Oh yeah!

I’m in the process of moving and starting a new job so time has been preciously short as of late, which equals lack of posts. And while I am posting right now, this post is totally unrelated to anything Japanese.

One of my other, actually my main obsession is the gothic daytime tv show Dark Shadows that ran from 1966 - 1971 on ABC TV. (I’m only 27 so I didn’t see the original run on TV but my Mother and Father were fans back in the day.) Anyhow the series after the first year followed the adventures and trials of the 200 year old vampire Barnabas Collins and his quest to become human again as he battle against ghosts, other vampires, werewolves, the Devil and his henchmen, Lovecraftian-elder Gods and his own bloodlust. The show traveled through several different periods in the Collins family history, my favorite being 1897, and also visited parallel bands of time. It’s a bit campy at times to watch now, but it has it’s spooky moments and I absolutely adore it.

I just read via the Dark Shadows related forums that I inhabit that Johnny Depp, who is a fan of the series as well and has vocally admitted his desire to play Barnabas in a DS feature, has partnered with Warner Brothers who will be bank rolling the picture, and some other people I forget the names of, to bring the series to the big screen for the 3rd time (there were two movies during the series run in the 60s & 70s). I am BEYOND ecstatic by this news, you have no idea! A few years ago there was an attempt to bring the TV show back but after an amazing looking pilot was filmed the WB decided to go with another show (they were hoping to fill the Buffy time slot). There was also a very well done mini-series done back in 1990/1991 that ran for 12 episodes.

My fandom knows no bounds for this show. I collect the merchandise (there was A LOT back in the 60s, posters, books, magazines, trading cards, stuffed heads, puzzles, model kits, record soundtracks, 45rpm singles, comic books, the list goes on), I’ve been to 3 DS cons, two at which I won best costume, and am going to a 4th con this August to meet the man himself, Jonathan Frid, who played Barnabas Collins.

I am even geeky enough to have made a music video dedicated to an early storyline in the series after Barnabas was released from his coffin after 172 years of confinement, had yet to find his humanity once again and kidnapped/tortured local girl Maggie Evans in an attempt to resurrect his long lost love Josette Dupres who jumped from a cliff rather than become what he was. I am a total dork for Dark Shadows.

Hana wo Pu~n

Okay, Tsunku has lost his DAMN MIND. Have you seen, much less heard Kira☆Pika’s debut single? Parts of the song are really cute and well done, overall though I thought it was musical agony. It’s cute, but to an annoying degree that makes me want to stab myself in the eardrums…. or slap somebody, I’m not quite sure what would come first.

Koharu’s first 3 solo singles were amazing, I’ve listened to her solo album uncountable times… it wasn’t removed from my stereo at my desk at work for like a month and a half….. and this is what they follow up all her previous success with?

The costumes are cute from the waist up. I’m really not digging the pantaloons and the boots. I just think they’re fugly.

Mai for her part compliments Koharu well and I’ve no complaints at all about their vocals, in fact I’ll be looking forward to other singles put out by the two in the future. This one though…. I don’t think I’ll be keeping the PV, even for completeness sake.

What the hell is Futsal?

Obviously there are people way more on the ball about this then I am. I have never watched Gatas in action before as I’m not a sports person by any means (though I will watch the occasional Red Sox game). However this year is different, Hitomi has graduated from Momusu so that means I’m seeing less of her. Konno has returned to H!P for futsal, so it’s my only chance to see her at all. So I buckled down and downloaded the first release of the season from Hello!Online.

But before I watched it I decided to do a little research. From Wikipedia I basically learned that Futsal is an indoor version of soccer played by two teams of 5 players including the goalie.

This year the Futsal theme is ~Futsal League for working lady~. The other teams H.P. are competing against are:

Adidas Japan - adi-Unit5

Shiseido - Emulsions

Japan Air Lines - Samurai Crew

I’m not sure if these are the only teams, I’m kind of new at this. While watching highlights of the first 3 match ups (Gatas came in last T_T) it was readily apparent that the girls do have talent. I don’t know why this surprised me but it did. I wasn’t really shocked when Hitomi, Mai or Miki showed their skills, but I was impressed by the footwork of Little Gatas and C-ute member Okai Chisato. She definitely knew what she was doing.

Will I continue to watch futsal? Probably definitely. I want to see Konno in action, and hopefully the next download I watch will be a full game.

A new video and a new Baby!

I went away for a couple days and look what I come back to!

 First off is Momusu’s newest single, Onna ni Sachi Are. When I first heard the song I was thankful for another techno song, but the more I listened to it, the more I became convinced that it really wasn’t anything special. It just struck me as another techno song in the new Momusu image, which is fine, but what I really want is another stand out hard beat song like The Manpower. The PV however, is pretty damn sweet, even with it’s minamilistic approach and even if the new outfits look alarmingly like The Peace outfits.

Ai-chan looks majorly hot with that hairdo in this video. She’s got a total flapper/brothel madame vibe going on that I really like. Koharu is up front and center from the very start, and despite people’s griping about it, it’s probably a good idea for reasons discussed before. Not much to say about Junjun and Linlin except that they both look fantastic.

All in all the PV actually saved the song for me. It gave it that much more of a hard edge to push me over the meter from “Eh.” to “Yeah!”

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Next is the announcement of Kaorin’s engagement and pregnancy! Congratulations to Kaori! I don’t really have much to say other than that I wish her the best and I’m sure she’ll make a wonderful Mother!

Tony An vs. Momusu

My sister and I both are really into the Asian music scene, however while my interests run mainly into Japanese, hers are Korean. Recently she played for me a really great song by Korean musician Tony An, a former member of the extremely awesome band, H.O.T. (Hee Jun is still my LOVE). The song, Singing that Melody immediately struck me on it’s closeness to Momusu’s Roman My Dear Boy. I can’t be the only one who has noticed this. I’m not saying there’s any plagarism here as I really like both songs, and both artists. I just thought I’d point it out to others and see what the reaction was.

Tony An - Singing that Melody

Morning Musume - Roman My dear boy