Berryz Koubou First Fan Club Tour in Hawaii 2009 Subtitled Release

**** Please read my comments before downloading. This is a very unique release and requires specific instructions on how to watch it in order for it to be enjoyed to it’s fullest. ****

What do we want from our idols? For them to make us smile? Sure. For them to make us forget our troubles? Absolutely. But somewhere between the realistic and the foolish there are things we want much more. Things we don’t readily admit to. We want them to be honest. We want them to be authentic. Selfishly, we want to see joy in their eyes and on their faces, and for once know that it was put their by us. And, most importantly of all, we want to be told by them, that we, the fans, matter—not just to the business, but to the idols themselves.

Berryz Koubou First Fan Club Tour in Hawaii is a very special video. In it, the Berryz are filled with a remarkable amount of love—for each other, for being idols, and for their fans. Whether it’s how they always feel and just aren’t ever quite confident enough to express it, or there was just something in the tropical air that weekend, during this two day trip with their most hardcore fans the Berryz Koubou are nearly blissful.
Every event during the trip was planned by the girls themselves, so everything you’ll see here is a “thank you” of sorts. They play embarrassing games, play games with the fans, make fun of each other, perform a concert of classics, they even rank themselves. And then there are the letters…

You see, for this event each member wrote a letter. It’s a letter addressed to the other members and to the fans, and it represents our idol’s true feelings. If you’ve watched this video raw, you’ve seen that H!P, in their infinite wisdom, told you that girls wrote these letters, showed video of the girls reading them, but decided not to allow fans who weren’t in attendance that day to hear what the girl’s actually said and did not include the recitations of the letters in the video.
But once a secret is known by more than one person, it will never stay hidden. In attendance that day was an ICU-Spy. With pen and paper in hand, he recorded everything each girl wrote in her letter, word for word. ICU-Subs has taken these letters, translated them, and put them into finely crafted, mock-hand written letters from the girls, and made these letters a part of this release.
Yes, that’s right, our English translation includes things the original DVD does not, and is actually a more complete experience than the original DVD release that the Japanese Fanclub got. I believe this to be a first for any fansub of anything, ever. (Don’t hold me to that.)

I won’t spoil anything that’s in the letters—except to say, bring tissues—but to maximize your enjoyment of this release, I ask you not to read the letters until you are instructed to do so by the video. Just watch the video as normal and when the time is right an Editor’s Note will pop up and tell you to go read the letters. Read them, cry, and then return to the video and hit play. Trust me when I say that the letters are more impactful when read in the moment.
Additionally, I want to reiterate that these letters ARE authentic. Everything that is in them was written down by a fan in attendance. Nothing has been added to them and nothing has been altered. Only what the girls said when reading their letters is found in our letters, and they are accurate transcripts of what the girl’s told the fans that day.

I consider this to be our most accomplished, thorough, and complete release, and I am very proud of it. We spent lots of time on the aesthetic of the video and the letters to make them look and feel just right—to be something special. And, we spent lots of time crafting the translation of the video and letters to convey not just the brute language, but the essence of the girl’s personalities and the emotion in their words. Because of all that hard work and the results of it, this release is a very special one and makes it my favorite ICU-Subs release so far. I hope you will find this to be so, as well.

click here to grab the release.

This release is the sister release of our Berryz Alo-Hello. These two releases combine to form a complete set of the girls experiences in Hawaii. You can find the Alo-Hello on the tracker, as well.