Crush Of The Day: Yada Akiko

Years ago, way, way back in 2005 or so, a friend of mine gave me a copy of a show called “Last Christmas”. Looking over the disc, I asked him if it was a movie or a series. He informed me that it was the first episode of a drama, and said he’d give me more episodes as each week went by.

Well, I didn’t want to start watching a drama and then have to wait every week for the next episode (gads, that would be like watching it in real time!) and said I’d rather just wait til I got all the episodes before I started. Well, I never did get any more episodes of the show, and after that, I completely forgot about it!

Fast forward to January of this year, and as I’m perusing the new drama torrents on the almighty j-drama source D-Addicts, I see that some kind soul had uploaded the entire Last Christmas series in one batch, complete with soft subs thrown in, to boot! “Hey!” I thought to myself, “This must be that drama he gave me all those years ago!”

I didn’t have anything to lose downloaded the whole thing in one productive night, and soon had the whole series, ready to watch!

Looking for information and pictures of the show online, I was kind of surprised that the drama starred Oda Yuji (beloved in Okane Ga Nai!) and the lovely Yada Akiko. For some reason, I had this vague idea that the movie starred the girls in PUFFY, to which I can only proffer that they must have had some Christmas show at the time or something!

Akiko Yada.

You know, there was a time there, when I had JUST started watching Japanese dramas, that I thought she was the cutest thing ever. She played the naughty little sister of Etsushi Toyokawa in the incredible AISHITEIRU TO ITTEKURE (Say You Love Me), and I remember wanting to get my hands of clippings or pictures of her, but in the days before the internet, that just didn’t happen! And so it went.

The next two times I saw her was pretty much as the same kind of character in (respectively) SWEET SEASON and HARMONIA, playing these small, trivial roles. I wondered if they were ever gonna give this girl any leading roles!! Plus, she always seemed to be given these extremely unpleasant girl characters. What would it take!

After that, she really fell off the map, at least as far as the dramas I was able to watch and for years, I didn’t see her AT ALL in ANYTHING! In fact, it came as a quite a surprise to me when in 2003 Car told me Akiko Yada was in a drama she was watching – I’d really begun to think she’d retired!!! A little while after that, KIKU aired the ensemble drama YUME DE AIMASHOO, and I finally got to see her in a starring role!!

I have to say though; she was QUITE different from what I’d remembered about her- in the time since Sweet Season, little Akiko had somehow turned into this grown up lady!! Honestly, part of me had a bit of a time readjusting to how she looked, though thankfully I got used to it after around the third episode of the show.

While Yume De Aimashoo was an alright drama, it didn’t really do anything for me, and even Akiko herself seemed a bit mundane in this role (Or maybe it just seemed that way to me since I spent most of that series drooling over Yu Yamada), though it must have worked for her since she met her future husband/jailbird Oshio Manabu on that set!

So I load up the DVD player and begin watching (with High hopes but low expectations) this newly acquired drama Last Christmas, and I have to say, just halfway in, and I. Was. LOVING IT!!! The story featured Oda Yuji and Akiko as two employees of the same company living next door to each other in the same apartment complex: Oda’s Haruki character is thoughtful and serious, Akiko’s Aoi character sassy and tough, and when the two interact, sparks always fly!

Though the units the two are renting are separate, there is a sealed door situated between the two rooms because the place had at one time been ONE single unit, and it isn’t long before the mischievous Aoi finds a way to get that door UN-sealed so they can communicate better. As time progresses and the two learn more about each other, a true friendship is built between them, and it is this heart of the show that I just LOVE!

And Akiko! Man, she has never been such a dream. Like I said, Tough and Sassy, but also insecure and vulnerable, this chick can act, and I totally fell in love with her Aoi character. Add in the fact that she looked just gorgeous in the show AND (Yes! There’s an AND!) as head secretary to the company, she spent most of the screen time in those pretty and smart OL outfits, and I JUST LOVE A PRETTY GIRL IN PRETTY CLOTHES! But I have to say, I loved her so much in this, even when they depicted her at home in jogging outfits and glasses, her femininity just shone through like a beacon!!!!

I’m just about halfway through the series, and just HAD to scribble down how much I’m just I LOVE with Akiko Yada, man, girls like this actress are the reason my “Crush of the Day Blog exists!!!

Oh, and sure, part of me is KICKING myself for not watching Last Christmas way back when it was first given to me, but who knows? I’ve seen a HELLUVA lot of dramas in the interim, and part of me feels like I approach my dramas differently than I would have back then. This recent renaissance of J-drama watching has made me both pickier about weak dramas, and gratefully gushy about good ones… maybe it was just the right time to watch Last Christmas!

Besides, what If I DID watch it back then and I DID love it? Then, I would have gone INSANE waiting every week for each episode!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Favorite J-Pop Singles: SMAP / Celery

I can’t actually remember what made me first decide to start renting episodes of SMAPxSMAP, the variety program featuring SMAP, the big guys of Johnny’s Jimusho themselves, but I do know what I loved about it: the SMAP BISTRO segment, by far!

Nowadays SMAP BISTRO is an open platform and the guests that visit the Bistro are from all walks of life and nations, from Charlize Theron to Stevie Wonder to Quentin Tarentino, but way back in ‘96 back then, it was solely a “Japanese Female Guests only” segment, and on any given day you could see actresses and talento ranging from older guests like Shinobu Otake and Toake Yukiyo to new up-and-coming girls like Ishida Yuriko and Takako Matsu. Since the guests were all ladies, the prize awarded the winning cooking team was a kiss from the guest of honor!

Anyway, I really LOVED watching that segment, and renting the latest SMAPxSMAP became a mandatory weekly ritual! Besides the Bistro, there were many other fun things to see one the show like games, quizzes and skits, as well as the occasional song here and there.

Mostly the music on SMAPxSMAP was at the end of the show when musical guests like Kome Kome Club or Seiko Matsuda would appear, but whenever SMAP themselves had a new song to promote, they’d usually end the show with a perf of their own latest single.

And so it was that when it came time for SMAP to debut their latest single CELERY, we were treated to a cool, on-set, almost PV-type performance, and I think it’s safe to say that I liked it right away!

As soon as the song began, I was instantly taken in by its breezy, laid back feel. Just listening to the swirling keyboard opening as Tsuyoshi peers out of the sunny window, one gets the feeling of lying in a field of grass gazing up at the clouds in the sky!

Tsuyo begins the song in earnest as Nakai holds up a piece of paper with the words: “Celery: Suki? “, to which Tsuyo postivively acknowledges before sauntering over to wake Goro. just in time to toast the camera and sing his line! The group lounges around the house taking turns singing their lines and sipping wine as Kimutaku strums along on his acoustic guitar as the jazzy mariachi band residing upstairs lends a hand to make the tune a perfect blend of groovin' relaxation…

I love when they build up to that crazy middle, with Shingo and Kimura frenetically rapping faster and faster, and they get so into it, Shingo just HAS to get up and start dancin’!! AHAHAHA!!

Now, the SMAP single CELERY was actually from a Tsuyoshi Kusanagi drama called IIHITO (no wonder Tsuyo looked so happy singing it!) and he played an angelic “Forrest Gump” type of person working at a cynical big-city shoe company. His supervisor was none other than the aforementioned Naomi Zaizen, and I LOVED this woman so much, I ended up renting the series form a video store WITHOUT SUBS, I wanted to see it so much!

I must say that watching a Japanese show with only very, very little understanding in the way of actual Nihongo speak is a long, arduous task, and I ended many an episode with quite a headache! Never mind, I loved the show, and of course the theme song CELERY as well!

Well, that was way back in ’97 or so, and though I’ve subsequently watched literally hundreds of drams since, there was always a spot in my heart saddened that I never got to see one of the early shows I loved translated!

So imagine my happiness and surprise when fellow j-drama enthusiast Sadacori informed me that she actually had a copy of that show- COMPLETELY SUBBED…and was happy to make me a copy! HONTONI?!!! ARIGATOOOO!!!! I was FINALLY able to see the show and understand everything that was going on!

When I popped in that DVD and began watching the show, I was glad to see that it was as good as I remembered, Tsuyo was just as charming as ever, and Zaizen Naomi still had my heart! But for some reason, I wasn’t prepared for the rush of sentimentality that came over me when the show ended and “Celery” began. MAN!! I just got goosebumps, and I was instantly reminded of just how much I adored this song. It took me back to those days living in Mililani when I was just getting into J-pop and everything was fresh and exciting, and it occurred to me that though SMAP has gotten bigger and bigger as the years progressed, there really isn’t a song quite like the sweetness and pacing of CELERY!Really, I think this song is one of their very best, a song DEFINITELY in my top list of fave SMAP songs, if not my Number One!! To answer Nakai’s question posed to Tsuyoshi at the beginning of the video clip, "Yes, Celery Suki da!!!!"

Adventures In Cuteness: Ayase Haruka

Just finished watching the science fiction/romance movie CYBORG SHE: Boku wa Kanojo was Cyborg (My Girlfriend is a Cyborg), and boy, was it entertaining! Sure, it had a lot of sprawling storylines with so-so conclusions as well as multiple conflicting time-travelling paradox issues, but it also featured Ayase Haruka as the titular Cyborg Girlfriend and HOLY CRAP, SHE WAS THE CUTEST, MOST GORGEOUS THING EVER!!!!

The movie also stars Keisuke Koide as the Cyborg Girl's love interest, and when we first meet up with the both of them, they're both shopping in a department store: He’s buying a birthday gift for himself, and she’s stealing clothes to wear (to replace her torn time-travel suit)… His eyes meet hers, and much to his surprise, when he leaves, she begins happily following him!

I cannot even begin to fully describe how cute she is in this movie, especially at the beginning. There’s this scene when they’ve just met, and she’s following him around town, smiling that infectious Ayase Haruka smile (Dammit, can anyone resist that?!), and once she has his attention, begins happily dancing and skipping along, MAN! SO CUTE!!!

Now, going into the movie, unless you’re the type to watch a something going in blind, you already know that Haruka’s character is a cyborg from the distant future, and it is a joy watching her naïve innocence as she becomes smitten with Keisuke Koide’s Jiro character, throwing those heart-melting smiles and childishly giggling to herself as she tries to get his attention:

AHAHAHAHA!!! HILARIOUS!! And Ayase Haruka...Too Darn Adorable!!! Sorry I don't have thknowledge or means to give you a streaming clip, but hopefully my "fotonovelization" of the scene gives you an idea!

The next time they meet is exactly one year later, when Ayase reveals that she is a cyborg from the future, created by his future self to protect him from the dangers that would have befallen him in the natural progression of time as well as correct other tragedies that his future self has helplessly witnessed once upon a time.

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, there were a few issues I had with the story. First off, we all know how tricky it is with Time travel stories, because so much of it can conflict with itself, and as always, paradoxes abound. I didn’t mind too much about the storylines contradicting each other, for me, it was more about how many there were to keep track of!! And some of them, I just wish went another way. In fact, at the end, I thought it had wrapped up to a fairly decent ending, but then they added an additional epilogue of sorts, and sadly, it actually kind of spoiled my beloved “first meeting” scene.

Ahh, best not to think about it, and simply enjoy those wonderful opening scenes for what it’s worth!

Choshichiro Edo Nikki on NGN

    One great thing about back when I was subscribing to NGN was that besides the great Fuji Television shows, they’d also show a lot of older shows especially in the genre of the samurai/wandering swordsman variety, and one of the ones I really enjoyed watching was Choshichiro Edo Nikki starring great actor Satomi Kotaro (whom I just LOVED as Dad Mochizuki in the NHK asadora AGRI) as said swordsman a la Abarenbo Shogun.


The thing I loved about it was that although it aired in the eighties, it had the style and feel of the early 1970’s, and every time I watched it, I felt transported not so much as back to ancient Japan times, but to my own childhood here in Hawaii! I especially loved the ending song, sung by Satomi himself, as it had the feel of those records my Japanese grandparents would listen to whenever we’d visit their house, and the sights and sets of the show had all the feel of childhood trips to Shirokiya’s or Daiei-

As a kid, going to those stores really made you feel like you’d been transported TO Japan what with all the food, paintings, music and merchandise…(heck, the outside architecture of Shirokiya’s ALONE woulda done it, y’know?) You’d be in search of Kikaida paraphernalia and have to walk past  huge posters of cherry blossoms over Japanese gardens or elaborate Shrines and wade through crowded tables with those expensive dolls in those glass boxes…Truly an experience for a kid!

I remember the first time I was watching Choshichiro Edo Nikki, I at once wondered if it was a show I’d watched at my grandparents’ as a kid, it looked SO nostalgic! The style and grain of the show placed it in my mind as around 1972 or 1974, which would have fit right in with the timeline of my youth. But looking it up I was surprised to find that these episodes I was watching were from the 1983-84 era, almost ten years later!

Adventures In Cuteness: Tabe Mikako

Japanese actress Tabe Mikako is adorable in just about everything she’s done whether it be starring in the latest Shakalabbits video or playing Prisoner of Zelda, and her performance as Yasuko Oki in the Masahiro Matsuoka drama YASUKO TO KENJI was no exception!

Tabe played the little sister Yasuko to big brother Kenji (Matsuoka) and the story followed the siblings as they dealt with the ups and downs of life including a romance for Yasuko (in the form of Kanjani8 ‘s Tadayoshi Okura) and Kenji (in the form of Hirosue Ryoko) all amidst the slapstick life of a former-gang-leader-turned-manga-artist in the WACKIEST drama yet!

Besides all the usual cute stuff you’ve come to expect from Tabe Mikako in past dramas like Shikaotoko Aoniyoshi and Yamada Taro Monogatari, Yasuko to Kenji had this one HILARIOUS running gag in that the character of Yasuko was supposed to be extremely klutzy, especially when faced some daunting task (like talking to the boy she loves) and she inevitably trips herself up, flies across the screen, and lands face down on the ground, where she proclaims a silent “Ouch!”
This was SOOOO cute and funny, and I found myself waiting for the scene’s appearance in each upcoming episode, and one night I decided to go ahead and screen capture each of the “pratfalls” Tabe Mikako has performed throughout the series, though I’m pretty sure I still missed one or two!

Sato Aiko eating Vegetable Tempura

Utada’s “In The Flesh” Tour 2010

J-pop superstar and R&B songstress Utada Hikaru (known now simply as “Utada” on her domestic releases) kicked off her United States tour to promote her new album “This Is The One” here in Hawaii at the Pipeline Café, and even now of the morning after I still can’t get over how FULLY KICK-ASS the show was!!!

Now, I’ve always enjoyed Hikaru’s songs and performances when I would catch her on those various Music Programs, but up until this point, I’d only ever owned two Utada Hikaru Albums: Her debut Japanese classic album ‘First Love” and her 2004 American/International release “Exodus”. You might say that I’m more of a casual fan of Hikaru, so I wasn’t even aware of her upcoming appearance til I read about it in the Honolulu Weekly and found the show had been sold out already!!!

So imagine my surprise when I got a call from a friend inviting me to come along to check out Utada that following weekend!!! EH?! TO that SOLD OUT CONCERT?! I Said “Heck Yeah!!!” Seems the smart thing to do was to order the tickets online, and that’s just how the tickets were obtained!!!! ARIGATOOO!

This gave me a week to get a copy of Hikaru’s new THIS IS THE ONE release and get down to re-immersing myself in her music! I knew she would be pulling a lot of tracks from this new album because she was, after all, touring to promote it, what I didn’t expect was almost EVERY SONG on that album being so damn GOOD! Really, I couldn’t stop listening to it, and by the time Friday night came around, I was primed and ready to go!

Arriving at the scene, the first thing that hit me was THE CROWD!!! Now, I knew there would be a good turnout for Utada, but thought it would be a room full of hardcore fans and fans who loved her from her j-pop catalog, but…MAN!!! The Line (of crowds two to three people deep) went from the front door across two blocks and around the corner onto the main boulevard! Almost everyone who got to the line after us had the same reaction: HOLY CRAP!!!!” I knew this would be a cool show, I didn’t realize this was really an EVENT!!!!

Utada opened the show with “On and On”, the opening track to This Is The One, followed by a few more including my fave song on the CD, a jumpin’ tune called “Poppin,” where she really engaged the crowd and got EVERYONE in the mood for a GREAT TIME!

At this point she polled the audience of how many were from Honolulu, and though she was answered with a rousing cheer, when she asked how many were from Japan, the thunderous cacophony that resulted made me realize how die-hard her fans were, to travel all the way to see her in this intimate surrounding

It was then that she switched gears and began to pull songs from her impressive J-pop career, much to the delight of the crowd! From then, the show consisted of a sort of “Greatest Hits” package, with Utada mixing in singles from all of her albums, both English and Japanese, and with the incredible band she had with her, every one was vibrant and in-your-face ROCKING!

Highlights for me were the aforementioned “Poppin” (love when she sassily sings the line “Girls, You KNOW we have it better than the boys”, and she’s met with a rousing cheer from all the gals in the audience), The absolutely POUNDING Passion/Sanctuary performance, the Brazilian tinged “Me Muero”, the highly anticipated “First Love” ( I loved hearing everyone in the audience singing right along with this beloved song), and seeing Hikaru perform my all-time favorite song AUTOMATIC, grooving and totally getting’ INTO IT!!!

The Sexy As Hell Tanimura Nana

Up until recently, just about the only thing I knew about artist Nana Tanimura [谷村 奈南 ] was her single Sexy Senorita, a song I acquired through an ORICON compilation somebody had uploaded way back in 2008- The tune was upbeat and genki, and my initial impressions was that it was very much in the key of artists like BoA, a fun, danceable song, and it ended up on a compilation of my own which I listened to incessantly thereafter!

Fast forward about two years, and I’m browsing by the highly informative j-pop site For The Love of J-Music, and find that someone has uploaded all Nana’s PVs. “Hmmm, I wouldn’t mind seeing the video for Sexy Senorita”, I think to myself! I click the link to investigate further, and when the images open up, I am overwhelmed by something I’d heretofore never known:

Nana Tanimura is FRICKING Gorgeous!

I’m sitting there totally slackjawed as the photo images of her CD singles start opening up, and I cannot believe that up until then I’d never known how she looked! I mean, I know a song is supposed to stand by itself without looks or image deciding if it is “good” or not, but HOLY HELL this put “Sexy Senorita” into a NEW light!!!

With features that immediately reminded me of Eriko Sato a la Cutie Honey or even Ishikawa Rika (hey, isn’t this how I described Takeuchi Yoshie? I must have a one-track mind!), this was an artist that FULLY utilized her attractive looks to promote her CDs, and each cover looked like a mini-page out of some sexy photobook!

The site featured six of Nana’s songs and I wasted NO TIME downloading those PVs, and once I got them onto my hard drive, wasted no time watching them, with the volume way up! Upon playing them, I was struck by two things:

One: “Sexy Senorita” was no fluke, as each of her singles retained that upbeat and catchy melodies I loved from that first song I knew, and in fact expanded beyond to street, techno and flat out pop music as well...

And...

Two: Nana is SEXY as HELL and has NO PROBLEM flaunting her “assets” in the videos, (to which she had an ample supply, truth be told, see pic below) thrusting and gyrating her body to the beat of her urban tunes, all to which adds up to a pretty HOT package!

After listening to these awesome songs, I was interested in hearing more from her, but by the information I’ve been able to read, seems like Nana’s spending most of her time going to Law School and preparing herself for the “real” world, and it seems these six singles are her entire discography!

Releasing two singles in 2007, two singles in 2008 and two more in 2009, it seems this is to be Nana’s working “pattern” and by that rule of thumb, we should be expecting something new from her in a few months! I’ll be waiting to hear what she does next, as well as waiting to SEE what she does next!

PS: Reading up on Nana, it seems she lived here in Hawaii for a few years! Wow, a girl with “local” roots! Whodathunkit?!

Crush Of The Day: Ikewaki Chizuru

I’ve been watching the gripping murder mystery drama GONZO starring Masaki Uchino and was PLEASANTLY surprised to see the appearance of an old Crush fave of mine, uber cutie Chizuru Ikewaki starring as the motivational piece in the pivotal “flashback” episode of the show!

At first, I didn’t recognize her, and when they first flashed her image across the screen as one of the ghosts that “haunt” Uchino’s Kuroki character, my first thought was, “Hey, that girl looks like Hiromi Nagasaku a little bit!” But by the second time she appeared onscreen, it instantly clicked and I realized “WAIT! That must be Chizuku Ikewaki!!!”

People may recall that back when I watched the Tsuyoshi Domoto / Ryoko Hirosue drama SUMMER SNOW how much I loved Chizuru’s portrayal of Chika, and I was entranced not only by Chizuru’s attractive looks, but dynamic acting, as well! At the time, I could hardly believe this was the same girl who’d played the mousey and subdued character Ikawa in the older Ryoko Hirosue Drama LIPSTICK, and now once again she’s upped the ante with GONZO!
Chizuru looks just FANTASTIC here as Saeki Kyoko, and why wouldn’t she? Playing a prostitute trying to go straight with the love and guidance of Kuroki, we get to see her in the best of both worlds: decked to the nines in SEXY flamboyant dresses during her “hooking” phase, and cute t-shirts and jeans for her “detoxing” stage. And of course, throughout the scenes, AWESOME acting as is to be expected from her!
I really wish I could see more of her in future episodes of GONZO, but seeing that she’s the central piece in a FLASHBACK episode doesn’t make it too likely she’ll be appearing again outside of spectral phantom-like visions, but that’s OK. That 7^th episode was almost solely devoted to her, and that’s gotta be reward enough!
After watching that episode of GONZO, totally high on the awesomeness that is Chizuru Ikewaki, I went online to go lookin’ for facts and pics to satiate my hunger, and perusing the Wikipedia stats, was surprised to see that she hasn’t been in all that many dramas, and it seems to me that she hasn’t had a chance to star in any drama of her own, like as a romantic lead? Maybe she’s saving all of that for her cinematic career: Chizuru does seem to have a more active movie pedigree, after all. I’ll have to check more of those out! Suggestions. Anyone?

Crush Of The Day: Koyuki

Koyuki in Kimi wa Petto

I’ve loved model/actress Koyuki ever since I first laid eyes on her as Kashiwabara Takashi’s sweet and petite fiancé in the awesome, awesome drama Renai Kekkon No Rule (one of my Top Five favorite j-dramas of all time, don’t you know), and spent many weeks declaring my love for her against friends telling me: “She’s too Thin!” or “She has Too Much Makeup!” Oh, such catty comments- It was obvious to ME that Koyuki was just about as perfect as you can get!

Koyuki in Renai Kekkon No Rule

After that I didn’t really see her in too many things though I have many memories of downloading makeup commercials with her in it. Her big break, or course, came with her mainstream performance in that LAST SAMURAI movie that everyone loves so much.Me, I could take it or leave it, but high marks for Warner Bros. not only casting Koyuki, but awesome actor Sanada Hiroyuki, as well!

Kimi wa Petto 2

The best thing about THE LAST SAMURAI was that while working for a video store, they got some promotional posters for the movie when it was getting its original DVD release, and there was this one poster set that had mini-posters of the cast members, and when I saw that one of them featured Koyuki, believe you me, I swept THAT item up! (And I still have it, as a matter of fact!)

The Last Samurai DVD Promotion Posters

Though Koyuki appeared sporadically in dramas every now and then, they were shows I didn’t get to see, and it wasn’t until much later when a friend of mine gave me a copy of the movie Always~ Sanchōme no Yūhi, that I was reminded in an instant how much I loved her. My friends all heard the required gushing that accompanied my rediscovery of the former Ms. Kato!

with Ryuta Sato, Kimi wa Petto

Meeting Nagatsuka Kyozo in Kimi wa Petto

And now here we have her in the totally hen drama Kimi wa Petto, the Japanese dramedy starring Koyuki as journalist Iwaya Sumire and Matsumoto Jun as Momo, her…dog? Yes, it’s true! I mean, really, this is one of the more bizarre drama ideas I’ve come across, but anything outside of the “run of the mill” drama romances” are ALWAYS interesting to me, even if it entails Matsujun running around on all fours barking “Wan Wan!” while Koyuki lovingly hugs and pets him!

with Matsujun as the titular pet in Kimi wa Petto

But, hontoni, Koyuki is really a dream in this show. Smart, forceful AND feminine, this was all the elements I love so much in my heroines. Plus, since she’s a business journalist, I got to see her draped in the most delectable outfits, silky blouses and tight skirts, DAMN! I think I’ve mentioned before how much I LOVE a Pretty Lady in Pretty Clothes.

PS: Shortly after completing this wacky drama, I finally got around to seeing Koyuki in the drama “Boku to Kanojyo to Kanojyo no Ikiru Michi” and MAN! Once again, Koyuki managed to totally captivate this heart and I realized I was a bonafide Koyuki fan for life!

Kohaku Uta Gassen 2009

This year’s Kohaku Uta Gassen was filled with sights and wonders to behold, featuring artists both old and new, and I thought I’d take the time to jot down some of the acts that really made the program for me!

Nana Mizuki

Among the many guests debuting this evening were the old-skool-jpop sounding tunes of Nana Mizuki and the first appearance of Johnny’s group NYC, whom most people saw and said “Who the heck ARE these guys?” With all the great Johnny’s groups still to appear on the Red and White, it’s odd that they chose this NEW act to come on!

NYC

Although I’d seen enka queen Fuyumi Sakamoto in “regular” clothes before (in Music Station clips featuring old group HIS, for example), this was the first time she’d come onto the Kohaku singing her songs without her traditional kimono and hairdo. She was lookin’ FINE!

Sakamoto Fuyumi

Backed up with Fuyumi was the ever stoic Takashi Hosokawa, this time belting out his awesome classic “Bokyo Jonkara”, the song I once dubbed “That song with the Fifty million Shamisens”, LOL. Truly EPIC to watch!

Hosokawa Takashi

Techno band Girl Next Door debuted last year, but this was the first time I noticed how fricking sexy and CUTE lead singer Chisa was! I thought it was great to see her looking so girlishly bouncy and giddy, doing moves with her fellow dancers like gals in a pep rally! Contrarily, my friend Car expressed disappointment that the cool rocker from last year had turned into this “idol”.LOL

Chisa, Girl Next Door

AKB48 had been slowly gaining a foothold into the “big-ass-girl-group” j-pop demographic for some time now, and it was with their kick ass song RIVER that I think they finally made it! After this year, they’d not only take over the “giant girl group” spot Morning Musume once held, but make fun and varied appearance throughout the entire show!

AKB48

One group appearing this year for the first time that I kind of liked was the very Def Tech sounding “Funky Monkey Babys” and their uplifting song “Hero”, such a great tune, I HAD to go look for it after the show!

Funky Monkey Babys

Next Yusuke came out, doing a catchy little tune called “Himawari” while looking like  Fun Boy Three’s illegitimate Japanese Brother. Really a great song, but sure a stretch from his SHUCHISHIN days!

Yusuke

Arguably the most anticipated act this year (it sure was at OUR household!), was the debut appearance of immensely popular Johnny’s group ARASHI. This has been a long time in coming, and they set it up real nice, with a cool little introduction clip before the boys came out to perform their first medley for the Red and White, performing their first single A-RA-SHI, Love So Sweet, Happiness, and Believe!

Arashi

…And then God came down and proclaimed Arashi as the new overexposed act of the new year…LOL

Besides loving Koda Kumi performing her rockin’ new single “Lick Me”, it got even BETTER when her little sister MISONO came out to duet with Kumi on their song “It’s All Love”! Loved watching the two try to out-sass each other!

Misono x Koda Kumi

 Arashi was trucked out to hold cards with the letters T-O-K-I-O spelled on them and reciting what the letters might stand for, a feat that was recycled from an older Kohaku, though THAT time it was SMAP themselves holding the cards. Nakai looks happy to be on the other end of the microphone for a change. Then TOKIO came out and rocked a bit, doing their song “Taiyo To Sabaku no Bara”.

TOKIO

Ayaka came out to do a touching performance of “Minna Sora No Shita” which brought not a few eyes to tears! Funny how much she looks like an older Nattchi Abe to me.

Ayaka

The closing acts of the night fell to veteran “Chairman Of The Board”  Saburo Kitajima for the White Team doing ‘Matsuri” and the impeccable DREAMS COME TRUE belting out an awesome “Sono Saki E”! Miwa looked great and Masato was beaming as usual, looking like the happiest bass player in the world…

Dreams Come True