group who has relegated an established main center/vocalist to the pack the way Kiki has been on this single. I’m not sure what it means, if anything, but it is interesting.

The video is visually beautiful, but like Morning Musume ’22’s “Dai・Jinsei Never Been Better!” the acting feels kind of stiff in parts, although nowhere near to the cringe level of MM’s. The country-side outdoors location and no-frills/no-fx presentation is a nice break from the usual fx-enhanced in-studio production of most H!P videos, and the natural fashions feel like the girls styled themselves from scalp to soles.

All in all, “Yowasa ja nai yo, Koi wa” is a pleasant package of pop music and visuals — neither terrible nor terrific — that suits Tsubaki Factory well enough, but coming on the heels of the extraordinary “Adrenaline Dame,” it’s maybe a bit of a let down. In my mind it’s a classic won’t-skip-past-it-but-won’t-search-it-out throwaway kind of song, of which there are surprisingly few in TF’s catalog. With such a strong oeuvre, though, my standards for Tsubaki Factory are higher than “pleasant,” and for that the group has no one but themselves to blame.