19

Is how old Koharu turns today.

Happy birthday Koharu! I hope your Oha-Star/farming/book writing/modeling/singing career is working well for you ^_^ I wish you good luck in the future!

(ps: sorry I haven’t been updating very much lately (or at all…), I’ve been packing for all sorts of things I’m going to be doing starting soon and haven’t had a lot of internet time because of it)

New headers are up!

If you’re curious, they’re all in this post, because it’s not actually easy to see them all.

You may notice that some of the headers are split down the middle, because the header up top is actually split down the middle. They look better up in the header.

I should make some male group headers. I’ll do it later.

You may recognize this header as the first one I had… I really love it, so I’m putting it back up. I’ll probably take it down again sometime in the future though.

This was made with screencaps from her Love & Peace = Paradise PV.

This was the previous header, and the only other old one I’m putting up. I couldn’t make a replacement AKB48 themed header that I liked :/

This was a screencap from their Iiwake Maybe PV.

Random song of the week #8: Kiss no Ryuusei

So I forgot last week… whoops.

Actually, I’ve been distracted with plotting things that are never going to get written -_-;

Oh, and making new headers for the blog. I discovered wordpress has enabled rotating banners.

I’ll let everyone know when I update them.

Also, I swear I will do that poll post -_-; I forgot about that too…

This weekly segment involves me opening a music player (it’ll be either iTunes or the last.fm scrobbler) and hitting “play” while it’s on shuffle.

Conditions to the song that will be posted:

No instrumental versions. If they come up, I’ll just talk about the regular version of the song.

No repeats. If it’s already come up in this section, I’m not going to talk about it again.

At the moment, I don’t know whether I should include or exclude Western artists, since they don’t really fall under the scope of my blog. For now, if they come up, I’ll put them in a list in the post, and skip to the next song. (unless people really want me to talk about them for some reason)

Songs skipped this week: none.

This week’s song: no3b’s “Kiss no Ryuusei”

My second favorite no3b song! (the first being “Tane” for some reason)

If you like this, you’ll probably like S/mileage’s “Hatsukoi no Anata E“. (only song I could think of off the top of my head)

Random song of the week #7: Super Euro Flash

Helloooooooo.

I’m currently debating the pros and cons of making a visual novel game with the Ren’Py software.

(I have the slight beginnings of a plot… hahaha -_-; someone talk me out of this)

I randomly remembered I have polls on the sidebar, so I will probably make a post with the results sometime this week!

ON TO THE POST.

This weekly segment involves me opening a music player (it’ll be either iTunes or the last.fm scrobbler) and hitting “play” while it’s on shuffle.

Conditions to the song that will be posted:

No instrumental versions. If they come up, I’ll just talk about the regular version of the song.

No repeats. If it’s already come up in this section, I’m not going to talk about it again.

At the moment, I don’t know whether I should include or exclude Western artists, since they don’t really fall under the scope of my blog. For now, if they come up, I’ll put them in a list in the post, and skip to the next song. (unless people really want me to talk about them for some reason)

Songs skipped this week: none.

This week’s song: Hinoi Team’s “SUPER EURO FLASH”

SUPER EURO FLASH WHOA-OH

Hinoi Team songs are always fun to dance to. And they have really simple dances!

But that’s because they’re para para dances XD

I always enjoy listening to Hinoi Team; they’re the first idol group I ever listened to. Even if I only learned one member’s name. Guess who.

Asuka Hinoi.

Unsurprising, isn’t it?

(I miss this group’s songs…)

Random song of the week #6: Akihabalove

I saw this today: GReeeeN’s PV preview for “Hana Uta.”

I LOVE IT ALREADY.

Anyway, on to the weekly post!

This weekly segment involves me opening a music player (it’ll be either iTunes or the last.fm scrobbler) and hitting “play” while it’s on shuffle.

Conditions to the song that will be posted:

No instrumental versions. If they come up, I’ll just talk about the regular version of the song.

No repeats. If it’s already come up in this section, I’m not going to talk about it again.

At the moment, I don’t know whether I should include or exclude Western artists, since they don’t really fall under the scope of my blog. For now, if they come up, I’ll put them in a list in the post, and skip to the next song. (unless people really want me to talk about them for some reason)

Songs skipped this week: “Angel in the Night” – Basshunter
“Done Stealin’” – Carolina Liar
“Strange World” – Parachute
“A Million Ways” – OK Go

This week’s song: Perfume×DJ momo-i’s “Akihabalove”

You know, I’ve never watched the PV for this song before (I didn’t even know it existed). They dance so well together ^^

This is a pretty old song, and one of those few where their voices aren’t altered. It’s actually one of the first few Perfume songs I fell in love with (the other one being Dream Fighter).  I recommend this song for those of you who don’t like Perfume’s usual sound.

(Now that I’ve seen the PV, I want to learn the dance… ahahaha)

And here’s an AKB48 post on their sales.

(clearly I need to find better ways to title things…)

I commented on AKB48′s “Everyday, Kachusha” sales in an earlier post and how amazing it was, even if I didn’t like the song. Now they’ve broken the #1 record! Which is super amazing, but it still doesn’t help my opinion on the song (perspective-wise, I like it less than “Ponytail to Shushu,” which means I will probably never listen to it ever again).

I’m not going to type a whole post about “deserving sales” (they have worked awfully hard to get to this point), but you can either read Aimxaim’s post over at Janakya Mottainai or that one I wrote last year around this time in regards to Ponytail‘s sales if you feel kind of iffy as to whether the single actually should have sold as much as it has. If this were any release besides the voting single it probably would have sold about 600,000-800,000 first day. (I think. I haven’t really been keeping tabs on first day sales for AKB48 lately)

Reading back through the post I wrote last year (and finally making those corrections in regards to “senbatsu” and “voting”), this jumped out at me:

I’m hoping that the voting sales just inflated the sales of the song and that this isn’t a mark of the current music trend in Japan. Because Ponytail is really nothing special. It just happened to be the voting single. And with every voting single from now on, I can almost guarantee sales will be inflated. They don’t even have to put out a good song to make it sell an insane amount. That’s the other thing that bothers me. They know it’s going to sell well, so they don’t even try.

On the plus side, the sales were a reflection of AKB48′s popularity and the song didn’t really seem to have an effect on Japan/AKB48′s general music trend (EmEl was right!); on the downside I was right about the voting single thing and that they didn’t have to put out a good song to get the single to sell well.

I wish they’d tried with this release :/ Oh well. I’m looking forward to final election results! (I’m personally rooting for Kojiharu)

Auditions :/

I believe the emoticon expresses all my feelings on the thought of S/mileage auditions and potential changeups (removing members? PLEASE NO).  Even if Tsunku said at the group’s inception that the members might get shuffled around, I was hoping it wouldn’t happen.

As it turns out, it will. Tsunku made a statement about the group “lacking something” when he made his announcement. The solution was clearly to put more people into the group. (those are my words, not his)

Whoever’s idea this was, it’s not going to go well. I haven’t read the reactions over at H!O, but they probably won’t be good. Also, the girls themselves don’t seem very excited about it.  And, as Arche-JoIyO pointed out, it could be like Kanna in °C-ute all over again, where some fans never really grew to accept the her addition (assuming this is only a one-shot thing, which it probably won’t be). I’m somewhat okay with adding someone, as long as no one is demoted.

Yuuka’s sad face broke my heart </3

Aw Yuuka :(

I’m really hoping Akari is put into the group, even if there’s probably a 0.00000001% chance. Especially since she’s not an H!P Egg anymore…

Not really related to my blog, but…

…new Michelle Branch and Vanessa Carlton songs! \o/

I was just listening to Vanessa Carlton today, wondering what happened to her, and then I went online and saw this! You can download the song for free if you are so inclined, there’s a link on the page.

And Michelle Branch’s new song is here:

Looks like she will release a new album this year :D

Hello! I’m back!

Hi o/

So, I come back to the internet to find that the Berryz Koubou, Manoeri, and Morning Musume PVs are out.

Well, Manoeri’s is a “riverside” version and not the real PV, but it’s still better than a 30 sec. preview (which was also released) because you get to hear the full song :D I LOVE IT. SO SO MUCH.

She also has stunning promo pics that were released a while ago (click for larger size).

My favorite ones are the last two in the series of pictures I posted (so fierce!) but I always love Manoeri smiling more :)

Quick opinions on the other two PVs:

“Ai no Dangan” has a pretty cool dance, powerful sound, interesting outfits (all I could think was “Berryz Kamen ver 2″) the screen had some really neat applications (displaying the dance shot and the close up versions in the background, showing graphiclight displays) and I really liked that although the PV was pretty basic in execution (all they really needed to film were dance shot/close ups, though they did have some other shots), they found ways to make the two work together in an interesting fashion, like having their solo shots put in front of the dance.  Massa’s hair looked awesome. I approve of more Captain(!) in songs, and the fairer line distribution trend Berryz Koubou has had for the past couple of singles.

“Only You” is more powerful then Berryz Koubou’s song, the dance is practical but doesn’t fit the song very well (it’s not sharp enough) and a lot of people have less than appealing hairstyles. I wish the song had better distribution after talking about it last time, but I guess it’s not easy to do with this song :/ Riho as third lead is a little weird since her voice isn’t exactly up to par, and Risa getting autotuned/vocoded was disappointing since she sounded so great in the concert rip (maybe if they’d had her sing over like Saki did in °C-ute’s “Bye Bye Bye?” though that might’ve sounded weird). Honestly, if they did it they should’ve kept it consistent. The verses ran a little weird, and the patterns went different lengths. Some of the shots in the PV were kind of like “Nanchatte Renai”‘s in a way – they all just sit there… but there’s floating gems this time. Oooh.

Oh, and Ai’s new hairstyle looks neat, but almost every time I saw her, I saw Ueda (a member of KAT-TUN). I’d provide a picture for proof, but I really only have pictures of Junno… here, Google one.

Also, AKB48 sold almost one million copies in one day! Which is amazing. I don’t like the song very much (when you listen to a song and start wondering when is it going to end after the first chorus, it’s not a good sign), but that’s amazing sales. Hopefully next single is better? I liked “Sakura no Ki ni Narou” as a song, and the PV somewhat, though the shots of people singing could have been done better and I’m pretty sure it was a thinly-disguised ploy to make people love Jurina (guess what, it kind of worked on me ahahaha).

Eh. I don’t really know what else to talk about, so I’ll just end the post here…

Temporary hiatus :/

There would be a random song post, but I kind of replaced this week’s one with this. I feel like I write one of these hiatus posts every month -_-; sorry everyone.

I’m going on hiatus for the week… again hahaha.

I’ll fill the rest of the post with video spam of stuff I wanted to talk about and haven’t gotten the chance to.

Note that most of it is After School haha -_-; I want to talk about their MV so much but I haven’t had the time to write a proper post.