2008 predictions

Haha, I wrote a list out like two weeks ago, but forgot to post it here. Oops.
Thankfully, I remembered it now, otherwise it would have been too late! xD
Some of these are predictions, some are more wishful thinking on my part...xD;

2008 Predictions
-Morning Musume will release 3 or 4 singles and their 9th album. Their 9th album has gotta be coming up soon, they've already released three singles due to be on it, and there's a fourth being released in March.
-Morning Musume 9th gen auditions. I know the 8th gen hasn't been around for that long, but...
-Takahashi Ai graduates, becomes a solo artist. I'm kinda neutral on Takitty, I don't love her but I don't hate her either. I could totally see her graduating to become a solo artist at some point...she has a good voice, and because of that, she gets so many solos in Momusu. I want the others to get lots of lines too...xD
-Hello! Project Kids become uber popular, get a #1 single. I keep hearing people say that the Kids have taken over Hello! Project...I think it's just a matter of time before some H!P Kids group, whether Berryz, C-ute, or Buono, gets a #1 single.
-One of the Berryz gets a boyfriend and is kicked out of Berryz. Haha, I kinda want to see this happen...8D I barely even know their names (I'm learning! I swear I am!) so if one of them got kicked out, I wouldn't really care all thaaat much...
-Yaguchi Mari starts a solo career. Or at least does something, please! She's my favorite ex-Momusu, and I really want her to sing again.
-Yasuda Kei does nothing. Still. Damn.
-Goto Maki signs with a new record label and releases first single. Please? I really loved Goto...
-GAM comes back. Even for just one single. I was hoping that because of GAM, Miki would still have something to do even after she left Momusu, but now GAM's pretty inactive...
-As for the new units...Ongaku Gatas is permanent, and continues to release singles. Athena & Robikerottsu releases maybe another single after their upcoming one, then either actually breaks up or just fades into inactivity. Buono! keeps going until Shugo Chara ends, singing all the opening/ending themes, then moves onto another anime.


And just a couple of quick non-j-pop predictions...
-Prince of Tennis ends. This is the one prediction that I'd hate to come true the most. However, the end of PoT is obviously happening soon- it's so close, they're on singles 1, the very last match of the final round of the National Tournament. The author once said that he'd like to go through Ryoma's second and third years at Seigaku. I think at one point this would have worked- when Prince of Tennis was really really popular. However, now it's not, and so I think that he's just going to end it where it is rather than go on with the chance of cancellation.
-Mx0 gets an anime. PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE
-Sket Dance survives in Jump. YESS

Berryz Koubou cameo in Gintama! xD

I think it's supposed to be Berryz, at least.
So I've been watching Gintama yesterday and today to try and catch up with the subbed episodes. Gintama parodies billions of other anime/pop culture things, like the main character wants a Bankai (from Bleach), and in episode 62, Yamazaki (who's obsessed with badminton) plays a badminton match against someone from 'Hyoutei' complete with crazy moves, the rest of the 'Seigaku' and 'Hyoutei' players on the sidelines, and 'mada mada dane' at the end. (Prince of Tennis parody, if you couldn't figure it out. link to the video, it's hilarious) But I didn't think there was going to be anything involving Hello! Project...well, I was wrong. xD
Basically in this episode (episode 18), there's this guy that goes around stealing women's underwear and giving it to the lonely guys that aren't liked by girls...and he's currently having a speech about all the lonely guys and how they're 'begging for him to save them'. xD Complete with pictures of said 'lonely guys' doing random things, like painting big-boobed anime figures and, you guessed it, going to a Berryz Koubou handshake event. xD

The headband on the guy on the far left says "Switch OFF" which I think is supposed to be a parody of their Switch ON! 2005 tour. xD

Haha, I love Gintama. xD

Merry Christmas everyone~

Eep, I can't believe I forgot to post this earlier. I was going to post this before the family Christmas party, but it totally slipped my mind. =P
I totally didn't get anything j-pop related for Christmas, but I'm not surprised. I don't ask for imports or anything cause I don't think my family could handle going online and trying to figure out things like different versions and stuff. xD I used to get Puffy CDs from my family, but now I have all of their US CDs so there's nothing left for them to get me...
But I ended up with some anime stuff- I never go out and buy anime box sets because they're so expensive (yet I buy a Hello! Project concert box set for like $100...) so I pretty much just ask for them for Christmas. xD I got the first two Fullmetal Alchemist box sets, Naruto box sets 3 and 4 (I already have 3, but I accidentally put 3 in my wishlist instead of 5...;-;), and the 3rd Prince of Tennis box set...haha, this means I'm going to have a marathon once I finish the Prince of Tennis panel count. (so close!) And of course this marathon also includes the H!P 2007 Winter concerts and the Morning Musume ALL SINGLES COMPLETE DVD, which I haven't watched yet...
I -did- get a $150 gift certificate (WOW) to Tokyo Kid, which has j-pop, but I was looking closer at some of the CDs I have from there and I'm actually not 100% sure if they're the official releases. Wish I had a definite official copy to check. I dunno how I'm gonna spend the $150, haha. xD When I went a while ago at the start of the school year, they had the live-action Prince of Tennis movie, but when I went again with more money they didn't have it anymore. If they have it again, I'm definitely buying it. xD

ANYWAY. Since it's Christmas, I thought I'd share some of my favorite j-pop Christmas songs with you guys! I love all three of these songs so much~
Pucchi Moni - Pittari Shitai X'mas!
Haha, what kind of Hello! Project fan would I be if I didn't include this song? It's catchy and cute and so Hello! Project-ish. And it has Goto Maki. Who I miss soo much. =( I wish Pucchi Moni would come back, but I don't think that's happening anytime soon...
BENNIE K - The Christmas
When their album Japana-rhythm came out back in 2005, I listened to it all the way through, and I think this song ended up being one of my favorites, if not my actual favorite, on the album. It's really catchy, with both the singing and rap parts. I don't know why I still don't own this album, btw. xD
Way back in winter 2005, I had this as background music on my Gaia profile, and my friends who weren't at all into Japanese music loved it. =)
BoA - Meri Kuri
And of course, one of my favorite ballads from BoA. I don't usually like slow songs all that much, but this song has been a favorite of mine for a while. I own the Korean version of this single, but I like the Japanese version better because I can actually understand some of it and sing along. xD I was trying to sing along to one of her Korean songs the other day, and I was utterly failing, and I was reminded of like two/three years ago when I was failing at trying to sing Japanese songs. xD Now I can sing in Japanese just as easily as in English...


But, if you totally hate Christmas and winter for some reason, I also uploaded an uber summer song? I honestly don't know, I uploaded this for a friend and figured I'd just post it here, haha. xD
Megane's - Manatsu no Megane's
I find this song so uber amusing, pretty much just because it's the Megane's (which consists of Tezuka Kunimitsu, Inui Sadaharu, and Oshitari Yuushi from Prince of Tennis- their seiyuu are Okiayu Ryoutarou, Tsuda Kenjirou, and Hidenobu Kiuchi, respectively) singing an uber summer song. xD The title means "Megane's in Midsummer" or something along those lines. There are also some random lyrics in there like "tropical drink YES!! non-alcohol" (well I'd HOPE so, considering they're only 15), "POKER FACE" (haha I don't see what that has to do with summer), and I swear I can hear Tezuka saying "YUDAN SEZU NI IKOU!" right before the second chorus. =P
I like this song much better than their new single, btw, but I'll leave that for another post. xD


Sooo, enjoy, and I hope everyone had a nice Christmas! ^^

Upcoming releases

Ok, so there's lots of stuff coming out either in the next two weeks or around the beginning of 2008, so...

Let's start with Hello! Project:
-On January 16th, the duet between Abe Natsumi and Yajima Maimi, 16sai no Koi Nante, is being released. I just listened to a preview of it, and I don't think it's too bad. Probably not something that I'll listen to a lot, but it's not that bad either. And, btw, I don't really know who Yajima Maimi is. I swear I've gone over the names and faces of the Kids like 5 times since I started this blog. I have a horrible memory, I guess. ;-;
-Buono!, the group formed with three H!P Kids that sung the opening and ending for the anime Shugo Chara!, is releasing their second single and their first album in February- the 6th and the 20th, respectively. I believe their second single, Renai Rider, is going to be the new ending theme for Shugo Chara!, it's supposed to start airing soon so I'll be able to check it out before the single comes out. xD As for their album, I really thought they weren't going to be a permanent group, but I think an album usually signifies that they'll be around for at least a little while longer.
-Ongaku Gatas also has their first album coming out, 1st GOODSAL, on February 6th. I loved both of their singles, so I'll definitely have to order this one. I'm glad that they're getting an album, hopefully this means that they're a permanent group.
-Athena & Robikerottsu is releasing a second single on February 14th, Seishun LOVE Launch. I hope it's as catchy as their first. xD I can't wait for more Risa and Aika...and those two Kids that I can't even remember their names. ;-; God I suck.
-According to wiki.theppn.org (I haven't seen anything about these anywhere else), C-ute and v-u-den are getting new singles on February 27th. Both are still untitled. I probably won't end up buying either of these, sadly...;-; There's too much stuff out there, and I have too little money...
-And Berryz Koubou is apparently releasing a new single called Jingisukan on March 12th.

And on the other side of my blog, the other fandom I love...upcoming Prince of Tennis releases:
-This Saturday, at Jump Festa, three new Prince of Tennis CDs are being released. The first two are for the Prince of Tennis Musical- two new Best Actor's Series CDs, #9 and #10 in the series. 9 features Sanada and Yukimura. 10 is a special Extra Seigaku 3rd Cast Memorial CD- a memorial for the third cast of the Seigaku regulars, who graduated (I feel like I'm talking about Hello! Project now. =P) after this summer's Absolute King Rikkai feat. Rokkaku ~Second Service~ musical. The fourth cast debuted in the Progressive Match Higa feat. Rikkai musical, which started 8 days ago on December 12th. (sadly, I have yet to see photosets of the new Seigaku cast. I really really really need to see what the new cast looks like in character!)
The third CD being released at Jump Festa 2008 is a new Megane's single, their fourth. Originally it was just going to be called "Odorimasen ka?", meaning something like "Won't you dance?", but apparently they had to keep the tradition of having "Megane's" in the song title (their previous singles have been "Go Go Megane's", "Kira Kira Megane's", and "Manatsu no Megane's"), so they renamed it "Odorimasen ka? Megane's". =P According to the description on the official page, it has something to do with the National Tournament Finals OVA (which, by the way, is the LAST OVA SERIES and therefore THE LAST WE'LL SEE OF PRINCE OF TENNIS T_____T unless the manga keeps going after the Nationals, but that's pretty unlikely) and the amazing 100 song marathon that's taking place early 2008. It also says that apparently this song is a high tempo SALSA song. Oh dear lord. @_@
Oh, and they released the cover for it too: here. Ohhh wow, PoT cosplay's fun, but...@_____@ WHAT THE HELL
"Won't you also dance with these three people?" @_@
-After those three, looks like there's nothing else until February 14th (which is kinda strange cause there's been so much released lately, what with the Best of Rival Players for Shitenhouji and random other character songs). On 02.14, Kai Yuujirou, Higa Chuu's vice-captain (I think), is releasing his version of Valentine Kiss. It's the 5th year of this tradition, and he's the 6th person to sing it- so far we've had Atobe, Oshitari, Sanada, Shishido, and Ooishi.
-And of course, the massive rerelease thing on February 27th. @____@

-not music related, I know, but the 3rd and final volume of the Prince of Tennis National Tournament Semifinal OVA series is being released January 25th. After that, which wraps up the match against Shitenhouji (this DVD encompasses Tezuka vs Chitose in Doubles 1 (er...well Inui and Zaizen are there too, but they decided to just stand at the side so it's basically a single match. hey, playing singles in a doubles match makes more sense than Eiji playing doubles in a singles match. =P), and Ryoma vs Touyama Kintarou in that one-point match since the official match didn't make it to singles 1), the first volume of the National Tournament Finals OVA series is being released on March 16th. During the finals, Seigaku plays Rikkai for the second time, but this time for the National title rather than the Kantou Tournament title. I'm not sure what this DVD will have- the first DVD of both the original National Tournament OVA series and the Semifinal OVA series only had one episode, which was a prequel to the actual match. So maybe this DVD will have the special Yakiniku no Oujisama / Prince of BBQ story that was originally between the semifinals and the finals in the original manga? It was a 4 chapter thing that started off as a party for winning the semifinals but ended up as a 5-school yakiniku eating contest. =P (everyone lost, btw, and they set the yakiniku place on fire. xD) I hope we get to see it animated. It's not really a prequel-thing like the other first episodes, but since Seigaku's played Rikkai before, there was no introduction set of chapters or anything in the manga...unless they take the scenes of Rikkai vs that exchange student team (they were originally mixed in with the one-point match between Ryouma and Touyama) and make it into it's own episode.

Valentine Kiss 2008

Hehe, I thought cause of the rereleases we weren't getting a special Valentine Kiss single this year (it's a Prince of Tennis tradition to have a character release a cover of that old 80s song "Valentine Kiss" on or around Valentine's Day- 2004 was Atobe, 2005 was Oshitari, 2006 was Atobe and Oshitari again, 2007 was Sanada...) cause there hasn't been anything listed under "Prince of Tennis" on both CD Japan and Yesasia. But I was looking up Atobe's Valentine Kiss singles on Yesasia cause I couldn't remember which cover went with which year (the one where he's wearing purple is 2004, the one where he's wearing red is 2006- it's the same pose for every Valentine Kiss single. xD) and one of the results that came up when I searched "Valentine Kiss" under music was a single called Valentine Kiss coming out on 2008.02.14...so of course I checked it, and guess what? This year, it's KAI YUUJIROU! xD Haha, I looked at the Japanese image and saw "Higa Chuu" and immediately assumed it was Kite, the captain, since I don't know the kanji for any of their names, but then when I went to double check, it was KAI! 8D YEAAAAAH that just makes it so much better!
Lol, I liked Kai. He's the guy that got uberly pwned by Eiji in Eiji's only singles match in like the entirety of his regular-ness. xD (but Eiji actually played doubles. With himself. I know, wtf, but it was kick-ass!) THAT WAS THE UBER UBER EMO ANGSTY EPISODE! I LOVE THAT EPISODE~ 8DD
He's the guy on the left of this screenshot if you seriously don't know who he is.
So, yeah, Kai from Higa gets the Valentine Kiss single this year. I still want Tezuka to sing it, but that doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Maybe a bonus track if he releases another album. That's how Shishido and Ooishi got their Valentine Kiss covers...(I was hoping Kaidou would cover it on his album from a couple months back, but he didn't. He covered the Cap to Bin song "Thank You!!" though...)


Shalala suteki ni KISS...shalala sugao ni KISS...xD I CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR THIS! 8DDDDD



Oh, and I saw that the original artist (I think) is releasing a single called "Valentine Kiss 2008". xD How many versions of this song are out there? Lucky Star did a cover of it too...xDD

Huge reissue of almost all Prince of Tennis limited character singles

Oh god. I got an e-mail from CD Japan, an Upcoming Artist Newsmail for Prince of Tennis, and it listed like ten billion different CDs that have already been released, most of which have gone out of print. I totally thought it was some weird mistake. Then I looked closer, to where it said "Reissue of this limited edition release from the "Prince of Tennis" series."
OH MY GOD THEY'RE RE-RELEASING ALMOST EVERY LIMITED RELEASE SINGLE X__X
Ohhh wow...I was disappointed when I found out I got into the fandom too late to get my hands on copies of lots of character CDs...but now they're re-releasing almost all of them! I can finally grab a copy of that Inui single where THEY SHOW HIS EYES ON THE COVER ZOMG!
I'm kinda surprised, though, for two reasons: first, well, just in general, I totally would never expect a re-release of any of these. I thought I'd have to go through eBay or something. Second, they're even re-releasing the brand new singles that still haven't sold out of the original release, like Taka's recent single "C'mon every burning" (which was released 2007.11.14) and the current OVA opening by byTachikiritai, "Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy!" which was just released on 2007.10.31.
Yesasia doesn't have any of the rereleases listed, so it looks like I'll have to go through CD Japan. Which has cheaper prices, but shipping's a -bitch-. Ugh.
EDIT: I just put together like a first draft on an order with the PoT CDs and the Buono and Ongaku Gatas upcoming CDs, and it says that shipping's going to be like $50. T_________T God I hate CD Japan, but sometimes it's the only option...

Yeah, I think this is where all of my Christmas/birthday money is going to go. Forget that Yesasia order I was making, I can cut it down to just the new Buono and Ongaku Gatas stuff. xD I'm definitely grabbing quite a few of these rereleases, especially that Inui single I mentioned earlier, all of the other Valentine Kiss singles (I have the 2006 Oshitari one), the other Cap to Bin singles (I'm making it a point to collect all the singles involving Eiji), the two opening/ending soundtrack albums (who makes soundtracks limited release only? I mean, I can understand character singles, but opening/ending theme collections? that always pissed me off, but now I can actually buy them! 8D)...

Lol, I'm so excited, but they're not actually being (re)released until late February. 8D I should still pre-order though...

[Scans] Morning Musume, Athena, and some manga covers

Explanation and music list

So, this is basically the scans post to go along with my recent orders that arrived on Friday. Sorry it's late, but scanning the two limited photobooks took forever, and I had a sleepover last night cause it's my birthday today (yay!).
I also didn't end up scanning the H!P 2007 Winter Live DVD Box, cause there's this 4-DVD case that's too big for my scanner and I was too lazy to figure out how to get it all. xD
I might end up scanning some more CDs soon cause I'm on winter break, but I can't make any promises. xD;;

EDIT: Sorry that the small versions of the preview images look crappy! In my earlier posts, I actually uploaded them to Blogger, but this time I uploaded them to Photobucket instead. Guess the site handles it differently. Just click the preview images for the full-quality version.


Morning Musume's latest single Mikan, normal edition. I scanned the photocard of Risa and included it in the .rar file.
Download the .rar file for the rest of the Mikan scans


Morning Musume's latest single Mikan, limited edition A which comes with a DVD. I scanned the photocard of Koharu and included it in the .rar file.
Download the .rar file for the rest of the Mikan limited edition A scans


Morning Musume's latest single Mikan, limited edition B which comes with a photobook. I scanned the photocard of Sayumi and I also scanned the photobook- both are included in the .rar file.
Download the .rar file for the rest of the Mikan limited edition B scans


Athena & Robikerottsu's first single, Shouri no BIG WAVE!!!, limited edition which comes with a photobook. I scanned the photobook and included it in the .rar file.
Download the .rar file for the rest of the Shouri no BIG WAVE!!! scans


I scanned the covers of the manga for my personal collection, so I thought I'd share them here too if anyone's interested. For SKET DANCE 1 and Prince of Tennis 40, it's just the one image so I didn't bother to upload a .rar file- just click on the preview image. The dust jackets just barely fit on my scanner- I didn't include the inside back flap because all it is is like a list of Jump tankoubon. For the Prince of Tennis Fanbook 40.5, the book's really thick, so the dust jacket was too big for my scanner. I scanned the inside flaps separately, so there's a .rar file for 40.5.

SKET DANCE 1 - Penki Kamen / Paint-Mask


Tennis no Oujisama / Prince of Tennis 40 - Tennis wo Wasureta Oujisama / The Prince Who Forgot Tennis


Tennis no Oujisama / Prince of Tennis 40.5 - Official Fanbook
Download the .rar file for the rest of the 40.5 scans

Buono!'s first album!

And here I thought Buono! would end up a one-shot group like so many others in H!P history. I guess the Kids are really starting to take over Hello! Project...xD;; I definitely didn't think this would be a permanent group, but I'm really happy. I absolutely loved their first single, so I hope their upcoming second single and first album are just as great.
I wonder if their new music will also be tied in to Shugo Chara? Haha, even though I usually hate shoujo manga/anime and almost all I read is Jump manga (with some other shounen manga from other magazines, but mostly Jump), I love Shugo Chara. xD

Their album is set to come out February 20th...yet another thing I have to pre-order. xD I have an order set to go on Yesasia that I was going to get with my birthday money, but maybe I have to cut it down a bit to save enough money to get some early 2008 releases. xD

Recent purchases

It took us 4 hours to get home yesterday from my school, which usually only takes one...and it was uber dangerous, too. D: I love snow, but not when I'm trying to get home on the highway...I got uber bored, so I ended up romanizing lyrics to some Prince of Tennis songs I had lyric scans for on my laptop. I would have done j-pop songs instead, but the only scans I had were for the Prince of Tennis ending singles WHITE LINE and Wonderful days. xD; I'll post the romanizations later...
Anyway, I think the two packages sitting on my bed when I got home actually kinda made up for the long drive. 8D

I love Kinokuniya. I used to get pissed because there isn't one nearby where I live, but I ordered Prince of Tennis volume 40 and the 40.5 Fanbook on Saturday, and it's already here! 8D I'm so used to Yesasia which takes forever to ship, so...I think in the future I should use Kinokuniya to buy books and stuff, otherwise they'll slow down Yesasia orders like it did with my latest order. >> Sadly, this strategy doesn't work with Hello! Project photobooks. I checked it out when I went to make the order with the Tenipuri books, and you can't get them from the New York stores. It redirects me to their Japan store site instead, which a) I can't navigate very well and b) the shipping would be hell anyway, and take a while. But Kinokuniya is good for manga, so...xD
And then, I FINALLY got my Yesasia order that I placed over a month ago. I'm still pissed that it took so long- it really should have shipped out once Mikan was released. It's all because Sket Dance took so long...but I think it was worth it. Three copies of Mikan (haha, I know, I'm an uber crazy fan), Shouri no BIG WAVE!! limited, Sket Dance volume 1, and the H!P 2007 Winter Live DVD Set.



First up, the three copies of Mikan. I love this song so much. xD Which is part of the reason I bought all three editions. The other part is because there were special photocards in each one, and I love stuff like that. xD
I'd share some more pics of the booklets and limited photobook and stuff, but I'm going to scan these later today, which is even better! 8D
And now...which photocards did I get??
SUSPENSE! xD











Risa, Koharu, and Sayumi.
If I could have chosen which I got, I would have chosen Reina, Junjun, and Risa, my current three favorite members. (or the group card, which I totally didn't know existed until like five minutes ago...?) I absolutely LOVE Reina, and I love how she looks in the promo pics for this single! She has some really nice shots in the limited photobook- I love her outfit and her hair and like EVERYTHING! @_@ Sadly, luck was not really on my side when I opened these last night.
I'm really happy I got Risa, though. =) She's my second favorite member, and I like her photocard.
Sayumi's cute too- she's not one of my favorite members, but I like her appearance in this single, so I'm fine with getting her card.
Koharu, however...don't get me wrong, I like Koharu, but...I don't really like her here. I just don't think she looks that good- and honestly, she's not very high on my member ranking, so...



Next up is the limited edition of Shouri no BIG WAVE!!, which came with a photobook. I actually had no idea it had a photobook until I opened it up and it came out...xD I totally never saw anywhere just what the limited edition actually had in it.
I love this song- it's really cute and upbeat, and the Engrish makes me laugh a bit. Though, as much as I love this song, I think I've had enough "OKEY-DOKEY!"s for a while. @_@
The photobook has some pictures of the four girls involved in this single- the two Momusu, Risa and Aika, and the two C-ute members, Nakajima Saki and Okai Chisato. Aika's really cute. xD And, I'm sorry, I still don't really know who Nakajima and Okai are. I had to look them up to find out which group they're in. ;-; I seriously need to get my act together and learn the names of all the H!P Kids already...


Then there's the H!P 2007 Winter Live DVD Box. I feel like such an uber crazy fan having this...it cost $100, but I think it's worth it- three concerts and a bonus backstage disc. It's my first H!P concert I've actually bought- I've thought about buying some other concerts in the past, but turned them down in favor of more music. I can't wait to sit down and have an H!P concert marathon...xD
What I really like about H!P concerts is that unlike concerts by a solo artist or a normal group (lol, as in like, one that stays the same rather than constantly changing), there's always new groups of people singing an old song. Like current Morning Musume singing a song like LOVE Machine- I love always being able to hear different people sing older songs like that. Compare that to a concert by someone like BoA- you don't really hear anything new when she sings her older songs, because it's still the same person singing it- just live instead of a studio recording.
Now if only they'd record some of these new versions in the studio and release them separately...xD


Last but not least, there's the three manga I ordered. Sket Dance 1, Prince of Tennis 40, and Prince of Tennis 40.5.
Sket Dance is a new manga in Shounen Jump, and it currently has 21 chapters. It's a random school comedy manga, and it's really funny. Most new manga hasn't been doing so well in Jump lately, but I hope Sket Dance survives- it's really cool and funny, definitely one of my favorite series in the magazine.

Prince of Tennis 40...oh this is so much crack. xD The title of the volume is "The Prince who Forgot Tennis"...you really wouldn't think there would be this much crack in a tennis manga, but there seriously is. Basically this volume starts out in the middle of the National Tournament finals with Tezuka's arm being UBER DEAD (xD) and Sanada winning...then Ryouma comes back with Momo, Atobe, and Oshitari (because, see, Ryouma didn't show up to the finals, so Atobe WITH HIS HANDY HELICOPTER THAT HE JUST SO HAPPENS TO HAVE AT THE TOURNAMENT takes Oshitari and Momo to go find Ryouma. Who knows why Oshitari went, he's absolutely pointless), and the rest of the team is uber excited ONLY TO FIND OUT THAT RYOUMA HAS AMNESIA AND DOESN'T REMEMBER TENNIS! DUN-DUN-DUN
Then Inui and Kaidou play doubles against Yanagi and Kirihara, and Inui gets uber beaten up and basically dies in the middle of the court after stopping Kaidou from going into devil mode. Which is an uber scary sight that I hope I never have to see again, btw.
I know, wtf, people actually can get sent to the hospital for playing TENNIS?
Inui wakes up, he has UBER UBER BANDAGES WRAPPED AROUND HIS ENTIRE BODY (ahahaha I love that panel), and then it switches to Fuji vs Niou.
Niou, with his Illusion or w/e it's called, apparently can turn into Tezuka. I DON'T KNOW HOW IT WORKS EITHER. I mean, he's not just using Tezuka's moves, Konomi's actually DRAWING TEZUKA instead of Niou. And then it turns out that, ZOMG KONOMI PUT AN ANIME FILLER EPISODE IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS MATCH FOR A FLASHBACK, and Fuji played Tezuka as a freshman. Angst happens. Then the volume ends.

40.5 is not, as you may think, half of a volume. xD It's the new fanbook, taking after 10.5 and 20.5 (no, it's not that they don't know how to count...30.5 was an artbook rather than a fanbook.). It has tons of information on all the players, and tons of other interesting pages that I'm sure would be much more interesting for me if I could understand any of it. Some of my favorite facts:
-Marui's favorite music is ORANGE RANGE. That's some good taste right there, huh? xD I started skimming to see if anyone else mentioned specific bands, but I got bored after getting halfway through and put it down. Eiji apparently loves idol groups, but he didn't specify H!P. I bet he has a collection somewhere, though. xD
-Ooishi's special skill outside of tennis is that he's able to tell whether a baby chick is a boy or a girl. Wtf, Ooishi. That's weird.
-Jirou carries Marui's wristband in his bag. STALKER
-Sanada carries around the "Sanada Family Rock". xDDDDD oh Sanada. A rock?? Why does his family even have a 'family rock' in the first place??



Haha, look at Inui. xD Who knows why he still wears his glasses. Can he even see with all those bandages? xD
(oh, and Koharu and Yuuji are there too- they hold the honor of being the ONLY EXPLICITLY STATED CANON GAY COUPLE in the series. <33 Now if only Konomi would just admit that the Golden Pair has sex behind the scenes...xD)



So, there we go. Scans and lyrics should be posted soon.

grr.

I'm seriously like depressed right now, for the stupidest reasons too. D:
There seriously needs to be a Japanese bookstore somewhere around Boston. I mean, seriously, I NEED the new Prince of Tennis 40.5 Fanbook. Like, now. xD Or within the next couple of days.
But, of course, guess what? The only way for me to get it is to buy it from Yesasia. And not only does it say "Usually ships within 21 days", (I never thought it really took that long, but the fact that the first volume of Sket Dance actually took like three weeks proved me wrong) but then it'll take like two weeks just to fucking get to my house! DDD: For god's sake, that's totally not fair, I need to see all this new stuff, everyone's posting tons of stuff on the Tenipuri LJ community and it just makes me depressed cause I feel like I'm like the ONLY one in the fandom that doesn't actually have it. T_T
Cause of course the closest Japanese bookstore (that I know of at least) is in fucking New York City. I hate living in Massachusetts sometimes.
There WAS a Japanese bookstore in Boston, but they closed down, and now they're only operating online. Which totally sucks because that REALLY doesn't change my situation at all, it'll still be AT LEAST two weeks before I could get a copy.

I was thinking maybe they have it at Tokyo Kid, but honestly, even though they're the best around, they really don't have that good of a selection. And since it's in Cambridge, which is pretty far away, the chance of them having it is too low to actually warrant going there. I mean, I'd go either way, but my parents see things kinda differently...and I just went two weeks ago. So I'm really just screwed...


EDIT: WAAAIT
I was looking at the Kinokuniya website, and if I'm understanding the Japanese correctly, it's $7 shipping and it'll take 2 days to ship to MA. =D OMG YAY
Though I'd be much more confident about buying it if the website was in English...I double-checked some translations with an online translator (just to get the rough idea) so I'm %100 I have all the right options and stuff, but...xD;;

It's getting close to CHRISTMAS! 8D

Well, it's that time of year again where I can actually listen to j-pop Christmas songs like BENNIE K's 'The Christmas' without feeling really lame~ xDD
THAT'S RIGHT, IT'S DECEMBER!
(I know, it's been December for like 4 days already, but bear with me here)
YAY! As much as I don't like winter and the cold, and I hate the fact that it's in the middle of the school year, I LOVE December! Cause I'm only in school for like half of it, not to mention there's Christmas and my birthday! 8D
So! To get into the season, I'm going to share with you the best 12 Days of Christmas parody I've ever seen! 8D


The song itself is uber amazing, and the Akatsuki video just makes it so much better. xD YAY


And a short Naruto 12 Days of Christmas parody fanfic from my favorite fanfiction author, Link and Luigi! 8D
12 Things on Naruto
HAVE FUN! xD


I'll probably share some of my favorite j-pop Christmas songs this weekend or after exams or something...

SHUFFLE GROUPS?!

I think I've had a half-written post about the lack of shuffle groups sitting on my desktop for like two weeks now. I've been planning on finishing that, but now I'm not 100% sure....
ARE SHUFFLE GROUPS COMING BACK?? <33
Take a look at this post from HPNH.
This certainly sounds like shuffle groups, though we'll have to see what exactly they're doing in their respective places they're going. I really hope this is the return of shuffle groups, which I really miss....maybe I'll finally finish up the shuffle unit post over the weekend. I have to rewrite like half of it, which is why I haven't finished it yet. xD;
Anyway, I can't wait for more information on this. I think my favorite group right now is the last one...it has my favorite current Morning Musume member, Reina, and my favorite former member, Mari. <33 I also like the group with the rest of the current Momusu- though I wish it had been shuffled around a bit more, I'd love to see just the newest Momusu (and Risa, who's probably my 2nd favorite current member) perform together.
If these are basically like shuffle groups, I think this is an interesting idea- I never considered the idea of there being more than 3 shuffle groups. xD Well, we'll see how everything turns out...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EIJI!!

So today's November 28th, which means it's everyone's favorite cat-like acrobatic tennis player's birthday! YAAAAYYY!!
So, a lot of people draw fanart or write fanfics for a character's birthday, but see, I'm totally not creative enough to do that! Actually, I started writing a quick one-shot about Eiji's birthday during Biology today, but I dunno if I'll finish it in time.
So, I decided to contribute in a different way- 320kbps mp3 rips of all of Eiji's birthday singles! 8D ACTUALLY I meant to scan these to make them cool and special because as far as I know, PoT CD scans are hard to find, but some stuff happened this weekend and so I didn't get a chance to- and now I'm stuck at school until this weekend. I'll scan the CDs then and upload the scans once I'm done~

I think out of these three singles, only ONE was actually labeled as a birthday single, but the other two came out on his birthday in 2004 so I still consider them birthday singles. 8D
ONE is his actual birthday single, and it comes with the b-side 'I~i jan'.
Come Together doesn't have a b-side, but it was used as the radio show theme for a month in 2004 or something. It comes with a voice track called 'Talk Time ~Kikumaru Eiji On the Radio~'.
Kiku-chan no Souran Bushi is his own version of the traditional song Souran Bushi- with a different arrangement than most versions and new lyrics. It comes with a b-side called Taiyou no PARADISO.

Downloads:
[2003.11.28] Kikumaru Eiji - ONE
[2004.11.28] Kikumaru Eiji - Come Together
[2004.11.28] Kikumaru Eiji - Kiku-chan no Souran Bushi

YAY <3

Mikan first week sales are a record low for Morning Musume

Aw, fuck.
I think that basically sums up my thoughts right about now. I can't believe it, and I really don't know how to react to this.
In my opinion, Mikan is Morning Musume's best single since...well, a while ago. Not that they've been really bad, but none of their singles measured up to their old releases back when they were really popular. Mikan...I thought it was a great catchy song, nice PV, it seemed more Golden Age-ish than any of their singles in the past year or two, or even longer. I thought this single would do way better than their more recent singles. Didn't mostly everyone on the H!P blogosphere like this song?
So what the hell happened to make this their lowest selling single ever?
Not that I ever expected this single to have sales rivaling Golden Age singles, but I definitely expected more than their recent singles. Instead we get a huge drop from their last single and it ended up beating out Ambitious! Yashinteki de Ii Jan as their lowest first-week single sales.

Well, I guess all we can do is cross our fingers and hope that their next single doesn't somehow drop even lower...and I think I've learned not to expect so much from Momusu. *sigh*

BUT I STILL LOVE THEM <3
xD No matter how badly they sell, I'll still support them. <33 They still remain my favorite j-pop group...

Congrats, Nono! ^^

As I'm sure most people on the j-pop blogosphere know by now, Tsuji Nozomi had a baby girl yesterday! Sugiura Noa was born at 12:45 am yesterday morning, weighing 2730 grams. Both Nono and Noa are in good health~
Wow, I still find it so hard to believe Nozomi has a kid now! @_@ I mean, NOZOMI of all people! As I think I said back when the pregnancy was announced, I never would have thought that Nozomi would be the first Momusu to have a kid. I guess I was expecting one of the older members of H!P like Nakazawa Yuko or Iida Kaori to be the first...well, Kaori's #2, with her child due soon (January, maybe?)...



On a random note, I romanized the lyrics to Mikan and the b-side today, but I'm not sure if the kanji lyrics I got from a Japanese fansite are 100% correct so I'm going to wait until my copies arrive (just to double-check) before I put them up here...

Broken headphones, connections, and a little bit of angst

pic 1
pic 2
Grr, my headphones finally totally broke this morning on the way to school. They were at least usable before, but now the left headphone doesn't work at all and the outer part of it is like GONE...what a horrible time for my headphones to break, now I have to live with these all week until I go home for the weekend. My mom's going to buy new headphones from the Apple Store, but yeah, I still won't get them until the weekend.
I use my headphones so much during the week too- I can't fully wake up in the morning unless I listen to my iPod from breakfast straight through until assembly, and since I have such weird music tastes (well, to the normal American world =P) that once I'm back in my dorm room I have to listen to my music with headphones rather than just using my computer speakers. This is definitely going to bug me all this week...


Connections: Well, I just had teh uber shocking discovery. I was listening to Ibu Shinji's first character single from the Prince of Tennis anime, Can See the Light, and looked it up on Yesasia to add it to my cart cause it's a great song, and then I noticed that Yesasia said that it was by Moriyama Eiji. Ok, I definitely recognized that name, so I went to look him up on Wikipedia, and I found out- he's Momo's first-cast actor in the Prince of Tennis musicals!
What the hell...? So then I redownloaded the full single (I lost it when my hard drive crashed a while ago, but the song was still on my iPod) to listen to the voice message, and sure enough, as soon as the seiyuu started talking I immediately recognized him as Momo. It's so hard to tell though, when he's actually voicing Shinji! I definitely would -never- make that connection...
Moriyama Eiji as Ibu Shinji in the Prince of Tennis anime - Can See The Light
Moriyama Eiji as Momoshiro Takeshi in the Prince of Tennis musicals - Ore wa Momo-chan ~ Seigaku no Abarenbou
Seiyuu Voice Message from Shinji's CD- the first voice is Moriyama as himself (which is basically his voice for Momo) and then he has a 'conversation' or something with Shinji (aka, himself but with a different voice)...xD
Moriyama also plays Renji in the Bleach musicals, but I haven't watched that yet. I seriously need to, cause NAGAYAN (aka the cutest Eiji actor ever) PLAYS HITSUGAYA ASASDFKAJESLRIJASDLKFJASDKLFJ



And last but not least, I'm having an angsty moment on the inside cause my Yesasia order with my precious 3 copies of Mikan hasn't even shipped yet. It's been almost a week since Mikan was released~! DDD:
And since I chose free shipping, it'll be another week after it ships before it arrives at my house! And knowing my luck, it'll end up arriving on like a Monday and then I'll have to wait until the weekend before I actually get it. *sob*

Ongaku Gatas - Yattarouze!

God, today's been crazy. My older stepsister and her husband and 14-month-old daughter (uber cute! <333) finally left after coming here for Thanksgiving, then there was the family tree-trimming party at my grandma's house, which we had to leave early from because my stepbrother who just got his drivers license accidentally fucking ran over our 13-week-old puppy. *sob* And now my mom's so pissed (she always hated my stepbrother) I think she's thinking of trying to divorce my stepdad! >_<
BUT PERSONAL ISSUES ASIDE...

I finally got around to watching Ongaku Gatas' new PV, Yattarouze!. I tried to watch it on Wednesday on Dohhh UP, but video streaming sites hate my computer. >_< So I downloaded it from Hello Online, but I never actually watched it until just now.

The PV starts out with a nice shot of Yossi kicking the ball, then cheering- and then it turns kinda weird as her and four other members fall through the field or something? xD
Anyway, I love Yossi's appearance in this PV. I think she looks awesome- definitely one of her best looks in my opinion.
It's still really nice to see more of Yossi and Konkon- I mean, since Yossi wasn't in a group before graduating, I figured she'd go the same way as Kei and Mari: not doing much of anything. And Konkon actually graduated from H!P about a year ago, so I thought I'd never hear anything from her again.
I still don't know any of the Eggs, although I think I'm starting to be able to kinda pick out Mano Erina...I've seen blog posts praising her, so I looked her up and I can kinda pick her out now.

When I first heard this song, I thought it was kinda weird, but after watching the PV fully, I like it. It's not as good as Nari Hajimeta Koi no BELL, but it's still pretty catchy...
I think the dance in the PV is a bit weird, but...xD Some H!P dances are...

I might snag the limited edition of this in my next Yesasia run, whenever that is. Probably in a while, cause my mom doesn't like that I've been getting so many packages lately. Especially when they come from a specific person rather than a company like Yesasia or CD Japan, which has happened quite a bit since I recently had this shopping spree on Livejournal. xD; I haven't bought anything in a week, but I still have 4 packages that I'm expecting...xD;;;; One with Seishun Gakuen Paradise and two Love Prince anthologies (which should have arrived by now, but I'll give it another week or so), one with all the stuff I bought from green-tea-river on LJ, which is lots of bromides, a pin, a couple of doujinshi, a shitajiki, and a card or two, one with my last Yesasia order which hasn't shipped out yet (dammit why is it taking so long for them to find Sket Dance volume 1?), and one with that CD Japan order which won't ship out until the Momusu PV collection DVD is released.
Though I guess it's kinda a good thing that the Yesasia order hasn't shipped out yet. Mom's really starting to get suspicious, so if I got like 3 packages in a week I'd probably be in trouble...



On a kinda related note, according to ThePPN wiki, Ongaku Gatas is having a tour early 2008! <3 I'm definitely picking up that DVD once it comes out...

Odorimasen ka?

Well, the Megane's of Prince of Tennis have a new single...I could have sworn I read on some site that Manatsu no Megane's was their last single, but obviously not considering they're coming out with another one on December 22nd.
Because of the date, I thought it would be a Christmas/winter-themed single (I mean, come on, their last single, Manatsu no Megane's, was uber summer themed...xD), but the title seems to indicate otherwise- 'Odorimasen ka?', or 'Won't you dance?' (or something along those lines), according to Yesasia. Well, maybe it'll turn out to be a winter single, but...well, we'll see. xD
I was uber confused at first cause the 22nd is a Saturday- but then it said in the description image on Yesasia that it had something to do with this year's Jump Festa, which takes place December 22nd-23rd. I think it's coming out at the Jump Festa itself...
There are also two other CDs coming out on the 22nd- the two new Musical Tennis no Oujisama Best Actor's Series. #9 is Sanada and Yukimura, while #10 is a special Seigaku 3rd Cast Memorial Edition- the third cast graduated in Absolute King Rikkai Second Service, which took place a couple of months ago. Which reminds me, Progressive Match Higa Chuu feat. Rikkai is premiering really soon...I can't wait to see 4th cast. Let's hope the new Golden Pair will handle the angstiest Golden Pair scene ever (Eiji vs Kai...) really well. <3
YAY FOR ANGST


By the way, I wonder if I'm the only one that is reminded of Hello! Project a bit when it comes to Tenimyu actors? I mean, they both have people 'graduating' and constantly get new members...
xD;

roar @ Yesasia

I really really want my copies of Mikan...but it still hasn't shipped out yet. T_T I didn't think it would take this long to find a copy of the first Sket Dance volume...grr, now I know not to put a manga volume in the same Yesasia order as something I'm uber looking forward to...
Hopefully it'll ship out soon, then it'll arrive next weekend or so. I really don't want to have to wait ANOTHER week...even if it comes on a Monday, I still won't get it until that weekend since I board...D:

Morning Musume + America = ...?

Well, everyone's talking about this right now. I don't think I've ever really seen a debate like this in the j-pop fandom- the anime fandom, sure, but not the j-pop fandom. I guess it's cause I haven't been part of the blogosphere or anything for too long...but anyway.
I'm going to follow the crowd and be unoriginal and write a post about my opinions to the idea of Morning Musume coming over to America! 8D

I'd LOVE it if Morning Musume came to America. Honestly, it would be like a dream come true. To hear Morning Musume on the radio, to be able to buy their albums without paying like $30 + shipping, to even maybe get the chance to go to a concert...and if everyone knew about Morning Musume, I wouldn't be the considered the freaky girl at school who listens to weird Japanese music anymore. 8D Now that would be cool. I have a couple of kids at school who also like anime, but when it comes to j-pop (and especially H!P), all I have is the j-pop blogosphere. Oh how I'd love to have friends who I could actively chat with about this stuff. xD
HOWEVER, I'm trying to be realistic about this...and so I'm not exactly sure if they'd actually do really well.

Now, I haven't listened to the radio in years- well, I've listened to a couple of stations in the morning cause my roommate at school wakes up to the radio in the morning, but it's not like the popular music station or anything, so...
I haven't watched MTV or VH1 or any music station, either. However, from what I -do- know about popular music these days, it's that there isn't ANYTHING like Morning Musume. Pop used to be popular, back in the days of boy bands like NSYNC and solo girl singers like Britney Spears. But now I don't think anything like that's popular- so Morning Musume would be totally different than most of the stuff that's on the radio. Now, for me that's definitely not a bad thing. I don't like American music, so having more pop music like Morning Musume on the radio would actually get me to listen to the radio sometimes. However, for most American music fans, I'm not sure if that would be a good change- people aren't really used to that. It would be different, definitely- but I'm not sure whether it would be considered a good thing. I know a lot of people who love rap music, so if all of a sudden a Morning Musume song came on the radio after some popular rap song, I'm pretty sure they'd turn it off.

I guess this kinda also ties in with tours and sales- they have fans in the US already, but would they really be able to become popular with the people that don't already know them or watch anime? I want to say yes- but I'm really not quite sure. They'd get some fans- but I'm not sure if it would really be enough for it to really be worthwhile to come to America.

However, I think it would be a great idea to come to America for something like an anime convention. At an anime convention, they don't have to worry about the language barrier or anything, since everyone there obviously knows anime and everything. That would give the already-existing fans a chance to actually see them in concert, and also draw in more people to the fandom- they have a much better chance with anime fans than with your typical American who just listens to the radio everyday. And for the record, if Morning Musume ever goes to an anime convention, I'M THERE. 8D Unless it's on the west coast, then I'm screwed since I live in Massachusetts...>_<
I'm not exactly sure how all this stuff works, but maybe they could release their 10th anniversary album in America- just to start off, since it's all their singles (which, in my opinion, are their best songs), and see what happens with that. And if that's popular, then they could go ahead and try releasing more albums and maybe come for a tour or something.
I think putting Momusu on US iTunes is a good start. Now, I personally refuse to buy songs from iTunes- if I'm willing to pay for a song, I'll buy the physical copy, thank you very much. >_< But so many people use iTunes for all their music- so making H!P music available on US iTunes was definitely a good idea. It's much easier (and cheaper) for non-hardcore fans to buy a song on iTunes rather than import an album from Japan.

I don't believe they could just all of a sudden come to America, tour, release an album, and just become popular just like that. If it's not like American music (which it's not, obviously), then they can't just break into the market right away- but if they start small, maybe they could possibly get enough attention to get on the radio and become popular.
I know that a lot of people have strong opinions either way- either saying that Morning Musume would totally work in America, or that they would fail and they shouldn't even try. I'm kind of in the middle of this- I don't want to totally rule out the possibility of them coming to America, since I think they could have a chance, but I don't want to be overly optimistic and say that they'll definitely become a huge hit.


I do think that there are other artists in Japan who could become huge hits in America- but I think I'll save that for later. ;)

Since when did Morning Musume have a manga? @_@

I was totally unaware Morning Musume had a manga...called Musume Monogatari, and it was in Nakayoshi. @_@
Lol, not like I pay any attention to shoujo magazines, but someone was selling some Nakayoshi issues and said that 'Musume Monogatari (morning musume manga)' was in it...so basically my Morning Musume fandom requires me to get those issues. xDD The LJ user was also selling two issues of some other manga magazine (dunno which one, couldn't read the title) that apparently had a Minimoni manga, and Morning Musume + Minimoni interviews.
So of course I got them all. xDDD I seriously vowed last week to wait a couple of weeks before I bought more things, cause I bet my mom's gonna start getting suspicious considering every week when I come home there's always at least one package waiting for me. =P Except this week, but those two packages should come tomorrow. xD
BUT THIS IS A SPECIAL EXCEPTION. xDDD
Cause, I mean, manga and anime and stuff like that, you can get other places, but when people sell manga magazines, especially old ones like the ones in this post (2002-2003), it's pretty hard to find elsewhere...so yeah.
That totally doesn't rationalize buying them, but...8D They were cheap...?

You know, now that I think about it, I have an issue of this other shoujo manga magazine Ciao that I got from my camp that has a manga involving Minimoni in it. Hmm...xD





On a random note, I have this post about H!P shuffle units that I wrote today, but I wrote half of it during history class so I wasn't 100% focused on it, and now I'm too tired to read it over and edit it so I'll do that in the morning. xD

New stuff, yay!

Well, I'm kinda procrastinating my homework right now, so I took the time to put together two orders, one on CDJapan and one on Yesasia...
So this is what I ended up getting:
Athena & Robikerottsu - Shouri no BIG WAVE!!! (limited edition)
Morning Musume - Mikan (normal edition)
Morning Musume - Mikan (limited edition A)
Morning Musume - Mikan (limited edition B)
Hello! Project 2007 Winter Live DVD Box (limited)
SKET DANCE volume 1
The Morning Musume. All Singles Complete Zen 35 Kyoku - 10th Anniversary (limited)
Megane's - Manatsu no Megane's (limited)
Kawamura Takashi - C'mon every burning (limited)
As soon as I heard about the Athena single, I knew I had to get it- I mean, it's Risa and Aika and two H!P Kids...
I actually ended up getting all three versions of Mikan. I was looking on Yesasia, and for each of them it said the first press came with a randomly selected photocard. I love the photocards, so I figured it's definitely worth it to buy all three, not to mention it's my favorite Morning Musume song in a while, so...
And as for the box set, who could turn that down? I mean, it's THREE concerts- the normal concert and the Wonderful Hearts/Elder Club concerts that are usually only released to the fanclub.
Then there's SKET DANCE volume 1, one of the newest Shounen Jump series- I absolutely love it, so when I heard the first volume was out I had to buy it. xD
Since I bought the Momusu 10th anniversary CD, it only makes sense to buy the DVD that goes along with it- it includes all of their PVs, including an alternate version of Mikan and something to do with LOVE Machine...
Then there are the two PoT character singles. At first it started off with me looking for something cheap to randomly add to the CD Japan order (I put the Momusu DVD in a separate order on CD Japan because I didn't want it to hold back the other stuff since it's coming out later) because if I hit 5000 yen I'd get a 500 yen coupon, and I ended up with Manatsu no Megane's. Then I found out about Taka's new single, which actually includes a b-side (which is rare for PoT singles, usually it's just the title track, an instrumental, and maybe a track with random talk from the seiyuu) and stuff, so...xD;

AND I also bought a couple of doujinshi yesterday...someone was selling Seishun Gakuen Paradise by Kodaka Kazuma for $2, so of course I bought that, and she was also selling some other doujinshi for cheap prices so I got two anthologies, Ground Smash 2 and Love Prince 4.

AND the girl who runs (well, at this point, it should be 'ran') doujinstar.com is selling all her Prince of Tennis stuff- all of it. SOOOO of course I had to get some, right?
New Season Set 1 Birthday Card Akutagawa Jirou
Eiji Pin
Bromide Set 2: Summertime/Oceanside: Golden Pair
Bromide Season 4: Sakura: Jirou
Bromide Season 5: Festival/Costume: Eiji
Bromide Season 5: Festival/Costume: Momo/Kaidou
Bromide Season 7: White Day Presents: Eiji
Bromide Season 8: School: Golden Pair
Bromide Season 10: Fashion Prince: Golden Pair
Databook 20.5
Love Prince 1 + 2
I ordered all this stuff a bit more than a week ago, but it's not going to be shipped until she puts the last batch of her stuff up for sale- I'm waiting until the end just in case I want anything from the third batch of stuff. xD

EDIT: ooh hey even more stuff! don't feel like making a new post, so...
AAND someone else on the garagesalejapan LJ community just put up some CDs including W's two albums (the first press of the second one) and Berryz Koubou's first two albums (again, the second album was the first press edition) so I just had to grab some of them. I ended up buying the two W albums and the second Berryz album~
Seriously, with shipping it ended up being $33.13. That's basically how much one album is on Yesasia.
I'm having lots of fun with this Livejournal community...

[lyrics] byTachikiritai - Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy!

Well, my Yesasia order came, with like 5 CDs and a DVD and everything...and I haven't had the chance to scan them yet cause our scanner isn't set up yet, but I decided to romanize the lyrics to Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy!. Such a catchy song...@_@ I really wanted to sing along, so I romanized the lyrics so I could actually do so. xD

Please remember that this is my first time romanizing lyrics, and I'm only in my 3rd year of taking Japanese classes- so there might be some errors. If you see one, let me know and I'll fix it. ^^

I have the original Japanese along with the romanized lyrics...I started typing those up in order to check my romanization, but then I decided to just leave them in in case anyone wants them...



byTachikiritai - Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy!
by断ち切り隊 - 恋の激ダサ絶頂（エクスタシー）！

nandomo hitori no yoru wo akireru hodo kasane
何度も1人の夜を　あきれるほど重ね
imagoro ki ga tsukeba mada koishita koto ga nai
今頃　気がつけばまだ　恋した事が無い

kakko tsuketeru tsumori de ite mo naze ka karamawari shite
カッコつけてる　つもりでいても　何故か空回りして
nantonaku tada ukenagasu dake sore de ii to omotteta
何となくただ　受け流すだけ　それでいいと思ってた

nani ka wo kaenakucha dame da to shitta
何かを変えなくちゃ　ダメだと知った
itsumademo nigeteru sore ja gekidasa daze
いつまでも逃げてる　それじゃ激ダサだぜ

nandomo hitori no yoru wo akireru hodo kasane
何度も1人の夜を　あきれるほど重ね
imagoro ki ga tsukeba mada koishita koto ga nai
今頃　気がつけばまだ　恋した事が無い
utsuriyuku kono machi de koi wo tsukamaete EKUSUTASHII!
移り行く　この街で　恋を捕まえて　絶頂（エクスタシー）！

PURAIDO dake ga areba ii no sa sou shinji konde ita
プライドだけが　あればいいのさ　そう信じ込んでいた
kekkyoku itsumo umaku ikazu ni yari sugoshite ita kedo
結局いつも　上手くいかずに　やり過ごしていたけど

honto wa motetai no ni uso wo tsuiteta
ホントはモテたいのに　ウソをついてた
kanchigai shite iru kore ja gekidasa daze
勘違いしている　これじゃ激ダサだぜ

koko kara subete hajimaru munasawagi wo sutete
ここから　全て始まる　胸騒ぎを捨てて
imasugu tozasarete iru sono DOA wo aketai
今すぐ　閉ざされている　そのドアを開けたい
utsuriyuku kono machi de koi wo tsukamaete EKUSUTASHII!
移り行く　この街で　恋を捕まえて　絶頂（エクスタシー）！

dekinai kara yattsu atari shiteru no kai?
出来ないから　八つ当たりしてるのかい？
arienai to saisho kara nigeru no kai?
有り得ないと　最初から逃げるのかい？
sou ja nai daro
そうじゃないだろ

konna ni yogoreta mado ja nani mo mienai dake
こんなに　汚れた窓じゃ　何も見えないだけ
ima nara nani wo subeki ka mou wakatteru daro
今なら　何をすべきか　もう分かってるだろ

nandomo hitori no yoru wo akireru hodo kasane
何度も1人の夜を　あきれるほど重ね
imagoro ki ga tsukeba mada koishita koto ga nai
今頃　気がつけばまだ　恋した事が無い
utsuriyuku kono machi de koi wo tsukamaete EKUSUTASHII!
移り行く　この街で　恋を捕まえて　絶頂（エクスタシー）！

Morning Musume - Mikan PV OUT!! <333

WHEE

watch it on Dohhh UP!

Ok, I LOVE this song. I don't usually absolutely LOVE a song after one listen. There are some songs that I like after the first listen, but I don't really LOVE a song until I've listened to it a couple of times.
I LOVE this song. After watching the PV once.

I mean, I love all of Morning Musume's singles. Except some of their early ones (a couple of pre-LOVE Machine singles like Memory Seishun no Hikari and Furusato), but w/e. That's totally besides the point, they had kinda a different style back then.
But lately, their songs have taken a few listens before I really start liking the songs. When I got back into j-pop after not paying attention to it for a couple of months (this was...about April-ish I think, cause the Kanashimi Twilight PV was out, but the single wasn't), I downloaded Egao YES Nude, and thought it was...different from Momusu's usual style. I like it now, but it's not really my favorite of their songs...
Kanashimi Twilight was great, but again, I didn't really like it after I watched the PV once. It really took a couple more listens before I actually liked it. And again, it doesn't really seem...Momusu-ish to me.
Onna ni Sachi Are had more of a dance-style to it, which not only was totally different from the previous singles, but it was something that I don't think I've ever heard before in a Momusu single. I mean, maybe there was a song like it on an album or as a b-side or something, I dunno. To be perfectly honest, I tend not to listen to b-sides/album songs very much. ^^;;; I liked Onna ni Sachi Are on the first listen, but not really like...'zomg this song is great', like I thought when I first heard Golden Age Momusu songs.

Mikan, however...
Wow. This song really reminds me of the Golden Age of Momusu- like Koko ni Iruzee!, as I've seen other people say. It's really pop-ish and cute, and it's totally different from their last couple of singles, which seemed almost like experiments in other styles of music. This song, however, takes them back to what worked in 2003-ish.
The music video, while not really loading correctly on my computer and freezing every couple of seconds (grr >_<), was...well, I didn't think it was anything too special, but it's good. And the baby pictures are so cute! <33
I think Takahashi Ai looked better with long hair. >_<
Linlin reminds me so much of Ayaka in a couple of scenes in the PV...xDD; Am I the only one that thinks they look similar?
And I really like Junjun. At first, I saw a picture of her that wasn't really a good picture, and I didn't think she'd be that good as a Momusu member. However, I think she looks nice in this PV, so...<3

I know Momusu hasn't been doing too well lately- at least, compared to Golden Age and everything. But I really think this song will do well~ <33

I might buy both limited editions of this single. I've never done that before- I really don't like the idea of two limited editions for a CD. >_< I mean, before, you didn't really know what would come with a limited edition of a Momusu single. It could be photocards (like Chokkan 2 and SEXY BOY), it could be a DVD (like Ambitious!), or it could be a photobook (like Rainbow 7), or maybe something else (yeah, those are the only ones that came with a CD I got). But then they started releasing two limited editions for a single, one with a DVD and one with a photobook. I don't like having to choose. xD If possible, I might seriously get both limited editions. Not sure yet, though...

PoT panel count update- after volume 6

You know, it's really interesting reading a series again. You catch all these things that you never noticed the first time around- foreshadowing and such. Of course, Prince of Tennis is no exception, ne? xD
I'm really surprised by how freaking early Konomi introduced characters/schools~ Between the Fudoumine arc and the St. Rudolph arc, Yamabuki, Hyoutei, and even RIKKAI were all introduced in some way. Yamabuki had Sengoku scouting out Seigaku (but looking at girls instead and then getting absolutely pwned by Echizen), Hyoutei had Atobe and Kabaji at the street courts (whyyy on earth would Atobe ever use street courts? o_o) pwning everyone and then bullying An (since when does Atobe want to go out with An?). And Rikkai has of course the Kirihara chapter, which I remembered from the first time around, but they also had an appearance where they pwn some other unnamed team, then Sanada and Renji go up to the reporters and tell them to tell Tezuka that Seigaku didn't play with their full strength- which was a scene I didn't remember.
The last Rikkai one (and the Sengoku scene and the Atobe/Kabaji scene too, to some extent) is one of those scenes where you don't think it's important, so you don't pay attention to it or really care to remember it- but when you look back on it after reading the entire manga, you go 'oh! that's Sanada and Renji! and they're challenging Seigaku! wow, they appeared way earlier than I thought!'
So I kinda took some liberties with this panel count, and when they showed an overhead shot of Rikkai and that unnamed pwned team Rikkai played, even though it wasn't close enough to make out hairstyles and stuff that distinguishes one player from the next (see, the fact that everyone from the same team wears the same outfit makes this panel count harder...>_<), I counted it as a panel for all the Rikkai regulars except Yukimura. xD Even though you obviously couldn't make out Marui and Jackal and everyone else, I figured it's gotta be them, so...xDDD;
Anyway.
Echizen's still pwning everyone by like 700+ at this point, while the freshman trio are now 3 of the top 7, and the other regulars are catching up~ The highest non-Seigaku member is Kamio- I think it's partly because he sat next to Tachibana during Shinji's match (so everytime we saw Tachibana, we saw Kamio too), and partly because he was involved in the Atobe incident. Whatever the reason, he's somehow beating Fuji, Tezuka, and Taka...well, Taka I can understand, but...
At one point I started mixing the Gyokurin players (Fukawa and Izumi) up, so...those might not be completely accurate. xD;;
One interesting thing about this is that it forces me to learn the non-important players' names. I now know who Mori and Uchimura are! (they're the doubles pair from Fudoumine that played against the Golden Pair- Uchimura's the one with the hat)

Anyway, this is how it stands so far...

Echizen Ryouma - 1132
Momoshiro Takeshi - 416
Horio Satoshi - 375
Kaidou Kaoru - 338
Katou Kachirou - 301
Inui Sadaharu - 300
Mizuno Katsuo - 251
Ooishi Shuuichirou - 223
Kikumaru Eiji - 220
Kamio Akira - 218
Fuji Shuusuke - 210
Tezuka Kunimitsu - 209
Ibu Shinji - 203
Ryuuzaki Sakuno - 159
Ryuuzaki Sumire - 150
Kawamura Takashi - 117
Fukawa Kimoyoshi - 112
Izumi Tomoya - 109
Sasabe - 108
Tachibana Kippei - 105
Arai - 96
Echizen Nanjirou - 88
Inoue Mamoru - 87
Shiba Saori - 75
Ishida Tetsu - 72
Sakurai Masaya - 62
Hayashi - 59
Ikeda - 58
Mori Tatsunori - 56
Osakada Tomoka - 56
Tachibana An - 54
Uchimura Kyousuke - 49
Kirihara Akaya - 48
Atobe Keigo - 30
Mizuki Hajime - 30
Karupin - 28
Kachiro's dad - 25
Sasabe Sr. - 24
Kabaji Munehiro - 23
Sengoku Kiyosumi - 19
Kiichi Kuki - 16
Akazawa Yoshirou - 11
Kawamura's dad - 8
Fuji Yuuta - 6
Nanako - 6
Ooishi's uncle/Tezuka's doctor - 5
Sanada Genichirou - 5
Yanagi Renji - 5
Ryouma's mom - 2
Jackal Kuwahara - 1
Fuji Yumiko - 1
Marui Bunta - 1
Niou Masaharu - 1
Yagyuu Hiroshi - 1

Milestones:

100
Sasabe - Chapter 1
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 1
Horio Satoshi - Chapter 5
Momoshiro Takeshi - Chapter 10
Kaidou Kaoru - Chapter 10 (the exact same page as Momo, just one panel after xDD)
Ryuuzaki Sakuno - Chapter 12
Katou Kachirou - Chapter 12
Inui Sadaharu - Chapter 14
Mizuno Katsuo - Chapter 14
Fukawa Kimoyoshi - Chapter 25
Izumi Tomoya - Chapter 25
Ooishi Shuuichirou - Chapter 26
Ryuuzaki Sumire - Chapter 27
Fuji Shuusuke - Chapter 27
Kikumaru Eiji - Chapter 29
Kamio Akira - Chapter 32
Tezuka Kunimitsu - Chapter 34
Ibu Shinji - Chapter 36
Tachibana Kippei - Chapter 40
Kawamura Takashi - Chapter 46

200
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 4
Horio Satoshi - Chapter 15
Momoshiro Takeshi - Chapter 22
Inui Sadaharu - Chapter 23
Katou Kachirou - Chapter 25
Kaidou Kaoru - Chapter 31
Mizuno Katsuo - Chapter 35
Ibu Shinji - Chapter 40
Kamio Akira - Chapter 45
Ooishi Shuuichirou - Chapter 46
Kikumaru Eiji - Chapter 47
Fuji Shuusuke - Chapter 49
Tezuka Kunimitsu - Chapter 50

300
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 8
Horio Satoshi - Chapter 33
Momoshiro Takeshi - Chapter 34
Kaidou Kaoru - Chapter 40
Katou Kachirou - Chapter 50
Inui Sadaharu - Chapter 51

400
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 12
Momoshiro Takeshi - Chapter 47

500
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 16

600
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 20

700
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 24

800
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 35

900
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 38

1000
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 43

1100
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 49

So, I'm doing a Prince of Tennis panel count.

I KNOW, I'm such a nerd. 8DDDD
I remember back when I hung out on NarutoFan 24/7, there was a Naruto manga panel count- counting how many panels each character was in, to compare screen time and stuff. I always thought that was really cool...
So last night, I came up with the idea of doing a panel count for the Tenipuri manga...I didn't start it until this morning cause I came up with it at like midnight last night, but w/e...

It's actually pretty amusing to see how it's turning out- I just finished volume 2. I didn't realize how late Taka was introduced compared to the other regulars- all of the other regulars had showed up a couple of chapters into volume 1 and had various bits of screen time. However, Taka didn't have ONE PANEL until the VERY LAST PAGE of VOLUME 2, when they showed the final set of regulars after the ranking matches. Kirihara got a panel before Taka- when reporter dude was saying that there's only one other middle-school tennis player that can do the one-footed split step. xDDD Meanwhile, 3 of the top 6 are the Freshman Trio, with the other two being Echizen (duhhh) and the two Echizen faced in the ranking tournament, Kaidou and Inui.
Sasabe from chapter 1 was the first to hit 100 panels, and at the end of chapter one he had more panels than Echizen- but of course, since Sasabe basically never shows up again, he's stuck at 108 panels for the series. Horio's the only character other than Echizen to hit 200- ewww. And Echizen's keeping a steady rate of panels, so far he's gotten 100 panels every 4 chapters.
Oh, and I probably mixed Ikeda and Hayashi up (they're the two that were bullying the freshman with that can game), but I can't figure out which one's which so I just kinda guessed...?

Anyway, this is how everything stands after the first two volumes:

Echizen Ryouma - 515
Horio Satoshi - 208
Inui Sadaharu - 167
Katou Kachirou - 143
Kaidou Kaoru - 123
Mizuno Katsuo - 118
Ryuuzaki Sakuno - 117
Momoshiro Takeshi - 110
Sasabe - 108
Arai - 77
Fuji Shuusuke - 52
Hayashi - 51
Ryuuzaki Sumire - 51
Ooishi Shuuichirou - 50
Ikeda - 45
Osakada Tomoka - 40
Shiba Saori - 36
Kikumaru Eiji - 33
Tezuka Kunimitsu - 30
Inoue Mamoru - 29
Echizen Nanjirou - 7
Karupin - 7
Kawamura Takashi - 2
Kirihara Akaya - 1
Nanako - 1

Milestones:

100
Sasabe - Chapter 1
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 1
Horio Satoshi - Chapter 5
Momoshiro Takeshi - Chapter 10
Kaidou Kaoru - Chapter 10 (the exact same page as Momo, just one panel after xDD)
Ryuuzaki Sakuno - Chapter 12
Katou Kachirou - Chapter 12
Inui Sadaharu - Chapter 14
Mizuno Katsuo - Chapter 14

200
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 4
Horio Satoshi - Chapter 15

300
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 8

400
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 12

500
Echizen Ryouma - Chapter 16

[download] byTachikiritai - Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy full version (not the single)

Download through Mediafire

Credit for this goes to makaioh from Livejournal, who uploaded the full version of the song today. =D I'm gonna upload the whole single when my copy comes- it should arrive at my house sometime next week (along with like 5 other CDs I can't wait to get...xD), so I'll get it next weekend. I'm planning on scanning this (I'm going to set up my new printer/scanner this weekend) and maybe romanizing the lyrics. I'm going to start trying to romanize some lyrics, since my Japanese is getting better, but I'm probably not going to do it that often since I'm not that good at it. I romanized Ao to Bin to Kan's single Gather this morning, and I only knew about half the kanji in the lyrics...

ANYWAY
I absolutely love this song. ^^ It's the new opening to the PoT OVAs, and I think it's a great song. It's totally random with the choice of members in the group (I STILL wtf over Shishido being in the group, considering he's TOTALLY not in the new OVA series AT ALL), but it's still a good song. XD The only voice I can pick out in this song is Fuji's, since I haven't really watched much of the Shitenhouji matches (I've only watched Momo/Kaidou vs Yuuji/Koharu; I actually haven't watched Fuji vs Shiraishi and Taka vs Gin yet...), but Fuji's voice really sticks out no matter who he sings with. O_o Everyone else's voice is like ROAR GUY and then Fuji's is SO OBVIOUSLY A GIRL...xD Well, I mean, Fuji's a guy, but his seiyuu is a girl, and it's especially obvious when Fuji sings. xD; I really like his seiyuu's singing voice~
So, yeah, I can't wait until my copy gets here. xD I want the full single, but the person who uploaded this never uploads the instrumentals, so...
Not to mention that's it's in the same package as like 5 other CDs- Buono's Honto no Jibun (which I've recently become uber addicted to, and I'll elaborate on that once it arrives- I'm gonna write a post about the single and Shugo Chara), Ongaku Gatas' Nari Hajimeta Koi no BELL, Momusu's 10th anniversary album, Gyaruru's Boom Boom Meccha Maccho, and Momusu's 7.5 mini-album that was released last year. And the latest Momusu PV DVD. xDD YAY LOTS OF STUFF

Goto Maki leaving H!P...

Ok, a couple of things I have to say first before I get to the main point of this post.
First of all, I'm sorry for not updating in a while! I started high school last month, and I definitely don't have as much time as I did over the summer and at the end of last year when I started this blog. So I really can't update as frequently as I used too. I haven't been keeping up with j-pop news at all lately- really, all I know is stuff about new releases. I've found that I kinda have this thing where I go back and forth for a while between focusing mostly on j-pop and focusing on anime...I haven't written a j-pop post in like forever. ;-; It's just cause I don't really have the time to keep up with everything anymore, but I think I'm gonna try to keep up...

Second, yeah, I moved the blog to a new URL- from 'indigoskies-shadow' to 'indigoskies-shadows'. If you're reading this, you've figured that out already. I thought I wrote a post explaining why, but now I find out I didn't. ;-; The thing is, my mom found my blog (it's really all my fault, I forgot to delete the link from my e-mail signature when I e-mailed her at one point), and she got really mad at my swearing and stuff (somehow she missed the Darling! post, which I'm ETERNALLY THANKFUL for) so she said she was going to monitor my blog. See why I had to move it?
I don't know if people are going to find this blog again. ;-; I barely had any visitors before, but now I don't think I have any. I figure this is a good time to get back into the j-pop blogosphere, and I'm probably gonna post the new link to my blog on International Wota somewhere...


ANYWAY. On to the main point of this post...

So today I was procrastinating and not doing my homework, and I looked up Goto Maki on wiki.theppn.org.
And saw that Goto Maki was leaving Hello! Project.
Oh wow.
Apparently it's because her brother was arrested recently. But what does that have to do with Maki's career? I don't understand.
I'm totally gonna miss Maki in H!P, but at least she's still going to be singing, just under a different record label.
I think this could really work for her. I'm pretty sure that no one who left H!P has had a successful career outside of H!P, but Maki's definitely popular, and I think she can do really well if she ends up with a good record label. This will also give her a lot more freedom, since we all know H!P is really strict when it comes to things like boyfriends.
Maki is (was, I guess?) my favorite H!P soloist, so I really really hope she does well. <33 I'll continue to support her no matter what...so good luck, Maki~

So I ordered new music today.

Yeah...
Buono! - Honto no Jibun (limited edition)
byTachikiritai - Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy! (limited release)
Gyaruru - Boom Boom Meccha Maccho! (limited edition)
Morning Musume - 7.5 Fuyu Fuyu Morning Musume Mini (limited edition)
Morning Musume - ALL SINGLES COMPLETE ~10th Anniversary~ (limited edition)
Morning Musume - Eizou The Morning Musume 4 ~Single M Clips~
Ongaku Gatas - Nari Hajimeta Koi no Bell (limited edition)
Prince of Tennis 2008 calendar

I think this is the first time in a while that I've bought more general j-pop than PoT music...anyway, with this I'm finally caught up with Morning Musume's CD releases, so now I have to start heading back and collecting everything before Chokkan 2...
Aaand I actually bought a Morning Musume DVD! YAAAAYYYYYYY I downloaded this DVD a while ago, and I liked it a lot~ it's all their PVs from THE Manpower!!! to Kanashimi Twilight. Plus, it's the only place to find their PV for Koi wa Hassou Do The Hustle!...
Then there's Gyaruru's single- it's the limited edition, so it comes with the DVD. I heard that the DVD of this is basically like an H!P Single V DVD, so I'm looking forward to it~
I'm not exactly sure what the DVDs for Nari Hajimeta Koi no Bell and Honto no Jibun have, but whatever~
Lol, then there's Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy!. I wasn't actually planning on buying this, but when the opening video came out the other day, I ended up listening to it a lot and getting addicted. xD;;;;; It's too catchy...though I STILL don't like it as much as Flower or Kakaeta Kiseki, it's definitely good. So that resulted in me pre-ordering the single...
And the calendar, of course. Someone posted the images on the tenipuri LJ community, and it looked amusing. xD So...yeah, I bought it.
I was tempted to choose the split shipment option, but it was $10 extra, so...guess I just have to wait until the end of October for this to ship out (since Honto no Jibun and Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy aren't being released until the 31st).


On a totally unrelated note, Ao to Bin to Kan's single Gather FINALLY SHIPPED! I ordered that over a month ago from one of those places through Amazon. Believe me, I'm not ordering from that site again...I almost forgot about it, but I got an e-mail a day or so ago telling me that it shipped. YAAAAYYYYY]

And on another totally unrelated note, 6 more PoT character CDs have been announced. From the looks of things, it's the Shitenhouji Best of Rival Players set. Dunno how they're gonna get 6 CDs...Shiraishi definitely gets one, same with Chitose and the freshman kid. Then I bet there's gonna be one for Koharu/Yuuji...maybe Ishida Gin? And that's only 5...maybe Oshitari's cousin, Oshitari Kenya? Not like he plays an important role in the story at all, but...well, whatever. We'll see when it gets closer to the release dates- two are coming out on November 21st, two on the 28th (Eiji's birthday btw, yaaay), and then two are coming out the Wednesday after that (too lazy to look up the date).

Well, guess it's time to start from scratch...

Ok, so...
My external hard drive just died. Like, COMPLETELY FUCKING DIED, as in, I CAN'T EVEN GET MY FILES BACK.
GODFUCKINGDAMMIT

I guess I'm not really starting from scratch. I still have everything that was on my desktop (THANK GOD for that, considering all of my j-pop's there and if I lost that I'd diiiiieeeeeee), and the things that were on my laptop's main drive.
But still...I'm uberly distressed right now. There goes so much stuff.
I mean, I don't even know everything I had on there, really...I know I definitely lost all the PoT musicals, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING POT CD THAT TOOK ME OVER TWO FUCKING WEEKS TO DOWNLOAD (except a couple of the opening/ending CDs, since I had started to organize them and I had decided that I should stick the opening/ending CDs on my main drive), the last 78 episodes of PoT, the entire PoT OVA series except the latest two episodes that just came out today (those are on my main drive cause my hard drive stopped working last night), the entire first season of Heroes, lots of Gintama, lots of Lucky Star, lots of Naruto, some One Piece...and some j-pop. I don't remember which j-pop releases were on there, it was just a couple of recent releases...

At least I still have all my manga...? xD;
I have to redownload everything as soon as I get a new hard drive...and I was planning on having a PoT musical marathon this weekend, too. T_T Now I don't even have any of them...

byTachikiritai - Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy opening video out!

alsdkfjaweoiruasldkfjalweirsudlsifkj
YAAAAAAYYYY
Ah, I love new openings. =D

Ok, I have to say, I definitely don't like this opening as much as Flower ~Saki Midareshi Hana~ and Kakaeta Kiseki, the first two PoT OVA openings. But this is still pretty good...
I'm still wtf-ing over the title and the members of the group. And when the song hit the line "sore ja gekidasa daze!" ("that's lame!") I facepalmed. Sigh.
But I like it.
I mean, there's FULL DEVIL MODE KIRIHARA. =D YAAAAYY

I find it weird that this opening seems to be more centered on Shitenhouji and Rikkai than Seigaku (with the exception of Ryoma, of course)...there was a quick thing at the beginning where each member was shown, then they had two team pics, but the rest was all either Ryoma/wild kid (can't remember his name, to be honest I really couldn't care less about Shitenhouji, except the blatantly gay doubles pair, they're funny) or Shitenhouji/Rikkai.
Wonder if the Rikkai stuff is foreshadowing for the finals? Or they're going to fill in the match between Rikkai and that other team in the semifinals that has all the foreigners.

So, I kinda think the video for this is pretty boring. It's really simple, and it's not that much new footage- lots of still pics instead. I was hoping for cool scenes where people show off their uber tennis stills, but nope...just a bit of the wild kid, and then the Kirihara scene...


Anyway, the REAL reason I'm uber happy about this showing up on the internet is because that means that the new episodes should come out soon! =D
They were released over a week ago, so they're due out soon...the raws, at least. Wish there was a good subbing group working on this, but...=/ oh well.


EDIT: According to the Japanese Wikipedia (and double-checked on the actual opening video), the group is actually called "byTachikiritai". Wtf.
No, I'm not just confusing the "by" with like the actual word in a sentence, it's in the actual Japanese name, by断ち切り隊
DDD: I'M EVEN MORE CONFUSED NOW

The Japanese Wikipedia also mentions something about the origins of the name of the group and the song title...apparently the "by" has something to do with Chitose (something about a different dialect and saying "bai" instead of "tai" or something? oh how I wish it was in English so I could really understand it), the "Tachikiritai" is from Fuji, who apparently says "断ち切る" ("tachikiru", maybe? dunno what that means, but apparently he says it). And the song title itself, Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy..."gekidasa" comes from Shishido, and "ecstasy" is from Shiraishi.
That still doesn't explain the uber random choice of group members or anything. D: I'm still confused...

WHEE FREE DOUJINSHI

xDD
The owner of doujinstar.com (which is down at the moment apparently) is giving away a bunch of doujinshi over on the Tenipuri community on Livejournal...2 per person, $4 for shipping. =3 Of course I immediately grabbed 2 MG doujinshi (Apple Rain and Strawberry Tart)...there was also the doujinshi Echizen Ryoma by Flower Place which I've been wanting for a bit (it's the counterpart to the doujinshi Momoshiro Takeshi, which I already have), but it was already taken by the time I got there. Oh well.

They're going to be shipped out on Monday, which means I should be able to get them when I come home next weekend. =3 YAAAAYY

Darling!

entry temporarily deleted

ugh since when has Friday night been 'early' for Jump chapters?

I REMEMBER THE DAYS WHERE THE CHAPTERS REGULARLY CAME OUT ON THURSDAY
D:<
people have been saying stuff like 'wow, it's early this week' when Jump chapters came out on Friday night.
Seriously, since when has Friday night been early?
=/
I was so used to them coming out on Thursday, and maybe even Wednesday if we were lucky, then they started coming out on Friday instead.
It took me forever to get accustomed to that, but now I'm so used to the main manga (One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, PoT, Eyeshield 21...) coming out on Friday afternoon...and now they're starting to come out either really really late on Friday night (last week PoT was out at around midnight IIRC) or Saturday morning. A couple of weeks ago, the chapters weren't out until Sunday morning. =/
And even though it's still the same amount of time between chapters, it feels like FOREVER cause I'm still half-expecting them on Friday afternoon. >_<
Oh well, eventually I'll get used to them coming out on Saturdays...