Ever since the arrival of DVDs on the video landscape, me and my friends have been scrambling to acquire DVD versions of all those J-pop Concerts and PVs that we’d cherished and loved in the Laserdisc/VHS age, and while we’ve been blessed enough to have seen both Princess Princess AND Moritaka Chisato get the DVD treatment, Idol Groups like CoCo and Ribbon were strangely absent- it seemed to us that Pony Canyon just didn’t think it was worth it for them to put out anything by those groups!
It wasn’t until they got around to digitally remastering CoCo’s music in (more or less) complete CD sets that we began to have hope that Pony Canyon would finally give CoCo’s video catalog the digital treatment it deserved- and as if to assure us, they even included a taste in the form of a bonus in the CD set- a DVD of “Legend”, the video/live singles collection! Was this a sign of good things to come?!
Well, we were to find out that YES, this WAS a turn in our favor, for we were to soon read of an announcement that Pony Canyon was re-releasing both CoCo AND fellow Paradise Gogo Alums RIBBON’s videos in DVD Box Sets!!!! YATTA!
When we finally got the listing of the contents of the CoCo box set, there was both GOOD news, and a bit of SAD news as well- Thought they were to include all of their concert videos (including-thank God- The BUDOKAN and FOREVER concerts), they were to leave out CoCo’s Video Clips collection THE COCO COLLECTION in favor of the aforementioned LEGEND, a move that truly bummed me!
Maybe it’s the fact that I came into CoCo just as their final album “Sweet and Bitter” came out that I’m so nostalgically attached to the CoCo Collection (as the video collection was basically the five music video clips from said album), but I find this an important oversight! This is the video where the PV for “You’re My Treasure” is from, for crying out loud!
Ah, but after digging out and re-watching all my carefully archived CoCo laserdiscs, my excitement returned, and I was to find myself saying to myself “I can’t believe I’m going to finally get these concerts on DVD!”
Here are my highs and lows of the upcoming COCO DVD BOX SET!!!
HEART-TO-HEART / CoCo First Concert
Like most first concerts, this one is a bit hard to watch at times because the girls are so reserved and unsure of themselves at this time, but it is interesting to see and compare these performances with their later, confident takes in later concerts. Take this performance of “Koisuru Niwatori” with the same song in “Forever”, and you see a group that has grown to become the idol group’s idol group!
HARU WA COCO KARA / Live at Nakano Sunplaza 1991
The girls were in fine form touring for their incredible third album STRAIGHT when they caught this terrific show, and what a transformation the girls had made since their first outing in Heart To Heart! By this point each member’s “role” had become more clearly defined, with Azusa taking the “Leader” role, Rieko the “Cute” role, Maki the “Friendly” role, Erika the “Happy” role, and Mikiyo as the “Spacey” one! Ahahaha! Highlight performances for me include “News Na Mirai” and the first ever perf of “Naze?”
BUDOKAN '93 / Haru Wa CoCo Kara Special
With her awesome singing, it seemed inevitable that the powers that be would spin Azusa off onto a solo career, and so it was that the 1992 tour would be her last with the group. At this time, CoCo was enjoying what I consider to be their absolute peak- hot on the heels of their album SHARE, and it was announced that Azusa’s farewell concert would be held at the Nihon Budokan!!
The occasion was marked with a stellar four-sided Laserdisc complete showcasing the concert shot on film! Almost the entire concert was presented here (at the time, I actually DID think the whole concert was here, but found they’d extracted “Onaji Hoshi Ni Uede” for later) and that in itself was rare and appreciated!
Special mention must be made of how emotional this concert is for the girls here. Most concerts would save the tearful goodbyes for the concert closure, but I love the way that emotion overtakes the girls in the most random of places! Azusa sheds some happy tears during a performance of “Otome No Rehearsal”, and at the end of the second half when they are performing “Kimi No Uta, Boku No Uta”, it’s clear just how close Rieko and Azusa were!
Highlights: The aforementioned Otome and Kimi No Uta, Hanbun Fushigi, Naze, Shiawase Kamone, Onegai HOLD ME TIGHT and a killer perf of "Yume Dake Miteru” that is probably my favorite CoCo performance of all time!
NATSU ’92 Concert Tour
After the epic Budokan concert, almost any follow-up would seem lackluster, (I remember even uberfan Dan-O being disappointed with this pared-down video-shot concert), but with the simultaneous release of both Azusa and Rieko’s solo concerts at the same time, budget was surely on everyone’s minds…
Still, there are so many good things this concert has to offer!
First off, this is the first concert featuring the newly restructured 4-member CoCo, and it is interesting to hear the old familiar tunes reworked as to redistribute Azusa’s lines to the other girls. And then there is the wonderful SOUND! This Concert is probably the best recorded of all of them, and the thumpin’ performance of “Naze” alone is worth the price of admission!
Most of the fun is hearing some of the new songs like ‘Yasashisa no Hoosoku”, and “Natsuzora No Dreamer” performed for the first time, and we even get to see a perf of “Kamisama Ijiwaru Jyanai”!
On a side note, this concert looks like it was taken after a well-deserved break- the girls look radiant, Maki in particular looks great, and Erika looked slightly sunburned!
CoCo DOCO
Now, THIS is the one I have a problem with. I mean, I applaud them for leaving out “Waiiha De CoCo”, but really, there’s simply NO justification for the DVD set to exclude “The CoCo Collection” in favor of including THIS strange venture.
Watching this David Lynchian abstract movie reminded me of the first time I saw The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour”…excitement leading up to the initial viewing, followed by crushing disappointment!
The story of a CoCo-Obsessed Indian man (looking a lot like that Hindu that taught Rainbow Man his powers) who uses his magicks to collect the most valuable of CoCo Collectables:The girls themselves!
Actually, I’m making this sound better than it is. Nuff about this!
(The only other thing I’ll mention is that Dayone does a killer imitation of that Indian dude!)
1993 DELUXE EDITION
This was one of the very first CoCo concerts I’d seen and owned, and when you’re consumed with CoCo obsession and have only a handful of Videos, they tend to be watched and re-watched till they’ve reached mythic proportions!
They did a funny twist on the arrangement here, having the blistering “Equal Romance” encore at the end of the show appearing as the OPENING for the Deluxe Edition Video, INSTANTLY getting you into the fever of the performance, and it’s probably one of the best Disc openers ever!
This concert was taped during this odd period in CoCo’s careers, where they had the girls performing carnival tricks and singing, calling it the CoCo Showtime (or something) and though we’re only getting the tail-end of it, there’s still enough of the gimmicks involved here to make me cringe- Gads, they’ve got the girls dressed in tutus, riding unicycles and juggling while singing!!!
Fortunately, there are enough cool performances here to keep this disc in the “fave” category, and the disc is even capped off with the PVs of both Koi No Junction AND Yokohama Boy Style!
FOREVER / Tokyo Bay NK Hall Final Concert
Although this is CoCo’s very last concert, the show highlights the span of the group’s entire 5 year career, creating more a celebration of CoCo rather than the END, and I know that for me as well as a handful of other friends, this is the concert that made me realize how special this group was, and made me want to see and learn more about them!
When you are watching the girls go through the songs, they are so happy performing the tunes, you at once realized what an awesome backlog of terrific songs this group had. After a kick-ass opening with Koi No Junction and a showcase of their solo songs, they came back with a suite of songs from their Strawberry era; this set has to be one of my faves of all time! And when you thought it couldn’t get better, they unveiled this Super Medley running over 14 minutes and covering the highlights of practically their entire catalog!! For new fans like us, it was really like a crash course in CoCo's Music!
From there they went onto covering songs from later albums like Share and Sylph, and by the time they got to the final Sweet and Bitter album songs, we were all set for the emotional conclusion to the concert. It was hard to get through their melancholy takes on both Minna Daijyobu (which started out happy, til they realized this was the last time they'd be doing it) and last single You're My Treasure, and I don't think there will ever be a sadder song than the final, live performance of "Kore Kara", hontoni.
A wonderful, memorable concert followed by an equally touching documentary following CoCo as they go about working on their last tour together, through rehearsals and arrangements, to all the backstage hijinks during a live concert, all building up to that last final show.
LEGEND
When constructing a sort of “Greatest Hits in video format” for CoCo’s singles, Pony Canyon decided to take several different perfs of each song and edit them into a seamless overview of the different looks of the girls’ career. What they would do was select ONE of the perfs, and, using the sound from that clip, edit in other performances. The great thing about this was that they drew their perfs not only from other concerts we had, but a limited few that we’d never seen before!
It was here that I first got to see CoCo singing Equal Romance on Paradise GoGo, (that idol show that started it all!) a cool perf of “Muteki No Only You” from the highly touted “Otomejuku Matsuri” concert, and it even included excerpts of an absolutely awesome performance of "Natsuzora No Dreamer” that had been cut out of the Deluxe Edition concert! Throw in studio footage of the girls during the recording of “Sylph”, and you had a pretty entertaining package!
* * * * * * *
This awesome DVD Box is set for Release September 16, 2009, and while it retails for ￥ 31,500 Amazon Japan has already slashed the price to a comfortable ￥ 23,310. My first thought was to wait and see how much CD Japan would be listing it at, but yappari, I couldn’t wait and ordered it right there!
Hopefully if enough Otomejuku fans order the CoCo Box Set, this will open up venues for more Pony Canyon releases like the AWOL “CoCo Collection” and the supposed RIBBON DVD Box Set, which has strangely dropped off the Site, out of mind and sight!
Come on, Pony Canyon! Gotta give us fanboys our due!!!
Comments From Original Post:
Yametekudasai wrote:
Kick me out of the club! I TOTALLY forgot about "Waiiha!"
I read some paranoid posts on the "2ch" message board about the box set being taken off the Pony Canyon "coming soon" listings but I double checked and it's still there.
The ribbon set is still MIA, unfortunately...
zdorama replied to Yametekudasai’s comment:
It may be paranoid, but even I have to wonder why the CoCo DVD Box Set still says "tenative" next to the title.
You would think that something that's supposedly coming out around a month from now would have dropped that by now.
And with the sneaky way the ribbon DVD set disappeared, I wouldn't put it past them to pull the set without even a mention!
Yametekudasai wrote:
I think the actual name of the DVD package is still temporary. I'll believe that the release date is still solid.
I am quite concerned, however, about the quick pull of the ribbon DVD collection. Come on guys, the eighties is over -- let's move on to OUR decade!
p.s. if the ribbon DVD box isn't released by November or December then I'm gonna ask Masa to find me the P^2 DVD set!
zdorama replied to Yametekudasai’s comment
Good luck with that Puri Puri DVD set- I saw on Yahoo Japan someone selling for $700.00!
Gads, I can't believe both you AND I didn't buy that when it came out. Actually, I can't even remember if I KNEW about it! All I know is that my Princess Princess DVD collection doesn't have Platinum Days I and II, and that's a damn shame, as they're SO important!
BTW, Did I EVER get a copy of the Platinum Days you ripped? I was searching for it the other day, and just could not find it! So I watched the Laserdisc again.
sigh.
Yametekudasai wrote:
Holy shiieeettttt!!! I was just being cheap/poor. $700?!! What the hell do they think this is, Kikaida laserdiscs or something?!!
I feel sick...
FYI Amazon Japan is still the cheapest online place for the CoCo box, according to this website (now called: "CoCo SPECIAL DVD-BOX") And STILL the cheapest: I got the e-mail saying I saved an additional Y222 on the box set! BANZAI!
