A Test.

Ever since Car pointed out the over-abundance of bikini-clad women on this site (note: these is NO SUCH THING as "Overabundance" of Bikini-clad women, just so you know) I've been wondering how much pull those particular shots have been to my blog, so I decided to conduct a test. I added a few nice cheesecake-y type pics to an older post of mine, and if THAT ONE turns up on my most viewed list, we'll know what motivates most of the browsers out there!

In the meantime, here is your daily picture of the unsinkable Aibu Saki, 

which I know all of you have been clamoring for:

Picture Three in a Series

And please remember to check out the awesomely cute and hilarious Aibu Saki/Mokomichi Hayami drama REBOUND, currently airing on the NTV network!

As Promised

Looks like my new Aibu Saki series has taken off like a bullet! So without further ado, we present the latest, this time with a put-out Mokomichi in the background as a bonus!

Picture Two in a Series.

And please remember to check out the awesomely cute and hilarious Aibu Saki/Mokomichi Hayami drama REBOUND, currently airing on the NTV network!

A Slightly Different Kind Of Cheesecake

After months away from my site, my friend Car crash-coursed the back pages of my blog and summed up the content of my recent entries by flatly saying that “It looks all the new posts only have pictures of girls in bikinis.”

WELL! If THAT wasn’t a Fine How-do-You-Do! So In the interest of balancing things out, for the whole of next week, I’ll be posting up pictures of Aibu Saki being Fat, and hopefully THAT should “even up” my blog a bit, LOL!

Picture One in a Series.

And please remember to check out the awesomely cute and hilarious Aibu Saki/Mokomichi Hayami drama REBOUND, currently airing on the NTV network!

The Yamaguchi Momoe in YORU NO HIT STUDIO DVD Collection!

Yamaguchi Momoe Live at Hit Studio DVD Collection

After an anxious two week wait, I received an awesome gift to myself: the Yamaguchi Momoe DVD collection called YAMAGUCHI MOMOE LIVE in YORU NO HIT STUDIO, and, as the title suggests, is a set featuring of all her TV appearances on said TV program through the years! MAN, those Japanese know how to PACKAGE  their items- this Box Set is fricking GORGEOUS!!!! Though I paid a pretty hefty price for the discs (Two bills plus!!), this was money well spent because this collection is truly a Momoe Yamaguchi fan’s DREAM!

The Goods!

Contents include 6 DVD Discs housed in a deluxe gatefold box with intricate hinged DVD holders and a beautiful  44 page retrospective booklet, and featuring all 54 performance she did on the Yoru No Hit Studio Television show, from her single Natsu Hiraku Seishun in June of 1975 all the way through to Sayonara no Muko Gawa in October of 1980, great live performances backed by sensational LIVE musicians, and including all the interviews and MC pre-song patter, and all in crystal clear clarity!

Thumbnails of the Chaptered Performances:

 CRAP! Willya LOOK at alla those PERFORMANCES!!!

Also included are treats such as four hilarious SKITS (or rather, mini-dramas) Momoe participated in, and it’s thrilling to see her having fun with other artists like Megumi Asaoka, Yashida Aki, Amachi Mari and of course her two counterparts, Mori Masako and Sakurada Junko! Additionally, they included every introduction she did for the other guests as well, so you see her handing off the microphone to artists like Four Leaves, Mori Shinichi, Minami Saori, and all the other luminaries of the time…an incredible slice of the 70’s!

Another thing I really love about this set is that it's arranged in chronological order, so as you watch the performances, you see Momoe grow from a shy and wide-eyed beginner to savvy and genki act, and finally transform to her smoldering, sultry look as a seasoned pro towards the end of the 70’s! So damn pretty, I don’t have to tell you, I was falling so SO MUCH in LOVE with her, all OVER AGAIN!!!

Beautiful Momoe

As anyone who’s spent any time watching her many, many musical performances uploaded onto Youtube and the like knows, Momoe is one helluva performer and there’s always something extra in every song she sings, so these TV appearances are soooo incredible to have! Such an awesome collection, and there’s even ANOTHER DVD Box Set for the Television Show THE TEN BEST that I’m hoping to get, however, that one will have to wait til I can afford it- TEN BEST DVD costs a crippling 3 BILLS!!! Ahh, but if it’s as good as this Yoru No Hit Studio set is, I MUST HAVE IT!!!

My Very First J-Pop Blu-Ray Discs: Candies!!!

Along with my precious Momoe Yamaguchi DVD Box Set, I also ordered this four disc set from 1970’s  girl pop trio Candies called Candies Treasure Vol. 1-4 featuring a series of performances the girls gave through the years.

I came across the set while researching the various Momoe Yamaguchi DVD collections out there, imagine my surprise when I saw a Candies Collection, and then to see that not only was it available in BLU-RAY, but REGION-FREE, as well!!! SUGOI!!!

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, the first time I saw Candies was on a 70’s Retrospective show, and the live clips they showed of the girls performing just blew me away! The concert footage was particularly captivating: her fans were going nuts, yelling the girls names as they sang!! I remember telling a friend, MAN, if they had their concerts for sale, I would TOTALLY buy them! Alas, at the time, no such shows were available in VHS OR Laserdisc.

So you can imagine my excitement upon realizing that the first two discs contained two COMPLETE Concerts from 1977, (the second one a pretty frickin’ AWESOME one too, I might add!) and Disc Three contained a complete Concert from 1978!

Probably the cherry on top of this set is Disc Four which features a “Video Singles Live” collection, with the girls giving a live TV performance of each of their singles from  Anata Ni Yume Naka through to Wana, a PERFECT way to end this collection!!

Like the Momoe discs before it, this is GREAT STUFF!! For some reason, these shows shot in the 70’s were really clear to begin with, and having them in the latest in Video technology is INCREDIBLE! And Hey, if that wasn't enough, each disc came with a booklet and collectible POSTCARD! So cute!

Bonus Postcards

Yes, these Discs (along with the aforementioned Momoe DVD set) did put a major DENT in my wallet, but its SO worth it for the awesome footage here, and there’s also that undeniable “Pride Of Ownership” that comes with plinking down the change to own the actual discs for my collection! And it's encouraging to know that the powers that be are realizing that there are fans who are waiting for these treasures to be released, and will hopefully be releasing even MORE stuff! CoCo Producers, Take Note!

Komatta, Na

Crush Of The Day: Inoue Mao

Inoue Mao

Yes, in a move that everyone must surely have predicted, Inoue Mao is today’s Crush Of The Day. Whodathunkit? Ah well, predictable or not, my gushing over cutie Mao-chan cannot be contained and must be said!

Inoue Mao as Fukunaga Mio

The first time I thought to myself, “Huh! Mao Inoue’s pretty cute!” was when she made her appearance on Himitsu No Arashi Chan’s VIP ROOM (See? That corner really was da bomb!) where she was on to talk story with the boys, reflect on her role with Matsujun in Hana Yori Dango, and promote her new movie “Tengoku de Kimi ni Aetara” with Nino.

Mao on Himitsu No Arashi-Chan's VIP ROOM

This revelation about Mao Inoue’s cuteness was a surprise for me because up until that point, she really had had no special effect on me. Though I had friends who really, really loved her, she seemed like nothing more than a capable young actress. Of course, I knew that if I saw her in the right drama playing the right character, my opinion could change just like that, and that’s where FIRST KISS comes in!

I had just begun watching a couple of OK but rather mundane dramas, and while both of them weren’t bad, I began to lament the fact that it had been a WHILE since I’d been blown away watching the first episode of a new drama, and decided I was going to keep watching new dramas til I found one that really moved me.

Flipping through my binder of Dramas (conveniently burned onto DVD discs an filed away nicely), I came across FIRST KISS and, feeling a positive vibe from it, decided to give it a chance and check it out…. WHAT A JACKPOT THAT TURNED OUT TO BE!! 

The story of Mio, a peppy young girl with a heart condition and Kano, her befuddled older brother who suddenly finds his rambunctious sister under his care as she returns home to Japan to spend the summer before going back to have a serious surgery, this bittersweet drama is just FILLED with awesome actors and every single one of them is ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC in his or her role.

Hideaki Ito and Inoue Mao: Siblings

And as related in my earlier post, First Kiss TOTALLY sold me first from that very first episode. My heart was just completely stolen away Inoue Mao’s character Mio, and her sassiness and naughtiness just made me LOVE HER! She played Mio with SUCH girly ABANDON, like this was the role she was destined to play!

Besides her explosively genki demeanor, Mio’s attire is the icing on the cake: the most cute and feminine of outfits, and HECK, even her BRA STRAPS have hearts on them, and you KNOW that that’s a WINNER!

Its so funny how the perfect character can turn a casual knowledge of an actress into a full blown fan! To all those Hana Yori Dango fans out there, I could say “I Get It now!” but while she will be Makino Tsukushi to all of you, she will be eternally engrained in my heart as Fukunaga Mio!

Inoue Mao eating Pizza

A Song to Brighten Your Day: "Happy Talk" by Happiness

 Say, either I'm getting older or Pop units nowadays are gettin' younger! After falling in love with the absolutely catchy song "Happy Talk!" by cute group HAPPINESS, I went online to find out more about them, and was taken aback to find out that I've been into J-pop longer than any of them have been ALIVE! Who would have thought that C-ute would have been this influential to future idol groups?

Anyway, I loved Happy Talk so much that I had to find a copy of the accompanying PV, and I have to tell you, I was just amazed at how awesome the choreography in this video is! I have to say that it's been awhile since I saw such energetic bust-a-movin'! Members Sayaka, Mimu, Kaede, Mayu, Miyu, Karen and Yurino all have these perpetual smiles on their faces and the "joy of performance" you see here is totally infectious! Happiness is a group that is VERY aptly named! A song to put a smile on your face!

Sweet Sweet Heaven Oh Change My Life!!! 

Note: Apparently the above PV was tied into a Mister Donut promo (hence the  pastries and logos everywhere) that they did way before their actual "Debut", that why they look so YOUNG here (those pink outfits don't help), additionally, I just realized someone is missing from this video, but I can't figure out who! 

Addendum: Well, no WONDER these gals is so crip wit da dance moves- I just found out that they're all graduates of the EXILE dance school, and have been background performers for their videos and concerts since elementary school!

From MusicJapan:

EXILE Sister Unit "Happiness" Announce Debut!

2011-01-17

debut / Happiness / EXILE

It has been learned their newly formed dance unit "Happiness", consisting of seven girls will be making its debut. And while not many may be knowing the name of the group just yet, they are in fact a sister unit of popular dance and vocal group EXILE.

The members are all in their middle school years and at an average of 14.5 years old. The members have all graduated from the EXILE dance school EXPG and been put together as a group of two vocalists and five performers.

So far they have been taking part in the EXILE dome and stadium tour, and while still being very young, they do have an astounding record.

EXILE's HIRO commented: "From elementary school on, they have been taking part in EXILE's music videos and tours and they have showed a splendid performance. I hope that by watching them perform, everyone becomes a bit happier." "Happiness" will be debuting with their single "Kiss Me" on February 9th and you can surely be looking forward as to what kind of performance the girls will be showing.


Addendum to the Addendum: Thanks to zafire on the 6Theory Website, I've finally matched the names of the girls to their faces and confirmed three things- 1:"Karen" is the vocalist for Happy Talk, 2: "Mayu" is the seventh member who wasn't in the PV, and 3: "Sayaka" is my favorite member!

Kuriyama Chiaki eating Chow Mein

It's Jessica Jung!

Okay, found out the Girls' Generation / Shojo Jidai / SNSD babe with the hair-dryer in those VITA500 "Let's Make Vitamin C" commercials is named "Jessica", who has officially become my favorite Girls generation member, if only for the fact that she's the only one I know the name of! Unbelievably, she was born right here in the good ol' U S of A (San Francisco) and speaks korean and english fluently, so striking up a conversation with her would be No PROBLEMO!! LOL

SNSD Says "Let's Make Vitamin C!"

While browsing one of the many Viral Video sites that I frequent, an unusual video upload called "Let's Make Vitamin C!!" caught my eye, because it featured a very cute idol girl in the small thumbnail link.


Clicking on it, I was  presented with a whole series of adorable girls hawking what looked to be some kind of energy drink, each one showing off her own unique personality and style, and each one ending with the girl singing the same song-line as she posed playfully with the drink bottles.

I saw that in each of the girls' videos, the bottle she was holding displayed her likeness, and I began to wonder if this was some kind of chinese idol group or something. Or "something" indeed! Researching online with the tag "Let's Make Vitamin C!" I was to find out that the drink as called VITA500, and the girls were none other than Korean super girl group SNSD, better known in Japan as Shojo Jidai, or GIRLS GENERATION!  Why, I had JUST put one of their latest singles"Mr. Taxi" on my latest mix and had been enjoying listening to them for the past few days!! SUGOI! Apparently this series was a campaign launched by Company C to promote their Vita500 drink- to GREAT success!

Such a cute CM series, I could watch this thing all day, though that song they sing at the end of each commercial starts to get on your nerves after awhile, truth be told! I just love how each girl is presented in such a unique and fun light...and WHOA, which SNSD girl is the one lounging back against the bar with the hair dryer waiting for the block of ice to melt? DAYUM SHE HAWT!

The Strange, Surreal Tale of Shokudo Katatsumuri

When I sat down to watch the Shibasaki Kou movie Shokudo Katatsumuri, the story of a chef who slowly takes the time to prepare the perfect meal for only one select customer a day, I figured it would be a bit eclectic in nature, but I still wasn’t been prepared for how all-out “arty-farty” it was!

 First off, It wasn’t quite that she “ took the time to create a perfect dish” for each client, more precisely, if you eat at her restaurant, amazingly, your GRANDEST WISHES COME TRUE! Whoa. A bit more fanciful than I was prepared for, but still somewhat on ground level, at least so far...I thought to myself, "OK, Um... So, this is like a fairy tale, then?" It certainly was SURREAL enough!

As the show progressed, however, the movie seemed to get more and MORE quirky, with zany singalong narration and animated vegetable picking (and of course, all those wish-granting meals) til it finally built up to this scene where Shibasaki Kou and Kimiko Yo are riding a magical flying pig up into the sky over twin mountains that look curiously like chi-chis…and that was where I had to stop and pull out a majestic WTF?!

AHAHAHA, Oh well, ya can't say that this movie wasn't entertaining, 'cause it was THAT, FOR SURE!!!

The Beautiful Aoi Yu visits the Himitsu No Arashi VIP ROOM!

It's nice to know that fine subbing teams like Arashi Zenshinn are still taking the time to translate those precious few older VIP ROOM episodes that haven't been subbed. including this AWESOME Himitsu No Arashi-Chan SPECIAL that featured not one, but TWO VIP ROOM segments, the first with cutie Ayase Haruka, and the second featuring the beautiful, beautiful, AOI YU!!!!!

As every Aoi Yu fan can attest, this is one girl that RARELY shows her face at any "variety" type show, so when she DOES, you make sure to make the most of it! And make the most of it they do! This episode featured a fun food corner where the boys find out Yu is an avid Soba eater and set up a mini soba-eating party (and have her mix up her special dipping sauce for a quick soba tasting!)

... As well as an interesting look at Yu's extensive bag/purse collection of all shapes and sizes...

 But the absolute HIGHLIGHT of the show was a totally omoshiroii take on their "Mannequin Five" corner, where instead of Arashi dressing themselves up, this time they wanted to create an ensemble for YUU-CHAN! All five boys created an outfit set that they hoped would match her personal tastes.

After revealing all five outfits, Yu ranked them from Five to One and though all outfits were actually very nice (in fact, they all looked an awful lot like Aoi Yu), it was so much fun watching all the guys cross their fingers to get chosen favorably by the pretty actress (and praying not be the dreaded "left over" one!)


Ah, another fun, fun episode of the Himitsu No Arashi-Chan VIP ROOM. There aren't that many more to go, so I've got to savor each and every one!

FWIW: My Utada Hikaru Top 40 Song Ranking!

It’s now been almost a year and a half since that wonderful concert that turned me from a casual listener of Utada Hikaru’s music to a  diehard fan, and I decided to celebrate the fact by putting together a list of my favorite songs from her, a “Top Forty” list to stand for the here and now, but which will surely be growing and shifting as I grow into a seasoned fan!

Like the other lists before, this is purely for fun, an interesting way to remember “where I was” at this stage of Utada fandom. And as usual, though it is a list of ranking, in the end, the best I can do is give a sort of "general" placement of the songs in the list. By that I mean that a song ranked at, say, #11 isn't necessarily more loved than a song at #13, but probably more beloved than a song at #33 or so.

Z's 宇多田 ヒカル TOP 40 SONG RANKING!!

01. This Is Love / Ultra Blue

02. Nijiiro Bus   / Heart Station

03. Beautiful World  / Heart Station

04. Fight The Blues / Heart Station.

05. Wings / Ultra Blue

06. Teiku 5 / Heart Station

07. Wait and See (Risk) / Distance

08. Keep Tryin’/ Ultra Blue

09. Making Love / Ultra Blue

10. Uso Mitai Na I Love You  / Deep River

11. Tokyo Nights  / Deep River

12. One Night Magic / Ultra Blue

13. Moving On Without You / First Love

14. Heart Station  / Heart Station

15. Kettobase  / Distance

16. Blue/ Ultra Blue

17. Flavor Of Life  / Heart Station

18. Passion / Ultra Blue

19. Amai Wana Paint It Black / First Love

20. Stay Gold / Heart Station

21. Boku Wa Kuma  / Heart Station

22. Goodbye Happiness / Hikaru Singles Best II

23. Mi Muero / This Is The One

24. Sakura Drops / Deep River

25. Automatic / First Love

26. First Love / First Love

27. Poppin’ / This Is The One

28. Colors / Ultra Blue

29. Kiss and Cry / Heart Station

30. Can You Keep A Secret? / Distance

31. Apples And Cinnamon / This Is The One

32. Time Limit   / Distance

33. Easy Breezy / Exodus

34. Dorama  / Distance   

35. Arashi No Megami / Hikaru Singles Best II

36. Deep River / Deep River

37. Travelling / Deep River

38. Celebrate   / Heart Station

39. Eternally   / Distance

40. Exodus ’04 / Exodus

Glancing even briefly at the list, it’s REALLY obvious which Utada albums are my favorite ones! Somehow, even from the very beginning, the songs and feeling of Utada’s ULTRA BLUE and HEART STATION albums have been the ones that have affected me the most and have been closest to my heart, far eclipsing even the original “First Love” album that started it all!

Such a shame to come into this exciting discovery of Hikaru’s body of music right when she’s decided to go on hiatus! Right now is the time I’d like to be experiencing the rush of a new album, sadly, it doesn’t look like there’ll be any of those in the coming years…lucky I even got the bonus songs on her Singles Collection II disc!

All we can do is wait, but in the meantime, I'm QUITE satisfied with the albums I have right now!

My Silver Tongue

A Song To Brighten Your Day: "Pop Master" by Mizuki Nana

One artist that always seems to make it onto the  J-pop collections I make is wonderful singer/songwriter Nana Mizuki. It seems that whenever I’m gathering songs to assemble my latest mix, Nana’s latest single ALWAYS fits RIGHT IN with the playlist I’m creating!

Nana Mizuki has this awesome singing voice that alternates from high to growly (kind of reminds me of Sakai Noriko and Kudoh Shizuka), a powerful vocal that belies the cute and girly-girly image you see performing onstage! In fact, when I first heard her, I was somehow imagining a much older woman (maybe like the aforementioned Shizuka or Noriko), imagine my surprise when I saw this young giddy VERY “idol” looking girl singing onstage!

Well, I’m in the process of creating yet ANOTHER j-pop mix tape, so I was happy to find that good old reliable Nana had just released a new single! Listening to “Pop Master”  for the first time, I just HAD TO STOP AND SMILE!!! I was FLOORED- I’m telling you, her music gives off SUCH POSITIVE VIBES, her music makes you feel so good!

Going online to see if there was any PV accompaniment to this wonderful song, I was thrilled to find an incredibly fun LIVE performance!!! Awww, this is PURE Good Old-fashioned J-POP!!! Check It OUT while you can, Yo!!! 

The Instant Numa Connection

 Remember a few posts back when I was saying how much the dialog between Odagiri Joe and Tomokazu Miura in Ten Ten~ Adrift In Tokyo reminded me of the patter between Kazama Morio and Aso Kumiko in Instant Numa? Wow, I just found out that BOTH movies were directed by quirky Satoshi Miki, a man who is QUITE well known in Japan for his eccentric and off-the-wall scripts! No WONDER the flavor of both movies seemed so similar to me! 

Tomokazu Mira and Odagiri Joe in Ten Ten

Kazama Morio and cutie Aso Kumiko in Instant Numa

And looking further, I found out that he'd even written and directed another zany movie I loved, the fun Juri Ueno movie Kame wa Igai to Hayaku Oyogu (Turtles Swim Faster Than Expected) where homebody Ueno gives up her mundane life to become a master spy!

Ueno Juri in Turtles Swim Faster Than Expected

Knowing how much I DIG this guy's style, I've now GOT to find his other movies:The Insects Unlisted in the Encyclopedia, In The Pool, and Damejin, these may be more great movies just waiting for me to discover!