That Darn (Silver) Cat!

The other night Me and Yametekudasai were online discussing the merits of the ultimate babe-ness of our favorite Kikaida villainesses, of which there were, at least in “human” capacity, three: Violet Top Shell, Pink Armadillo and Silver Cat.

Now I’ll admit that I had a hankering for the woman who morphed into Violet Top Shell, and the Lady who became Pink Armadillo gave me my introduction to “chi-chi’s” as a kid, but for me, there was never any doubt that my favorite Dark Demolition Corp female baddie was the girl who turned into SILVER CAT, all the way back in episode 12.

In my childhood, there were but two big tokusatsu crushes I had that dominated my every waking thoughts: Risa Komaki as Pink Ranger and Kazuyo Sumida as Rieko in Kikaida 0-1, but way before all of them was the sultry maiden in distress that took Hattori Hanpei for a ride of unrequited lust, and even as a 1^st grader I knew this chick was HOT!

Played by saucy Takiko Mizukami, I was to find she had quite a history involved with tokusatsu heroes, appearing in both ULTRA SEVEN and KAMEN RIDER!

Too bad when she changed, not only did she change into a mechanical beast, but her voice changed to a DUDE! This happened in both the Kikaida episode AND the Ultra Seven one! How much can someone henshin! Not that it would have been that much better, but it would have made more sense for her to turn into AT LEAST someone like Lady Darnia from Akumaizer 3!

Anyway, Here’s a bit of the dialog that went on during our original SILVER CAT tweets:

Yametekudasai:

Interesting data on the Japanese Kikaida wiki page: voice talent credits for the Dark androids!

Yametekudasai:

That wiki page totally distracted me into looking for pics of Violet Top Shell's human form. Yup...

zdorama:

@Yametekudasai Ah yeah, Violet Top Shell was fine, but for my money it's gotta be Silver Cat. YEAHHHHHHHHH! Crank it, Baby!!!

zdorama:

@Yametekudasai It crosses my mind how Otaku that "Crank It" line is.

Yametekudasai:

Austin Powers accent?

Yametekudasai:

@zdorama I think your enthusiasm trumped any otaku factor! I rate Silver Cat 2nd but I can't blame Hanpei for peeking...

@zdorama Now hunting for Silver Cat pics. Found screencaps of a guest appearance on "Ultra Seven" Hmm, looks familiar. Some screencaps:

zdorama:

@Yametekudasai (after checking out website) Ooh, that's not nice to have such luscious pics and make them unclickable! Damn, that woman rocks!

zdorama:

@Yametekudasai As far as Silver Cat pics, there's always the Kikaida Book one, I suppose:

Yametekudasai:

Heyyy, what book had Violet Top Shell AND Pink Armadillo?! Seems like everything we had stopped at Carmine Spider...

zdorama:

Hahahaha, Well, the only one actually from the book was the Silver Cat one. The rest were from (I Believe) the Henshin Hall Of Fame site.

Yametekudasai:

Ahh, Stuart's (Kewalaka) site? Wonder if that guy is still into the henshin heroes...

Purely rhetorical question: if Red Jellyfish had a human form, who would she look like? I'm afraid to guess...

Yametekudasai:

@zdorama The "car broke down at the side of the road" trick resulting the mod chick stealing the Ultra Eye... Dang I gotta find that ep!

zdorama:

@Yametekudasai Oh Man, If you find that Episode, I'm gonna NEED a copy of that! SEVEN! SEVEN! SEVEN!

Yametekudasai:

@zdorama Was "only" able to find an AVI file with Spanish hardsubs (umm, thank you Google). Will upload later...

Yametekudasai:

This file took literally seconds to upload but shows up as a "real" file. Lemme know if you download something tangible. Funny sequence with Silver Cat chick...

zdorama:

Thanks for the link, downloading now! So...what's her name, the only name I see is …Tatsuko Mizue?

Yametekudasai:

Mizukami Takiko. Several 1960s movie credits, judging from the few Google pic links available.

…And the rest, as they say, is history!

ZOO: Hidamari no Shi

While high on my “Ryoko Kobayashi” fan mode after her terrific performance in the supernatural revenge thriller MAOU, I found she’d starred in a similarly spooky Twilight-Zone styled movie called ZOO in one of its five stories. That sounded interesting, and, happily enough, I was able to acquire a nice subtitled version over at DLAzn’s generous Asian Drama and Movie site.

Well, in the end, Ryoko’s story (a tale about a set of twins, both played by her) ended up being so-so, and I’m sad to say that statement rang true for most of the other segments, too. In fact out of the five, I only really liked a couple of them- the story SEVEN ROOMS starring Yui ichikawa as an abducted girl in a mysterious holding cell, and segment Four which, in direct contrast to the other tales, was a short clip that was completely animated.

It was this story that TOTALLY MADE THE MOVIE FOR ME!

This chapter was called HIDAMARI NO SHI, a story written and animated by Mizusaki Junpei and featuring perfect voice acting by Suzuki Kasumi and Suwaru Ryu. Hidamari No Shi tells a tale of a Scientist and his Robot Girl creation in a futuristic world not so different from our own...

The story opens with the girl robot awakening for the first time as she is introduced to her creator. The man has created this girl to cook, clean, and tend to the multitude of household chores, as well as other tasks that become clearer as time moves on. The girl accepts this readily and is ready to begin her new life.

She is told “Happy Birthday” as she is led to the house that will become her new home, and right off the bat she is learning how to prepare coffee, eager to learn all there is to do. Though she possesses an intelligent mind (as befitting any young girl), her naivety and clinical observations make her instantly likeable, and we can’t wait to join her on her learning expedition. In one scene, she is given coffee to drink and after one sip, states, “I dislike this taste.” After dropping in a cube of sugar, she happily says, “The increased sweetness makes it easier for my body to absorb it naturally” which of course is her own way of saying it’s yummy!

The girl is wide-eyed and curious about situations and the things around her, and the conversation between the two as the man explains each new discovery with her is both bittersweet and poignant as they cover various things like life and death…as well as the fate of humankind in the years gone by.

The great charm of this clip is the pacing. As the girl goes about her daily life, the viewer is allowed to look about and take in the scenery along with her, examining what she is examining, reacting as she reacts. Every action is deliberate and precise, every sentence of dialog meaningful and heartfelt, and as I’ve stated before, the voice talent is just awesome, fully fleshing out the animated characters onscreen and making the girl seem real and believable.

The story of HIDAMARI NO SHI is ultimately a philosophical one, for though the girl’s days are spent doing chores like laundry, tending the garden and fetching the water, there are also rabbits and butterflies in her life to observe and chase, sunrises and sunsets to experience, and the quiet, beautiful sound of wind-chimes as they tinkle in the breeze. Yes, he’s created her to cook and to clean, but beneath it all is the lesson he wants her to learn most, and that is the joy and gratitude of simply being alive.

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Moritaka Chisato / Suteki Na Tanjoubi

Well, here it is, that magical performance that introduced me to the Eight Wonder of the World that is---CHISATO MORITAKA’S LEGS!!!!
Yes, after coming off of Chisato’s incredible 1995 Red and White Festival performance of “Futari wa Koibito”, I was riding high on Moritaka Adoration, and was hungry for more! Seeing me recently consumed by Chisato-luv, one of my co-workers at Tower let me borrow his copy of the PREVIOUS year’s Kohaku (that would be the 1994 festival, natch), and once again I was wowed and just about floored by Chisato’s happy and genki tribute to Birthday celebrating with the peppy song SUTEKI NA TANJOBI!

Chisato’s segment begins with a rousing guitar chorus of The Beatles’ “Birthday” as the curtains open and the audience is treated to a HUGE birthday cake the size of which could only befit Godzilla, but the REAL treat is yet to come, as curtains in the middle of the “cake” part and Ms. Moritaka steps out- wearing the Prettiest Christmas outfit and YES!!!! Her Lovely legs clad in black stockings and topped off with high-laced boots, this was truly the stuff Birthday wishes are made of!!!

Like many of her energetic performances on her concert laserdiscs, when the song is an upbeat or frenetically paced song, Chisato rarely stops moving for even a second, and this bubbly perf of Suteki Na Tanjobi is NO EXCEPTION!!! Swaying side to side and bouncing back and forth this is the dance that my friend Gold dubbed the “Jiggly Dance”, especially at the end during the guitar outro! Chisato herself is fun- happy and beaming like she always is, and one cute thing is how her styled bangs curled back into her eyes and she spent most of the time blinking them back…!

Later I was to get Chisato’s latest (at the time) PV Collection, and though I was excited to finally see the video made to accompany Suteki Na Tanjobi….I have to say, quite frankly, I was disappointed. Instead of a sexy’n’fun dress, stockings and boots, we got Chisato dressed as a…farm hand? Yes. And no backing band or anything…well, except for the dude dressed in a cowboy puppet costume. Gack! Though many people associate this video with the song, give me that Live Kohaku performance ANY DAY!!!

In an interesting side note, I later acquired another live performance of Chisato doing Suteki Na Tanjobi, and what made THIS one interesting is that in the background, you see on rhythm guitar none other than future MR. Moritaka himself, EGUCHI YOSUKE!!

Kitagawa Keiko Does It Again!

   Just finished watching the hilarious and sometimes touching comedy movie THE HANDSOME SUIT starring Tsukaji Muga as Takuro, a self professed “ugly” and overweight cook at a side street eatery who dons a magical suit that transforms him into a suave and devilishly good-looking gentleman (played by Tanihara Shosuke) so he can win the affection of a cute waitress named Hiroko, played (of course) by the incredible Kitagawa Keiko.

Keiko's character is a quiet and pure girl who shyly comes into Muga's restaurant looking for a job, and Takuro's so shocked that such a beautiful young thing would want to work in HIS shoppe, he's almost too dumbstruck to reply! But his customers  snap him out of it and Hiroko begins working there as the waitress. 

Soon enough, Takuro's confessed his love to her, and the surprised girl can only ask, "WHY do You Love Me?" and when he answers back "Because You're So Pretty", she suddenly gives him the brush off and quits. It's then that he seeks out the mysterious HANDSOME SUIT to change his appearance so he can sweep Hiroko off her feet! 

But problems arise when Takuro (in his suit) confronts Hiroko and finds she doesn't like the slick type at ALL! In fact, Takuro's too thick to realize that the one she loves is Takuro himself! Instead, he finds himself getting involved in the hectic world of modelling and getting farther and farther out of Hiroko's reach....

Hmmm. While I can understand why a sweet and naïve young girl like Hiroko might be turned off by a showboating egomaniac like Shosuke Tanihara, I have a harder time believing she’d fall instead madly in love with Muga’s character, at least so much that she would go to such drastic measures as she does…

Ah well, in a movie, like this, common sense and credibility are thrown out the window, and you’re there to simply sit back and enjoy the ride, a feat that this movie does effortlessly! SO much fun, and MY does Keiko-chan look absolutely adorable as the shy and innocent Hiroko…! Thumbs Up!

PS: Was GREAT seeing the two MOP GIRL co-stars together again!!!

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?!