Hiyori Hime Promotional Video!

Here it is:


My first reaction is, "holy hell, they got themselves a budget!" Now we know why their last few videos looked like they were financed through Ami's daughter's paper route - apparently they were saving up for the big one.

Ok, probably not really - and I wonder why they suddenly have such obvious cash to spend. Is it for Shiina Ringo, who wrote and produced the song? After all, she's one of Japan's biggest stars. Not to say Puffy don't deserve it - I wish they had a big budget for all of their videos. But the difference between this and, say, "My Story" is pretty stark.

It is a great video, though, so I'm not complaining. Both girls look amazing in it.

I'm going to need to listen to the song itself a few more times to form an opinion on that. I'm actually pretty new to Shiina Ringo, and while I love the two albums that I have, I honestly have never heard a song written by her that sounded good being sung by someone else. (That list is not very exhaustive, though. Tokio and Utada Hikaru are about the extent of it, in addition now to Puffy.) Her voice is just so distinctive, and at least at her best is just so filled with emotion, that I think it's really listening to her that makes so much of her music so good.

One immediate thing I don't like is the mix. I feel this way about a lot of Puffy's recent stuff - the guitars are just too low in the mix, the vocals too high. This was supposedly produced by Shiina Ringo in addition to being written by her, but her own stuff is not mixed like this (at least not her early stuff; I haven't heard a lot of the later albums with Tokyo Jihen). It makes the song sound a little wimpy.

But I will listen again, and maybe I'll form a different opinion (or just get used to the mix).