As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, while I love compiling rankings of works released by Hello! Project, I refuse to give a subjective ranking of individual people, for various reasons. But Paul Thomas’s new poll is just so shiny I couldn’t resist…

So here is my objective ranking of Morning Musume, Berryz Koubou, and ºC-ute, using criteria that (I assume) no fan actually uses, consciously or not, to determine their favorites, though the near-perfect (except Kamei) spectral order of MoMusu is rather interesting and makes me suspect someone on the inside might be using a similar criterion to assign costume colors…

Sure, it might be a coincidence, but really, the probability of at least n – 1 out of n elements randomly appearing in a specified order is $\frac{n^2-2n+2}{n!}$.* In MoMusu’s case, n = 9, so the odds are about 1 in 5582.77. Hmm…

* I leave the proof of this formula as an exercise for the reader.

#### Morning Musume, sorted by “morningness”

Given that “Morning” appears in the group’s name, I decided to determine objectively how much “morningness” a member could have. To do this, I considered the time of sunrise in Tokyo (35° 41′ N, 139° 46′ E) on each member’s birthday, since the earlier the sun rises, the more morning there is, right? Of course, this favors members with summer births.

Sorting Algorithm:

• For each member i, let xi be the time of sunrise (in UTC) in Tokyo (35° 41′ N, 139° 46′ E) on i‘s birthday.
• Sort members by x from earliest to latest.

Results:

Details:

1. Michishige Sayumi -> 1989-07-13 -> 19:39:22.
2. Kusumi Koharu -> 1992-07-15 -> 19:41:13.
3. Takahashi Ai -> 1986-09-14 -> 20:25:06.
4. Niigaki Risa -> 1988-10-20 -> 20:54:07.
5. Lin Lin -> 1991-03-11 -> 21:01:49.
6. Tanaka Reina -> 1989-11-11 -> 21:13:47.
7. Jun Jun -> 1988-02-11 -> 21:35:43.
8. Kamei Eri -> 1988-12-23 -> 21:49:34.
9. Mitsui Aika -> 1993-01-12 -> 21:53:01.

#### Berryz Koubou, sorted by “beriizuness”

Given that the official pronunciation of “Berryz” is “beriizu” (ベリーズ), which is also the Japanese adaptation of “Belize”, I decided to determine objectively how much of Belize a member occupies, figuratively speaking. However, the fact that Belize only has 6 districts while there are 7 members of Berryz Koubou presents some difficulty. Rather arbitrarily, I decided to map the total stroke count of a member’s name in kanji to district numbers of Belize, mod 6, and compare the respective areas of those districts. The resulting ties are then resolved by kana lexicographical order.

Sorting Algorithm:

• For each member i:
• Let xi be the number of strokes in i‘s name in kanji.
• Let yi be the district of Belize whose index (when sorted in alphabetical order and counting from one) is congruent to xi (mod 6).
• Let zi be the total land area, in km2, of yi.
• Sort members by z from largest to smallest.
• Break ties using standard kana lexicographical order.

Results:

Details:

1. Shimizu Saki -> 清水佐紀 -> 11 + 4 + 7 + 9 = 31 -> 1 -> Belize -> 4204. (Tie break: Shimizu precedes Sudou and Tsugunaga)
2. Sudou Maasa -> 須藤茉麻 -> 12 + 18 + 8 + 11 = 49 -> 1 -> Belize -> 4204. (Tie break: Sudou precedes Tsugunaga.)
3. Tsugunaga Momoko -> 嗣永桃子 -> 13 + 5 + 10 + 3 = 31 -> 1 -> Belize -> 4204.
4. Kumai Yurina -> 熊井友理奈 -> 14 + 4 + 4 + 11 + 8 = 41 -> 5 -> Stann Creek -> 2176. (Tie break: Kumai precedes Natsuyaki.)
5. Natsuyaki Miyabi -> 夏焼雅 -> 10 + 12 + 13 = 35 -> 5 -> Stann Creek -> 2176.
6. Sugaya Risako -> 菅谷梨沙子 -> 11 + 7 + 11 + 7 + 3 = 39 -> 3 -> Corozal -> 1860. (Tie break: Sugaya precedes Tokunaga.)
7. Tokunaga Chinami -> 徳永千奈美 -> 14 + 5 + 3 + 8 + 9 = 39 -> 3 -> Corozal -> 1860.

#### °C-ute, sorted by temperature

This one’s a no-brainer, almost. When a group’s name starts with the symbol for Celsius degrees, one has to order its members by temperature, of course. How to determine a member’s temperature, however, is something of a challenge. Rather arbitrarily, I decided to take the first and last letters of each member’s two names, as written in official romaji, and map those to symbols for chemical elements, making appropriate adjustments for those letter combinations that aren’t legal. I then took the melting point of each member’s two elements and averaged them, then sorted all members by average melting point, from highest to lowest.

Sorting Algorithm:

• For each member i:
• Let ai be a digraph of the first and last letters of i‘s family name in romaji.
• Let bi be a digraph of the first and last letters of i‘s personal name in romaji.
• If ai is a legal chemical element symbol, let ci be the corresponding element. Otherwise, let ci be the element whose symbol immediately follows ai in the alphabetical sorting of the union of ai and all element symbols with one or two letters.
• If bi is a legal chemical element symbol, let di be the corresponding element. Otherwise, let di be the element whose symbol immediately follows bi in the alphabetical sorting of the union of bi and all element symbols with one or two letters.
• Let ei be ci‘s melting point, in Celsius.
• Let fi be di‘s melting point, in Celsius.
• Let gi be the average of ei and fi.
• Sort members by g in descending order.

Results:

Details:

1. Okai Chisato -> Oi / Co -> Os / Co -> osmium / cobalt -> 3033 / 1495 -> 2264.
2. Umeda Erika -> Ua / Ea -> V / Er -> vanadium / erbium -> 1910 / 1529 -> 1719.5.
3. Suzuki Airi -> Si / Ai -> Si / Al -> silicon / aluminium -> 1420 / 660.32 -> 1040.16.
4. Yajima Maimi -> Ya / Mi -> Yb / Mn -> ytterbium / manganese -> 824 / 1246 -> 1035.
5. Nakajima Saki -> Na / Si -> Na / Si -> sodium / silicon -> 97.72 / 1420 -> 758.86.
6. Hagiwara Mai -> Ha / Mi -> He / Mn -> helium / manganese -> -272.2 / 1246 -> 486.9.
7. Arihara Kanna -> Aa / Ka -> Ac / Kr -> actinium / krypton -> 1050 / -157.36 -> 446.32.

Conclusions:

This whole exercise was utterly pointless.

I’ve contaminated Paul’s poll with artificial results.

And why yes, I do believe I’ve just proposed an objective measure of °C-ute’s hotness.