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The story
A thread has popped up on 5ch’s “Hello! Project” board about songwriter-composer Shō Hoshibe, who has written numerous Hello! Project songs for groups like Morning Musume。’23 and Angerme.
Harsh takes like “he always hits a passing grade but has no signature hit” and “he has no talent for lyrics” clashed with defenders saying “he’s genuinely talented” and “‘Taikibansei’ was a crucial song that opened the post-Tsunku era” — the debate even spiraled into comparing view counts between songs.
What people said
Wake-up Call ~Mezameru Toki~ (Morning Musume。'23)
Piece of Peace ~Shiawase no Puzzle~ (Angerme)
HANAKIN isn't on there!
The girl with glasses
That "passing grade" rating is way too generous. I'm not saying everything he's made is trash, but because of this guy, Hello! Project was in serious decline before 'Misery.'
An earnest wish from Hello! Project fans.
Glad Hikaruu performed it at Maa's live show.
But he's written plenty of good songs.
Made me realize he barely understands arrangement theory.
Feels like one of those self-proclaimed musicians desperately talking down to him just because they're older.
You can see it if you compare it with Noimii's 'Ai wo Kudasaimase,' which is in the same gothic style as 'Misery.'
In Noimii's song, the vocal melody and the string line differ but stay well balanced together.
In Hoshibe's, only the vocal melody stands out,
which makes it feel cheap as gothic music.
That Noimii song flopped hard, it's a garbage track.
A song with 10 million views isn't what I'd call a flop.
On THE FIRST TAKE it's only a tenth of that, though.
As a melody-maker, if he just had some more individuality, the possibilities would really open up.
Takui's still landed more hits than him, though.
Even so,
it hit a million views in three weeks.
That's not a flop.
If you're going to bill it as a bigger hit than 'Misery,' I'd want to see it hit 5 million views on THE FIRST TAKE.
I think he deserves credit for using 'Taikibansei' to head off the backlash.
It was the opening of the post-Tsunku era.
If it had gotten a total thumbs-down from the fans,
today's Hello! Project might not exist.
In that sense, 'Taikibansei' really mattered.
At its current growth rate, given the same amount of time as Misery's THE FIRST TAKE version, it'd easily clear 5 million too.
Misery was growing faster right from the start, so that's not happening.
I mean, 'Love Machine' is trash among trash.
They're not completely unrelated, and it's still better than the others.
Noimii did 1.5 million in three weeks.
Misery did just under 5 million in nine months.
If you can do basic math,
the outcome is already obvious.
Funny that you think it'll just keep growing like simple math.
Even if growth slows down over time,
that applies to both equally.
It'd be weirder to assume Noimii's growth rate drops off harder than Misery's.
If you're comparing it within Hello! Project's THE FIRST TAKE lineup, Noimii is closer to 'Koi Revolution' than to 'Misery' or 'Hatsukoi Cider.'
Maybe it's just how he works, but it's like — pretty, but the outer structure is always the same.
Isn't it more like there are maybe two Takui fans among the 'wolves' (Morning Musume's fan nickname)?
Background and Key Points
Hello! Project is Up-Front Group’s family of idol acts — Morning Musume。, Angerme, BEYOOOOONDS and others — that for two decades was defined almost entirely by producer Tsunku, who wrote and composed nearly every hit himself. After throat cancer surgery in 2014 cost him his singing voice, he stepped back from active songwriting, forcing the agency to lean on a rotating bench of outside composers — Shō Hoshibe among them — to fill the gap. “Taikibansei,” the 2015 single that relaunched Morning Musume with several new members, is generally treated as the symbolic first release of that “post-Tsunku” period, which is why posters keep returning to it as a make-or-break moment for the franchise’s survival rather than judging it purely as a song.
The thread doesn’t actually split on whether Hoshibe is good or bad in the abstract — nearly everyone grants he’s “passing grade.” It splits on whether raw output (his string of average, dependable songs) or the two or three highlights (“Taikibansei,” “Koi Misery ,” “Do Dance”) should define his legacy, and on whether YouTube view counts on THE FIRST TAKE are a legitimate stand-in for songwriting quality at all.
What outside readers will likely miss is that THE FIRST TAKE numbers aren’t a neutral chart — placement, timing, and the channel’s own promotional push swing view totals independently of the song itself, yet posters here treat them like Oricon sales figures and extrapolate future growth from early weeks as if it were simple arithmetic. That’s less a music-criticism debate than wota culture’s habit of relitigating fandom stats as objective proof.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “What do you think of ‘Shō Hoshibe’?“
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