~ lurking in the shadows ~

Moving to WordPress!

2008-03-11T09:01:00.000-04:00

Yes, this blog is moving to a new home with a new title:
Resonant Blue

I tested out WordPress a bit ago and immediately fell in love with it. I love the idea of pages, and there's also the idea of cutting a post so the entire thing doesn't show up on the blog's main page. Plus there isn't a limit to how many categories a post can have, which I made full use of in my first new post on the new blog. xDD Just in general I like it much better than Blogger, so I made the decision to switch. After the incident last week where some WP blogs were deleted, I initially changed my mind, but then once the cause for that was pinpointed I realized I would be safe as long as I didn't put up any downloads by Pony Canyon artists. So I started making preparations to switch again, and I finally finished today. I moved all the posts from this blog, and I made the first new post already- Catching up.
See you all at the new blog~

Ikemen Samurai - Dear Prince ~Tennis no Oujisamatachi e~

2008-03-03T11:40:00.000-05:00

Another new single announced today! Dear Prince ~Tennis no Oujisamatachi e~, meaning Dear Prince ~To the Princes of Tennis~, should be kinda familiar to fans of the manga, as it's the song that was used in the last chapter of the manga last week. I still don't see the point of that, all it was was the lyrics written on the page, I think they were trying to imitate a song playing in the last episode of an anime but it doesn't really work with manga. I hear it was hell for scanlators. xD But anyway.
Ikemen Samurai? xD I thought it would be a serious song but the group name (meaning something along the lines of "Good-looking Samurai") makes it sound like it's totally not. Though, according to the website, Konomi chose the group name, so...
The group consists of Echizen Ryouma and Tezuka Kunimitsu from Seigaku, Atobe Keigo from Hyoutei, Yukimura Seiichi and Sanada Genichirou from Rikkai, Kite Eishirou from Higa, and Shiraishi Kuranosuke from Shitenhouji. Lots of different schools being represented here...Seigaku and all the teams they faced in the Nationals.
I think this would be a good ending or opening song for the Finals OVA series. I'm sure it's going to be the ending for the last episode, at least.

タイトル：ＤｅａｒＰｒｉｎｃｅ～テニスの王子様達へ～（初回生産完全限定盤）
アーティスト：イケメン侍（越前リョーマ、手塚国光、跡部景吾、幸村精市、
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　真田弦一郎、木手永四郎、白石蔵ノ介）
発売日：２００８年４月２３日（水）
品番：ＮＥＣＭ－１０１０１
価格：￥１，０００（税込）

Title: Dear Prince ~Tennis no Oujisamatachi e~ (limited release)
Artist: Ikemen Samurai (Echizen Ryouma, Tezuka Kunimitsu, Atobe Keigo, Yukimura Seiichi, Sanada Genichirou, Kite Eishirou, Shiraishi Kuranosuke)
Release date: 2008.04.23 (Wednesday)
Catalog code: NECM-10101
Price: 1000 yen

April 23rd...that's a normal release date (aka Wednesday). For once. xD

Tong-tai - Ya.ki.ni.ku

2008-03-03T11:21:00.001-05:00

@_@
Another Prince of Tennis unit, this one being one of the more "wtf"-inducing ones. This new unit, just announced today, is based off of the special Yakiniku no Oujisama episode that's being released on March 16th, where Seigaku and a lot of rival schools meet at a yakiniku place and have a contest to see which school can eat the most in one hour. This song is apparently going to be the ending theme for that episode, and I can only hope that it's -only- that episode...
The unit is made up of Tanishi Kei from Higa, Kabaji Munehiro from Hyoutei, and Chinen Hiroshi from Higa. From the manga, I remember Tanishi's uber yakiniku-eating skills, and Kabaji copied those, but I don't remember Chinen...?

タイトル：や・き・に・く（初回生産完全限定盤）
アーティスト：トング隊（田仁志慧、樺地崇弘、知念寛）
発売日：２００８年５月９日（金）
品番：ＮＥＣＭ－１０１０４
価格：￥８００（税込）

Title: Ya.ki.ni.ku (limited release)
Artist: Tong-tai (Tanishi Kei, Kabaji Munehiro, Chinen Hiroshi)
Release date: 2008.05.09 (Friday)
Catalog code: NECM-10104
Price: 800 yen

Wonder what's up with the Friday release again? Maybe the next DVD is going to be released then or something.

Arashi's "We can make it!" is a cover?!

2008-02-25T22:43:00.000-05:00

This just blew my mind.
We can make it! is one of the two songs that got me into Arashi. I love the song and it has a really high playcount on my iPod.
I just found out today that it's a cover. Apparently the original is "Love is All Around", by some woman named Agnes Carlsson. Well.
So I immediately went onto Youtube to find the original. After a search of the artist + the title, I didn't find any music video or anything. However, I found this:

Ohhh wow. xDD I'm only a casual fan of Arashi, I listen to their music but I don't know any of their names or anything. (I can't see myself ever getting into Johnny's like I did with Hello! Project, one uber idol group is enough. X_x) Still though, it's really amusing to have a girl's song playing over a video of a guy group. xD And apparently the Arashi version added some parts, considering this video has to cut to audio from We can make it! in order to fit with the PV. xD

It's always weird to find out that a song I listen to a lot is a cover, cause I always think of the one I heard first as the original. I kept almost referring to We can make it! as the original in this post...

Tezuka & Fuji - Koko de Bokura wa Deattashimatta cover + tracklist

2008-02-25T11:42:00.000-05:00

TEZUKA ZOOOONNNEEEEEEE
But why is Fuji doing it too? xD Unless they're in SYNCHRO! 8DD But they're not a doubles pair so maybe not.

The tracklist was put up on Yesasia here:
1. Koko de Bokura wa Deattashimatta (Fuji & Tezuka)
2. Ryuusen no Michiyuki (Fuji)
3. Koko de Bokura wa Deattashimatta (SF to Karaoke)
4. Koko de Bokura wa Deattashimatta (KT to Karaoke)
5. Koko de Bokura wa Deattashimatta (instrumental)
6. Hitomi wo Tojite Kokoro no Mama Boku wa Kimi wo Omou ~200 Title Memorial Version~ (Fuji)

Ahaha, Fuji gets two solos but Tezuka doesn't get any. Poor Tezuka. xD Anyway, there's the title track and the b-side, and then the three instrumentals. SF stands for "Shuusuke Fuji" and KT stands for "Kunimitsu Tezuka", so I'm assuming both of those versions only take away the vocals of one of the two and leave the other. Of course, track 5 is just the normal instrumental. As for #6, Hitomi wo Tojite etc (the title's way too long xD) was Fuji's first solo single, released under the BEST OF SEIGAKU PLAYERS series. Maybe it's like a self-cover or something?

Four days until this release, I hope we get the full single right away. No one's uploaded the full single of Kai's Valentine Kiss yet...=(

Kinokuniya purchases

2008-02-23T21:38:00.002-05:00

My friend went to NYC for a couple days this week (Wednesday-Friday I think- it was vacation week for the public schools, so she had it off while I was stuck at school) and so while she was there, she picked up a few things from Kinokuniya for me.

At first I was debating what to ask her to buy, I heard somewhere that they have Hello! Project photobooks but she isn't a Hello! Project fan (she knows what Morning Musume is due to my random ranting, but that's it) and I didn't want her to have to ask about those since that would without a doubt be awkward for her. xD I also wanted something Prince of Tennis, but the only specific thing I could think of off the top of my head was the 30.5 illustration book and I didn't know how expensive that would be...which would be necessary because I had to give her the cash beforehand.
So this is what I ended up with:

SKET DANCE 2 - My second-favorite current Weekly Jump manga! =D Soon to be my favorite, as Prince of Tennis is ending at some unspecified time within the next month or so. (Somehow there's never been anything stated about the upcoming end, but everyone knows it's coming and the non-fans over at the Weekly Jump LJ community are uber quick to write it off every time there's a rumor. >_<)
I bought volume 1 a couple of months ago, I remember that that was the volume holding my Mikan copies back for a few weeks! I decided then never to buy manga from Yesasia again if there's an alternative. =) Volume 2 came out January 9th, and it features uber cute chibis on the cover!! 8D Kind of fitting, because this volume has the chapters with the chibi puppets and also the chapter where Bossun turns into a little kid.
Sket Dance is doing really well in the weekly rankings in Jump, and I seriously think that this could be the next big hit. I mean, sooner or later the main series will end and something needs to carry the magazine afterwards. (lol for some reason while typing that I thought of the Prince of Tennis English manga's line "You can carry Seigaku!" I love how I can relate everything to PoT in some way.)

Weekly Shounen Jump 2008 issue 12 - This was the major thing I asked her to get! See, this is in some ways my dream Jump issue- Prince of Tennis is on the cover and has color pages, and Sket Dance has color pages in the center! My favorite issue of Jump in a really long time. As soon as this ToC was announced on the Jump LJ community, I immediately said "I have to get this issue!" And while searching around the web for some way to get this issue, I realized that it was the issue for the week Sarah was going to NYC! SO LUCKY! 8D
It's pretty significant because it's basically Prince of Tennis' final Jump cover, not the final color pages because it's possibly going to get more of those next week, but it's probably the last cover it's going to get. I think it should definitely get the cover on it's final issue - all series that I've seen end in Jump haven't, but those have been canceled rather than really ended, and PoT has been running for 8.5 years - but it's probably not going to in favor of another cover for One Piece/Naruto/Bleach. >_<
I love the cover, with Tenimuhou!Ryouma and everything. I was really worried that somehow it'd look bad, with either something else taking over a huge part of it, or just a bad drawing- I mean, in the back-to-back double issues for Christmas and New Year's, the art wasn't really that good. However, this cover turned out to be really good. And the color pages inside...I love the two-page spread! With Tenimuhou!Ryouma on the left side with the green spiky-ish hair and green eyes (...last week when I read this chapter I immediately thought 'Super Saiyan!') and that cool look, and the text on the right side over the stands. Some of the volume covers are taken from chapter covers, there haven't actually been that many chapter covers lately so I hope the cover for volume 42 could maybe be the picture of Ryouma here. (On that note, I've been checking the Shueisha website for news of volume 41, and while they started listing it last week they didn't put a release date. However, the color pages in this issue of Jump say that it's coming out March 4th. That's only like a week and a half away! Definitely buying that when I get the chance.) I should set the two-page spread as my laptop background, when I get tired of the Sket Dance wallpaper taken from the color page in the same issue.
Speaking of which, the Sket Dance color page is nothing too special, but I think I'm just unconsciously comparing it to the last two color pages- one of which had the Sket Dan exchanging outfits (Switch was crossdressing as Himeko, thankfully with sweatpants under the skirt...xD) and the other had them dressed up in ninja outfits. xD
Also, the color page for Sket Dance says that volume 3 is going to be released April 4th.

I really wish there was a Kinokuniya in Boston. Apparently the one in NYC was huge, and I want to go so badly~ @_@ My parents say that maybe we could go to NYC over a long weekend and merge that with a trip to visit my stepsister and her husband and baby daughter (they live pretty close to NYC). I'm so excited~~
(Though, you know, I should be even more excited for my one-month trip to Japan this summer. xD While I'm there I'm definitely going to go for a ton of H!P merchandise...do they have an official store anywhere near Sapporo? xD That's where I'm going for the three-week homestay...and the last week is sight-seeing with the other kids from my school.)

Prince of Tennis + Chinese drama adaptation = ...this is going to take me some time to get used to.

2008-02-21T20:25:00.001-05:00

So I wrote a couple of posts about the upcoming Prince of Tennis Chinese drama back when the news first came out. Here are the posts if you're interested, but it's really nothing more than basic information:
Prince of Tennis Chinese TV drama?!? (um, this one kinda contains a small rant about how the anime failed to follow canon, so spoilers for the Rikkai arc)
A bit more info on the Prince of Tennis Chinese TV drama

So, I was happy to wait like a year before it came out. But then I started getting impatient. XD A couple of weeks ago, I found that there was a page for it over on the DramaWiki (http://wiki.d-addicts.com/The_Prince_of_Tennis) and immediately got uber excited. However, back then, all it was was a list of cast members and roles, a picture of a couple of the regulars, and a link to a Chinese site. This was quite a problem. See, they changed the names.
So I was left with a cast list full of Chinese names, and honestly, reading about how Qin Jun Jie is playing "Long Ma" means nothing to me. XD And a trip to the official (I'm assuming) Chinese site didn't help, though I identified Tezuka, Inui, and Ryoma in the pictures. xD
But!
I have no idea what motivated me to do this, but I checked the DramaWiki site again today, and yay! A summary was added, plus someone added links to the Wikipedia pages for each of the characters- so each Chinese name linked to the Wikipedia page for the character in their Japanese name! Now I can tell who's who! xDD (The "Long Ma" guy I mentioned earlier is Ryoma, btw. I actually probably could have figured that out, with him being first in the cast list, but w/e...)

Here's the summary:

Long Ma is a tennis prodigy who garnered 4 successive victories at the American Junior Tennis Tournament. Like his father, former professional tennis player Long Zheng Nan, Long Ma possesses both top-notch skills and deep passion for the sport. Upon returning to his homeland, he attends the distinguished Qing Chun Academy and quickly secures a spot as a regular member of its famous tennis club after beating out numerous upperclassmen. With each match towards their ultimate goal of winning the nationwide Junior Tennis Championships, Long Ma and his teammates grow as players and as friends.

...
The plot sounds nice and all, but...oh this is going to take me forever to get used to. Wait, are they changing it so they're all Chinese, like within the series? Thinking about it now, it makes perfect sense, but that never really occurred to me before. Hmm. Not like it would really change much in the plot. Except the tournament set-up would have to be changed...and China's so big, wouldn't it take much longer within each tournament because there would be way more teams?
The name changes are going to kill me every time though, they don't sound at all like the Japanese names...I take a Mandarin Chinese class two times a week (I only started in January and all I know is pronunciation) and I thought that when they imported names or something they came up with a Chinese name based on the pronunciation of the original name. However, it looks like instead of doing that, they instead used the original kanji for the names (or as close as they have in Chinese) and took the pronunciation from that.

Apparently there are only going to be 20 episodes (which I guess isn't short for a drama (lots of j-dramas are 13 episodes, I think? never watched one fully) but it's shorter than I was expecting), which a) leaves me wondering how they're planning on reaching the Hyoutei arc, and b) crushes my dreams of it reaching the Rikkai arc. Oh well. I guess it's going to be like the live-action movie and end after the Hyoutei matches, though since it's far longer hopefully they're not going to be like the movie and cut out lots of canon stuff. XD Actually I didn't watch the full movie, I got annoyed when they skipped a lot of stuff in the very beginning so I turned it off. xD

I wonder if they're changing the ages of the characters, or if the badge-thing on each of their school uniforms stating "YOUTH COLLEGE" is merely a case of Engrish? xD (can the term Engrish be used when referring to a culture other than Japan? I've only seen it used related to Japanese stuff...seriously, China is like a whole new world to me, I have no idea about anything and honestly, outside of a few bands/singers, I don't plan on getting involved with it) Seishun Gakuen is the original name of the school, and it translates to "Youth Academy" or something like that, so...

Anyway, I don't see anything totally wrong with the casting or anything, which is good. But, Ryuuzaki-sensei's a young woman?? O__O I'm starting to wonder if there's something wrong with having a grandmother as a tennis coach in live-action or something- in the musicals they cut her out (they cut out all female characters), in the Japanese live-action movie they made her a young woman (played by Shimatani Hitomi!!) who was Nanjirou's classmate rather than his coach, and now this drama seems to be taking the same path.
Really, I'm happy as long as ~~Eiji~~ ~~Ju Wan~~ Eiji's actor is good.
picture
Not the best, probably not my first choice (where's the flippy red hair? and the band-aid?), but I'm satisfied. 8D
Oh, and as a bonus, Ooishi's hair isn't uber ugly! xD See, it's bad enough in the manga/anime, but in the musicals, they try to imitate it...in real life it's just even worse. X_x The flipside to this, though, is that now he doesn't immediately stand out, but I'll get over it. XD

Let's end this with a group picture! 8DD ~~In which I can't identify Taka, Eiji, Momo, and Ooishi. They need identifying features like the others.~~

(Blogger cuts it off, click it for the full image)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUNJUN! <333333

2008-02-11T21:14:00.000-05:00

Wow, Junjun turned 20 today! 20 is the age in Japan where you are considered an adult, and it's a big thing.
I remember I was really surprised when I found out she was 19 a couple months or so ago- I had thought that I had heard that she was really young, so when I saw her birthday on ThePPN Wiki I was uber surprised. xD
So, yeah, happy birthday to Junjun, and I hope she had a great day today~ xD

Morning Musume ranking

2008-02-11T11:58:00.000-05:00

I was actually planning on doing a Morning Musume ranking soon anyway, so this provided a great opportunity to actually do it.

I didn't do the Berryz Koubou and C-ute ones, because while I FINALLY know their names (YESS) I don't actually know anything about them. Definitely not enough to rank them.

1. Junjun
Definitely my #1 right now, even though she's pretty new there's just something about her...
2. Reina
Reina's cute and has a good voice, but somehow her spot was just recently taken over by Junjun. xD
3. Aika
She's the only Musume younger than I am (only by a month), and I didn't like her at first but slowly I've grown to really like her.
4. Risa
I like her voice, and I'm glad that she has the Athena & Robikerottsu unit- though I don't think it'll be a permanent unit since it was created only for that anime.
5. Koharu
While she doesn't have the best voice in the group, I really like her solo singles. They're strangely addicting...
6. Ai
She has a really strong voice, and I think she would be great as a soloist. However, I can't help but feel like she's getting wayy too much attention in Momusu.
7. Sayumi
She's really cute, but she really doesn't have that good of a voice. She's definitely improved though, I saw a video of her singing Do it! Now with two other girls (I forget who, maybe Reina and Eri) and I couldn't stand her voice. X_x It's tolerable now.
8. Linlin
I don't really know much about her...
9. Eri
Sorry Eri fans, but I just don't like Eri that much...

Comparing it to the first Momusu ranking post I did, here, my opinions of most of the girls haven't changed that much. xD

Fuji Shuusuke & Tezuka Kunimitsu special single title announced

2008-02-06T08:31:00.000-05:00

You know, I really wish these songs had PVs so I'd actually have something to comment on. ~~Plus a PV for Type wa D! would kick ass and have lots and lots of Golden Pair love! <333333~~ Cause right now, all it is is three basic posts: 1) "they announced a new single today!" 2) "they announced the title of the single today!" 3) "they put the cover up on their website!" xD
This post falls under the second category. If you couldn't tell already.

タイトル：ここで僕らは出会ってしまった（初回生産完全限定盤）
アーティスト：不二周助＆手塚国光
発売日：２００８年２月２９日（金）
品番：ＮＥＣＭ－１２１５６
価格：￥１，２００（税込）

Title: Koko de Bokura wa Deatteshimatta (limited release)
Artist: Fuji Shuusuke & Tezuka Kunimitsu
Release date: 2008.02.29 (Friday)
Catalog code: NECM-12156
Price: 1200 yen (with tax)

"We met by chance here", or something along those lines. YAY TEZUKA/FUJI LOVE SONG <333
I wonder what the song's going to be like? I actually haven't heard any of Tezuka's solo songs, but I've listened to his songs with Aozu, and...what can I say? His voice just doesn't fit with the others. Actually, it's not as bad in WHITE LINE, but in Kakaeta Kiseki it's really funny because it's like "whee nice voices" and then BAM Tezuka's is like, uber uber low. xD Which is why he only gets like two lines. Poor Tezuka. xD Then in GIGS, with Flower (why didn't they ever get another single?) it's not that bad because Sanada's voice is uber low too. xD As for Megane's, I can't take that unit seriously because they're so much crack, so...xD
I'm assuming that, like all the other duet singles, there will be a solo song from each of them...but I don't know for sure.

I can't wait to hear this single, it sounds pretty good. It's apparently being used as the ending theme for the Tenipuri radio show this month, but I don't think anyone's ripped it or anything...

Megane's' 5th single title announced

2008-02-04T07:41:00.000-05:00

Uh-oh. I get the feeling that this title is foreshadowing something...

タイトル：さよなら…眼鏡’ｓ（初回生産完全限定盤）
アーティスト：眼鏡’ｓ
発売日：２００８年３月１６日（日）
品番：ＮＥＣＭ－１００９８
価格：８００（税込）

Title: Sayonara...Megane's (limited release)
Artist: Megane's
Release date: 2008.03.16 (Sunday)
Code: NECM-10098
Price: 800 yen (including tax)

The Megane's had a good run (5 singles is the most for any group in Prince of Tennis)...but it looks like it's coming to an end. Well, it hasn't been officially announced, but I mean, look at that title. xD;
I could be wrong, I guess, but the series is coming to an end soon (the manga is rumored to end in a couple of weeks, and then the anime isn't that far behind)...I wouldn't be all that surprised.

Congrats, Kaori!

2008-02-03T16:47:00.000-05:00

Iida Kaori from Morning Musume had a baby boy on January 22nd. This is the second child by a Hello! Project member (all the former H!P members that have had kids were out of H!P before they had the kid, I believe), the first being Tsuji Nozomi's baby girl Noa a couple months ago. I wish the best of luck to Kaori and her husband and baby. ^^
I guess they didn't want to reveal the name of the baby, but I really want to know...xD I kinda want to see pictures too~...

I think I've slowly become addicted to Junjun.

2008-01-29T19:15:00.000-05:00

...and I think she's my #1 in Morning Musume right now. Sorry Reina, at least you're still #2.
I honestly have no idea why she's taken over my Morning Musume fandom, but it definitely happened. xD
I've now decided that I want my very first photobook purchase to be of Junjun. Whether it's the 8th gen together, a duo Junjun and Linlin photobook, or just Junjun solo. Preferably the last one. =P

And now for some picspam, because I'm pretty sure that's why I'm such a huge fan now. It can't have been the singing, because it's not like she's had many lines so far. xD

(click on the thumbnails for full versions)

Kai Yuujirou - Valentine Kiss cover

2008-01-28T17:53:00.000-05:00

This totally doesn't deserve it's own post, but it's getting one anyway.
The cover for the upcoming Valentine Kiss single, this year done by Kai Yuujirou with Higa Chuu, was posted today on the official Prince of Tennis music site:

Ah, Valentine Kiss. Always so freaking predictable. Of course, this cover is exactly the same as every single version before it, except it's Kai instead of the other people that have released the Valentine Kiss single. And the jacket always changes color. (Though didn't Atobe already have a purple one?)
Uberly looking forward to this single, I loved all previous versions (even Sanada's, cause it's so hilarious and bad) and I can't wait for Kai's.

Comcast is taking away AZN Television!

2008-01-26T16:23:00.000-05:00

NOOOOOO
Ok, now I can officially call this a bad day. I mean, as if v-u-den disbanding wasn't bad enough.

Ok, so, I guess I never blogged about this, but starting about...2 months ago maybe...I've been watching AZN Television's Sunday night line-up. 7:30-9:00, Music
Bang, which shows Asian music videos- usually they don't show anything that good, but they've shown BoA a couple of times- it's always nice for some background music. 9:00-9:30, Japonica Logos, which is kinda like a variety show based off of the Japanese language. It's great, and it's really funny. 9:30-10:00, Ainori, which is TEH BEST, my favorite non-anime show by far. And then 10:00-11:00 is some drama, it was Abarenbo Mama when I started watching.
It's become somewhat of a weekly tradition for me, like Saturday night anime. Especially Ainori, that's something I always look forward to every week.
And so now, AZN Television is being taken off of Comcast...
I mean, I can always download Japonica Logos and Ainori, but it's just not the -same-, you know? Watching stuff on TV is much better than watching it on the computer.

At least I have until April 9th. Then I guess I have to just download them instead...sigh. >_<

v-u-den breaking up

2008-01-26T00:11:00.000-05:00

The Hello! Project official website has a new announcement, simply called "News from Hello! Project". The contents of the announcement?
v-u-den is disbanding on the final night of their concert tour in June.
Apparently it's because Okada Yui is turning 20, but I don't really see what that has to do with anything.

I'm really sad about this, they weren't my favorite group in H!P but I really loved their early singles- I haven't been as much of a fan of their latest singles but I still kept looking forward to each one. I just bought their Single Best 9 limited edition album...
Rika has Ongaku Gatas, so I'm not really worried about her that much. Hopefully this means Ongaku Gatas will be around for a while.
I can't help but wonder what's going to happen to Erika and Yui. Neither of them have anything else in Hello! Project. Maybe they'll be involved in an upcoming new unit. I really don't want to see them just sit around doing nothing like so many other members that left a group and haven't done anything since.

I hope for the best for all three of them, and while I'm definitely going to miss v-u-den, maybe something really good will come out of all this.

Official announcement of the Prince of Tennis re-releases- list of CDs (Update)

2008-01-24T07:55:00.000-05:00

I checked the official PoT music site today (haha ever since I realized the news was still updated I've been checking every day) and there's a new news item- an official announcement of all the titles being re-released.
Looks like the main reason for the re-release is the 100 Song Marathon taking place in March. Damn, I really wanna see that concert! xD Seriously, I'm hoping it will be released on DVD, it should be an amazing concert. 100 seiyuu songs...^____^ I bet it'll be expensive though...it -is- 100 songs....

Anyway, here's the official list of everything being re-released:

Title - Artist
BRAND NEW DAY - 3 Guava Trio
Dreaming On The Radio - Echizen Ryouma
Niji - Tezuka Kunimitsu
Asobi ni Ikanai ka? - Kawamura Takashi
DISTANCE - Inui Sadaharu
Right by your side - Fuji Shuusuke
Sekai wa Kawaru - Kaidou Kaoru
Honto no Kimochi - Ooishi Shuuichirou
Come Together - Kikumaru Eiji
SAYONARA - Momoshiro Takeshi
Ai no IZM - シンボリサオリ
Hey, now! - 白井裕紀
雪の結晶 - 塩谷麻公
SKY - 真崎修
Happy lucky day! - 福士健太郎
Valentine Kiss - Atobe Keigo with Hyoutei Gakuen
Megane wo Hazusu Yoru - Oshitari Yuushi
Te~Tsunago. - Oshitari Yuushi
Valentine Kiss - Oshitari Yuushi with Hyoutei Gakuen
Natsu no Ojousan - Tachibana An
Everyday - Sengoku Kiyosumi
KEEP GOING ON! - Sanada Genichirou
Alive - Shishido Ryou
Dakishimete Shimaisousa - Tezuka Kunimitsu
Valentine Kiss - Atobe Keigo with Hyoutei Gakuen
Valentine Kiss - Oshitari Yuushi with Hyoutei Gakuen
Kiichi no Hayakuchi Kotoba - Kuki Kiichi
Start ~Boku no Yukue~ - Ibu Shinji
ANSWER - Yanagi Renji
Yume no Tsuzuki - Yukimura Seiichi
Billy's Target - Fuji Shuusuke
A Kimochi - Oshitari Yuushi
Valentine Kiss - Sanada Genichirou with Rikkaidai Fuzoku Chuu
RISE -Gekoku+Joutou- - Hiyoshi Wakashi
Wonder Land - Echizen Ryouma
EMBLEM - Shishido Ryou
Flower ~Saki Midareshi Hana~ - GIGS
Hello & Goodbye - 近藤薫
Kakaeta Kiseki - Aozu
Fujouri - Hyoutei Eternity
Thank You!! - Cap to Bin
Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy! - byTachikiritai
Gather - Ao to Bin to Kan
Go! Go! Megane's - Megane's
Kira*Kira Megane's - Megane's
Manatsu no Megane's - Megane's
Odorimasen ka? Megane's - Megane's
future / WHITE LINE arrange C - Echizen Ryouma
Minna Koko ni Ita -2004.8.18 Live Memorial Version- - Echizen Ryouma
Riyu / E Kimochi - Atobe Keigo
Everything - Echizen Ryouma
Jet Drive - Atobe Keigo
C'mon every burning - Kawamura Takashi
Yakusoku / We Love SEIGAKU ~Arigatou wo Komete~ - Echizen Ryouma / SEIGAKU NINE PLAYERS
Birthday ~Aruki Hajimeta Hi~ / Rock*54!? - Aozu / Cap to Bin
ONE - Kikumaru Eiji
Kiku-chan no Souran Bushi - Kikumaru Eiji
Bokutachi no Shippai - Seigaku 1nen Trio
Type wa D! - Ooishi Shuuichirou & Kikumaru Eiji
Rakuen e - Chinen Hiroshi & Hirakoba Rin
TRICK, FAKE, or TRUTH - Yanagi Renji & Niou Masaharu
EVE - Ibu Shinji
PROGRESS - Echizen Ryouma
Kessho - Oshitari Yuushi
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2003 APRIL - Minagawa Junko (Echizen Ryouma), Suwabe Junichi (Atobe Keigo)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2003 MAY - Okiayu Ryoutarou (Tezuka Kunimitsu), Tsuda Kenjirou (Inui Sadaharu)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2003 JUNE - Kondou Takayuki (Ooishi Shuuichirou), Kaida Yuki (Fuji Shuusuke)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2003 JULY - Onosaka Masaya (Momoshiro Takeshi), Kiyasu Kouhei (Kaidou Kaoru)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2003 AUGUST - Takahashi Hiroki (Kikumaru Eiji), Kawamoto Naru (Kawamura Takashi)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2003 SEPTEMBER - Okiayu Ryoutarou (Tezuka Kunimitsu), Suwabe Junichi (Atobe Keigo)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2003 OCTOBER - Kondou Takayuki (Ooishi Shuuichirou), Tsuda Kenjirou (Inui Sadaharu)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2003 NOVEMBER - Takahashi Hiroki (Kikumaru Eiji), Namikawa Daisuke (Ootori Choutarou)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2003 DECEMBER - Kawamoto Naru (Kawamura Takashi), Onosaka Masaya (Momoshiro Takeshi)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2004 JANUARY - Kaida Yuki (Fuji Shuusuke), Kiyasu Kouhei (Kaidou Kaoru)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2004 FEBRUARY - Minagawa Junko (Echizen Ryouma), Okiayu Ryoutarou (Tezuka Kunimitsu)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2004 MARCH - Takahashi Mikako (Ryuuzaki Sakuno), Ooura Fuyuka (Osakada Tomoka), Kimura Akiko (Tachibana An)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2004 APRIL - Tsuda Kenjirou (Inui Sadaharu), Onosaka Masaya (Momoshiro Takeshi)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2004 MAY - Kaida Yuki (Fuji Shuusuke), Kawamoto Naru (Kawamura Takashi)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2004 JUNE - Kondou Takayuki (Ooishi Shuuichirou), Takahashi Hiroki (Kikumaru Eiji)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2004 JULY - Toriumi Kousuke (Sengoku Kiyosumi), Morikubo Shoutarou (Kirihara Akaya)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2004 AUGUST - Okiayu Ryoutarou (Tezuka Kunimitsu), Kusunoki Taiten (Sanada Genichirou)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2004 SEPTEMBER - Minagawa Junko (Echizen Ryouma), Kiyasu Kouhei (Kaidou Kaoru)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2004 NOVEMBER - Tsuda Kenjirou (Inui Sadaharu), Suzuki Chihiro (Kamio Akira)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2004 DECEMBER - Onosaka Masaya (Momoshiro Takeshi), Ueda Yuuji (Akutagawa Jirou)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2005 JANUARY - Okiayu Ryoutarou (Tezuka Kunimitsu), Takemoto Eiji (Yanagi Renji)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2005 FEBRUARY - Takahashi Hiroki (Kikumaru Eiji), Kiyasu Kouhei (Kaidou Kaoru)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2005 MARCH - Minagawa Junko (Echizen Ryouma), Kaida Yuki (Fuji Shuusuke)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2005 APRIL - Kondou Takayuki (Ooishi Shuuichirou), Suwabe Junichi (Atobe Keigo)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2005 MAY - Okiayu Ryoutarou (Tezuka Kunimitsu), Mori Norihisa (Yanagisawa Shinya)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2005 JUNE - Tsuda Kenjirou (Inui Sadaharu), Toyonaga Toshiyuki (Aoi Kentarou)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2005 JULY - Kawamoto Naru (Kawamura Takashi), Moriyama Eiji (Ibu Shinji)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2005 AUGUST - Kaida Yuki (Fuji Shuusuke), Nagai Sachiko (Yukimura Seiichi)
Tennis no Oujisama On The Radio MONTHLY 2005 SEPTEMBER - Takahashi Hiroki (Kikumaru Eiji), Kishio Daisuke (Fukushi Michiru)
THE PRINCE OF TENNIS op.REQUEST - VA
THE PRINCE OF TENNIS ed.REQUEST - VA

~~I'll romanize all the titles/artists next chance I get, I have to go to assembly right now...~~ Done. Well, that took me forever. It only took me a couple minutes for all of the actual singles/albums but the radio CDs took FOREVER cause I know NONE of the seiyuu. Except Kirihara's and Eiji's.
Anyway, if it's not romanized it means it's not by a Prince of Tennis character so I don't know what the HELL they're doing here.

http://tennipri-indexmusic.jp/news.html - source

I can't spend this much money, dammit!

2008-01-23T18:00:00.001-05:00

Only like two weeks after I purchased $95 of CDs from Yesasia, here I am with $180 of music in my cart again. I'm honestly not sure who I should blame for this. I think it's a combination of Hello! Project deciding to release both Buono!'s and Ongaku Gatas' debut albums in the same month, the Prince of Tennis rerelease spree, and the fact that they're both happening at like the exact same time. That's HELLISHLY bad timing!
Curse whoever came up with the idea of limited editions and limited releases. As always, everything I want is limited, so there's the chance of it selling out if I don't get it now. But there's no way I could spend $180 right now. I mean, yeah, I have the money, but 1) I have to go through my mom for purchases because it's through her credit card, which means she can say 'no', and I get the feeling she will because of how expensive this is, and 2) I have no income, so I can't spend so much money each month. =P

Anyway, this is what I want to get:
Buono! - Renai Rider (limited edition)
Buono! - Cafe Buono! (limited edition)
Ongaku Gatas - 1st GOODSAL (limited edition)
Kai Yuujirou - Valentine Kiss (limited release)
Inui Sadaharu - DISTANCE (limited release)
Echizen Ryouma - future / WHITE LINE (limited release)
Hyoutei Eternity - Fujouri (limited release)
The Prince of Tennis op.REQUEST (limited release)
The Prince of Tennis ed.REQUEST (limited release)
3 Guava Trio - BRAND NEW DAY (limited release)

I -guess- I could cut the op/ed REQUEST CDs out if necessary, along with Fujouri- they're not too high on my priority list, I just really want them because the op/ed REQUEST CDs are opening/ending theme compilations (which I love) and Fujouri is the only seiyuu theme song I'm missing...
I just kinda get the feeling that the H!P CDs are going to sell out way faster than the PoT CDs, but I'm still worried that if I cut any CDs from this order they won't be available by the time I make my next order.

So, I had the bright idea to look on CD Japan, cause the prices are much lower there, right? I actually did a quick price comparison for all of the CDs:
Buono! - Renai Rider: $17.49 (Yesasia), $13.89 (CD Japan)
Buono! - Cafe Buono!: $32.99 (Yesasia), $31.49 (CD Japan)
Ongaku Gatas - 1st GOODSAL: $33.75 (Yesasia), $30.87 (CD Japan)
Kai Yuujirou - Valentine Kiss: $9.99 (Yesasia), not listed but presumed to be $6.85 like all previous Valentine Kiss singles (CD Japan)
Inui Sadaharu - DISTANCE: $7.64 (Yesasia), $5.56 (CD Japan)
Echizen Ryouma - future: $10.75 (Yesasia), $8.82 (CD Japan)
Hyoutei Eternity - Fujouri: $9.25 (Yesasia), $6.88 (CD Japan)
The Prince of Tennis op.REQUEST: $25.49 (Yesasia), $24.70 (CD Japan)
The Prince of Tennis ed.REQEUST: $25.49 (Yesasia), $24.70 (CD Japan)
3 Guava Trio - BRAND NEW DAY: $7.25 (Yesasia), $4.90 (CD Japan)

Total: $180.09 (Yesasia), $158.67 (CD Japan)

So, after looking at that, you'd think CD Japan would be the obvious choice, right? Then you take a look at shipping.

Shipping: $0.00 (Yesasia), $35.20 (CD Japan)
Total with shipping: $180.09 (Yesasia), $193.87 (CD Japan)

And that's the CHEAPEST shipping option, which I'd never use. GODDAMMIT CDJAPAN. >_< The prices are so low and appealing, AND THEN THE SHIPPING PRICES ARE HELL. No shipping should ever be $35.
So anyway, Yesasia's still somehow the cheapest choice. If only CD Japan had free shipping, or at least -cheaper- shipping. I mean, I'm aware that their shipping depends on how much the package weighs, and this order does contain quite a few CDs, but STILL. $35.

Actually, either way, I'm not making this order until mid-February because I just ordered some stuff two weeks ago. All I can do is hope for a sale or something...

Cafe Buono!

2008-01-21T17:49:00.000-05:00

Buono!'s official site now has a title for their upcoming album- Cafe Buono!.
The album will be released on February 20th in two different versions, a CD-only and a CD+DVD. According to the website, the DVD will include:
-Kokoro no Tamago (dance version)
-Renai Rider (dance version)
-jacket shoot making of
-something promoting Shugo Chara

I'm really looking forward to this, especially the Kokoro no Tamago video. I really wanted it to have a PV when their debut single was first released, but sadly only Honto no Jibun was released on the LE DVD/Single V.
Actually, the limited edition of this album is sitting in my Yesasia cart right now, but since I just made an order last week I have to wait a bit longer before I can order more stuff. >_<

CURSE YOU, TOKYO KID!

2008-01-16T21:10:00.000-05:00

Dammit. I've known something was up with their CDs for a bit now, and I stopped buying CDs from there a couple months ago just in case...
I was reading a guide to bootlegs (procrastinating, basically) and it mentioned three particular CD bootleg brands. I didn't recognize any of the names, but then it showed the logo for Alion, and my only reaction was-
SHIT.

Yeah, um....
Daaaammiiitttt......

I'm not at home right now (and I won't be until Friday night, unless we get really lucky and there's a snow day on Friday due to the snowstorm coming up), so I can't -actually- look through my CDs, but I have pictures from that post back in August where I sorted my music by release date. That was when I made the decision to stop buying CDs from Tokyo Kid, I think, so...
Well, let's see which of my CDs are actually bootlegs! Yay! [/sarcasm]
-Hamasaki Ayumi - I am...
-Kingdom Hearts OST
-Utada Hikaru - DEEP RIVER
-FFX-2 OST
-Naruto OST
-Naruto OST 2
-Shimatani Hitomi - Tsuioku+LOVE LETTER
-Naruto Best Hit Collection
-Hamasaki Ayumi - MY STORY
-Do As Infinity - NEED YOUR LOVE
-NANA OST
-Tamaki Nami - Single Collection Vol. 1 (actually, I knew this was a bootleg from the beginning, like an hour after I got it while I was leaving PortCon Maine I was like "wait why the HELL did I buy something that obviously isn't official...?")
-Kingdom Hearts II OST
-NANA starring MIKA NAKASHIMA - THE END

Oh, and I think my Naruto OST 3 and PoT OST 2 + 3 might possibly be bootlegs too, but they don't have the logo or anything on the obi so I'm not 100% sure...

A quote from that old post:

Everything I got at either Anime Boston, PortCon, or Tokyo Kid (the closest anime store) seems to be some sort of overseas version...I can't tell if they're bootlegs or legit overseas releases, like some of the earlier CDs I got off of Yesasia- I always used to go for the overseas versions cause they're cheaper. Hopefully the latter. I mean, that's 21 of my albums/soundtracks right there. o_o

Sadly, it's the former. Except the Anime Boston stuff. I can't tell for most of those, except the Ishida Yoko CD I got in 2005, that was the official English release.

I can't say I'll never buy from Tokyo Kid again (they have teh good Japanese candy), but I'm definitely NEVER even looking through the CD section again. I wanna know why I never -realized- until now. I mean, I had no idea what record label anime CDs were released under, but DAI? Ayu? The logo should have been an immediate tip-off, but sadly, I never even realized it. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now...

My external hard drive died again.

2008-01-12T13:51:00.000-05:00

God, these things are too easily breakable. Ok, the first two I had both fell off of the top of my computer. It's understandable that they kinda died after that, cause it is kinda high up. But the one that just died this morning? It was on the floor, on the carpet, and it just kinda softly tipped over. It was my fault that it tipped over (I was watching anime in bed and I must have accidentally pulled a cord or something) but why the hell did it break from just that? It just softly fell over onto the carpeted floor- nothing should break from that! D: This pisses me off so much, it's the third one that's broken- I got the first one around the beginning of summer, and I've gone through three since then. I mean, I know they're all kinda my fault, but seriously, they're impossible to keep safe. I seriously have nowhere to put it that it isn't in danger of falling over and breaking- I thought keeping it on the floor would help, but apparently it can break there too! DD: The cords are so annoying, in order to plug it in the cords have to be right in front of my desk so it's so easy to accidentally pull one and make it fall over. Actually, it even happened to my LAPTOP once cause the power cord for that has to go in the same place. Thankfully even though my laptop fell, nothing bad happened.
All I can do right now is cross my fingers and hope that my mom won't get uber pissed at me- she didn't the first two times, but...

Now I have no Ainori to watch to make up for the fact that it's not on TV tomorrow...
And I was in the middle of a Gintama episode when it died...it was the Densha Otoko parody episode, too...

Request: Yugin - Fate

2008-01-10T22:40:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I'm currently looking for the single of the current opening song to Ainori, 'Fate' by Yugin. Anyone happen to have this? xDD
It's their debut single, or at least their major debut single. I've been searching for like, two days straight for this single (it came out yesterday, I basically spent almost all of yesterday evening searching), but I've pretty much only ended up with tons of Japanese ringtone sites and blogs talking about the PV...
Here's the short version used in Ainori- I can't find the full PV, I watched it on Youtube like two weeks ago but it disappeared...

(on a side note, Ainori is addicting. Seriously, it is. Sadly, AZN Television is spamming this drama Galileo for the next three weeks so there's no Ainori on American television. Guess it's motivation for me to watch the subs.)

I seriously don't know why I didn't pre-order this. I definitely meant to...even if I order it tomorrow, which I probably will, it'll take a while before it even ships in order to get it in stock (along with the other things in my order) and then it'll take forever to ship...

Honto no Jibun US release, again...

2008-01-09T18:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, I talked with my friend, she looked at the Newtype article and says that it doesn't mention anything about a US release. There's an article (apparently it calls them "lovely ladies", haha) and a little box showing 'their latest single' according to Sarah (I'm assuming she's talking about Honto no Jibun), but it only says "Now available in Japan" or something along those lines.
I'm going to grab the issue this weekend at the book store (along with the February Shoujo Beat- it's a j-music special issue) just to make sure, but until then, or until an official source pops up stating that it really is going to be released in the US, I'm calling this just a RUMOR. (Damn.)

This isn't the first time I've seen this type of info pop up, there was this one guy that repeatedly added "info" about the supposed "release of the Morning Musume 10th Anniversary album into the US" onto the ThePPN Wiki article. Of course, that ended up being false (sadly)...

While I am considering this a rumor at this point, I wouldn't totally give up quite yet. You never know...

Honto no Jibun US release...maybe.

2008-01-09T14:01:00.000-05:00

Honto no Jibun US Release

So, according to Hello! C-ute (someone added this info to ThePPN Wiki, which is where I first heard about this, then I spent about a half-hour searching online for more info), Honto no Jibun is being released in the US in February.
BUT.
I'm really skeptical about this. Apparently it's to promote the US release of the Shugo Chara anime. However...I can't find ANY INFORMATION AT ALL about Shugo Chara even being licensed in the first place. Even if it was licensed now, the anime wouldn't air for a while- so why would the theme song be released in February?
The only thing I can find that says ANYTHING about the anime being in the US is the English Wikipedia page, which categorizes the Shugo Chara article as "Cartoon Network" and "2008 Television Debuts", but it doesn't have any info about the actual licensing. The Cartoon Network site never mentions it, and a google search doesn't turn up an English official site or anything.
Also, I can't find anything official mentioning a US release of Honto no Jibun...

SO, is this all a total rumor? I want this to be true, haha. XD Except maybe the actual licensing of the anime, that can wait until it finishes in Japan, cause otherwise I'm worried the sub group will drop the series. D:

EDIT: I heard that this was apparently announced in this month's issue of Newtype USA, and I checked on the Newtype website and they do have a Buono article in the music section of the issue! I don't have access to the issue, there's no way I can get to a bookstore until the weekend (damn boarding school), BUT I'm calling up my friend who bought the issue when we went to Tokyo Kid last weekend. Hopefully she'll be home, I'll get her to check for me~

[scans] Japanese fashion magazine (or something) KERA vol. 112 (Nov. 2007)

2008-01-06T00:05:00.000-05:00

I went to Tokyo Kid yesterday with a $150 gift certificate, and along with some manga and candy, I picked up a Japanese magazine they were selling. Typically they don't have any Japanese magazines, so I had no idea what this actually was, but Kamiki Aya was on the cover and there was a list of names on the right side of the cover which included Buono!- so I assumed it was a j-pop magazine and immediately bought it.
(Thinking back, if I had bothered to try and read the other stuff on the cover, I probably would have realized that this was like a fashion magazine instead. But then I probably would have bought it anyway because of Buono!, lol. xD)
So yeah, it's a fashion magazine. It's from November, I have no idea why it was still out there, but w/e. xD
I actually had a lot of fun looking through it even though I don't really care about fashion and stuff. Some of it was kinda crazy and weird, like who the hell would ACTUALLY wear some of this stuff. =P
So anyway, I decided to go through and scan a couple of pages- just the ones with people that I've actually heard of, haha. xD Basically, that means Kamiki Aya (who's on the cover), Buono!, and Shirota Yuu, who I didn't even notice was in the magazine at first (I totally don't know the kanji for his name so I didn't see it on the cover or ToC) but then I was flipping through and he was just like THERE. xD

So, yeah, here are the scans. Sorry for the not-so-good quality of some of them. I seriously don't know what's up with my scanner.

...I used to totally dislike Shirota Yuu. I think it's cause my very first introduction to Tenimyu (well, technically the live-action movie) was a picture of him playing Tezuka and of course I had the initial "EW IT LOOKS SO WEIRD IN LIVE-ACTION DDD:" reaction. And I still think he looks weird and nerdy as Tezuka. But after seeing pictures of him -not- playing Tezuka, he's not that bad. xD

Fuji Shuusuke & Tezuka Kunimitsu upcoming single!

2008-01-04T14:51:00.000-05:00

Wow, I really need to check this site more often! I thought that site was old and wasn't updated anymore because they stopped listing the PoT CD releases in mid-2005 (all of the releases after that are listed on the Index Music site or w/e). But I looked on the main page of that site today and saw a news item just added today...
So then I checked the news page to see what type of news they showed, and guess what? ANOTHER NEW SINGLE! 8D

And GUESS WHAAAAT??
THIS IS THE 200TH PRINCE OF TENNIS CD!

★テニプリＣＤ記念すべき２００タイトル目発表！（1/4）

タイトル：未定（初回生産完全限定盤）
アーティスト：不二周助＆手塚国光
発売日：２００８年２月２９日（金）
品番：ＮＥＣＭ－１２１５６
価格：￥１，２００（税込）

My attempt at an English translation, I didn't really know the first line but after using an online translator, a dictionary, and some rewording, I think I got the main point across...>_>

* Tenipuri CD 200th title commemoration announcement! (1/4)

Title: TBA (first-press limited release)
Artist: Fuji Shuusuke & Tezuka Kunimitsu
Release date: 2008.02.29 (Friday)
Catalog number: NECM-12156
Price: 1,200 yen (including tax)

WHEE, another duet! So far there have been three duet singles- first was Type wa D! by Ooishi and Eiji from Seigaku, second was Rakuen e by Chinen and Rin from Higa, and third was TRICK, FAKE, or TRUTH by Yanagi and Niou from Rikkai. I guess this one's the fourth in the series...though unlike the previous singles' pairs, Tezuka and Fuji have never played doubles together.
Initially the release date confused me- first because I was like "what the hell? February 29th?" but then I realized it was a leap year this year. >> Second, because YET AGAIN it's a weird release day, but it's Friday this time.
So that initially confused me because there ISN'T any special event happening on the 29th (as far as I know), but then I realized-
IT'S THE LEAP YEAR.
Fuji's birthday is February 29th. So he only has one birthday every four years. (He was uberly pwned as soon as he was born, huh? xD) And since this is the leap year, he actually has a birthday this year!
SOOOOO he gets a single to celebrate not only the 200th seiyuu CD release, but also his birthday!

I don't know why Tezuka's involved. Cause TezuFuji's so uberly canon (but not really)?

Honestly, I'd think Ryoma should get the 200th CD. ~~He hasn't had a CD in a while...~~ (Never mind, forgot about Wonder Land back in September.)

I wonder what counts toward the 200 CD mark? Obviously the character singles and albums, but what about...
-radio CDs?
-soundtracks?
-musical soundtracks/Best Actor's Series?
-radio show theme songs not sung by characters (there's a set of like 4 of those that are listed on both CD Japan and the official site as PoT CDs)?
-opening/ending singles? (obviously the ones sung by the seiyuu are counted, but the others...?)
Obviously this isn't counting the rereleases...
I'm actually interested in this, I might try to figure it out this weekend.

Anyway. Yet another new Prince of Tennis single. Actually, there aren't that many coming up, it just seems like there are because of the overwhelming amount of re-releases coming out on February 27th...

Megane's - another new single!

2008-01-04T10:50:00.000-05:00

Chyeah, Megane's definitely isn't done yet, even though people said they were done after their third single. Odorimasen ka? Megane's was released December 22nd, and they've already announced their fifth single! So far it doesn't have a title, but it's set to be released March 16th.
The 16th is another weird release day, it's a Sunday, just like their last single. However, their last single was released on Sunday due to the Jump Festa- I don't know if there's anything going on that weekend for it to be released on a Sunday.
...
Actually, I looked it up, and sure enough, there is. The HUGE Prince of Tennis Live 100 Song Marathon concert, which features the top 100 character songs as chosen by the fans online, takes place on March 16th. I assume they're tying in the new Megane's single release.
The first DVD of the National Tournament Finals OVA is being released on the same day, I don't know what day of the week anime DVDs are usually released, but I'm pretty sure they're also going to tie the DVD release in to the event. I hope this marathon gets released on DVD, I know I'd definitely buy it.

With the release of their fifth single, the Megane's is the PoT seiyuu group with the most singles released. Both Aozu and Cap to Bin, the two Seigaku units, have released four singles each (three separate for each, and one double A-side where they each had a song). I don't think there have been any other groups that had more than one or two singles.

Hopefully this single is better than Odorimasen ka? Megane's (which Yesasia just renamed "Shall we dance? Megane's" for some reason), guess we'll have to see.

Morning Musume's upcoming single

2008-01-04T10:32:00.000-05:00

Morning Musume is releasing their 36th single on March 5th. Like all of their recent singles (aka, starting with Aruiteru), it's coming in three versions- however, unlike their recent singles, according to CD Japan's upcoming artist newsmail the two limited editions BOTH come with bonus DVDs. No limited photobook, I guess.

I was planning on pre-ordering both limited editions, but I'm not sure since they're both kinda expensive- each one is $17 on Yesasia, as opposed to the limited edition A being like $17.75 and the limited edition B being like $13 or $14 or whatever the price is, I can't find an example on Yesasia cause they're all out of print.
It'll probably depend on the song itself, and the content of the DVDs...it was so much easier back when they only had one limited edition so I didn't even have to think about it- as soon as they announced a new single I just pre-ordered the limited edition right away...xD (Plus it was cheaper.)

Two tech-ish questions

2008-01-04T10:29:00.000-05:00

ONE:
How do you rip audio from a Youtube video? I really want an mp3 of this video I found of Niigaki Risa (as Athena from that anime she's in) singing Koko ni Iruzee!:

Haha, I wish there was a better version though, without the extra stuff from the anime. Oh well.
I think I like this version the least out of the versions I've seen so far (Morning Musume's original and Tsuji Nozomi's cover), but I still would love to have this on my iPod. xD

Oh, and we're reading The Odyssey in English class, and every time I see "Athena" I think of Risa. And I keep getting Shouri no BIG WAVE!!! stuck in my head while I'm reading. Hello Project has taken over my brain...

TWO:
How do you make ringtones out of mp3s? I think all I have to do is cut the mp3 down to a short clip, but I don't know how to do that- is there a specific program I should use? Haha, I want Mikan as my ringtone...xD

So much hate lately...

2008-01-02T20:48:00.000-05:00

...surrounding Morning Musume's performance on Kouhaku the other night! I was going to wait until this weekend to download it, due to the fact that I couldn't clear off enough space on my computer for the entire performance before I had to leave for school today. (gotta watch the other special year-end shows this weekend) But everyone's talking about H!P's performance...so I had to check it out on Youtube. Instead of doing homework, but I only have one subject left and a two-hour free tomorrow, so...

Ok, this is Berryz Koubou and C-ute's first ever Kouhaku performance, right? I honestly expected it to be a big cool thing, and this was kinda disappointing. Question, have they always put all H!P acts together in a medley? The only other Kouhaku performance I've seen was the 2005 performance, which I personally loved- but I'll touch more on that later.
I also think that LOVE Machine has definitely been over-performed lately. I love LOVE Machine, and I like seeing current Momusu perform older songs, but I think they should leave it for the concerts. I would have preferred that they sing Mikan...haven't they basically performed LOVE Machine at all of these big music shows?
I didn't like the transition things between songs. I mean, wait, what? The Peace...and then Renai Revolution at the end...um...?
I think the newer members should have had solo lines in LOVE Machine, I don't think any of the 8th gen did. But honestly, they shouldn't have been singing LOVE Machine in the first place. That song's old- I know it was their most popular single, but relying on stuff from the past isn't going to work. Did the rest of you guys catch the audience when they showed them during LOVE Machine? They were bored, like 'ok, just get this over with.' D: And honestly, I don't blame them! Morning Musume is different now, but they're still singing this song from 1999. Even the best songs get repetitive after a while.

Berryz Koubou and C-ute got only small parts with their respective songs, and I think that wasn't really fair, especially for their first Kouhaku performance. They both performed a chorus from their latest single.
This was the first time I've heard Berryz' latest single, and I've already forgotten the tune and everything. Er...D: Yeah, not the best song I've heard from Berryz...
As for C-ute, I think their performance was done well, even though they got only a short bit. I guess I don't really know what else to say since I don't know much about C-ute, but I like the song and I didn't see anything wrong with their performance.

After that, there was a song with lots of "la la la"s. Er...what was this song? Never heard it before.

All in all, I'm disappointed with this performance, but I really don't think it was that horrible. Definitely could have been better. My suggestions? Momusu should sing a song OTHER than Love Machine, maybe Mikan. Berryz Koubou should sing a different song too, and C-ute should get more time and sing like a verse or something instead of just the chorus.

After I watched this, I decided to take a look back at one of my favorite H!P performances: the 2005 Kouhaku LOVE Machine performance. Actually, this was part of a medley with Ayaya's Ki ga Tsukeba Anata and DEF DIVA's Suki Sugite Baka Mitai, but...haha the LOVE Machine part is the reason this performance was great.

Now THIS is the type of performance I love to see. I watched this when it first came out, expecting just normal performances, and WOW. Wasn't expecting this. I actually have an mp3 of the entire medley on my iPod, and I listen to it a ton. It was GREAT to see every single past and present member of MM still in H!P singing this classic all together. I love how they started with the past members in the first verse, then the current members in the second verse, and then everyone together for the last set of choruses. I think I wrote an uber long blog post of this complete with screenshots WAY BACK THEN on my Gaia journal, haha.
...
Lol, omg, LOOK at this. I found it, but I dunno the settings on Gaia journals, so I dunno if everyone can see the post, not to mention the screenshot links were totally dead. So I'm reposting it here, I guess, with updated links. Now you guys get to see my first imporession of the 2005 Kouhaku performance. Screenshot spam much?
This is originally from January 11th, 2006.

Kouhaku 2005
If I remember correctly, it happens late December every year. And I just downloaded the Kouhaku 2005- or at least, the H!P part of it. It was a medley or something of that sort, with Aya Matsuura singing Ki ga Tsukeba Anata, DEF. DIVA singing Suki Sugite Baka Mitai, then Momusu singing LOVE Machine. Er, well, not Momusu exactly...but I'll get to that later. ^^

First off, Ayaya's performance. First it was just Ayaya singing, then a bit into it some members of H!P Kids started dancing- I believe it was 4 Berryz and 4 C-ute? With Berryz in blue outfits and C-ute in pink. Or maybe it was the other way around, I'm not very familiar with H!P Kids. Farther into it, all of a sudden the rest of H!P Kids came out along with....um...figures?... One of them was Domo- you know, . All in all, pretty good performance. I absolutely love the song. ^^

Next is DEF. DIVA's performance. DEF. DIVA is Aya Matsuura, Natsumi Abe, Maki Goto, and Rika Ishikawa. I don't really have too much to say about this one; just a pretty normal performance, nothing really special.

Last. LOVE Machine. Homg. This was awesome. It's not just Momusu performing. It's Momusu + all past members that are still in H!P. MARIPPE~!!!!!! Lemme do a quick run-down. There were 19 members in the performance, and there have been 22 different members of Momusu. If they aren't still in H!P, the name will be in italics. Format is this: Name (Current group/whatever)

First generation

Yuko Nakazawa (solo)

Natsumi Abe (solo, DEF. DIVA)

Kaori Iida (solo)

Aya Ishiguro (----)

Asuka Fukuda (----)

Second gen

Mari Yaguchi (solo...I think. I hope.)

Kei Yasuda (No clue, really. I suppose solo. She hasn't released anything yet, though she graduated back in 2003. She's still in H!P though.)

Sayaka Ichii (----)

Third gen

Maki Goto (solo, DEF. DIVA)

Fourth gen

Hitomi Yoshizawa (Morning Musume)

Ai Kago (W)

Nozomi Tsuji (W)

Rika Ishikawa (DEF. DIVA, v-u-den)

Fifth gen

Ai Takahashi (Morning Musume)

Asami Konno (Morning Musume)

Risa Niigaki (Morning Musume)

Makoto Ogawa (Morning Musume)

Sixth gen

Sayumi Michishige (Morning Musume)

Eri Kamei (Morning Musume)

Reina Tanaka (Morning Musume)

Miki Fujimoto (Morning Musume; used to be a solo artist but put that on hold while in Momusu)

Seventh gen

Koharu Kusumi (Morning Musume)

Kinda sad that I know all that, actually.

So anyway. First they start off with Kaorin, Kei, and Yuko rising from under the stage, and then they show Marippe, Aibon, and Nono doing the same on the other side. That's the beginning part, with the 'oooohhh's and stuff. Then they go behind the ball that's in the back, and as the music starts going faster, the ball kinda drops down to reveal all of them, plus Gocchin, Charmy, and Nacchi (they kinda had to change from their DEF. DIVA outfits. ). So they sing up to the end of the first chorus, then the rest of the girls (Yossui, Mako, Risa, Takitty, Konkon, Sayu, Reina, Eririn, Mikitty, and Koha; basically the current Momusu) come in behind them in these red outfits. They look really pretty...I think Hitomi looks especially pretty.

Hitomi

That isn't to say the others aren't, though. So then, the current Momusu does the second verse and chorus. Then they perform a chorus with two members singing at a time- one past and one current.

Reina and Nacchi

Gocchin and Takitty (they don't appear at the same time, though, so I needed two screenshots. )

Gocchin

Takitty

Mako and Marippe (my favorite, for hopefully obvious reasons.)

Mako and Marippe

Then, confetti bursts out, the H!P Kids come running out, the characters all come out, and basically it's just cuteness. ^^ At the very end, the last line, 'love machine', is said by Koharu. ^^

Y'know, I thought I'd never get a chance to see Marippe and Koharu perform together. Seeing as Marippe left in April, and Koharu didn't come in until later. But hey! It happened!

More screenshots! (Ayaya deserves a few. ^^)

Ayaya

Ayaya and Kids

Cute

Berryz

Ayaya and Kids (2)

random characters

Just kinda saving as a halfway point. It's almost midnight and I need to get to bed; I'll finish the screenshots later.

For the record, I never finished it. For all the times I look back on these old posts and go "WOAH I'VE TOTALLY CHANGED", there's always something that makes me realize I'm still basically the same as I was before. xD
Hmm, I wonder if this means I have more screenshots buried on my desktop computer somewhere? I'll have to check back on that when I go home for the weekend...

I just listened to Jaja Uma Paradise, and...

2008-01-01T14:07:00.000-05:00

...all I can say is, what the hell. xD;; I really liked Koisuru Angel Heart, so I thought this would be good too...but I don't like this song...
Yes, I know I'm uber late listening to this song. I have an uber backup of music on my computer because I was uber lazy last year so typically music doesn't make it onto my iTunes until at least a couple of weeks after it's released, unless it's Momusu, then I stick it on as soon as it comes out. xD

On another note, Yesasia finally added the Prince of Tennis re-releases- I was kinda worried for a bit that they wouldn't add them and that I'd have to buy from CD Japan. No offense to CD Japan users, it's a good site, but I put together a tentative order there with some of the upcoming re-releases and a couple of H!P CDs, and it told me shipping would be like $50. What the hell.
Yesasia has free shipping. 8D Even though the prices are a little higher, the free shipping should make up for it.
So now that Yesasia added the re-releases, I don't have to worry about that stuff...

I had to cut down on some of the stuff in this order I'm planning to make uber soon in order to insure that I have enough money for both the re-releases and Anime Boston, which is coming up in March. (Haha, this year it's during spring break, so I can go the entire weekend and not have to worry about homework and studying!) Oh well, I think in the end it'll be worth it. If only I had a job, then I wouldn't have to worry as much about money...I always get lots of money in December cause of my birthday and Christmas, but then I typically spend it all before summer starts. xD;; Then I'm screwed until December again...

I dunno, this post was kinda random, but I'm just like hanging out on my last day of break and I don't really have anything long enough to devote a full post to...

2008 predictions

2007-12-31T10:47:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-28T11:46:00.000-05:00

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~

2007-12-25T21:12:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-20T14:57:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-18T09:57:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-17T16:13:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-16T17:21:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-12-16T14:20:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-14T14:21:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-12-07T18:06:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-04T15:15:00.000-05:00

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?!

2007-12-04T10:26:00.000-05:00

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!!

2007-11-28T16:07:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-27T22:08:00.000-05:00

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! ^^

2007-11-27T17:10:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-26T21:39:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-11-25T21:45:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-11-24T16:33:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-22T14:02:00.000-05:00

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 = ...?

2007-11-21T20:36:00.000-05:00

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? @_@

2007-11-16T22:37:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-11-12T17:24:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-11-11T13:21:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-07T22:03:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-07T17:22:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-11-03T18:05:00.000-04:00

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)

2007-11-01T13:08:00.000-04:00

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...

2007-10-28T17:29:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-10-08T19:20:00.000-04:00

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...

2007-10-07T19:39:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-10-03T18:38:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-29T20:56:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-09-29T01:01:00.000-04:00

entry temporarily deleted

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

2007-09-28T10:05:00.000-04:00

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...

IT'S TUESDAY THE 25TH

2007-09-25T15:25:00.000-04:00

GUESS WHAT THAT MEANS
(according to Yesasia and CD Japan)

WHEE THE SECOND DVD OF THE PRINCE OF TENNIS ZENKOKU TAIKAI HEN SEMIFINAL OVA SERIES IS OUT

Bwahaha, I can't wait until these episodes are released online.
The first episode is without a doubt the funniest match in the entire series, while the second is without a doubt the bloodiest match in the whole series.
Yes, even bloodier than Inui/Kaidou vs Yanagi/Kirahara. But if you've read up to that match, you knew that anyway, so whatever.

The first episode is Momo and Kaidou playing doubles against the only confirmed gay duo in the entire series (though we all know the Golden Pair are having sex behind the scenes), Konjiki Koharu and Hitouji Yuuji from Shitenhouji.
I mean seriously, look at them.

Koharu hits on Kaidou at one point. It's extremely amusing. He actually grabs Kaidou's ass. xD Then Kaidou gets pissed (he doesn't want to cheat on his Inui-senpai) and goes to hit him...
Then it turns out Koharu is a genius with an IQ of over 200 (YAY SHIKAMARU)...and he knows LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of embarrassing moments Kaidou had as a little kid.

I WANT TO KNOW THE END OF THAT SENTENCE. D:
Oh dear lord I really really really hope the anime creators humor us and put in a picture of cute little kindergarten Kaoru-chan wearing a skirt. <333333 FLASHBACKS WOULD BE EVEN BETTER
I figure it's the perfect sponsor background image. Too bad they don't have the sponsor scenes in the OVA series since it's going directly to DVD...
ANYWAY, I absolutely love the mental image I'm getting right now. xD I'm kinda thinking of chibi Tenipuri family Kaoru-chan (who is the most ADORABLE THING I'VE EVER SEEN btw)...which is why I need to find a non-chibi image of little-kid Kaidou in a skirt...xDDD I bet there's one out there...

So anyway, to get off the subject of Kaidou crossdressing...
Both Momo and Kaidou get sucked into Koharu/Yuuji's playstyle, so then Momo has the great idea of covering their faces...
...with wrestling masks...

Yeah, they play with wrestling masks on, and crap happens, and I won't spoil it for anyone...

Then onto episode 2 on the DVD. It's episode 4 of the Semifinals, and episode 17 of the overall Nationals.
As I said, it's the bloodiest match in the entire series. Oh joy.
Kawamura Takashi vs Ishida Gin. Yeah, Ishida Tetsu from Fudoumine's older brother. He's the guy who taught Tetsu the Hadoukyuu. And lo and behold, his Hadoukyuu is MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE POWERFUL than Tetsu's.
So this turns out to be a power battle. It's the first time we see Taka as a freshman (if I remember correctly)- a cute scene where he has tons of power but absolutely no control, and everyone's making fun of him, but then the other soon-to-be-regular first years (Tezuka, Ooishi, Eiji, Fuji, Inui) come up to him and tell him they envy him for his power. <33 LUFF FOR TAKA-SAN~ <333333
So then he decides that his goal is to become the #1 power player in Japan, since he's not good at anything else.
He's playing against the #1 power player in Japan- he has over 100 levels of Hadoukyuu, and Taka's is only equal to one of like the first ten or so. Something like that, too lazy to look it up...basically Taka's Hadoukyuu fails compared to his. However, Taka doesn't want to give up a power battle, and uses the ONE-HANDED Hadoukyuu every single time he hits the ball. WHICH SHOULD KILL HIS ARM. Sigh. What people are willing to do for freaking tennis.
Anyway.
There's also the whole angst thing about this being his last tennis tournament EVER due to him quitting after middle school in order to become a sushi chef.
Seriously, if you're willing to kill your arm for tennis, I'd suggest sticking with it.
Anyway.
Gin's uber powerful, and even though he can just nullify all of Taka's Hadoukyuu he decides to respect Taka by defeating him with his full power.
And then Taka gets uber beaten up.

See that little explosion waaay up there in the stands?
That's Taka crashing into the stands after being hit with Gin's 21st-style Hadoukyuu.
Oh dear lord this guy is powerful.

So Taka's like dying here, and then Gin gets to the 23rd-style Hadoukyuu.
And of course Taka goes FLYING back into the stands, waaay up at the top.
And then the moment we've ALL BEEN WAITING FOR...(well, not really, but it sounds more dramatic that way)

AKUTSU'S RETURN~!
YAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY
(which reminds me, I have a bit of a story to tell involving Yamabuki and the dub, but that's for another time)
Seriously, if Akutsu/Dan wasn't my Yamabuki OTP, I'd so write Akutsu/Taka. <3333 Akutsu says he doesn't care about anything like this, but you know he cares about his childhood friend Taka...<3 And Taka has no one in Seigaku. All the other regulars can be paired up, but there's an odd number, and Taka's always the odd one out...
Anyway.
So then it's match point for Ishida, and it's Taka's serve, and Taka desperately wants to just get ONE POINT from Ishida...but as he starts to serve he starts to lose consciousness...and he accidentally hits the ball with the edge of the racket.
Which results in an UBER POWERFUL SHOT that's not a Hadoukyuu but is as powerful as Ishida's 40th Hadoukyuu...and when Ishida tries to neutralize it, he realizes it's not a Hadoukyuu, and then it breaks his wrist!
SO HE FORFEITS AND TAKA'S THE NUMBER ONE POWER PLAYER IN ALL OF JAPAN YAAAAAYYYY!

So anyway, I totally can't wait until these episodes get on the internet. These are gonna kick-ass...xD
I'm not even gonna wait for the sub...I've read the manga, I don't really need the subs to get what's going on. xD

Oh my god, Konomi. (PoT CHAPTER 359 SPOILERS)

2007-09-22T17:15:00.000-04:00

DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT!!
xDDDDDDD

I mean, seriously. I have a tendency to think about things in a chapter as they happen, instead of waiting to read the entire chapter first...which is HORRIBLE in a chapter like this. xDDD
I mean, the chapter starts out with a view of the scoreboard, where Inui/Kaidou vs Yanagi/Kirihara was 5-1 (Seigaku forfeited) and singles 2 is 5-0, with Rikkai in the lead. Then it shows Niou absolutely PWNING Fuji! D:
So here's where I basically took a moment to stop and freak out.
I mean, Seigaku's about to lose the fucking Nationals, in 3 straight matches. DDDDD:
So not only was I freaking out about the possibility of Seigaku losing the very last match of the entire tennis season, which would force the third-years to retire...
...but I was also freaking out because it's SO UNLIKE KONOMI to jump from Inui/Kaidou pair losing at the end of last chapter to match game for singles 2. Especially with Fuji losing. And especially when Fuji losing means Seigaku losing to Rikkai and everything.
So I came to the conclusion that PoT is definitely ending when it's Shounen Jump run ends. Because otherwise there's no way Konomi would go that fast in the finals...he usually writes really long matches, and being the finals, this should be no exception. If the series was going to continue in tankoubon format, he wouldn't have to rush things like this.
So then I was really really sad about everything, and still freaking out, and then I turned back to read the rest of the chapter, hoping Fuji could somehow make a comeback.

But then...
Then Niou takes the wig off, and it's like ROAR I'M REALLY KIRIHARA IN DEVIL MODE...ok, at that I kinda figured something was up. xD
AND THEN INUI WAKES UP FROM HIS NIGHTMARE.
xDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Btw, he looks uber weird with all the bandages...but anyway...

So then it turns out FUJI is the one pwning NIOU. xDD

So, yeah....seriously Konomi, don't scare me like that! D: I really thought Seigaku was going to lose the Nationals!

Ok, so basically what this means is this:
Niou's gonna make a comeback, because a one-sided match isn't that fun, but he's not going to be able to win...Seigaku has to win these next two matches, singles 2 and doubles 1, so then it'll be a showdown between Ryoma and Yukimura.
Doubles 1 is Marui/Jackal. It's got to be. I can't see them putting out Yagyuu/Marui or Yagyuu/Jackal, it just doesn't really work. O_o
There is still hope for a tankoubon continuation. =D At first in this chapter I figured Konomi was rushing it so much it's definitely ending, but that turned out to be Inui's dream...so there's still a chance that it'll continue in tankoubon format...

I hate Friday evenings.

2007-09-21T21:39:00.000-04:00

Because I'm always up late refreshing MangaHelpers every 5 minutes waiting for the week's Shounen Jump raw chapters to come out. D:
Ugh, they've been getting later and later lately...a couple of weeks ago the raws weren't even out until Saturday afternoon!
I remember back in the good old days when Naruto would typically come out on Thursdays. D: And I'm assuming the other SJ manga with it, I wasn't into anything else back then...

DDDD:
I really really really need to know what happens in the next chapter of PoT...
UGH I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL THE CHAPTER COMES OUT. D:

lol, is Inui dead? (PoT CHAPTER 358 SPOILERS)

2007-09-20T22:00:00.000-04:00

I mean, SERIOUSLY.

So basically this is how the chapter goes.
We get a colored cover page, yaaaaaaaayyy~~~! Though, apparently it's not to announce anything about the whole 'ending-in-issue-52' thing; apparently there's going to be a 100-song seiyuu concert where they sing the fan's 100 favorite songs. Cool and all, but I really really really want more information about the 'end' of PoT. I'm still hoping for it to continue in tankoubon format...
Then Kirihara gets up, and he's in full devil mode. Honestly, it's not that surprising. It's Kirihara, duh.
But then~!
Instead of aiming at Kaidou, who can return the shots with his new 'invincible' Laser Beam/Tornado Snake combo...he aims at Inui. Who immediately goes down.
OUCH.
Yeah, so then for an entire game, Kirihara beats Inui up. Ouch. Again. I mean, poor Inui. And Renji's not even doing ANYTHING, even though his CHILDHOOD BEST FRIEND is like being BEATEN UP by his doubles partner. D:
Honestly, I don't think Renji has like ONE PANEL in this entire chapter.
Nah, wait. He's on the first page, middle panel, far right. And he has a panel on the very last page just looking emotionless even though his childhood best friend just like DIED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE COURT. I mean, SERIOUSLY. From his seiyuu songs which are all emo-ish and oh so very obviously about Inui, you'd think he'd care more. D:
SO ANYWAY.
So Inui's just like being beaten up by Kirihara.
Then Kaidou has a flashback page. You know, with all the pictures and quotes from earlier chapters all mushed together on one page...
It's all about Inui. INUI/KAIDOU FTW!
AND THEN
You see all this blood (since when does tennis = blood? O___o I seriously don't think you can actually get this hurt in tennis...), and then Kaidou just goes "STOP IT!!!"
AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN
OH MY GOD

KAIDOU GOES INTO DEVIL MODE.
That creeps me out oh so much. O___o
Someone was talking about how the devil mode is so DBZ-ish, and they were like 'even their hair-colors change. that's seriously impossible.'
Honestly, I wouldn't worry about the hair color as much as the fact that their SKIN COLOR changes. That's EVEN MORE IMPOSSIBLE. xD
but anyway.
So then Inui stops Kaidou, and is like "the data has been collected."
And then they have the typical double-page where they stand up and say "Time for our counterattack..."
...except Inui just DIES.

...yeah.
I want to know who said that last thing, "Very admirable of you, Inui." I mean, I can't see it coming from anyone other than Renji, but Renji calls him Sadaharu. Hmm.
Anyway, then Kaidou just like collapses and screams...
and seriously, read the narrator text. "The voice that cannot resist screaming is reaching for Inui's Requiem..."
I hope I'm not the only one that seriously thinks that makes it sound like Inui died. Not like, jokingly, as in like, collapsed...like, seriously died, as in, NOT ALIVE ANYMORE.
D:
Oh dear lord, who knew people can die from tennis?

Anyway, we'll see the outcome of this match tomorrow. I personally think the chapter is going to start off with the ref going "Since Inui can't continue, Seigaku forfeits!" and we see Inui getting like carried off on a stretcher or maybe just carried off by other members of Seigaku if his injuries aren't enough to warrant the hospital visit.
Other people apparently think that Inui's just gonna get up and they're gonna come back and at least catch up, if not actually win. D: I don't see how that could happen, but...well, whatever, we'll see tomorrow...or maybe Saturday. I really hope the chapter isn't late this week...

AHHHHHH WTF (very minor PoT chapter 358 spoilers)

2007-09-20T21:25:00.000-04:00

AHHHHH WTF
I just realized that the Golden Pair hasn't won since
THE FUCKING YAMABUKI ARC
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD:
I mean, they're a National-level doubles pair, and they're supposedly one of the best...
so how come they haven't won in almost 30 volumes?
Ooishi/Kikumaru pair record
vs. Fudoumine - win
vs. St. Rudolph - loss
vs. Yamabuki - win
vs. Hyoutei - N/A (Ooishi hurt his arm)
vs. Midoriyama - N/A (Ooishi's still hurt)
vs. Rokkaku - N/A (still hurt)
vs. Rikkadai - loss
vs. Higa - N/A (Ooishi's off the regulars)
vs. Hyoutei 2 - loss
vs. Shitenhouji - N/A (they just didn't play, really, no reason given)

So...
D:
I'm actually really disappointed.
I mean, seriously.
Compare them to Inui/Kaidou...
Inui/Kaidou pair record
vs. Hyoutei (first time playing together) - loss (but they could have won if Inui didn't call his own shot out)
vs. Midoriyama - win
vs. Rokkaku - N/A
vs. Rikkaidai - N/A
vs. Higa - win
vs. Hyoutei 2 - win
vs. Shitenhouji - N/A
vs. Rikkaidai 2- ...loss? who knows, the outcome will probably be shown in tomorrow's chapter.

Not that the Golden Pair hasn't had their fair share of screentime. I mean, sure, vs Fudoumine they weren't really shown- just enough to introduce their abilities. But then St. Rudolph was like, EPIC MATCH- it ended with them losing, but they got a ton of screentime there. Then vs Yamabuki was pretty normal-ish...
vs. Hyoutei, even though Eiji was playing with Momo, there was a lot of angsting on Eiji's part about not being able to play with Ooishi...
vs. Rikkaidai was great- in the manga, that is. The anime kinda killed it, but they ruined the whole arc, so whatever. In the manga, Eiji got that concussion and everything...cute Golden Pair. <333
vs. Higa Chuu, they had that entire thing with Eiji 'not playing doubles anymore'...I seriously CRIED at that episode. I'm not even kidding, once it hits the scene where Eiji confronts Ooishi in front of the clubroom, I'm IN TEARS. ;-; EVERY FUCKING TIME. Eiji's singles match blends in amazing Golden Pair angst with Eiji being uber cute and amazing, and it's great...
So then vs Hyoutei again, they played against the Silver Pair. One word: SYNCHRO. That was so kick-ass. =D They got quite a bit of screentime there, as a doubles pair that is actually pro-level in some aspects- Synchro is something that apparently only the top pro doubles pairs achieve. =DDD
But if they're so good, then why can't they come up with a win?
D:
Which is why they have to win this match. Against whoever Rikkaidai puts out- my guess is Marui/Jackal, since to me neither of them seem to be the singles type, but you never know...
Their goal is to be the #1 doubles pair at Nationals. So far, they're failing MISERABLY. As much as it pains me to say so, it's true.
BUT. If they win against Rikkai's D1...
Well, I'll be happy. =D

THIS IS THE PRINCE OF TENNIS

2007-09-16T22:40:00.000-04:00

ObsessedShinoFan (9:52:40 PM): sore ga ore no ikiteru~ atashi na no saaa~
...
ObsessedShinoFan (9:58:57 PM): lalalalalaalaTSUBUSU NO SAAAA

Lol, for the record I know half of these words aren't right. I've only looked at the subs like once or twice. The rest is pretty much just by ear. xDDDD;
Lolz, this is a result of a long day and then opening up the first Prince of Tennis musical...

THIS IS THE PRINCE OF TENNIS~

I'll try to post something tomorrow, definitely about this week's PoT chapter...this chapter DEFINITELY deserves a post.
Right now I'm exhausted though...

LOLOLOL @ Kaidou's album, part 1

2007-09-12T21:58:00.000-04:00

Ahahahaha, my download of Hebigara (thanks @ whoever uploaded it onto LJ) finished a couple minutes ago...so the first thing I immediately checked out was that track on disc one, that had some kanji along with "Thank You!!"...I kinda was thinking it has something to do with Cap to Bin's latest single Thank You!! but at the same time I figured that wasn't the case...
Well, I was only half-right.
BUT IT'S BETTER THAN JUST INUI AND KAIDOU'S VERSION OF THANK YOU!!. =DDDDD
It's a short track starting off with a talk part with Inui and Kaidou talking about singing practice or something...like, practice for their parts in Cap to Bin's Thank You!!. So then Inui's just like "well then...music, start..." and the instrumental of Thank You!! comes on...so they just like clear their throats and hum along to the beginning a bit, and then...nothing. Like, all it is is the instrumental of Thank You!!. Until the chorus, where they sing on the first two lines ('everybody hashiro yo, usai kudatte ii sa' or w/e, those are just done by ear) and then two lines in the middle ('uso mo shinjitsu mo, tashite mide warou yo' or w/e, same here). (I actually didn't realize they sung for those lines, you don't really notice them as much as you notice Momo, Eiji, and Taka) And then after the chorus Inui's just like "ok, stop." Then they both sigh and Inui's just like "roar it's no use, this time it's only the chorus"
IT'S FUCKING HILARIOUS
XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
I'm not even kidding, I LOLED SO HARD

Download the track

Then, on the bonus disc, there was a song called "Thank You!!" with some kanji in between ~'s...so of course I had to check that out, right?
It's Kaidou's solo version of Cap to Bin's Thank You!!. And it sucks. Oh so badly.
xDDDDDD
Poor Kaidou. He can't sing for his life.
Again, I LOLED SO HARD. xDDD

Download the track

Roar, due to homework and stuff, I don't have time to listen to this album fully. I hate school. Seriously, I thought the first few weeks were supposed to be easy on the homework side. If this is easy, dammit I don't wanna see what's considered 'normal'!
I'm gonna try to listen to this soon...I get the feeling this album is hilarious. XD It's already made it's way onto my ever-growing shopping cart for my next order...

[Download] Paku Romi & Morikubo Shoutaro - Voice For You (mp3, not a full single)

2007-09-09T22:40:00.000-04:00

So a while ago, I found a ~2 minute radio rip of a song called Voice For You. I really liked the song, and the best part was- it's by Paku Romi and Morikubo Shoutaro, the seiyuu for Temari and Shikamaru from Naruto! xD SHIKATEMA FTW~
And, just today...someone actually uploaded the full version! =DDDDDDD

Download

This song makes me uber happy...xDDD I keep thinking 'ShikaTema yay'~

Seriously, check it out. It's a great song~

now I should probably get back to my homework...I'm kinda procrastinating at the moment...

Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy!...?

2007-09-08T00:32:00.000-04:00

Soo I was on Yesasia looking at some upcoming releases (Shishido's upcoming single finally has a title btw, but I figured it didn't deserve it's own blog entry because the only thing in it would be something along the lines of 'roar the title's EMBLEM'), and I came across a couple more upcoming Prince of Tennis releases...
Now, besides the two singles coming out in a couple of weeks (September 26th, to be exact: Echizen Ryoma - Wonder Land and Shishido Ryou - EMBLEM), there were three more additions to the Prince of Tennis CD section on Yesasia:
(November 14th) Kawamoto Naru - Title To Be Determined
(November 14th) Musical Prince of Tennis Absolute King Rikkai feat. Rokkaku -Second Service
(October 31st) Tachikiritai - Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy!
Ok, starting from the top- the first one is just a normal everyday single release from Kawamura Takashi (or maybe it's a birthday single? his birthday is November 18th, and I know a couple of other characters have had birthday singles).
Then there's the Rikkaimyu Second Service soundtrack, I've been expecting that for a bit, and it reminds me I need to watch the musicals in general...
But I have to say, the third one made me just wtf...

Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy! is by a group called 'Tachikiritai' (which, btw, I translated online and ended up with 'Bled party', and I honestly don't know what to make of that...xDD)...which, according to Yesasia, consists of:
Fuji Shuusuke (Seigaku)
Shiraishi Kuranosuke (Shitenhouji)
Chitose Senri (Shitenhouji)
Shishido Ryou (Hyoutei)
...
ok seriously, wtf
I can understand Fuji and the two guys from Shitenhouji, considering the anime is in the Shitenhouji arc right now.
But where the fuck does Shishido come into this? Is there something I'm missing? Maybe a scene I forgot or something?
Or maybe I'm misreading the kanji? But I checked it against the Japanese wikipedia...
AND AND AND
It's the next OVA opening!
D:
I wanna stick with Kakaeta Kiseki...but I guess it can't be helped...
still though, I don't want an opening with Shishido in it. D: It's just so fucking random. Dx
I guess we'll hear this song for the first time on September 25th when the next OVA DVD comes...

So, Koi no Gekidasa Ecstasy!...from what I could tell from the image on Yesasia, 'ecstasy' is actually written in kanji but it's supposed to be pronounced 'ecstasy'...I can't read the kanji though...
'Gekidasa' is part of the phrase Shishido uses often, 'Gekidasa daze', which means something along the lines of 'That's lame'...
So...
Love's Lame Ecstasy?
...
O_____o
wtffffffffffffff I'm confused

I think I need to find more information...preferably in English...

Ohhh, here are the links:
Yesasia
CD Japan

Kaidou's album finally has a name~

2007-09-07T21:49:00.000-04:00

Yesasia's calling it "Hebigara"~
Lol, I've been waiting for a name for this for a while...I wanna translate the title, but I have to wait to find the kanji for this- it's still listed on all the Japanese sites as an unknown title. (and the official listing doesn't even have it on the list yet) Hebi means snake, that's for sure, but I dunno about 'gara'...
[EDIT] Lol, Amazon.co.jp has the Japanese title. 蛇ガラ, which according to babelfish.altavista.com means 'Snake ガラ'. Sigh.[/EDIT]

Then there's the tracklist.
20 tracks, wtf?
I mean, seriously. Kaidou sucks at singing. How the hell does he get 20 tracks? >___< Eiji only got 12. Not counting that bonus disc or whatever that had all the karaoke tracks...
4 of the tracks seem to be maybe talk or something, 「海堂薫の・・・Part.(1/2/3/4)」, which romanizes to "Kaidou Kaoru no... Part.(1/2/3/4)". There's also a couple of tracks (7, 10, and 14), which are titled 「セイ！セイ！」 (Sei! Sei!), 「セイ！セイ！2」 (Sei! Sei! 2), and 「セイ！セイ！3」 (Sei! Sei! 3) respectively, which I dunno what they are but I'm not sure if they're actually songs.
So maybe he doesn't actually get 20 singing tracks, I dunno.

I'm also interested in track 13, which is by Kaidou and Inui. I can't read the kanji, but it also says ｢～サンキュー！！～｣ (Thank You!!)...remember Cap to Bin's single "Thank You!!" from last month? Kaidou and Inui only had background vocals (I kinda heard Kaidou, but I never even heard Inui at all); maybe this is their version or something? Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this and it's just a normal duet song between ~~lovers~~doubles partners...

I kinda want this, but at the same time I really really don't cause it's Kaidou and he sucks at singing. xD
Ah well. We'll see. Can't wait until it's up on one of the LJ communities so I can download it and listen~

I FINALLY GOT SUKEBAN DEKA~

2007-09-05T22:11:00.000-04:00

xDDDD
I got it at Newbury Comics during school retreat...they let us free in a mall for dessert after we had dinner at Fire+Ice, and I was just poking around Newbury Comics, looking through the foreign films section like always (I think I've been hoping for a copy of the Tenipuri live-action movie or something like that, or maybe Battle Royale), and all of a sudden it was like "YO-YO GIRL COP"
Lolz, I've been looking for this ever since it came out in America, but this is the first time I've actually found it. So, I immediately bought it...thankfully I brought more than the $15 they suggested for spending money. xDD
This movie looks great. Ayaya looks kick-ass on the cover. XDDDD And then Rika looks badass in a pic on the back cover...
I can't wait to watch this this weekend with my friends along with our Prince of Tennis dub marathon (the first two box sets, so 26 episodes of crappy dub amazingness)~ of course I'm going to watch it with the Japanese voice track- of course I wanna hear Aya and Rika and the other two v-u-den members~ But at one point I definitely wanna watch the dub track, it'll be interesting (to say the least) to hear someone else's random voice coming from Ayaya's mouth...xD

My friend was freaking out because it said "This film is not rated"...I mean, it's Hello! Project girls acting in it, it's not gonna be like porn~ xDDDD I tried to explain that to her, but I don't think she got it...I said that at the most, this movie would be rated PG-13, and she was like "What about the other rating with a number?"
NC-17?
xDDDDDDDDDDD
It's Matsuura Aya and v-u-den, from Hello! Project. xDDD I really don't think Tsunku would have his girls star in porn movies...
So I just reassured her that it's not porn...I don't really know if she believes me...xD;

So I really can't wait to watch this movie and see Ayaya kick ass with a yo-yo...

It appears to be confirmed...

2007-09-05T20:02:00.000-04:00

NUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Ok, any last bit of hope I had about the PoT finale being a rumor just died.
Looks like it's confirmed.
Now, there's still a bit of hope that it's just the serialization ending...but...

Someone on the Weekly Jump LJ community said this:
"And so the countdown begins: 11 issues before Ryoma Echizen hangs his racket forever!"
...and I think a part of me died inside.
DON'T FUCKING PUT IT LIKE THAT~ DDDDDDDDD:
Seriously, if I read more comments like that (especially the ones where they're like "no big loss, really") I might actually cry. And I don't want to, considering I'm in the dorm at Nobles and I don't want to cry in front of my roommate about something she wouldn't understand...now, if my roommate was that girl downstairs that loves anime (and PoT, whee), I wouldn't mind so much, but...xD
I really hope it'll continue in tankoubon format...I mean, I know I'm gonna cry at the end no matter what, but I'd rather cry at like an emotional good ending (like the third-years graduating) than an uber crappy rushed ending. xD
Cause seriously, a couple people on weeklyjump think otherwise, but 11 chapters is not enough for Konomi to finish it off nicely. Three and a half matches left, plus Ryoma has amnesia plus he has to beat his dad (and maybe Tezuka, but then again Tezuka losing to Sanada might be good enough) plus the third-years have to graduate and stuff like that...AND THERE HAS TO BE AN EPILOGUE OF SOME SORT. XDDDD Lolz, well not really, but I'd love to see one~

Let's just hope for the best and wait and see what happens~

Narutimate Accel 2!

2007-09-03T22:27:00.000-04:00

Yeaaaaahhhhhhhh~
I downloaded Narutimate Accel a bit ago, but I haven't burned it yet and so I haven't played it...but it looked really cool, and when it first came out I really really wanted to buy it~
Now, Narutimate Accel 2 is coming out~
Kyaaaa~ I can't wait~
Seriously, after retreat I'm gonna log onto NarutoFan again, I need to keep up with the latest news~

Here's the magazine scan, courtesy of leafninja.com~

Looks like there's going to be 62 people in the game~ all the pre-skip ninja, and a few of the post-skip characters that we've seen so far~
I'd say this looks like a great game~

(lol I would post more and put some more effort into this but my roommate at Nobles wants to go to bed)

I NEED TO GET THIS

2007-09-02T19:43:00.000-04:00

aslilklerjaslidkjfalsdkejrasdljkfalskjdrldskjv
[/keyboardsmash]

Morning Musume - ALL SINGLES COMPLETE ~10th ANNIVERSARY~

I think it's the cover for this that made me keyboard smash. XD I mean, damn, I wanna see a better version of that...
I'm comparing it to the original cover of LOVE Machine right now on my computer and they even got the outfits pretty much exactly the same~! And even some of the hairstyles look the same, too...like Reina's and Mari's...
Can't wait until it pops up on Yesasia/CD Japan, I'm really interested in this. Hope it's not too uber expensive~

lolz I just remembered the LOVE Machine curse.
Oh noez, hopefully it doesn't curse the current Momusu~

So, the internet signal sucks at my new house.

2007-09-02T12:55:00.000-04:00

Especially considering I have the room farthest away from the router. Sigh.
It's fine normally, but I'm trying to upload Hamasaki Ayumi's Memorial address for someone on LJ, but the upload always dies halfway through! >____< wtf...no matter which site I use, it always stops in the middle saying "the connection to the server was reset while the page was loading".
>__< It's so frustrating...

So...Prince of Tennis is ending soon...

2007-09-01T23:38:00.000-04:00

Well, this news killed my good mood TWICE today (yes, twice. >___>), and after the second time I figured I should at least post something about it...

http://community.livejournal.com/weeklyjump/52738.html

And if you're too lazy to click the link...

According to Ritual scan and Heiji-sama from Mangaverse, Jump will be putting an end to:
- Prince of Tennis
- Belmonde
- Hero Studies
starting from issue #48. (on sale 26th of November)

AND new series are expected by more established authors such as:
- Shinya Suzuki (Mr. Fullswing)
- Mizuki Kawashita (Ichigo 100%)
- Takeshi Obata (artist for Death Note, Hikaru no Go)
and a series by Shiibashi Hiroshi, who recently had a most superb one shot called Nurarihyon no Mago.

Last year we had these kind of rumours too, when Obata and Takei were about to start Blue Dragon and Jumbor respectively; so I'm inclined to consider this true. Also because a LOT of new artists just aren't sticking; and that likely has Jump reaching back to past glories.

I really don't care about most of that, but...

According to Ritual scan and Heiji-sama from Mangaverse, Jump will be putting an end to:
- Prince of Tennis
starting from issue #48. (on sale 26th of November)

Well...
It's no secret Prince of Tennis is almost over. However...they're rushing it...which isn't good...
I guess instead of letting it end naturally, Jump's cutting it...you'd think for a long-running series like PoT they'd at least let it end naturally...but there's no way it's ending naturally with only ~3 months left before it's over...there's too much left to finish up...even if it ended right after the Nationals (well, not that it'd go into another plot arc anyway, but I figured it'd have a couple of chapters after the Nationals), it'd still be rushing the Nationals matches...we still have three matches to go plus finishing up doubles 2...I really don't want to see a rushed ending for this...
well...this is the first time anything I've been following weekly has ended...well, Hitomi no Catoblepas is ending, but that's new and even though I was interested in it I wasn't really too into it...
I'm pretty sad I only managed to get into Prince of Tennis so recently, when it's about to end and everything...I've done that so many times it's not even funny...for once I'd like to be able to say "I read this manga weekly before it was even popular!"...for Prince of Tennis I guess it was the other way around, I caught it after it hit it's peak and when it wasn't as popular anymore...so that's why I've been trying to read new manga lately, but that's failed...Hitomi no Catoblepas was cut, Belmonde's getting cut...
I always figured for a manga/anime, once it ended in Japan, I'd still have the English version to follow...but honestly, I don't think I want to follow the English version of Prince of Tennis that much...the dubbed anime sucks, and the English manga is full of so much crap...I keep noticing stupid mistakes, like on the back of one of the volumes they called Jirou "Jin", and then "Takashi 'Taka' Momoshiro"...

so, yeah, this ruined my uber good mood this morning (hey, it's Saturday, that's enough to have me in a good mood, not to mention the PoT box set #2 came and everything) when I first saw it on the community, then after a day of reading fanfiction and listening to music and pushing this to the back of my mind, someone posted it on MangaHelpers and it ruined my mood again...

I'm seriously cursed with the bad luck of getting into series after they're either past their prime or already over...usually the second option, actually, considering most of my manga is just the English version so it's usually already over in Japan...so I think I'm gonna start some shounen series soon that aren't quite new, but aren't really uber uber huge hits...

recommendations, maybe?
then again, I think the only people who read this blog are the j-pop fans, and probably won't be able to help that much...

On the bright side, the raw for Prince of Tennis 356 is finally out...not that that's much of a bright side compared to the bad news here, but...

ROAR IT'S SATURDAY

2007-09-01T11:35:00.000-04:00

SO WHY IS PRINCE OF TENNIS NOT OUT YET
*diieeeessss*
[/randomspazmoment]

lol I just noticed that on the last page of last week's chapter, Kirihara just like pwns Inui's glasses and steps on them. Aren't glasses expensive? Wonder if he's planning on paying for that...
On the plus side, Inui with no glasses means that there's a chance we're going to see his eyes~ I've always wanted to see him without glasses...we've seen his eyes a couple of times, but it's always either over the top of the glasses or in that anime filler when one of the sides broke...I just wanna see him without glasses in general. xD

I have to say, things aren't looking too good right now for the Inui/Kaidou pair (or as the English manga calls it when they play Hyoutei, the Sadaharu-Kaoru Pair...ew.)...but hey, there's four matches left, and we absolutely have to get to Singles 1 at the end, so either Doubles 2, Singles 2, or Doubles 1 have to lose...it's probably gonna be Doubles 2. Singles 2 will be Fuji, and Fuji's already had his moment where he loses (in the semi-finals), and Doubles 1 is the Golden Pair and they have to win so they can be "Nationals #1!"

The issues of online ordering. Sigh.

2007-08-31T22:29:00.000-04:00

So my mom thinks the package with the PoT boxed set 2 and Ao to Bin to Kan's Gather isn't coming. I looked it up, and for the PoT boxed set I'm gonna give it a couple more days (Amazon says it should come by September 3rd)...but Gather hasn't even shipped yet. WTF. It says on Amazon "Sellers agree to ship within 2 business days of your purchase." >_______________>
I looked at the seller feedback, and apparently even though most people think their service was great (and fast, apparently. why me...) and stuff, a couple people in there said that they never received their items. Sigh. Guess I happened to be one of those people.
I think my mom's gonna handle this, but I think that if the boxed set doesn't come in the next week we should contact customer service for the site, and if Gather doesn't ship I'm gonna cancel it and order it from Amazon. Sure, it says it'll ship within 3-6 weeks, but at least I totally trust Amazon to get me the item (now, I don't totally trust them with import CDs, but at least I know something will come, or they'll send me an e-mail and stuff.) in the first place.
I saw the PoT box set at Borders today, and I just about died. DDDD: DAMMIT I WANNA SEE THIS DUBBED

As for the things I ordered recently...
The Yesasia order will be shipped soon hopefully. It gave the estimated date of arrival as a pretty late date, but that was because the PoT DVD was supposed to be ready in "7-14 days". Lolz, it was ready this morning, after only 3 days. It's only waiting on Cap to Bin's "Thank You!!", then it'll be shipped out. So I figure it'll arrive sometime in the next two weeks~
The doujinshi were shipped out Wednesday, so at the best it'll come tomorrow (highly unlikely, but...) and at the worst it'll come sometime next week while I'm at school. Hopefully no one will get curious and open it while I'm not here...*sigh*
And then Flower, I dunno. It's from another "buy used & new" thing on Amazon, this time with only an 88% positive approval rate, but...
dammit I just checked, and now Amazon's selling it for $14. DAMMIT WTF. >___< The offer from the shop I ordered it from is gone now, honestly I don't know what to make of that...is that a bad thing?

Roar, so anyway...yeah, now I have a couple of packages coming these next few weeks. YAY I LOVE GETTING PACKAGES

School is starting...

2007-08-31T22:13:00.000-04:00

Well, school's starting Monday. Actually, it really starts Thursday, but the boarders move in on Monday, and then there's a two-day retreat (thankfully for the freshman it's on campus, so no crap outdoor camps like last year) Tuesday-Wednesday...
I'm not looking forward to it. Then again, who is?
I got the rooms list today. I looked through the list, and I just about died. I'm the ONLY freshman boarding who was at Nobles last year. The other kids are all new. So yeah, I'm rooming with someone I don't know. Fun fun fun. I know a couple of upperclassmen (lolz I almost used the word "senpai". >___<), but we're not like friends or anything. Just a couple of girls in the year above me who I know from two years ago in the middle school, and then a kid from my Japanese class. Lol, I love Japanese class. It's the only class where I know exactly who my teacher is, exactly where it is, and exactly who's in my class, before they even give us our schedules. It's been the same the past two years, not counting those two kids from the first year- one was only here for a year because of Hurricane Katrina, and the other skipped a class so he could get farther since he was older or something. Besides that, though, unless we have a new kid that's already taken two years of Japanese...it'll definitely be Sarah, me, Wilson, Ben, and Gray from the freshmen, Richie and that kid that I can't spell his name from the 11th graders, and the senior Tana. And of course the teacher's Mrs. Graham, and the room is Baker 004, or 005, I can't remember the exact number but I know the room and where it is.
I'm not looking forward to like 50 new kids in our grade this year. Sigh. I'm never gonna remember everyone's names or anything. Look, there are some returning kids I don't know the names of, and I was in school with them for two years! >____< Guess that's what the retreat's for- can you say forced bonding? >__< My guess is it'll be like the 7th grade retreat- hang around campus, go on a tour of the campus, scavenger hunts that will be waaay too easy for the returning kids...and oh dear lord oh no they're gonna make us do the ropes course again. DAMMIT. Why the hell does the school have a ropes course anyway? Wtf?
At least we'll probably swim? The pools are pretty nice. Yeah, pools. Dunno why there are more than one.
Then we're sleeping in the gym. Oh well. It's better than sleeping outside.
As long as they don't make us share some of our "most embarrassing moments". Wait, that's the senior retreat, never mind...
You're not supposed to bring electronics stuff, but screw that. I'm bringing my iPod for the night time...

So that's really the retreat...boring and pointless, but I'm happy it's on campus. ^^ Last year was an uber crap outdoors camp, where there was so much forced bonding (which is really pointless, because really we all knew each other) and outdoorsy stuff and THEN THERE WAS THE SQUARE DANCE (oh dear lord bad memories, I had to dance with a TEACHER because I'm so unpopular. D:) and then there was the hike...god that sucked.
I'm still willing to bet half of this is utterly pointless for the returning kids...we already had a pointless "orientation" which was just "let's explain the rules of the computer lab and the library for the new kids and make the returning kids sit through it even though they learned this all two years ago". And then the impact test, but we could have easily done that later...

Besides that.
This year they didn't have a full summer reading list, which was very much appreciated. They just gave us our one required book, and then said "we're expecting you to read, but we're not going to give you a list of stuff to choose from" which really means "we're forcing you to spend time this summer reading when you could be doing more fun stuff, but besides the one crap book we're making you read, you can choose whatever book you want".
So I read kinda the minimum.
I read The House on Mango Street, which is the kind of book I'd never touch with a ten-foot-pole unless it was ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED (which it was.). It was crap. Utter crap. Sigh. At least it was short.
Then I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Come on, that was obvious. I think they're probably expecting everyone in the grade to have read that this summer. Thankfully, it's a long book, so I can use that as an excuse to why I only read this book and...
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu (The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi). No, I didn't cheat and watch the anime. Seriously, I didn't, though to be honest now that I think about it it would have been a good idea. I actually read the first novel online. And it counts~ Well, it should at least. It's a novel, even if it is Japanese and fan-translated...it was a good book, and now I want to watch the anime...
I kinda feel like I should have read more though, and I kinda want to read the second Haruhi novel to make up for it, but I don't have enough time...I'm sure I'll have time at retreat to read, but it's on the computer, and I don't want to print it out considering it's so long...so I might start reading The Last Days instead. I dunno, Mom's been bugging me to read it...

Umm...I'm trying to hurry up right now and free up more space on my iPod so I can add some new music to it before I head off to board. Stuff like Ayu's glitter/Fated, KAT-TUN's Yorokobi no Uta (yes I know it's not really new, but I haven't added it to my iPod yet), Hey!Say!7's Hey!Say!...stuff like that.
I have two and a half days, but I'm sure I'm going to spend a while packing and getting stuff together...

What makes me sad is that Bittorrent is banned at school. Well, for the moment I'm just gonna keep using it normally (if I only use it when I have to (aka something new I want is uploaded on Jpopsuki) then it should be fine for now), but as soon as the computer guy sends out an e-mail saying "no peer-to-peer programs", I gotta stop. Sigh. Oh well. He never said anything about direct downloading...even though the speed at Nobles is pretty slow, it's better than nothing.

I don't like the fact that now I'm going to be a freshman...the same school, but using a different building, and there's no doubt I'm gonna screw something up. Well, there's really nothing I can do about it...wish I had a friend though. Sigh. I need to find someone in the new group of kids that likes anime and isn't that weird girl that follows me around once in a while, who I swear likes me in more than just a friendly way. >____< She's ok, better than that girl from camp who followed me around all the time and stuff, but still...
and if there aren't any new kids, I'll just find Olivia, a senior who's the only person I consider a friend at school, and we can talk. She likes Prince of Tennis, if I remember correctly...she cosplayed as Eiji back at Anime Boston 2007. I need to see pics...back then I ignored it cause I didn't like PoT...
Now I can be an actual member of the Anime Club, yaaaayyy~
last year in the spring I found I could go to some of the meetings, but I only ended up at one. This year I can go to all of them since I'm in the high school~

Now that school's starting again, I think I'm gonna log back in to NarutoFan. I don't know why I just kinda died, but I did...it started because of Prince of Tennis, then I was back on regularly, but then camp happened...and after that I just haven't logged on since. I really should...

So...I don't want to go back to school...but sadly it's kinda necessary. I wish I was going to the public school...with all my friends and everything...but I'm stuck at Nobles for all of high school. Oh well.

Ahaha, sales are very very good~

2007-08-28T23:29:00.000-04:00

Lolz, so I posted about the doujinshi in my last post, but then I got an e-mail from the owner saying that 3 of them were sold out. Aww. The only one that wasn't was Young Boy Illustrated- thankfully that was probably the one I wanted the most, lolz. xD
So, instead, she made some more offers...which were UBER UBER UBER CHEAP and so I ended up buying 15 DOUJINSHI for $48. And that's including shipping.
O_______O
Honestly, I wasn't going to spend that much, but I can't turn down uber uber cheap prices!
First she offered some other Todoya doujinshi (Todoya is the group that did Young Boy Illustrated) for only $3 each...and then she said that there was a set of 5 Seigaku crack doujinshi which she was selling for $4 or $15 for the entire set...and then she had a Photobucket folder full of covers of unsorted doujinshi by MG, who did one of my favorite doujinshi...and they were TWO DOLLARS EACH
*diiieeessss*
Soo, if you haven't figured out where this is going yet...
I ended up buying 3 of the Todoya doujinshi (in addition to Young Boy Illustrated), the entire 5-book set, and 6 MG doujinshi.
Oh dear lord. @______@

So that brings my doujinshi total up to 24. YAAAAYYYY

And now I know how to work PayPal! YAAAAAYYYY USEFUL INFORMATION FOR THE FUTURE

Here's the list:

Young Boy Illustrated: $5.00
Let's Return to the Main Subject: $3.00
Hot-Blooded Student Council President: $3.00
Miracle Essu!: $3.00
5 Book Set: $15.00
MG Book 23 (Graphite): $2.00
MG Book 24 (Honey Sweet): $2.00
MG Book 1 (Cool Prince of Tennis Story): $2.00
MG Book 7 (Orange Juice): $2.00
MG Book 10 (Thundering Sky): $2.00
MG Book 11 (Momo's Day): $2.00
(Then shipping was $4, and it was an extra $3 to send the money through PayPal using a credit card...)

Let's Return to the Main Subject is apparently Atobe x Momo x Ryoma, and apparently Atobe's an uber dork, so I'm looking forward to reading this one...=P
Hot-Blooded Student Council President...ok, honestly I have no idea, but it looked amusing so I grabbed it. It's one of the doujinshi on the site that didn't have a description.
Miracle Essu! apparently has Inui trying to seduce Kaidou and Karupin x Everyone, among other things...
The 5-book set didn't have any descriptions either, but it looked interesting enough. I had been thinking about it earlier, but I didn't get them because I really didn't know anything about them. Now, with the cheap price, I figured "why not?"
The MG books...well at first I just asked about all the images (5 of them) that had Eiji in them. =P Then it turned out 3 of them were out of stock (including the one I wanted the most, "Milk Caramel", but whatever), but the owner gave me some recommendations (since she noticed my pattern xP), so I got three of those and then I saw one that looked like a cute Momo/Ryoma. =P So I ended up with 6 doujinshi for $2 each.

Kyaaa~ she's sending them tomorrow, maybe maybe maybe if I'm really lucky they'll get here before school starts! =D Considering there's seriously no way they'll come this week, maybe Monday! I don't have to leave for school until late afternoon, so...

Ok, I placed the order from earlier.

2007-08-28T19:46:00.000-04:00

And I bought the $20 copy of GIGS' Flower ~Saki Midareshi Hana~. xDDD I couldn't resist, ok? And to be honest, half the time my mom forgets to either ask me for the money or subtract it from my bank account, so...lolz I feel only a bit guilty. XD If she does ask, I have the money anyway, so...

And then I'm buying four doujinshi from doujinstar.com, I just e-mailed the owner of the site and I'm waiting for her to get back to me. I honestly have never done a purchase by e-mail or anything, but I can figure it out. xD It's much better than paying the original prices. Much cheaper this way.

Nice Disposition (Pink Panthers
$15.00 USD
Title: Nice Disposition
Circle: Pink Panthers
Pairing: Hints of FujiTezu and EijiRyo, but mainly -crack-
Rating: PG
Type/Pages: Regular Size (B4), 32 Pg.
Condition: Excellent
Summary: (Two Copies In Stock! OMG) A crack collection for Seigaku. :P Find out the secret of Oishi's hair in the morning, what Eiji daydreams of, and what pisses off Fuji! xDD Some of these stories are just -too- cute though. :P
Price: 15$

Zasshi Entertainment (Todoya)
$10.00 USD
Title: Zasshi Enta-teimento (Zasshi Entertainment)
Circle: Todoya
Pairing: Seigaku Gen, Fuji x Tezuka, Inui x Kaidou
Rating: PG
Type/Pages: Regular Size, 28 Pg.
Condition: Excellent
Summary: Utter crack. Put the Seigaku Regulars into a fairy tale, and this is what you get. Utter utter crack. 2 Copies Available.
Price: 10$

Friendship'hood (Nabakou)
$10.00 USD
RN: GP07
Title: Friendship'hood
Circle: Yutaka/Nabakou
Pairing: Golden Pair
Rating: G
Type/Pages: Regular Size (B4), 24Pg of Art out of 32Pg
Condition: Excellent
Summary: Snapshots of Eiji and Oishi as doubles partners, friends, and possibly... more... Light, happy introspective book on their deep friendship. Absolutely beautiful and dynamic art to match the mood <3 Omake: Eiji eating popsicles!~
Price: 10$

Young Boy Illustrated (Todoya)
$8.00 USD
Title: Seishounen Zakan (Young Boy Illustrated)
Circle: Todoya
Pairing: Seigaku Gen, Momo x Ryoma
Rating: PG
Type/Pages: Regular Size, 20 Pg.
Condition: Excellent
Summary: Gyod, so much crack xDD Momo's trying to show off his english to Ryoma, and he's like...
"Mai naimu izu Momoshiro. I amu ultura supa tennisu puraiya... blahblahblah... Fuck you, Please!"
Ryoma: Do you know what you just said? What what's with the "please..."?
Momo: Uhm... I heard it on TV... what was it?...
Ryoma: That's not the point! You can't go around saying that!
Momo: Oh right! I remember what it was now!
Ryoma: ??
Momo: Fuck me! Please!
Ryoma: ...
Momo: ...
Ryoma: Ok! Let's go!
xDDD
Price: 8$

A~h, three crack doujinshi and one Golden Pair. =P
I've had my eye on the last one for a while now...it just looks uber amazing. xD The first one got me with "Oishi's hair in the morning", and I had been contemplating buying it for a while but I didn't feel like paying $15 for it...with the sale I couldn't resist. XP The second one had vampire Eiji on the cover...
and the third one is Golden Pair. I don't think I really need to explain further.

Maybe the other stuff I bought earlier will come tomorrow. Then again I've been saying that for over a week now, and nothing yet...*sigh*
I don't think that the stuff I just ordered will come before I leave for Nobles on Monday night, but it's only 5-day boarding so I'll get it the next weekend. =P Except for the Yesasia stuff, that always takes forever, so it'll probably come by the weekend after.

Dammit, not this again...

2007-08-28T18:11:00.000-04:00

UGH I hate these e-mails.

We are sorry to report that we will not be able to obtain the
following item(s) from your order:

Gigs (Artist) "Flower [Limited Edition] [Import]"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000F6YS2K

Though we had expected to be able to send this item to you, we've
since found that it is not available from any of our sources at this
time. We realize this is disappointing news to hear, and we apologize
for the inconvenience we have caused you.

We have cancelled this item from your order.

I HATE AMAZON
*headdesk x10*
I honestly don't know what to do at the moment. I really really really want this single. I love the song, not to mention it's one of the openings for the OVA series.
It's out of print on Yesasia and CD Japan, and on Amazon the cheapest price is $20.67. DDDDD:
Dammit, what do I do?

AND the Prince of Tennis Box Set 2 and Ao to Bin to Kan's Gather STILL HAVEN'T COME. DDDD: They shipped out like forever ago; they should be here by now~ I really wanna watch the crappy dub of Prince of Tennis before I head off to board next week...
UGH I'M HAVING A BAD DAY

Bleach games coming out in the US

2007-08-27T21:25:00.001-04:00

YAAAYYYYY
So I finally got my copy of the October issue of Shounen Jump today. I still have yet to figure out why the hell they come so early; it would make so much more sense if it was the September issue. But whatever...
The first thing that caught my eye was the fact that there's SO MUCH DRAGONBALL Z THIS ISSUE. DDDDDDDDDD:
But anyway.
Then I flipped open the magazine, stared at the ad for Naruto: Rise of a Ninja for a few minutes (why oh why do I not have an Xbox 360), then flipped past it, and something else immediately caught my eye.

Flaming Hot DVD
Comin' at you next month is Vol. 3 of The Prince of Tennis Box Set! Ryoma and his teammates at Seigaku Academy are now competing at the Metropolitan Tournament, and their "golden pair" in doubles is forced to resort to an unusual formation. Contains episodes 27-38. Special features include: original Japanese trailers and original Japanese opening and ending credits!

So I'm gonna break this down a bit, I guess...
"Flaming Hot DVD!-" (you mean they actually care about Prince of Tennis?) "Comin' at you next month-" (ok, I squee-d for a second before realizing that they meant October; it's still August so I thought they meant September) "-is Vol. 3 of The Prince of Tennis Box Set!-" (already? didn't the second one just come out? speaking of which, it STILL HASN'T ARRIVED. D:) "-Ryoma and his teammates at Seigaku Academy-" (ok, this line is fail. Seigaku is short for Seishun Gakuen, which basically is Seishun Academy or w/e. Seigaku is a team nickname. Seigaku Academy makes no sense. It's like...my school is Noble & Greenough School; the nickname is Nobles, but we don't call it "Nobles School", that makes no sense) "-are now competing at the Metropolitan Tournament-" (to be honest, I stopped there to take a minute to figure out what the hell they were referring to, cause there's no "Metropolitan Tournament". The Prefecturals?) "-and their "golden pair"-" (no, no quotation marks. Golden Pair.) "-in doubles-" (no duh. what, do they think that people think a pair could be in singles?) "-is forced to resort to an unusual formation.-" (the Australian Formation? It's unusual, but I wouldn't really say they were "forced to resort" to it...) "-Contains episodes 27-38.-" (St. Rudolph arc, right?) "-Special features include: original Japanese trailers and original Japanese opening and ending credits!" (NO. NO. NO. The original OP/ED shouldn't be "special features". If they're going to brag on the cover about the episodes being "uncut", the OP/ED should be fully intact! WTF~ Especially because they use the original opening and ending for Naruto boxed sets...I wouldn't mind as much (well I'd still hate it, cause the American PoT OP/ED are crap, but...) if they didn't say on the box "UNCUT". They say it's "uncut", but it's not- it's the exact same thing you see on Toonami/Toonami Jetstream- the American OP/ED, and the American title screen. Seriously, wtf? I was really hoping they'd use the original OP/ED...I wanna see Driving Myself and KEEP YOUR STYLE. DDDDD:)
Lolz, I needed something to rant over, and this was perfect. =D The English version of the anime is crap, and the manga's not too good either.

BUT ANYWAY
YAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY
I totally freaked out on one of the Bleach pages. For two reasons. The first being...
YAAAAAYYYY THE BLEACH WII GAME IS COMING OUT IN AMERICA
and a DS game that I've never heard of before.
I've actually really wanted to play the Wii game for a while, but I don't think there's a Freeloader for the Wii. This is great~ I'm really surprised though, it's way farther than the American anime is. Not that I'm complaining or anything.
The second thing is that they had a thing at the bottom of the page going all "SOUL REAPER ALL POINTS BULLETIN". It was a fake "warning note" or something. Pretty lame, but then...
THERE WERE PICTURES OF GRIMMJOW AND ULQUIORRA
@_____@
Wowwwww, the English manga is pretty close to where the Japanese manga is~

And then way later on in the magazine, they decided to make an announcement...
BLEACH IS BEING SERIALIZED IN SHOUNEN JUMP STARTING NEXT MONTH
YAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
YAYYYYYYYYYY
I think it's a good decision. Bleach is one of the top 3 Jump manga in Japan, and I'm so glad they're putting it in the magazine. I think they're starting from the Arrancar arc, so...

So now the only thing left that would make me uber happy would be if they put PoT in the magazine. 100% never gonna happen though. I always thought it was really popular in Japan, but it seems like it's been near the bottom of the Jump ToC lately. And it's not popular in America at all, so I'm not gonna get my hopes up.

By the way, I noticed something slightly amusing when I was putting away some of my manga the other day.
On the inside cover for Bleach volume 1, there was an ad for other Shounen Jump manga. The main one they were advertising...was Prince of Tennis volume 13.
So...well, both series have 20 volumes at the moment in America. Does that mean that in the time it took for Bleach to release 20 volumes, Prince of Tennis only released 7?
O___o
*goes off to ponder this thought*

Why is shipping so expensive? xD

2007-08-27T20:46:00.000-04:00

I'm currently planning out yet another order...*sigh*
At the moment, this is what's in it:
Tennis no Oujisama Zenkoku Taikai Hen (Prince of Tennis National Tournament) vol. 3
Morning Musume - SEXY 8 BEAT (limited edition)
Cap to Bin - Thank You!! (limited release)
I have to get the Nationals DVD. It's uber expensive ($46.25 on Yesasia, $42.51 on CDJapan), but it's Golden Pair angst and it's my favorite episode in the entire OVA series, and maybe even the entire series in general, and it's really cute and amazing, and...I mean, it starts off with lots of Eiji angsting and Golden Pair love, and then it turns into Eiji being uber cute and amazing and more Golden Pair love. <33333 The episode has its own folder in My Pictures for screenshots- seriously, not many episodes do. Only the Golden Pair flashback episode (freshman Eiji = THE CUTEST THING EVER), the chibi episodes, the Prince of Bowling/Billiards/Volleyball episodes, and episode 142 (which happens to be another cute Eiji episode, but it's missing the angst that makes Zenkoku episode 4 so great), and this episode of course. This episode has everything from Eiji crying over Oishi to playing doubles in singles to self-rape...
For the record, every time I watch this episode I'm in tears by the time Eiji confronts Oishi in the flashbacks...yes, I cry over a tennis anime. >____> Shut up.
I wanna make a couple of animated GIFs from that episode, but sadly, VirtualDub doesn't work with .mp4 files. I dunno if I could do it with another program or what...
Lolz I'm gonna shut up about that episode now. I could probably rant on about it for like ever...
Then there's episode 5 of the OVA, which is also on this DVD. Honestly, I couldn't care less about that episode. It's mostly filler anyway. Except for the scene where Kaidou and Yagyuu switch places and play as each other. That scene's great, though it makes no sense whatsoever in the anime...

ANYWAY back on track.
Then there's Cap to Bin's Thank You!!. I didn't think too much of the song when I first heard it, but I love it at the moment~ <33333 Not to mention Eiji's like FRONT AND CENTER on the cover, and I'm planning on collecting all CDs involving Eiji anyway, so...
And then SEXY 8 BEAT. I'm still catching up with Morning Musume; I want their mini-album also but this order is really expensive already, and I have the money to buy it along with this stuff but my mom doesn't like it if I spend more than ~$100 on one order so I'll get it later.

I looked up all the items and added everything to my cart on both Yesasia and CD Japan...
CD Japan has cheaper prices for the items. It's great- the Tenipuri DVD's $46.25 on Yesasia but only $42.51 on CD Japan; SEXY 8 BEAT's $34.75 on Yesasia but only $30.60 on CD Japan, and Thank You!! is $9.25 on Yesasia but only $6.32 on CD Japan.
However...shipping is uber expensive on CD Japan. DDDDD: It ends up being more expensive to buy it on CD Japan...
Maybe I'm just used to Yesasia's free shipping. I dunno.
I apparently have a 500 yen coupon on CD Japan, and 200 frequent shopper points, so maybe if I use those, it'll be a bit less expensive...still though, I feel like I'm being ripped off to pay so much just for shipping. D:
So, I think I'm just gonna use Yesasia for this...I'll save the coupon and the frequent shopper points for stuff I can't get on Yesasia (meaning, more PoT character singles)...

Lolz, and I'm also getting some doujinshi. Doujinstar.com is having a sale where everything's $5, and shipping has a flat rate of $4 for more than 1 doujinshi...so I can't help myself. =P
4 doujinshi for $24...yaaay~

So I decided to take a look through my music in a different way today..., pt 2

2007-08-27T18:03:00.000-04:00

Well, not really as much of a "part 2" as it is just a post for the pictures I said I'd take.

Yeah, that's all my music sorted by release date. Took a while. About half of them said the release date on the obi; the other half were overseas releases or something so I had to look up the release dates online. The first shelf is 1997-2005, and the other starts with Ayu's (miss)understood, which was released 2006.01.01, and goes through to Aqua Timez's ALONES, which was released 2007.08.01. =D

Lolz, and this is my music right before packing it up into crates to move into the new house. My mom and stepdad thought it was a waste of bubblewrap, but 1) it's not like they were using it anyway, the only other thing we'd have done with it is have fun popping it, but we can still do that, and 2) it's so not a waste, I'm very protective of my CDs and DVDs and everything. Especially import stuff. So I'd rather be safe than sorry...

I'm gonna go find the scanner tomorrow and maybe actually scan the music I got recently. It might still be packed away though...

So I decided to take a look through my music in a different way today...

2007-08-23T19:25:00.000-04:00

I just moved a few days ago, and my CDs were still sitting in a crate all bubblewrapped and nice and neat and everything, and I finally got around to putting them back on my shelf. Since I was pretty bored, plus I wanted to see what this would turn out like, I sorted my CDs by release date rather than by artist, and the results kinda surprised me. I was expecting most of my CDs to have been released between 2005-2007, considering I first got into j-pop in 2005. Surprisingly, the year that had the most CDs ended up being 2004. Turns out a lot of the Prince of Tennis music I've been buying recently was released in 2004...xD 6 singles and one of the soundtracks. Here's basically how it went down by year:
1 single (hitomi - problem) from 1997
1 single (globe - still growin' up) from 1999
1 album (Puffy - SPIKE) from 2000
3 singles (Aozu - WHITE LINE, Morning Musume - Do it! Now, the brilliant green - Rainy days never stays), 4 albums (Do As Infinity - Do The Best, Puffy - An Illustrated History, Hamasaki Ayumi - I am..., Utada Hikaru - DEEP RIVER), and 1 soundtrack (Kingdom Hearts) from 2002
6 singles (BoA - Rock With You, BoA - Shine We Are! / Earthsong, Every Little Thing - Grip!, Kikumaru Eiji - ONE, Koda Kumi - real Emotion / 1000 no Kotoba, Koda Kumi - COME WITH ME), 1 mini-album (Hamasaki Ayumi - Memorial address), 2 albums (Hello! Project - Pucchi Best 4, Puffy - NICE.), and 3 soundtracks (Final Fantasy X-2, NARUTO OST 1, Prince of Tennis OST 2) from 2003
15 singles (Abe Natsumi - Koi no Telephone GOAL, BoA - Be the one, BoA - Merry-Chri, Goto Maki - Sayonara "Tomodachi ni wa Naritakunai no", Hamasaki Ayumi - Moments, Heartsdales - LOVE & JOY, Kaidou Kaoru - Sekai wa Kawaru, Kawamura Takashi - Asobi ni Ikanai ka?, Kikumaru Eiji - Come Together, Kikumaru Eiji - Kiku-chan no Souran Bushi, m-flo loves BoA - the Love Bug, Ooishi Shuuichirou - Honto no Kimochi, Otsuka Ai - Happy Days, Pull Tab to Kan - Wonderful days, UTADA - DEVIL INSIDE), 5 albums (Hamasaki Ayumi - MY STORY, Morning Musume - Ai no Dai 6 Kan, Shimatani Hitomi - Tsuioku+LOVE LETTER, Tamaki Nami - Greeting, UTADA - EXODUS), and 5 soundtracks (Puffy - HiHi Puffy AmiYumi, Best of Inu Yasha II, NARUTO Best Hit Collection, NARUTO OST 2, Prince of Tennis OST 3) from 2004
5 singles (Hamasaki Ayumi - STEP you / is this LOVE?, Koda Kumi - Birthday Eve, Matsuura Aya - Ki ga Tsukeba Anata, Morning Musume - Chokkan 2 ~Nogashita Sakana wa Ookizo!~, UTADA - EXODUS '04), 7 albums (Amuro Namie - Queen of Hip-Pop, Do As Infinity - NEED YOUR LOVE, BoA - Girls On Top, Otsuka Ai - LOVE COOK, S.H.E - Once Upon A Time, Tamaki Nami - single collection vol. 1, Ishida Yoko - all of me), and 2 soundtracks (NANA movie, NARUTO OST 3) from 2005
10 singles (Hearts Grow - Yura Yura, JUNE - Baby It's You / -other song that I can never remember the romaji for-, Koda Kumi - No Regret, m-flo loves Hinouchi Emi & Ryohei - Summer Time Love, Morning Musume - SEXY BOY ~Soyokaze ni Yorisotte~, Morning Musume - Ambitious! Yashinteki de Ii jan, Morning Musume - Aruiteru, Ooishi Shuuichirou & Kikumaru Eiji - Type wa D!, Oshitari Yuushi with Hyoutei Gakuen Chuu - Valentine Kiss, SABOTEN - Scenario), 5 albums (Hamasaki Ayumi - (miss)understood, Koda Kumi - BEST ~second session~, Morning Musume - Rainbow 7, NANA starring NAKASHIMA MIKA - THE END, Puffy - Splurge), and 3 soundtracks (BLEACH THE BEST, Kingdom Hearts II, NARUTO Best Hit Collection 2) from 2006
10 singles (Aozu - Kakaeta Kiseki, Aqua Timez - ALONES, HOME MADE Kazoku - Nagareboshi ~Shooting Star~, Hoshimura Mai - Sakura Biyori, Morning Musume - Egao YES Nude, Morning Musume - Kanashimi Twilight, Morning Musume - Onna ni Sachi Are, nobodyknows+ - Hero's Come Back!!, Ore Ska Band - Tsumasaki, YUI - Rolling star) and 1 soundtrack (BLEACH BEAT COLLECTION THE BEST) from 2007

Some more observations (about my music in general, really):
I have too many soundtracks. *sigh* That doesn't even count the Prince of Tennis character singles.
I have a single by globe, a group that I don't even like. wtf.
Everything I have that was released this year is either related to anime or Morning Musume. Hmm.
I still really need to grab Morning Musume's latest album along with their mini-album, then I can start going back through and getting their older stuff. I have yet to decide whether I should work backwards and start with Iroppoi Jirettai or start from the beginning and go on a hunt for those old out-of-print 8cm singles. No, I'm not going to just get the rereleases, even though that'd be easier. I think I saw a few of the 8cm singles on eBay earlier...
I don't think that Tamaki Nami singles collection is official. I got it at PortCon this year...dunno why I grabbed it rather than something like Utada's Ultra Blue or something. I couldn't find a release date for it, so I stuck it in with the 2005 stuff since it had all her singles up through Heroine, which was released in 2005. Now that I take a closer look at it, it doesn't look all that official...great. *sigh* Oh well.
Everything I got at either Anime Boston, PortCon, or Tokyo Kid (the closest anime store) seems to be some sort of overseas version...I can't tell if they're bootlegs or legit overseas releases, like some of the earlier CDs I got off of Yesasia- I always used to go for the overseas versions cause they're cheaper. Hopefully the latter. I mean, that's 21 of my albums/soundtracks right there. o_o
Everything I have that was released in 2007 is some sort of first press/limited edition. Rolling star, Tsumasaki, Sakura Biyori, and ALONES all have a Bleach sticker attached to the obi. Hero's Come Back!! has some sort of Shippuuden Othello board, and I forget what Nagareboshi came with, but it came with some sort of first press bonus. The BLEACH BEAT COLLECTION THE BEST is the first press version, but I dunno if it came with anything special. All 3 Momusu singles were one of the limited editions- Egao YES Nude is the LE A version with a DVD, Onna ni Sachi Are is the LE B version with a photobook, and Kanashimi Twilight is supposed to be the LE B version, and it has the correct cover, but Amazon didn't send me the photobook or something weird like that. It still counts. =P The last CD, Aozu's Kakaeta Kiseki, is just teh uber limited release in general- almost all of the Tenipuri character singles are, the only exceptions being the Best of Seigaku/Rival Players series. I personally think they should at least give the OP/ED theme singles normal releases, but whatever...

Oh, for the record, I only counted the CDs I actually have on hand right now- meaning yes, there are two CDs on my list of CDs that aren't in here- Ao to Bin to Kan's Gather and GIGS' Flower, but those are still on their way to my house~
And I have the American releases of all my Puffy CDs, but I used the original Japanese release dates for this.

I'll post a pic of the finished product when I actually finish. At the moment I just have them sitting in piles sorted by year...

Ongaku Gatas - Nari Hajimeta Koi no Bell

2007-08-22T17:51:00.000-04:00

So I finally sat down and watched the PV of the song featuring Momusu graduates Yoshizawa Hitomi, Konno Asami, and Ishikawa Rika along with six girls I've never seen before in my life and one I vaguely recognize but I had to look up who she was (turns out it's Satoda Mai from Country Musume).
My first thought was, the PV's nice and everything, but there are barely any colors. At first I thought it was black and white, but not quite considering the girls themselves are still in color.
Then they started singing...and I'm so glad Yossi's already singing again. I love Yossi, and I was afraid she'd pull a Yasuda Kei/Yaguchi Mari and disappear from singing for a couple of years. (by the way, Mari needs to sing more. She's my favorite member of H!P, and it saddens me that she hasn't done anything in more than two years...)
And then there's Konno. Oh god. She's back. She never was my favorite Momusu member, but I was still really sad when she left Hello! Project. I mean, someone graduating Morning Musume, ok, at least she's still singing, but when you graduate from H!P in general...it's kinda the end, isn't it? At least, that's what I thought. Now that I look back at my blog, I never posted about Konno's comeback when it was first announced. Maybe I was really busy at that time or something...but whatever. It's great to see Konno back in action. She wasn't really a main member of Momusu, but I still kinda missed seeing her.
I'm not a review person when it comes to music/PVs, so all I'll say is this: I really like this song, and the music video's pretty nice. I really want this single now...I'll try to grab it next order I make, whenever that happens to be.
And maybe at some point I'll learn the names of the other six girls in this group. Are they Eggs? I honestly have no idea, I'll have to look them up later...

I get this feeling I own like virtually no H!P stuff...

2007-08-22T16:45:00.000-04:00

I dunno, lately I've been really annoyed...I look at everyone else on the H!P blogosphere, and they're like preordering the limited edition of everything H!P coming out anytime soon and buying all this merchandise off eBay...and in comparison, I feel like I own basically nothing. And it's really annoying, considering I really love Morning Musume and H!P and I feel like I should be supporting them more and buying their stuff, but...
I mean, this is my H!P collection:
(I would have an accompanying picture, but I just moved yesterday and I don't really know where everything is (except for my CDs, I bubblewrapped those and put them all in a crate that's now at the foot of my bed)
* Abe Natsumi - Koi no Telephone GOAL (limited edition)
* Goto Maki - Sayonara "Tomodachi ni wa Naritakunai no" (limited edition)
* Hello! Project - Pucchi Best 4
* Matsuura Aya - Ki ga Tsukeba Anata (limited edition)
* Morning Musume - Do it! Now
* Morning Musume - Ai no Dai 6 Kan
* Morning Musume - Chokkan 2 ~Nogashita Sakana wa Ookiizo!~ (limited edition)
* Morning Musume - Rainbow 7 (limited edition)
* Morning Musume - SEXY BOY ~Soyokaze ni Yorisotte~ (limited edition)
* Morning Musume - Ambitious! Yashinteki de Ii Jan (limited edition)
* Morning Musume - Aruiteru (limited edition B)
* Morning Musume - Egao YES Nude (limited edition A)
* Morning Musume - Kanashimi Twilight (limited edition B...well, kinda. don't ask.)
* Morning Musume - Onna ni Sachi Are (limited edition B)
And then I also have the Morning Musume 2006 Calendar and a mini figure of Ishikawa Rika that I got at Anime Boston in 2006...
and that's it.
There's so much more stuff that I want, merchandise on eBay I've had my eye on for a while (one of my goals is to get a MM/H!P tour t-shirt), but I just don't have the money...*sigh* And I keep planning on buying a ton more stuff, but then I get distracted by something else (like at the moment, the Prince of Tennis CDs)...I know my next order will definitely include Morning Musume's SEXY 8 BEAT and the 7.5 mini-album, because I feel like I should at least do what I can and keep up with the Momusu releases.
But at the same time I really really wanna get the limited edition of the Ongaku Gatas single, and I want to get Berryz's new album, and I wanna get v-u-den's Koisuru Angel Heart, and then there's countless old singles and albums that I'd really really love to have. T___T And that's just H!P stuff! I still need to order Eiji's character album (too bad I missed the limited edition by a couple years) along with his Best of Seigaku release 'Tsubasa ni Natte' so I can complete my collection of Eiji songs, and I really want Arashi's album Time, and then of course there's the latest Bleach and Naruto endings...and I really have to grab a copy of Cap to Bin's Thank You!!, and Megane's Manatsu no Megane's, and...seriously, I could go on forever. Maybe I should make a wishlist or something. Hmm.
Damn, I wish I had friends who liked j-pop and stuff so I could actually get what I really really want for my birthday. I've figured out that j-pop is totally out of the question in general, unless it's like Puffy (I have their entire US discography through birthday/Christmas presents from relatives...and I don't even really like them all that much...*sigh*)...so then I tried just kinda asking for money last year, but people don't give money for presents all that much and so I ended up getting a bunch of crap from my aunts/uncles/cousins. Except for Puffy's album Splurge. Even though I'd totally rather have something Momusu or Ayu or something, at least it's close?
Sigh. At least there's one relative that understands that she knows nothing about what I want. THANK YOU GRANDMA FOR THE $100 (plus my age, so like last year I got $114) EVERY YEAR SO I CAN BUY WHAT I REALLY WANT! 8DDD
Now to sit and wait until December 16th...

Melon Kinenbi - Onegai Miwaku no Target PV

2007-08-21T23:52:00.000-04:00

I absolutely love this song. Really, I'm not into Melon Kinenbi that much, but when I first heard this song a while back, I fell in love~~ Probably the first Melon Kinenbi song I really like~ (EDIT: wait wait wait that's not true, I really like This is Unmei...totally forgot that was a Melon Kinenbi song)
So when I heard this song was finally getting a major release, I was like "zomgg uber great now I can get it"
We~ll...
The PV came out recently (today? I dunno), and I sat down and watched it- and within the first 10 seconds I was on the floor laughing.
Dohhh UP! link (I'll add a Youtube video for it once I find it uploaded there)

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*deeeeaadddd*

It's absolutely hilarious~
except for the parts where it's like the cover of the single, but with only the lips moving, cause that's somewhat creepy~

I mean, wtffffff...but really, this is really funny...xDDDDD
I'm seriously like at a loss for words at the moment, though I find myself going back to rewatch it...

A bit more info on the Prince of Tennis Chinese TV drama

2007-08-19T16:50:00.000-04:00

YAY

This is gonna be great~
Kinda a short post over on IKIMASSHOI, but it gives one thing left out of the original post I found out about this from- some general dates. In case you're too lazy to read, they're planning to begin shooting in October, and it'll start airing next June. I can wait that long~

I'm still really excited about this, I've never really watched a TV drama (in any language, really) so this is kinda new to me...
I hope even more info comes out soon, and maybe more pics? xDD

Oh, and I know I said I'd scan my new CDs after Cape Cod. However, I'm moving in two days. It shouldn't affect my internet or anything, but I don't exactly know what's going to happen with the scanner and stuff. >_< As soon as possible, I swear~

I am sufficiently surprised (PoT CHAPTER 354 SPOILERS)

2007-08-18T18:09:00.000-04:00

Well, I came back from Cape Cod today, and I immediately grabbed Prince of Tennis chapter 354 from MangaHelpers. Instead of a download link, it linked to the scanlator's website, which said that there was a huge surprise in the chapter...
...and after reading the chapter, I am sufficiently surprised. By both the main surprise of the chapter, and Rikkai's choice for Doubles 2...

Lolz, remember the rant I made a week and a half ago or so? This one?
Well, in it, I was speculating about the doubles pairs for Rikkaidai...

"so maybe they'll switch the pairs around and we'll get Yagyuu/Niou vs Inui/Kaidou and Jackal/Marui vs Ooishi/Eiji, or maybe Konomi will come up with a totally new doubles pair like Yanagi/Kirihara and totally surprise us, that'd actually be pretty fun"

Well guess what?
lol manga panel

Bwahahaha, yayyyyyy I totally called the Yanagi/Kirihara thing~
Well, that leaves Niou, Yagyuu, Marui, Jackal, and Yukimura for the rest of the matches. Yukimura's obviously singles one. I bet Marui and Jackal are doubles 1, it really doesn't seem to me like either would play singles, though then again, Konomi could surprise us...
I dunno who'll play singles 2. Yagyuu? I think he played singles in Rikkai's semifinal match, but I don't quite remember...well, we'll see now, won't we?

And then the main surprise of the chapter.
Ryoma's uber random amnesia. I think I speak for many of us when I say this:
wtffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
Uber random plot twist? Well, at least it kinda explains why Ryoma was missing? xD
I really don't know how to react to that...just wtf, really
oh, and on that page where he's smiling, his smile looks like Fuji. xD

Well, guess we just have to hope that his memory returns by singles 1 so he can sufficiently pwn Yukimura, because there's no way the Nationals is ending before Ryoma even plays~

Prince of Tennis Chinese TV drama?!?

2007-08-13T13:54:00.000-04:00

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[/keyboardsmashing]

Here's the info

Hooly crap this is gonna be great~
Live-action CANON, as opposed to the movie which just failed in general. (Which I still haven't watched fully, but the lack of character development and stuff that doesn't revolve around Ryoma made me turn it off right around Ryoma vs Shinji. It's too far away from canon for me...I'll probably watch it if I get bored later this week.) And the musicals don't count.
Even if it is in Chinese, I can handle that. As long as it follows canon material I'll know what's going on. Hopefully some subbing group will pick it up, which would be even better.
I wonder how far it's going to go? Since they have actors for Atobe, Oshitari, and Gakuto, I bet it'll go through to the Hyoutei arc, at least. I wish it'd go through the Rikkaidai arc, though that looks pretty unlikely at the moment. I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanna see Rikkaidai canon material. The lack of canon in the Rikkaidai arc in the anime made me UBER SAD. T_______T Seriously, the only match that was the same was Inui vs Renji...I wanna see Eiji have a concussion and Niou stealing his line ("Zannen, munen, mata raishuu~") and then I wanna see Fuji go blind and fail until he can randomly feel the presence of the ball and then I wanna see Sanada's FuuRinKaZan because for no real reason, they CUT all that stuff when they turned it into the anime and replaced it with things such as Yagyuu playing golf and Niou reading Eiji's random "habit" and then Fuji hurting Kirihara and then Ryoma's "Cyclone Smash" and Sanada's "Invisible Swing" (which brings me to another point, Sanada vs Tezuka in the Nationals Final is going to be fucked up so badly considering Sanada doesn't have the FuuRinKa(In)Zan(Rai) in the anime)
*dies*
If only they'd pull something like Bleach and have a special OVA that animates the canon material...
BUT ANYWAY

I don't know anything about Chinese dramas or music or anything, and I'm not even going to pretend I do. But I like most of the actors that they chose. =) I'd like to see larger pictures, but...well, I don't mind waiting until this airs. I can't waaaaiiit until it does~ wonder when it's gonna be? Hopefully soon~ and hopefully it'll get put onto the internet and subbed quickly. This looks amazing~
to be honest, I've been wondering what the Chinese version was like for a while. They write the character names in the same kanji, but they're not pronounced the same in Chinese, right? And do they keep the English move names in English, or do they translate them? Lolz, I guess I'll find out the answers to these questions once this thing airs~

So I know I said I wouldn't order through Amazon again after what happened last time, but...

2007-08-10T17:48:00.000-04:00

...they had Oshitari's Valentine Kiss single, and I just couldn't resist. xD Considering the only version still available on Yesasia is Sanada's, and none are still available on CD Japan...I basically jumped at the chance to get Oshitari's. xD
I'm not technically ordering from Amazon anyway, just through it...for every item in my cart, I'm using the "buy used & new" option so it's not actually coming from Amazon. It's way cheaper this way too. xD
So this is exactly what I'm getting:
Aozu (Echizen Ryoma, Fuji Shuusuke, Tezuka Kunimitsu, Ooishi Shuuichirou) - Kakaeta Kiseki (Prince of Tennis National Tournament OVA 2nd opening)
Ao to Bin to Kan (Atobe Keigo, Sanada Genichirou, Oshitari Yuushi, Kikumaru Eiji, Sengoku Kiyosumi, Fuji Shuusuke, Kirihara Akaya, Echizen Ryoma) - Gather
GIGS (Echizen Ryoma, Tezuka Kunimitsu, Atobe Keigo, Sanada Genichirou) - Flower -Saki Midareshi Hana- (Prince of Tennis National Tournament OVA 1st opening)
Kikumaru Eiji - ONE
Oshitari Yuushi - Valentine Kiss
Prince of Tennis Box Set 2

After I get Kakaeta Kiseki and Flower, the only seiyuu OP/ED songs left to get are Fujori (by Hyoutei Eternity; the second OVA ending) and Thank You!! (by Cap to Bin; the third OVA ending)...
ONE is by Eiji, which means I HAVE to get it, which means that all that's left for my Eiji solo collection is his album Hello! and his Best of Seigaku single, Tsubasa ni Natte. But neither of those are limited releases, so I think I'm gonna put those off for now while I go through and get some limited stuff.
As for why I bought Gather...well, it's the JUNIOR SENBATSU TEAM of course. xD Fuck the fact that that was all filler, it has EIJI in it (which made me UBER UBER HAPPY when they added Eiji to the team because I didn't think Eiji would make it on the team in a million years) and it has KIRIHARA in it (well, it's not Kirihara I care about, it's his seiyuu Morikubo Shoutaro who is AMAZING) and having both of them in the SAME SONG is uber uber amazing. WHICH IS WHY I NEED TO FIND DOWNLOADS OF EVERYTHING RELEASED BY THE DUO HEART-BEAT BECAUSE IT'S BOTH OF THEIR SEIYUU. *dies* (even though Eiji's seiyuu sounds nothing like Eiji when he's not actually trying to sing as Eiji.) I really like the song anyway. xD
And last but not least, Valentine Kiss. Hmm, I wonder if anyone out there in the j-pop blogosphere knows about the '80's song Valentine Kiss by some member of Onyanko Club? I hadn't heard of it until recently, when I was looking at the Lucky Star Wikipedia page to see the list of endings and on the talk page someone mentioned something about Valentine Kiss (one of the endings) being used as a Prince of Tennis song. That immediately got me interested, so I looked it up. Turns out, the song has been covered by 5 different Prince of Tennis seiyuu on 7 different releases. On Valentine's Day 2004, Atobe released a single containing a cover of Valentine Kiss. In 2005, it was Oshitari who released the Valentine Kiss single. In 2006, they both released Valentine Kiss singles...I haven't listened to them all yet, I don't know if they were re-releases or actually sung differently or whatever. In 2007, it was Sanada from Rikkaidai who released a Valentine Kiss single. Also, Shishido sung a cover of it as a bonus track on his album, and Ooishi did the same for his album.
The version on Amazon is Oshitari's 2006 version...the only other version I found was Sanada's, which I can still get on Yesasia so I'll grab it later.
Oh, and then I guess there's the 2nd PoT box set. I need to watch the dub. I haven't watched it since they took it off the air back in June...I wanna start from the beginning and I don't think you can do that on Toonami Jetstream. To be honest, from what I remember of the dub, it absolutely sucked, but whatever. Really, if I can handle Dub Piece I can handle this. I think.

I noticed the lack of non-PoT stuff in this, and I swear I'll make it up next order, which at the moment I think will consist of...Arashi's latest album Time, Morning Musume's SEXY 8 BEAT (limited edition of course), and Morning Musume's 7.5 Fuyu Fuyu Morning Musume Mini or w/e it's called (limited edition for that too). Probably Manatsu no Megane's, by Megane's (I don't even know how to make "Megane's" possessive, I seriously doubt it'd be "Megane's's") and Cap to Bin's Thank You!! too (I would actually get those in this order, but there aren't any "buy used & new" options for either single and I don't quite trust Amazon with import CDs anymore), and if I have the money maybe the Ongaku Gatas single. The limited edition probably, because I like the cover a lot better. xD
But that'll have to wait until later.
(or I might buy the 3rd PoT OVA DVD. I just got waaaaayyy too tempted to get it when I found it on CD Japan while looking for the Tenimyu DVDs...I mean, it's Eiji, and Golden Pair angst, not to mention it's the OVA series so the animation quality is great and everything...)

Anyway, I'm heading off to Cape Cod tomorrow morning (against my will) for a week with no TV and no internet, but I'm bringing the PS2 down along with a couple of *coughcoughillegallydownloadedcoughcough* Tenipuri games (I have Doki Doki Survival Secret, Doki Doki Survival Mystic, Gakuensai no Oujisama, and Smash Hit! 2- the first three being dating sims and the last being just a tennis game) and Narutimate Accel to hopefully keep me busy. (lolz, for the record I just recently found out you can download PS2 games and burn them onto DVDs, and I've kinda been abusing that power I guess...) That in addition to summer reading and a couple of episodes of Shippuuden plus about 8 episodes of Bleach plus all of Gintama plus all of Lucky Star...well, I don't think I'll be too bored while hanging out in the cottage. xD

I really was expecting to scan and upload the CDs from my most recent order, but my mom's computer wasn't hooked up to the scanner and every time I remember to ask her, she's not in the house. >____< And now I don't have enough time...sorry, I'll get those up as soon as I get back~

On a total side note, there's no Jump this week. Which makes me UBER UBER SAD because I wanted to at the very least find out who's playing doubles 2 before I get sent off to Cape Cod and cut off from the world for a week. T________T

[random rant] oh so close to being caught up with PoT (CHAPTER 353 SPOILERS)

2007-08-07T23:55:00.000-04:00

Lolz, I just needed somewhere to type all my thoughts out randomly without talking specifically to someone. My head's been full of Tenipuri stuff lately and it's starting to bug me, cause no one pays attention to what I say at the moment cause Emily doesn't like Tenipuri, Katie ignores me if I type anything more than like two sentences because she'll think it's too much to read, and Sarah (the only one who I think would actually care) is off at camp~
Basically my thoughts on both the current manga arc and PoT's status in America...I just wrote down whatever I thought of as it came to mind, and it's obviously not the nicest thing to read in terms of format and style, but it's not like I really care...

(oh so close to being caught up with PoT...)
...but not quite there yet, cause you see the issue is that I can only find the first two episodes of the Nationals Semifinals subbed in Chinese, and I watched the first episode but it's boring without subs so I think I'll leave the other episode until later when I actually get motivated to care about Fuji vs Shiraishi
maybe it's just cause I'm still hung up over Tezuka vs Sanada where TEZUKA LOST ZOOOOMMMG which is NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN unless it's to RYOMA but he LOST to SANADA OF ALL PEOPLE and they decided to put RYOMA against YUKIMURA which is like BAD IDEA considering it comes down to a fucking FRESHMAN (I mean, even if he is their super freshman, there's seriously a limit on how overpowered he can be) vs the fucking CAPTAIN (and best player like EVER) OF RIKKAIDAI but we all know that after doubles 2, singles 2, and doubles 1, two of them will win and one will lose so it'll come down to Ryoma vs Yukimura for the deciding match to see which team wins the Nationals and we ALL KNOW that Ryoma will win so Seigaku will win the Nationals and the series will end *TEARTEAR*
cause it'd make SO MUCH MORE SENSE to put FUJI against Yukimura (actually the best would have been TEZUKA but for some reason he ended up in SINGLES 3 even though he's the BEST PLAYER ON THE TEAM) instead of RYOMA but Fuji isn't the main character now, is he
we have yet to see Yukimura play since he's been in the HOSPITAL the whole time (being raped by a plant according to a fanfic I read =D) but we know he can do the MUGA NO KYOUCHI and he's the CAPTAIN OF RIKKAIDAI and he's BETTER THAN SANADA AND YANAGI AND EVERYONE ELSE FROM RIKKAIDAI so we know he's UBER POWERFUL so Ryoma's gonna have to pull some new moves out to beat him and add to his uber move collection
that is if he even comes in time for the match, that'd actually be really funny if he totally missed his match due to being wherever the hell he is right now while Momo and Atobe and Oshitari are looking for him
I figure since Ryuuzaki let Momo run off and look for Ryoma that means he's one of the two subs this round because I don't think she'd take the chance of losing another player and missing another match, and the other sub is obviously Taka because of his uber injuries from his last match which was really unrealistic, and when you figure that out it's pretty easy to figure the rest of the matches out, Inui and Kaidou have to be in doubles 2 because there aren't really any other good combinations with the others except the Golden Pair of course but obviously they're in doubles 1, and they should win somehow because of their goal to become "Nationals #1!", and if Inui and Kaidou are in doubles 2 and Ooishi and Eiji are in doubles 1 and of course Ryoma's in singles 1 that leaves Fuji for singles 2
I can't figure out who Rikkai's playing in their lineup though because of all the plot crap, like I really doubt Fuji's gonna play Kirihara again and stuff like that, cause that wouldn't really be as interesting, and since Sanada was in singles 3 and Yukimura's obviously in singles 1 I figure singles 2 will be Yanagi cause he's the last of the "3 demons of Rikkai" or w/e the hell they're called, but then we have the two doubles pairs and if we leave them the same then we're gonna end up with Yagyuu/Niou vs Ooishi/Eiji and that'll be boring, unless the anime of it includes the concussion that was SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN the first time but they cut it out for some odd reason along with like all of the good stuff from all the Rikkai matches in the manga like Fuji going blind and stuff like that
so maybe they'll switch the pairs around and we'll get Yagyuu/Niou vs Inui/Kaidou and Jackal/Marui vs Ooishi/Eiji, or maybe Konomi will come up with a totally new doubles pair like Yanagi/Kirihara and totally surprise us, that'd actually be pretty fun
well I bet we'll see Jirou as long as Marui plays, and that's always good cause JIROU = <333333333333333333333333

so I was thinking about Shounen Jump today and I was thinking that I wished PoT would be on the cover of an American Shounen Jump issue because sometimes non-serialized manga get on the cover like Bleach, but in order for PoT to get on the cover something important would have to happen like the movie coming out or the anime starting up again or something and then I realized that no one cares about PoT in America
it's really sad cause it's a great anime/manga and I think it could have done really well if they did it right, but they didn't and that's the problem
the manga's good, though there are some crappy changes like everyone calling everyone by their first names (no one should call Tezuka "Kunimitsu" except his family, seriously it's just weird to see the regulars call him that) it was fine, but manga isn't really as popular in the US and it wouldn't become popular with just the manga
but then the anime came over and Viz killed it, first of all they had the crappy dub with the uber uber uber crappy voices and everything else was good but the voices can ruin an anime, and they definitely did this time, I mean Eiji's supposed to sound hyper and Fuji's supposed to sound like a girl and everything else, so they totally killed the voices, and then they put it on Toonami Jetstream at first and that wasn't that good of an idea because I really don't think it's that popular, but then they put it on TV which was a good move but then they killed it by SKIPPING LIKE HALF THE EPISODES FOR NO REAL REASON, and I'm sure that confused dub-only watchers who probably had no idea what was going on, and I can understand why they'd want to get farther along in the series faster because the series starts out kinda ehhh and gets waay better later on, but skipping episodes is not the way to go, and so then they finally restarted it from the very beginning but then they took it off the air for good before they got to the good episodes!
so now people have to buy the DVDs to watch it and I don't think it's really attracting any new fans by doing that because if I was someone who only watched dub anime I certainly wouldn't want to spend like $40 on a DVD that I'm not even sure I'm gonna like and it's especially not good because they don't even release separate DVDs, only box sets, and I think that's a turn-off for people because whyyy would they want to buy a box set for an anime they're not even sure that they're going to like
or they could watch it on Toonami Jetstream, but that sucks and I don't think they keep the earlier episodes on so if you didn't see the beginning you're screwed and you'll have no idea what's going on especially because I hear they're about to hit the Yamabuki arc and by this point you don't randomly start watching in the middle, you just don't
and btw I really wanna know what Dan's gonna be like in the dub because it's DAN for god's sake and they can't keep "desu" so how else are they gonna keep his weird speech habit, which reminds me I need to see the rest of the dub in general, cause I'm interested in how they're gonna keep "daa~ne~" and the whole "duck" reference cause that doesn't work unless they dub him to say like "quack" or w/e and if they do that I'll shoot the people who came up with that crappy idea
not to mention I don't know/remember any of the voices besides the Seigaku regulars, so I gotta see how crappy the other voices are
oh dear lord I CANNOT wait until we get to Davide from Rokkaku, how the hell are they gonna work in all his puns in English
actually the manga's already that far but I'm not, I'm only up to volume 8 in the English version but I've been buying a few everytime I get the chance so I'll catch up soon, they're already at Eiji's seal step! yaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy
I forget if that's when Eiji plays Rokkaku or Rikkaidai so I don't exactly know how far the English manga is but whatever, not like it really makes any difference, Eiji's amazing and uber great yayyyyyyy
ok I think I'm finally out of things to say

[/rant]

Oh, and completely random, but virtual cookies to anyone who spots what's wrong in this manga page. xD I didn't notice it until someone told me...

[Download] Aqua Timez - ALONES

2007-08-01T22:09:00.000-04:00

Ahh, this is finally out. =) Feels like it's been forever since the first episode of Bleach that used this opening...since the first time I heard it, I wanted to hear the full song.

I downloaded this from Jpopsuki about 20 minutes ago...it's a 320kbps rip, apparently from Nipponsei. Since I'm still seeding it, I just zipped it without changing anything. I think the tags are in the original Japanese, while the filenames are romanized. There's a 500x500 cover, and two .txt files too...

Tracklist:
01. ALONES
02. 暁 (Akatsuki)
03. Mr.ロードランナー（DJ Mass'Skate Sonic* Remix）(Mr. Roadrunner (DJ Mass'Skate Sonic* Remix))
04. ALONES (instrumental)

Download~ (btw, MegaUpload has decided for some odd reason that I know enough Japanese to navigate their Japanese site. I have no idea why, but all MegaUpload pages redirect me to the same page but in Japanese...>______< At first I blamed it on the fact that I'm at a Japanese school and everything at the moment, but then I remembered that I was using the English site last week here...)

So, as I said before, I'm not a review person. But I'll try to give a bit of thought on each track...?
ALONES is the title track, and I'm absolutely in love with this song~ The full version is great, and unlike a certain other recent anime song (>_> Hero's Come Back!!...) it's just as good as the TV size. I didn't really pay any attention to Aqua Timez before this song...I just kinda ignored their releases except for the Bleach movie theme (which I didn't really like...). But hearing ALONES made me at least pay a bit more attention to their releases...I downloaded their recent single Shiori, and I really like it. =D There's one part around the middle of this song that I think doesn't really fit with the rest of the song, but it's not that bad or anything...
Akatsuki: ok, the name made me slightly giggle. Which makes no sense, cause it's not like this is related to Naruto or anything, so it means absolutely nothing that Akatsuki is also the name of the bad guys in Naruto. >____> I think this song is ok...I don't like it as much as ALONES, but I tend to think that way about most b-sides.
Mr. Roadrunner (DJ Mass'Skate Sonic* Remix)...well, it's a remix. Aaand I've never heard the original song. >___> I'm not a huge fan of remixes in general, and since I haven't heard the original yet...I kinda skipped this song. xD;
ALONES (instrumental) is...instrumental-ish...and there really isn't anything to say about it...being an instrumental and all...except that I hate when songs start out with vocals right away without an instrumental intro because whenever I try to sing them I always come in late and it screws everything up. >_______> This happens to be one of those songs. It's always the good songs, the ones I might possibly want to sing in public, but I can't because of this...

Anyway, the order with this single (and Onna ni Sachi Are limited edition B, and Egao YES Nude limited edition A) shipped yesterday, so it should come sometime next week...unlike Onna ni Sachi Are, this already came in 320kbps so I'll just upload the scans once it arrives.