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JPTV Spring 2009 Season

March 29, 2009 Kimitsu 1 comment

It’s already that time of year again, when you all whip out your wallets and donate $5 to the cause of Kimi’s Early Christmas.

Okay, okay, I kid. But with April around the corner, it’s already time for a new season of Japanese TV, which also means it’s time for me to name-drop like Armageddon’s here. As always, all summaries from DramaWiki, because I’m a lazy, lazy blogger who can’t be bothered to translate unless absolutely necessary.

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Not a trace of doubt in the skies!

March 16, 2009 Kimitsu 1 comment

For the sake of making bad puns, I was once a non-Believer. When the first previews of this song came out as early as late December, I think, I wouldn’t touch it. Starting from January previews of the PV started flooding the Arashi communities – and I stubbornly scolled past it all.

So now I can only hope that the church of Arashi will let me back into its fold.

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いざっ, Now is not the time for excuses

March 5, 2009 Kimitsu Leave a comment

In addition to being a bad AAA fan, I am also apparently a bad Arashi fan.

Because I know I will eventually have to review them for this blog, I have put off listening to the albums I have yet to review, both past and recent. Even though I do listen to the new singles as they come out, I don’t pay nearly as much attention as I should – after I have learned the melody for the A-sides so I can sing them at karaoke when necessary, I am easily satisfied. I have also put off listening to Believe and Kumori nochi, Kaisei – but that’s less of a “bad Arashi fan” and more of a “Kimi hates previews with a passion” thing, even though the full single will have already been leaked by the time this posts. (Hurray for scheduled posting!)

Because I was once ambitious enough to start writing fairly in-depth Episode Guides for Himitsu no Arashi-chan!, G no Arashi, and Arashi no Shukudai-kun, I have put off watching the variety shows until I can translate the related blurb on the official site (or in Himitsu-chan’s case, gather the mental capacity required to translate many spoken informative lines at the same time). Unfortunately, as a side effect, VS Arashi has also been thrown to the wayside, though the translation effort required isn’t nearly as great. Playing catchup on their older shows (such as Mago Mago Arashi) has also temporarily been abandoned.

Because I am afraid of wanting to make another photoshoot post, and because I am afraid of losing yet more money to magazines that I can’t exactly afford at the moment (well, perhaps I could, but I honestly find my snack and gaming budgets more important), I have avoided checking out most of their new magazine appearances since Nino in Cut around the beginning of Ryusei no Kizuna. To be honest, though, I think it might take me another two months to get over that photoshoot.

Because there’s just so many other shows and activities (read: games) taking up my time, I have barely begun the first episode of Ohno’s drama this season, Uta no Onii-san. (Oh, but everything else has been given more than a cursory glance. Curse your addictiveness, TRIANGLE and Mei-chan no Shitsuji!) I shudder to think of how long it will take for me to get around to watching Nino’s tanpatsu, DOOR TO DOOR.

Ruri, who I accidentally (okay, perhaps not) converted to the Arashi fandom and now spends at least 2 hours a week messing with Arashi-related things instead of getting sleep or doing homework, tells me that I am a bad Arashi fan. Ruri is also the one who insists I get around to learning the new Arashi songs, too. And Ruri is now the one who spazzes over Arashi shows to me whereas previously I would insist on her watching various things.

By the way, Ruri also has some very painful ideas of stimuli to get other people to get work done.

So somehow I’ve managed to overcome all of the above and finally bust out a review for いざっ, Now. Okay, I lie, I haven’t really overcome any of it yet – and definitely not the Ruri part, since she could care less about this. But here is an Arashi review for you anyways. The 7 of you who came here only for my Arashi posts can come back now – I like having my readership levels above the “10″ mark.

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Tell me something I don’t know

February 9, 2009 Kimitsu 3 comments

I’ve listened to Japanese music for probably 9/10 years now. They didn’t get the brainwashing in too early, but it’s there all the same.

I’ve actively considered myself a fan of various artists for 6/7 years. It’s a bit of a scary thought.

But there are still some things I can’t wrap my head around.

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The Pretty, the Ugly, and the all so Shiny in 5…

January 29, 2009 Kimitsu Leave a comment

It’s a new year already! Oh, wow, it’s a new year already.

2008 was filled with lots and lots of Johnny’s loving (even the half of the year I disappeared for), so what better way to kick off 2009? Oh, and Arashi was hosting this year’s Countdown too. I know you probably aren’t here to read this opening blurb (if the comments from my post on last year’s Countdown are any indication), so let’s get straight to it.

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JPTV Winter 2009 Season

January 14, 2009 Kimitsu 2 comments

Amazingly, it has been a year since I last posted one of these. And of course, once again, it comes after the start of the season. That’s not to say I haven’t been keeping up with dramas from the rest of 2008, just that for one reason or another I didn’t post anything about it here. Of course, I’m certain you haven’t missed these either, since unlike most other posts on the subject, this only covers about-to-air dramas that personally interest me.

You may notice that only dramas are mentioned this time around – that’s because I haven’t seen a single anime series that interests me this season. Historical Fantasy, Sports, Harem, the requisite action that doesn’t have enough of a kick to appeal, and bringing back the yuri. Okay, I lie, there is one – Maria†Holic – but that has the enormous potential to go wrong, since I didn’t read the manga it was based on and as a medium, anime likes slapstick far more than drama, and slapstick is beginning to get worn out on me.

Either way, long blurb of text, coming your way! As always, all summaries from DramaWiki.

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“愛するより飛ぶ”? Not here, at least.

July 3, 2008 Kimitsu 3 comments

Arashi on a roof. Again, guys? We can\'t keep calling the firement.

I want to say that I am still, 100%, an Arashi fan.

I think, in all likelihood, I probably am.

It still doesn’t mean One Love is going to get it easy from me.

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In which we are lucky I don’t review with grades of any sort.

April 6, 2008 Kimitsu Leave a comment

No excuses this time. Fact is, lately blogging hasn’t appealed as much to me. (Probably because I’ve been using up my weekly allotment of bullshitting on English homework.) Which is sad, because as of two (almost three!) Sundays ago, this blog became a year old. A year ago, we opened with a post on AAA’s then-latest PV, Get CHU!. It’s rather belated now (it always is with me), but let’s kick the next year for this blog off with a post on a not-so-recent release that also marks another transition for me.

Welcome back to the Arashi section of Kimitsu’s brain. I know it hasn’t been that long since we came here – in fact, I think we make a trip about every other week. I hope you’re getting comfy – is that seat cushion actually conforming itself to your butt?

With one barrier passed (Step and Go), time to tackle the other one! SAKURA Sake was the first Arashi song I’d ever heard that stuck with me, and so it’s become something of a starting point for me whenever I mentally deal with Arashi. Except now I have to go past that, and tackle what will probably be coming up again soon anyways – a best of/single collection album. In this case, 5×5: THE BEST SELECTION OF 2002←2004.

Let’s rewrite THIS story.

February 29, 2008 Kimitsu 2 comments

Since officially giving myself up to the lovefest that is Arashi on this blog, I’ve done a number of reviews on their releases – a grand total of three, actually, but work with me here. Though I got into Arashi around the release of Happiness, I never actually did a PV/single review here. (Perhaps someday. It’s another one of the fun, busy sort that Johnny’s should really make more of.) And come to think of it, I haven’t reviewed a single new thing of Arashi’s at all. So with the release of Step and Go, what better way to officially mark my somewhat-new fandom obsession of 2008?

Basically, if you didn’t see this coming, you haven’t been reading this blog lately, have you? Though I can’t say I blame you. (In retrospect, I could’ve totally used the title for a post on Hamasaki Ayumi’s MY STORY. Damn.)

The Pretty Boy in his natural habitat.

February 16, 2008 Kimitsu 8 comments

Today… well, today I says to myself, “Kimi, what is it about media blogs?” I hate them and yet I admire them. I don’t mean the download-sharing kind, of course, but the ones that get by solely on posting pictures and YouTube/Dailymotion/Veoh/imeem/what have you links.

I hate that all their content is mostly based off what they’ve probably leeched from the Internet. (But if it comes from their own wallet, all the more power to them.) I hate that there is little actual thought behind the decision other than “I like this, people might like this, so here you go”. Insert smiley or one-liner on the media in question, press “Publish/Post”, watch the comment and hit counts fly.

Perhaps a great deal of it is because while I value a pretty face and watching choreography, a good deal of my music fandoms are not visually based. I’ve never found much merit in photobooks, partially stemming from some disappointment with my collection of artbooks that sit gathering dust on my bookshelf and the fact that I’d rather have them sit pretty than do anything to them. Trading cards, too, are considered more as a collectible item (going back to my days in high school where I amassed over 300 booster packs of Japanese Yu+Gi+Oh! cards for the sole purpose of having the collection). And while I like looking at pictures, I am not the person with several gigs in pictures of their favorite artist(s).

No, my music fandoms develop because of that same music, and rarely go further. I’m perfectly content to listen to people like Younha or Gackt or even, say, AAA without wondering what sort of person they are, or being obsessive about how they look. (Sure, Shuuta being hot helps. Urata’s body helps even more. But I got into them because I liked their music and I liked their dancing. Not how they looked. Thankfully, because they looked pretty bland early on.) Only recently has this changed, as my purchases of Japanese magazines increase, but I’m still fairly selective about the magazines I buy, preferring to preview the photoshoot before deciding on any actual purchase. (But we chalk this up to how expensive buying said magazines in this country is. My poor wallet.)

And I suppose to some extent, the download blog earns my ire as well. I’m grateful, sure, because they widen the ways to get your Japanese media. But when I know that they get over hundreds of hits solely for the downloads, it kind of hurts. Especially because this little blog, no matter how much I pour into it, barely averages about 100 hits overall a day, but half of them for nonsensical google searches or what lyrics I’ve color-coded for my amusement. I say this with a sad confidence, you know – let it beat! was a download blog too and it averaged 100 hits for whatever my latest post was… until the next one came along.

But I feel justified – even the teeniest bit - in knowing that I fleshed out those same downloads with hopefully interesting text. Whether or not people read it was up to them, but at least I wasn’t completely relying on the allure of Koda Kumi’s pumping hips, Domoto Koichi’s angsty face, or AAA’s way-too-many releases to draw people in. I had my own opinions and ideas to share, at least.

For that same reason, I admire them. I admire the gall those same media blogs have in doing that. And of course, their success. Because not only do I think I could ever do that, just post a picture or a video link, but my head might possibly explode if you ever put me in front of a keyboard and blogging program and told me I wasn’t allowed to type under pain of everyone in the world collectively crying “Bullshit!” and stoning me to death. Actually, I’m a bit surprised it hasn’t happened yet – the latter part, that is.

…it might be hard to tell, but this post wasn’t supposed to be a criticism of media blogs. Oops.

No, this post, with great pains, sends me temporarily joining the legions of media-sharing blogs once more. With your weekly dose of fangirl rambling, of course.