Berryz Kobo Live in Bangkok

 

Well, I'm sure many of us are aware now that Berryz are playing a concert in Thailand. Bangkok, to be more precise. This, I'm sure, is great news for many of us. Great news for Berryz too. It makes the second time they have performed overseas. First Korea and now Thailand, they are well on their way to becoming the next internationaly-recognised H!P group, it seems. Or at least within Asia, anyhow. That fact evidenced by the fact that they are slated to perform at a 10,000-seating sports stadium.

As such, it would be wonderful to attend this historic concert. To support Berryz in their expansion into east Asia. And of course, to finally see Berryz live for the first time.

But this puts me in a bit of a predicament. A month before the concert I'm set to arrive in London for the 2010 Eurowota meet. However, that will prove so expensive that there's no way I'd be able to go to both. In fact, I'm not sure if I can really afford to go to London for the meet as I had set my goals on reaching Japan for a month around October. And I'm not sure if I can afford Japan after Eurowota, I definately can't afford it if I go to Thailand.

Thus, my predicament. On the Eurowota hand I get to see and meet some familiar faces from this year's meet again, as well as new faces. To this day I still think of the Eurowota 2009 meet in Stockholm as the best weekend of my life. So perhaps you understand why I want to go again. But by going to Thailand I'd get to see Berryz live, support them during their expansion and, as Cotton Cloth pointed out to me, get to see Maasa live! And then there's Japan... Well, that kind of speaks for itself. To live in Japan for a month, see concerts, experience the Japanese way of living, and hopefully learn to be a bit more independant in the process.

Then of course there is the travel itself. I love London, I've only been there a couple times in my life and it's a wonderful city. But it's still a very British way of life. By going to Thailand or Japan, I'd have the chance to see sights I've never seen before and experience a whole new culture first-hand.

Looks like I've got a bit of thinking to do, and alot of trying to balance how much money I have.

I'm trully torn.

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A Fan's Worthiness: Proving Our Worth

So I ended the last entry by talking about the different factors which come into play when we pick our favourite idols and how a member's popularity might influence that decision in order to make you blend into, or stand out from the crowd.

I don't think most people go to extreme lengths to stand out and be different. If you stand too far from the crowd you are alone and scream "Hey, look at me! I'm different!". An old Japanese proverb about society goes something like the nail that sticks out gets hammered in. And yet we go to great lengths in order to stand out, ironically enough, I believe, in order to fit in.

Consider that an idol fan has two goals in mind. The primary goal is, naturally, to support the idol by buying their products. Without this simple instinct to give to their idol, the fan is useless. This can clearly be observed in human history in the form of religion and the inherit need of it's followers to give gifts to the being, object or entity that they have come to worship as a god. Many cultures felt that the need to appease their gods by means of animal or human sacrifice, or gifts of wine, food or money. Social norms have changed and animal and human sacrifice is now frowned upon by many of today's cultures and faiths (although still present in certain beliefs) and the need of the people to sacrifice to their gods adapted with the times. Now many Churches, such as in Catholicism, accept gifts to their god in the form of money donations. And now this spiritual desire to give has been passed on into fandom at large - although in the case of this blog we'll continue to focus on idol fandom in particular.

The very word "idol" refers to an image. A picture, or a statue, in ancient times. An indeed, many peoples constructed these idols in the image of their gods in order to have a physical representation of that which they worship. It's no coincidence that the name later applied to the girls we, ourselves, worship. In earlier days of the industry the idols were presented with perfect images. Girls who could do no wrong. They were also presented with more middle-class characters. Beautiful, intelligent, entertaining. These were the perfect women. In recent years that tone has lowered, however, in an attempt to bring them closer to their fans. Noteable is the fact that ignorance and unintelligence is now found to be cute and endearing in idols, something which we can laugh at. However, during the 60s an idol with such an image wouldn't have been allowed, similiar to the way the BBC used to only employ proper-spoken, seemingly intelligent people in order to have a respectable image.

And so we worship these girls, and just as religious followers we feel compelled to give those monetary donations to our gods.

Why? I believe it has something to do with the idea that, in order to feel worthy of blessing and praise from our god, we give unto our god such sacrifices. And as such we have our secondary goal as fans, to prove that we are worthy. Although it's very possible that the primary and secondary goals are interchangable, as they are both tied to one another. We support our idols to prove our worth, and we prove our worth by supporting the idols.

Of course, proving our worth to the idols isn't the only thing we have in mind, but also proving ourselves and, ultimately, showing off to our peers. That is why all those "Post your H!P Collection" threads on various forums prove to be so popular. I, myself, post in Musume-Central's variation of the "Show off your latest purchase" thread whenever I can. I'm sure most of us do something of the sort. This isn't so much about ego, as it is about the desire for peer-approval. The idea is to be accepted. We think that, by showing off how loyal and "pious" we are, we can become accepted as worthy fans by many people. ie, become popular, to put it on blunt terms.

But why is that feeling of acceptance so important to us? Well, to answer that question we must move on from the religious metaphor and context and into Darwinist theory.

In nature evolution is fueled by the idea that the strongest will survive, and the weak will die. This applies not only to the idea that a weaker species will be killed off by a stronger, but also on a more individual level. When the males and females mate, usually males will compete for their partner in whatever way they have evolved to, wether that be a show of beauty or of strength. Either way, the best will procreate and their genetic makeup will continue, and the weaker won't. Darwinism could therefore be taken to argue that the meaning of live is just that. Procreation, passing of genes, and continuation of the species. And, just as the animal kingdom does, humans must "compete" for that right to procreate. Although human competition is far more complex and more depends on the taste and "type" of each individual as to what they regard the ideal partner to be. However, some of the more agreed upon themes are that of wealth and power as a way for members of the same sex to compete for the best of the opposite.

And so, accumulation of wealth and property proving to be a powerful tool for gaining another's approval. It could be argued that the accumulation of an impressive collection of, in this case, H!P merchandise and the subsequent show off of it is a flag and a way to prove that you are a worthy mate. Or a friend. Someone to be respected. Of course, taking it from a Darwin point of view is over simplifying the matter, there are many reasons why one builds a collection and I'm sure that the hopes of meeting and seducing members of the opposite sex (or same sex if that's more you) isn't one of the reasons at all. I'm just putting it forward as a possible explanation as to why we have evolved to feel the need to show our collection off.

One thing is certain however, by showing off the items we own to people who would be interested, we are ultimately trying to impress them to get their approval. That fits with the above Darwin theory.

This has been my two-part analysis on the behaviour of fans and how we try to prove ourselves as fans. Thank you for taking time out to read this. Any thoughts or opinions? Please drop me a comment. I'd be glad to hear your own theories and ideas on the topic.

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A Fan's Worthiness: Which Idol?

An interesting topic, to be sure. And something that all fans aspire to be - regardless of the hobby. Just as sports fans will try to prove their worth and show off their knowledge about their chosen team, we wota love a chance to prove just how well versed we are in the charms of our idols and their groups. So well documented, in fact, are the lives of these girls that it's hard not to pick up little bits of information of their lives and their personalities. Of their favourite foods and bands. Of their little quirks and recurring jokes. Gaining a new idol is like buying a brand new product, complete with all it's features and faults - not just for the fans, but for the agencies who sell these products too.

And so, continuing our product analogy in the form of, say, electronics, just how do we pick out a model that suits us from the huge product range? Hello!Project alone have an impressive arsenal of what must be over 50 idols, both retired and current. Then you take the other major organisations, such as that of AKB48 and Johnny's Entertainment, each with incredible aresenals of their own. But this is only a small portion of the market. There are plenty of smaller agencies, idols and such. Since the industry began forming in the 60s, there have been thousands of bright, young idols for fans to choose from. And, unlike regular celebrities who are often locked into a specific industry such as cinema or music, idols are much more versatile in their uses. They can do movies and dramas, animation, music, gravure modelling, television and, in some cases, adult video - each industry bringing in millions each year. For this reason I put it to you that the Japanese Idol industry is, itself, a multi-billion dollar industry in and of itself - and is in fact one of the largest in the world.

It is, however, extremely dependent on the other entertainment industries in Japan. An Idol can still exist with no ties to the music industry, but this industry itself only provides the Idols. Without the others, such as music and film, an idol industry could not exist. Luckily for us, it's existence is an incredibly stable one, and seems to be holding up in the global recession better than most - meaning our idols are safe... at least until no longer profitable.

And so, back to the topic at hand, in such a broad market how do we choose the product we want?

Well this depends entirely on who the 'customer' is, and perhaps just how new to the market they are. For example, a person who doesn't understand photography or the product market for SLR cameras might base their choice on something like resolution - in terms of megapixels. While a decent megapixel count is certainly important for a camera, it's the whole package which is important. Something you can't really put a number on. In much the same way, a newcommer to the Idol industry who, for the sake of arguement, discovered Morning Musume through their music. They are much more likely to base their initial choice of favourite member based on who can sing and whose voice they prefer. Or maybe even just based on looks.

And so, by applying the rules of the music industry alone to the group, you find that deciding on a favourite member is rather easy. You pick the one you think looks and sounds prettiest.

However. If you, like me, have been a fan for a while and have an understanding of the industry, you'll note that it isn't quite as easy as that. In this industry you can't base your choice solely on vocal talent or looks, but also on character, likeability, acting ability, whatever. Most importantly, if you can't understand and relate to your idol then you can't develop that unique wota-idol empathatic bond that is so vital to survival in the world of Idoling, for both the Idol and the fan.

Some people even take an idol's popularity into account. Choosing popular members in order to insure that they have lots of other fans to discuss even the most trivial bits of information about their idol with.  Or some might choose idols who, in their mind, are less popular in an attempt to stand out from the crowd and support an idol that they feel deserves more. It's alot easier to stand out and prove yourself as a fan when there are less people around you to drown out your voice, right?

And that brings me on to the next entry: Proving Ourselves.

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Regarding my Yurei series

First off allow me to say this has been a wonderful Halloween. I've enjoyed doing research on and watching the movies that I have been writing about over the past week. Watching these movies is great, but it's writing about them that you really come to appreciate these works of art, I envy people who get to do it as a proffession.

However, I'd like to appologise now for failing to meet the expectations that I had for myself, and had promised to meet. I promised 7 movies, and had planned to deliver. However, as it got closer and closer to the deadline for these releases I found it increasingly difficult to cope. It's a combination of factors, some of which I'm to blame for, and others which were totally outwith my own control, that meant I fell short. I had started several of them too late, which wasn't helped by the fact I fell ill for several days the week before the series were due to start being published and didn't feel up to much but resting.

And then I had to start balancing work with other places, so at some points I was having to watch the movies and write the reviews, and then do my assignments for ICU-Subs at the same time in order to get it finished and not let down the people who are waiting to work on it when I'm finished my role down - which I'm still in the middle of.

In the end I ran out of time. The last one I published, Perfect Blue, was actually completed 3 hours later than I'd hoped to have it published. I had hoped to do two more, including the Ju-on movie featuring Kago Ai, over the last 2 days. But they remain incomplete. These may pop up later sometime in the future, but not having them done when I wanted them to be I'm rather dissapointed in myself.

However, now that the Halloween week is over, my priorities will return to the usual Idol-focused blogging. Keep an eye out for the two last Yurei reviews, but I'm afraid that it may be some time before I get around to completing them now that I don't have a schedule to try keep with them.

Thank you for reading the last five, assuming you did, however. I hope you enjoyed the ones I was able to put out.

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Yurei: Perfect Blue

Another movie that isn't actually a Yurei horror, this one is interesting because it is the first, and likely to be the only, animated movie in this series.

Good evening, and welcome to part four of Berryz Kyuuden's horror week, reviewing seven of some of the greatest horror flicks to come out of Japan in the last decade or so. This time we're taking a look into the  1997 psychological mess that is Perfect Blue, directed  by Satoshi Kon and based loosely on a novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi.

And when I say "psychological mess", I mean this is one terribly confusing movie. All of the movies I've done up til now have had fairly simple plotlines, even if alot of it remained unexplained to the viewer, this movie is intended to confuse the viewer in order to put them in a similiar situation as the main protagonist who begins to suffer from mental disorder and the movie gets progressively harder and harder to differentiate between what is reality and what is all inside the mind of our 'heroine'.

The movie is also the most relevant one in the series to what this blog is about, as our main character is a young idol named Mima, who is part of a 3-nin group known as CHAM! and decides to leave the group at the start of the movie in order to pursue a career as an actress. Sound familiar?

The movie opens with a CHAM! concert, at which Mima anounces that she will be graduating from the group after the concert, much to the fans dissapointment. However she does reveal that she is to take part in a direct-to-video drama series called "Double Bind". After leaving, she is given a fanletter which says "I'm always watching Mima's room. I put up a link to Mima's room." She gets confused by this, and clearly worried about someone stalking her, peeoping into her small apartment. This isn't helped when she soon recieves a silent call, which only the sound of breathing coming from the other end. Immediately afterwards she recieves an anonymous faxed letter calling her a traitor.

Later, while on set waiting to shoot her scene in her drama, she asks her manager Rumi about what the "Mima's room" fanletter meant, to which she is reassured that it's just a website. Just as the cameras are about to start rolling on her scene, however, one of her managers opens a letter that was intended for Mima which explodes in his hands, causing him injury - though not very severe.

A few days later Rumi pays Mima a visit in order to help her set up a computer and sign up to an ISP at Mima's request - something which Mima has no understanding of, being incredibly computer illiterate (to the point where she is confused by the term "double-click"). After several hours of Rumi teaching her how to use a computer she manages to type the url for Mima's Room into the address and brings up the webpage, and discovers it to be a blog which appears to be written by her, with an uncomoftably large amount of detail in there which is both slightly personal and correct. At first she laughs, but as she reads on she becomes more worried about the possibilty of a stalker.

Mima finally succeeds in getting larger role in her drama, however the role she is given is that of a rape victim in a strip club. Rumi warns her that if she plays the part her reputation as an idol could be irreperably damaged, but she volunteers to play the part regardless - saying that she is now an actress and not an idol. However, the atmosphere and nature of the scene traumatises her when she films it. When she returns home she hallucinates that her fish died and has a breakdown, revealing that she didn't really want to do the scene but was too scared to let everyone down. She sees an image of herself in the mirror, still wearing her CHAM costume talking back to her, but when she throws a pillow at the mirror she comes back to reality and the fish are still alive.

From this point on she becomes progressively madder and madder, and can no longer tell the difference between her business life and her hallucinations. Her life is further complicated when some of the people who change her image to the new, dirty Mima are brutally murdered throughout the movie. Me-Mania, the owner of Mima's Room turns out to be incredibly disillusioned, and possibly insane himself. In fact, it seems to be a madness shared between both Mima and Me-Mania, as Mima's alternate personality, the one who is still a member of CHAM, goes to Me-Mania and convinces him that Mima is actually an imposter.

Mima soon discovers evidence that point to her being the one responsible for the murders, and as she becomes crazier and crazier she starts to doubt her own innocence, and begins to believe that she could be responsible for the murders and unaware of it because it was a different personality responsible.

Soon Me-Mania approaches and attacks Mima with a knife. He claims that she is the imposter and the real Mima has been emailing him telling him that the "imposter" is in the way. So he plans to kill her. But just as he is about to, presumably, rape her first, she grabs a hammer and hits him with it, causing him to collapse. But when Rumi finds her, Mima tells her what happened. However, when they return to where she was attacked, Me-Mania is nowhere to be found.

It then turns out that Rumi is the false diarist, the one running Mima's room who herself has gone totally insane and thinks that she is the real Mima. She attacks Mima for much the same reason that Me-Mania did - noting that he had failed her which coincides with a brief shot showing Me-Mania and Mima's manager both found dead together when she tries to call him. Mima gets stabbed by Rumi, but manages to escape by jumping off her balcony and running away through the city. Mima eventually escapes by pushing Rumi's wig off and she chases it inside a shop window, impaling herself on the glass in the process. She stumbles on to the road and is just about hit by a truck before Mima saves her life, pushing her out of the way.

Rumi is then institutionalised with dissociative personality disorder. Mima, on the other hand, managed so sort her life and goes back to her normal life, continuing as an actress.

I hope that all made sense to you, because I'm only just starting to come to terms with it all now. I've actually seen this movie once before, a couple years ago, this is the second time watching. And this is the kind of movie where much of it doesn't make sense until you see it for the second time. I guess having an understanding of what is happening and what happens later helps you come to terms with what is reality and what isn't. But much of the movie was written with the idea of keeping you confused in mind. The director wanted you too feel like you were the one suffering from this mental disorder, and if you haven't seen the movie before, I imagine you will feel as confused as I did the first time.

Now, to be honest I can't really comment on what the music was like in this movie. There is the concert scene at the start, to which the music sung was decent enough for an idol otaku like me watching, but for most of the movie I was paying more attention to the plot, becuase I was worried if I missed anything I might get totally lost. So if there was any good music, I probably missed it.

Of course, the movie is an 18, and the theme of rape was present, and indeed a pivotal point in the story. So there was the nudity and the rape themes. So the fact that this is an animated movie really paid off there, because I'm sure Japanese censorship laws would have been slightly less forgiving if this was a live action movie, also some of the special effects work really well as animation - cheaper too. But even so, keep in mind that if you plan to watch this movie this halloween, it's not a family movie. You probably shouldn't watch it with your kids or your little sister.

Be sure to chime in again for the next part in the series. It's drawing to a close. We've only two more nights to go, and to be honest with you, I've no idea what I will be watching. However, until next time, goodnight.

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Yurei: Uzumaki

Hello and welcome to night four of this serial review of some of the finest Japanese horror movies to grace our screen. This time we'll be looking at another artistic film in which symbolism features prominantly, the movie adaption of Junji Ito's Uzumaki, or Spiral.

Like many of these movies, Spiral soon went on to achieve cult status and garnered quite a following of both fans of the original manga and of film students who regularly analyse the movie's imagery and symbolism and ponder over what these mean. It's an incredible movie that I hadn't actually seen myself until it was suggested to me recently. I didn't really know what to expect, but what I found was incredible.

The movie is set in the small town of Kurozu, which seems to be inhabited by an array of unusual characters. But this only starts to be realised by our protagonist, a high school girl called Kirie, when she see's her boyfriend's father sitting in the street filming the shell of a snail with a video recorder, one of our first instances of the spiral that will later infest this movie like ants. This strange behaviour also seems to worry his son, as evidenced by the fact that he flatly asks her to elope with him, before dismissing the idea just as casually as he brought it up.

This uzumaki theme is fast continued when Kirie returns home that night to her own father, Goshima, who had just won an award for his pottery, and her boyfriend's father sitting discussing it. He ask Goshima to create a spiral-patterned platter for him, calling pottery the highest form of art and clearly fascinated by the rotation of the pottery wheel.

The next day at school Kirie is approached for the second time in two days by a male student who is stalking her, claiming that her boyfriend "is a drag" and that she should date him instead, because people would respect him more if he had a cute girlfriend. As she tries to escape from him, she proceeds onto the staircase - which, by no coincidence, I'm sure, happens to be a spiral - one student throws himself off of, killing himself. Suichi notes his father's obsession with spirals and theorises that the uzumaki was the reason the student died, and that it has taken over the entire town like a curse.

The degree of Suichi's father's obsession soon becomes evidenced when he climbs into a washing machine and is killed inside. His mother faints at the funeral when she notices whirling clouds in the sky which begin to spiral downwards, creating an effect not too dissimiliar from what a tornado looks like as it's forming. The "cyclone" spirals downwards until it hits Dragonfly Pond as Suichi's mother is being ambulanced to hospital.

While in the hospital waiting room Suichi once again tells Kirie that they need to escape the town before it's too late and the uzumaki curse gets to them. The two are then approached by Tamura Ichiro, a reporter who is curious as to why his father died. Suichi shows them the uzumaki tape that he was filming even as he died. But lots of things still remain unexplained, so he asks to keep the tape and continue to do research into the reason why the father killed himself.

The rest of the town all starts to go spiral mad. Suichi's mother develops an extreme phobia to anything uzumaki, as it reminds her of her husband and his odd obsession, and so she destroys any uzumaki she can find, including cutting her own finger tips because of the spiral-shaped fingerprints. When Tamura, who has been doing research on the case, calls them out to Dragonfly Pond to tell them his findings, they are interupted by Kirie's stalker who, distraught by the fact that she still chooses her boyfriend over him, claims "You will never forget me," and runs in front of Tamura's car, killing both in a horrific accident.

Following this Suichi's mother finally cracks when a large millipede sneaks into her room and tries to crawl into her ear and inhabit the spiral-shaped cochlea in the deepest part of the human ear. She then sees a hallucination of her husband who tells her to let him (the millipede) stay with her in that spiral part of the ear. Her spirophobia causes her to grab a shard of the smashed flower-vase, which she used to hit the millipede, and impale herself in the side of the head with it, effectively commiting suicide.

Finally the whole town succumbs to the uzumaki. The giant face of Suichi's father appears in the typhoon clouds, several of the students turn into giant snails and one self-obsessed girl's hair becomes a giant spiral pattern which extends out for several feet against gravity. And then Suichi himself, just as he and Kirie were about to escape, becomes an uzumaki, as his body begins to twist around, he then attacks Kirie and - we assume, killed her in some spiral-themed fashion.

The movie was strange and terrifying. The camera work is incredibly experimental, which obscure close up and angles, and camera motion which on multiple ocasions moves or rotates in a spiral. These all seem to be thrown in there for the sole purpose of making the viewer feel really incomfortable. There are alot of POV shots and alot of really random angles in there that really confuse you, it's not a natural style at all.

The acting is also a little forced and unnatural. Some characters like Suichi is incredibly flat and emotionless, while his father is at the opposite side of the spectrum and acts really weird and exxagerated. The only character in the movie who really comes close to acting naturally is Kirie, and ever she sometimes felt a little unusual. Nothing in this movie seems right or normal, and it's all that which comes together to create this strange, twisted movie - if you'll excuse the pun.

The movie also benefits from the fact that nothing was really explained. We know that the town is becomming obsessed with the uzumaki, and that the "uzumaki curse" is taking over, causing all manner of strange things to happen, but there is no logic or reason involved at all. It's possible that it's all happening in the mind of one of our characters, as the whole thing is certainly nightmare-ish, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

There are a lot of creepy sound effects involved as well. Particularly in the millipede scene. I've got my fair share of phobias when it comes to bugs and insects, so that scene was scary enough without the sound, but when they added that indescribably sound of the creature moving on top, it creeped the hell out of me.

Anyway, another night another movie. Be sure to check back again tommorow night for part five. Until next time, good night.

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Yurei: Ringu

Good evening and welcome to part three of Berryz Kyuuden's horrific tales and reviews. Tonight I'll be watching Hideo Nakata's 1998 adaption of the novel Ringu.  The movie was so powerful and well-recieved across the world that not only did it spawn it's own anthology of sequels, but the 2002 US remake was also well recieved enough to spawn it's own sequels, seperate from the original Japanese stories they are based on. It proved so influential that many movies made since in the J-Horror genre it helped to re-define can claim some sort of inspiration from it, either in the way the story was told, the psychological breed of horror, or the mechanics such as camera that make a movie interesting.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to review this movie. I'd be foolish to ignore it, after all, it is regarded to be one of the best horror movies ever created. But at the same time this movie has been reviewed time and time again, every Halloween for the last decade people have sat down and enjoyed this movie, reviewed it, and generated one of the biggest cult followings a horror franchise has ever had. But I decided to go beyond the cliché barrier and review it anyway, because it's one of my personal favourite films - perhaps helped in part by the fact that it was my first ever horror movie. Perhaps.

I'm still pretty young. A 90's kid. I was born in 1991, and by the time this movie was released in Japan I was only 6.  Well, it didn't come here to the west til a little later and didn't become hugely known until the US remake. But I grew up not watching horror movies. I was always more of a comedy kinda guy. It wasn't til a couple years ago that I got really interested in Ringu  from the things I'd heard people say about it. And so I watched it, and it suddenly became clear to me why people enjoy Japanese horror movies so much. Western film makers don't understand horror, but Ringu was different from all those. It was genuinely scary.

What made it so scary? Let's take a look!

The movie opens with two girls, Masami and Tomoko, discussing a rumor which has been going around about a cursed video tape, and that everyone who watched the tape died a week later. Tomoko reveals that she and some friends had spent the night at a house in Izu where they saw a strange video tape recieving a mysterious phone call immediately afterwards - events which parallel the rumors of the curse tape. At the end of the scene Tomoko is attacked by something off-camera and dies, with Masami seeing the whole thing.

Several days later, Asakawa Reiko, our movie's protagonist and a reporter who has been investigating the cursed video rumors and what the teenagers who are talking about it think learns that her niece, who happens to be Tomoko, and her friends all died at the exact same time in different locations with the same fearful expressions on their  faces. She also learns that Masami, who saw Tomoko die, was admitted to a mental hospital after going insane, noting that "she is terrified to be in the same room as a TV".

She does a little research and learns, as we were told in the opening scene, that the four victims had all stayed in a rental cabin in the Izu peninsula. Reiko then pays a visit to the cabin and finds a video cassette in the reception room, she takes the tape and goes in to Cabin B4, the same room that Tomoko and her friends had stayed in, where she watches the tape. As soon as the tape ends, the cabin phone starts to ring and Reiko realises that she too is now cursed, assuming she has a week left to live.

She goes to her ex-husband, Ryuji Takayama, for help and he, curious about the curse, decides to watch the tape himself. Reiko creates a copy for the two to study closely, and when they do they find a hidden messege in the tape written in a particular dialect from an island off the coast of Izu. The two set sail for there and learn about Shizuko Yamamura, an incredible psychic who was ridiculed by sceptics.

The two come to the assumption that her daughter, Sadako, must have created the video tape and the two return to the cabin in Izu with the intent to put her vengeful spirit to rest by finding her body. Under the cabin they find a well, which was the same well that appears at the end of the cursed tape. Racing against the clock the two try to empty the well and find her body before Reiko is killed by the curse. They find the body and Reiko survuves. They assume that the curse is lifted. However, the following day when at home Ryuji's TV turns on by itself and the ghost of Sadako climbs out from the TV, killing him the same way that all the other curse victims had died before. When Reiko tries to think of why she survived and Ryuji didn't, she remembers that she created a copy of the tape and showed it to him, something which he didn't repeat, and so she realises that the only way to survive is to "copy and paste" the curse on to someone else.

I can still remember the first time I watched this movie. I was  a little confused by how unscary it was. I was still new to the whole genre, but I felt a little on edge by the fact that the horror wasn't quite as in-your-face as I'd imagined. In fact, most of the movie nothing scary is happening at all, and then there are scenes like the well scene where there's a really tense scary atmosphere and then nothing happens. In fact, even though nothing happened that scene is one of the scariest I've ever seen in a movie. That scene was even scarier than the ending, which is more famous. It's probably more famous because it was unexpected and has since made it's way into pop culture with references all over.

Personally when I first saw this movie I loved it, but I was a little dissapointed that I felt it didn't live up to the hype. I saw it knowing that it was regarded to be one of the greatest horror movies ever made, and that ruined it a little. But my own non-understanding of the genre was also at fault there.

The curse itself in this movie has become fairly standard. A supernatural curse which causes people to die of fright after being attacked 7 days later by a vengeful spirit. But the sequels do go into greater detail and explain that the curse is actually a paranormal "Ring virus", which was telepathically transmited by Sadako when watching the tape, or something. I've said it before but I'm not much in to sequels, Ringu or not. The idea in the sequel curse is much more creative - and truer to the original novel, but perhaps explains a little too much about the mysterious curse. Especially since the movie is more about investigating what's on the tape than how the tape causes people to die.

All in all an excellent film and, while I originally felt the hype let it down a bit, one of my favourite movies of all time. Be sure to check in tommorow night for the fourth part of my Yurei horror series where I'll hopefully review a slightly less cliché movie. Until next time, good night.

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Yurei: Kairo

Hello, and welcome to night two of Berryz Kyuuden's trail of Japanese horror. This time we'll be delving into the movie Kairo, or Pulse, by another Japanese cinema legend, Kiyoshi Kurosawa. The movie was released in 2001, and served to provoke thoughts as to wether or not the digital revolution, which was well underway by this point, was really bringing the world closer together.

This movie has been reccomended to me by several people since I announced plans to write these reviews, and so I was intrigued. I'd never seen the movie before, and only heard of it by name before. I went into this movie not knowing what to expect. But whatever preconceptions I had before were very different from what this movie turned into.

This movie isn't a traditional ghost story, while the plot undoubtadly places it in that genre. The focus, rather than creating a conventional horror movie, seemed to be more on using thematic and symbolic elements to create a point. It was as much an artistic movie as it was a horror movie. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself, for now, let's discuss the plot.

The movie follows two parralel, yet contrasting story lines for most of the movie. On the first hand we have the story of Kudo Michi, a young woman working for a small company growing and selling plants in Tokyo city. One of her co-workers, Taguchi, hasn't been coming to work for several days and when she investigates by visiting his apartment she discovers him physically sound, but slightly distracted. However, when she turns her back for a moment and follows him into the next room, she discovers he has hung himself.

Then on the other hand we have the story of Kawashima Ryosuke, a student who knows nothing about computers who decides to get access to the internet "because everyone else is doing it". His computer somehow connects on it's own to a series of webcam feeds showing depressed people sitting in dark rooms. And then the words "Do you want to meet a ghost?" appear on screen. He quickly turns the browser off. But while he sleeps, the computer by his bedside randomly starts dialing-up on it's own

These two characters continue on their own paths, each fulfilling the narrative yin to the other's yang, although for most of the movie neither paths cross. Michi and her colleagues think over Taguchi's death, and how odd it was. And Kawashima seeks help from a young woman in the computer sciences department who appears to be very interested in his 'ghostly encounter'.

Michi's colleague Yabe, later that night recieves a call fromt he deceased Taguchi and just hears his voice repeating, "Help me" over and over. And so Yabe goes to pay a visit to the deceased's apartment. On the wall in the appartment in the exact spot where Taguchi had killed himself is a dark figure - reminiscent, perhaps, of the shadows burned into the ground and the walls of people vaporised in the atomic bombing at Hiroshima. When Yabe goes to leave his attention is caught by a door which has been sealed off with red tape - the so called "Forbidden Room". Curiosity gets the better of him, and he removes the tape and enters, where he is attacked by a ghostly woman.

Meanwhile, Kawashima at home experiences the same phenomena that he had before, and the computer dials up on it's own, and accesses the same webcam stream. This time he follows the advice of Harue, the girl he met in the computer lab, and makes sure to record the address of the page with a useful click of the Print Screen key. However, he quickly turns the computer off in terror after he witnesses the images of a man sitting with a black bag over his head with the words "help me" scrawled all over the walls behind him.

Following his experience in the room, Yabe becomes incredibly down and distracted. And when Michi inquires as to what happened to him, he only warns her not to enter the room with the red tape before suffering an emotional breakdown. She later recieves a call from him, with the words "help me" once again being repeated over and over, but when she arrives at his apartment in response to the call he is nowhere to be found - only leaving a mysterious black-stain figure on the wall in much the same way that Taguchi did.

Throughout most of this movie we are offered little explanation as to what is happening or why, but when Kawashima reports back to Harue, he learns that she is as stumped as he, and instead tells him to speak to another student who theorizes that the spirit world has filled to capacity with the ghosts of people from thoughout the ages, and are now spilling over into the physical world. This idea is then continued later when Harue suggests that the ghosts wouldn't want to make more ghosts, but would instead work to make mankind invisable by trapping them inside their own loneliness.

By this point red-taped doors are appearing throughout the city, and more and more people are vanishing, including Michi's boss. Her last colleague, Junko, finds herself wandering into one of them and she too is attacked by a ghostly spectre, before being rescued by Michi. But Junko also starts to feel trapped and lonely, and she too dissapears leaving only the dark figure.

As Tokyo becomes gradually more and more empty, Michi decides to run away, everyone she knows having vanished themselves. It's then she runs into Kawashima, who had been wandering the empty city searching for Harue who had gone missing. Kawashima repairs her car, and the two decide to search for Harue together, in the hopes of finding other people who have survived. When they do run in to her in an abandoned factory near her apartment, she removes a black bag from her head, like the man in the webcam feed, and shoots herself.

Kawashima then wanders into a red-taped room himself, and he is attacked by a ghostly figure who claims "Death was eternal loneliness" and pleads "help me". Michi tries to take him away, to escape and find any survivors, but Kawashima too soon fades away leaving Michi, and the Captain of the boat they escaped on, the only two survivors.

So, now that that's over with, what exactly was it that made this movie so interesting? Well, it plays heavily on the theme of loneliness and isolation to the point where I would say that is what the movie is about. The whole horror story is just a vehicle for Kurosawa to fill with these themes. And the fact that nothing is explained to the viewer, other than that which helps to create that theme, throughout the movie. When Taguchi died, Kurosawa made no attempt to explain why this character had killed himself. It just happened, no warning, no explanation. That helped to create a strange feeling of horror about the whole situation. If the character had been psychotic and gone around stabbing our main characters, that wouldn't have been nearly as frightening as how random and mysterious Taguchi's death was.

Then there's the ghosts. Our characters don't try to investigate what is happening, they don't try to stop it from happening, they are regular people trying to survive alone in an emptying city. And because we only see these characters we have no idea of the scale of what is actually happening, until the end of the movie when they drive through the streets of Tokyo and not a single soul is around. That is uncomfortable, because you start to realise just how alone the characters actually are, and just how global this phenomena has actually become - rather than just a local ghost haunting. Even after the movie is over we have no idea just how widespread the effects have become - although we're given a clue when a military plane flies overhead and crashes into the city, explosion and all - the pilots having apparently faded into loneliness and isolation with the rest of humanity.

The soundtrack for the movie is also incredible. It's just as empty as the streets. Very little of the movie has any background music whatsoever, and the silence is eery.

In fact, everything about this movie was more artistic than anything else. The camera work, with the ghosts being purposely blurred and out of focus, as though not quite there. Even some angles and styles that many conventional directors might not make use of, including masking shots and one scene where the camera is unfixed turns between Harue and a computer screen, rather than cutting directly to each shot, it shows the transition.

The movie is artistic and thematic, which makes it interesting and a good movie I'd reccomend, because it's through these themes that it becomes scary. But even as far as Japanese horror movies go it's unusual. Something which you wouldn't expect to be scary is because the acting - which might I add wasn't too great; characters seemed a little unresponsive at times - and the diricting, writing and editing all came together to create a style that was chillingly minimalist.

Anyway, be sure to check again tommorow for the third part of this series. Until next time, goodnight.

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Yurei: Chakushin Ari

Here we are, about to embark on a 7-day Japanese horror marathon to celebrate the horror season, brought to you by yours truly. I'll be watching a total of seven Japanese horror movies, some of the most famous and highly-regarded ever made. 7-days, 7 movies, 7 reviews. This is Berryz Kyuuden's Yurei.

Now obviously I'm limited to what I can do, there are many great movies out there and only doing seven will mean that many great ones will be missed out. The list of movies I review is in no particular order nor intended to be a "Top 7" list, it's merely the movies I watched this halloween.

So, let's get this review down!

Today, I'm starting things off with an incredibly scary movie. Chakushin Ari, or One Missed Call, a fairly recent addition to the hall of fear. One Missed Call was released in cinemas in 2004, having been directed by Japanese cinema legend Takashi Miike. So, with that in mind I went into this with decent expectations. It should be said, however, that I'm not a big fan of horror movies. In fact, I've typically avoided them in the past. It's only in the past year or so that I've taken a passing interest in Japanese horror. There are some directors, though, whose reputation preceeds them.

So, any movie is only as good as the idea that gives way to it. The plot for this movie is, as with most horror films, pleasently simple. People mysteriously start receiving voicemail messages from their future selves, in the form of the sound of them reacting to their own violent deaths, along with the exact date and time of their future death. Yumi, our story's protagonist, with the help of Yamashita, whose sister had fallen victim to the 'curse' some 6 months prior, search for the answers to the stange happenings.

The plot sounds simple, and it is. As the story progresses, however, the story gets progressively more complex. At no point does the story ever reach the point where you should be confused by it, however. The story was linear enough that it's easy to follow.

Allow me to breifly sum up the story for you, if you don't like spoilers than it might be wise to watch the movie before reading the next paragraph, or to skip ahead.

When two of Yumi's friend's are killed, both of them having recieved the mysterious phone calls, she gets progressively more and more worried. The police had the deaths down as suicide, but she, naturally, has difficulty believing it - especially after she see's one of them killed in front of her own eyes. Kenji, who was pulled down an elevator shaft to his death by an invisable force. When she and her friend Natsumi spend the night together - clearly still shaken up about the earlier two deaths. Natsumi phone rings. The same ringtone that all previous victims have heard when the fateful phonecall comes. This time not just a voicemail was included, but a video message showing her own horrific death.

She is quickly approached by TV crews who attend to broadcast a live show as her hour nears. Including a live debate between experts on paranormal activity and sceptics. Then an exorcism. However, the exorcism fails and the studio descends into chaos as Natsumi's death prediction comes to light in what is, perhaps, the most horrific scene in the entire movie.

Yumi is the next to recieve the call. When Yamashita tells her to return back to her family, she refuses out of fear of her abusive mother. She continues to help Yamashita uncover the truth of the mysterious phone calls. And, following up on a few leads, visit the old house of Marie Mizunuma, who has been missing for 6 months. Who they believe to be the ghost responsible for the murders. This eventually leads them to the old hospital, where Marie's body is found, charred and burnt, with her cellphone close by. But the corpse attacks Yumi, and when Yamashita tries to help he is locked out of the room. Yumi see's her own abusive mother in the corpse of Marie and swears to not run away any more.


Anyway, that's most of the plot. There is another 15 or so minutes to the movie, but I shan't post spoilers to the ending here.

The film itself starts off pretty weak, but gets gradually scarier as it goes on. The horror, though, acts very typically when it comes to J-Horror in that it comes and goes in an eb-and-flow fashion. You'll get one scary scene, then 10 minutes with nothing scary, then another one. Each time getting progressively scarier until peaking at the climax of the film.

Unfortunately the climax of this movie was a little juxtapositioned. Ordinarily you'd expect the climax and then the ending. But in this movie the climax came at the hospital, after which we're meant to believe the movie is wrapping up. But the writers had one last scare for us in store with a plot twist that was clever - however anti-climactic for a scene that just followed some 20 minutes of film that was already significantly scarier and felt like an ending in and of itself.

If they had left it there, it would have worked fine, but what they did do is bring something new and interesting to the plot, which is certainly welcome. But made it difficult to feel any great sense of fear, which the scene would have benifited from. Some may say that it could have been intentional - to help create a greater feeling of unease around an already unusual scene. But I just think it was a disaster.

Then again, there aren't many movies out there which have satisfying endings. The middle of the movie is always the best part, and once you start to slow down to close the movie the audience can tell it's nearly over and start to switch off.

Of course, no horror atmosphere would be complete without a great soundtrack. Unless you are going for a minimalist approach where the lack of music creates a scarier atmosphere than having music. Which kind of movie was this? Well, it had music, but most of it was pretty forgettable. Maybe this was because it was so well used and effective that it drew you in and just don't really notice it's there. It would be pretty annoying if you are trying to get into the movie and the music keeps bringing you out of it and reminding you that you are indeed watching a movie.

But there was one piece of music that was unforgettable - in fact, perhaps that was the reason the rest failed to attract my attention, it was all overshadowed by this simple tune. The ringtone. It was used to great effect in the movie, whenever a person would recieve their "death call", their cellphone would always ring with the same tune. By the end of the movie you feel traumatised enough that just hearing the tune will take you back and remind you of the movie.





And now, most important for any ghost movie, is the ghost that haunts the protagonists. Was she scary? Well, for most of the movie you don't actually see the spirit. It is just that. A spirit. Totally invisable, and manipulates objects (such as one shot where we see the buttons on  a cellphone being pressed by some invisable force) and people, like the various deaths in the movie, with 'hands' that aren't really there.

It isn't till the hospital scene that we finally get a glimpse of our ghost in, what I personally found to be the scariest moment in the whole movie, where Yumi is alone in the dark, deserted hospital with the spirit. And down the corridor you see a jar being pushed into view from around the corner, and then again in various places around her and one is finally placed right in front of Yumi. I'm not sure what the jars contained, but for me that just made the whole thing even creepier. Not to mention the only sound heard was the sound of that jar being dragged across the floor. But it was here that we glimpse the hands of our spirit. I've not the most fearless person in the world, but it certainly gave me the chills. Shortly after we see the whole creature, which was pretty terrifying too, but without that mystery of who or what those hands belonged to, or the dread of having to find out, I felt that a whole layer of fear towards this 'creature' had been eliminated. But it was the next stage in the horror, and definately gave off it's own feeling of dread and dispair.

This movie was so well recieved that it was enough to spawn, not one, but two sequels. Now horror sequels are something I don't generally like. With the preassure on it to improve on the first film which, if it was good enough to warrent sequel movies, isn't an easy task then it will usually fail to live up to the expectations created by the first. And I haven't seen either of the sequel Chakushin Ari movies yet, but I have heard that the second movie was even better than the first. Maybe I should add it to my "to watch" list.

Either way, tune in tommorow night for another Japanese horror review. Until next time, goodnight.

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Discovering Mirai

SHIDA MIRAI - the beautiful actress who I've recently taken a shine to. Why? Well, originally because of her striking resemblance to a certain other idol whom I have been known to worship. Sudou Maasa.

I was first introduced to Mirai when a group of us began trolling the Download Festival forums*. At that time there was one thread in particular we invaded, their so-called "Post pics of respectable wimminz" thread. We noticed a huge lack of Japanese Idols being posted. We took matters into our own hands and started posting pics of various H!P members. We started off taking it very seriously, trying to outdo eachother and annoy the boardies at the same time. And then it took an interesting turn - we decided to try find out what exactly we could get away with. They accused sswishbone of posting underage girls when he'd post a bikini shot of a 19-year old Reina. We took it upon ourselves to start posting actual underage idols. Bikini shots of Risako. Bikini shots of Airi.

There is a funny story there, actually. Just to see what would happen I posted that infamous picture of 11 year old Saaya Irie. Following that a user on the forum posted "That's just too far, that girl 2 posts up is only 10 years old!" I thought I'd been busted, then I read the post a second time and noted that he was actually referring to the post above mine - which was, once again, a 19 year old Tanaka Reina. So posting pictures of the petite Reina (19) is more controversial than the picture of big-breasted Irie (11)? Incredible.

*As for why we were trolling those boards... We'd heard rumours about how they make fun of wota, and on the first night we'd probably had a bit to drink, so Krv and I decided to register and start trolling - although it was subtle trolling. Like a game of bogeys, the longer you could last before you just got banned the more fun it would be, we thought. We had so much fun we went back every night for about a week - ultimately getting their wimminz thread (which had before we arrived amassed 45 pages of posts) deleted. Although that wasn't us. They got so annoyed with all the asians that they posted porn to get the thread deleted. Incredible.

We don't normally go trolling. It just felt like a crusade against wota-haters.

But anyway, I'm rambling. Back to Mirai!

At one point during our little secret crusade, Krv posted a few pics of Shida Mirai. I was amazed. That girl looks just like Maasa. I found out who she was, and ran a search on her. Damn. Not an Idol. She is, however, an actress, and Krv reccomended 2 or 3 of her dramas to me. Being a Drama fan, I couldn't pass the opportunity to see dramas starring a Maasa look-alike, and so I started watching her first drama, Jyoou no Kyoushitsu or The Queen's Classroom. She didn't look much like Maasa back then, instead I noted her resemblance to Okai Chisato, but I kept watching because the Drama was good. For a cast full of child actors, the acting was well done and the script well written.

It's interesting to note, however, that my favourite character in this drama wasn't Mirai's, but Fukuda Mayuko's character Shindo Hikaru. Hikaru-chan was adorable.

So I finished that drama, moved onto the next, and then the next, and so on. I've since seen every drama she's starred in (not including guest appearences for an episode or two) up to last year's Seigi no Mikata, a romantic comedy about an evil sister who treats her little sister like a slave.

By that point, though, I'd stopped seeing her as a Maasa look-alike and started seeing her as Shida Mirai. It was far too distracting to watch a drama and see Mirai make a certain face that would pull me out and cause me to say, "Wow. She looked so much like Maasa there!" It really stopped me from enjoying the drama and Shida's performance as an actress.

She has a new drama airing next month based on the children's book A Little Princess. I'd never heard of it before, but it's supposedly quite a famous one having spawned various Musical and Movie adaptions the world over. Either way I can't wait to see the new drama. If it's good enough to have so many adaptions, Shida Mirai can only serve to make the story more accessible for people like me who have never read the original or seen the various adaptions.

Anyway, to quench the thirst for more Mirai in the meantime, yours and mine, lets enjoy some footage from her UTB photoshoot.

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The Kohole Begins to Collapse!

Another round of graduations, the likes of which H!P has never seen before. The Miracle Girl is leaving. This is too much. There's nothing left for me here now, UFA have gone too far and have doomed themselves and all of us.

Okay, I don't actually think that, I'm just poking a bit of fun at Hello!Online who react the same way every time a graduation is announced. Koharu is leaving in the hopes of becoming a model. It's not the end of the world, not yet anyway. In fact, it's a good sign!

Don't get me wrong, Koharu is my favourite Morning Musume member and it's saddening to see her being the first to graduate. But at the same time is wonderful. Morning Musume has been in dire need of a lineup change for over a year now. The lineup may be the best one Musume have ever had, and definately the most stable. But that stability wears on the fans - me in particular. Morning Musume was built in a revolving door system of graduations and auditions, and to me that's how it should always continue. The girls are far too safe. It's boring to see the same thing every time. No auditions. No graduations. Reina/Ai getting all the lines.

Koharu has bravely stepped into the breach and become a hero, a martyr if you are so poetically inclined. She's the Miracle girl alright, and people are fools for doubting it.

Despite the fact that my favourite member is leaving, I think Morning Musume can only become more interesting and improve now that the lineup is finally changing again. Auditions in the near future? Both Ai and Tsunku have hinted at possible auditions - although not likely to occur this year. Any predictions on when they might be? We could set up a wager pool - closest guess wins!

Anyway, Koharu is set to graduate at the end of the current tour on December 6. Better get your tickets quick, because that'll be a grad concert to remember!

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Finally became a member!

Back in June, I got a wonderful idea. I wanted to join the Hello! Project Fanclub. "Don't you need a Japanese postal address to do that, Dran?" is what I can hear you all asking. And you are right, in order to join the Hello!Project Fanclub you require a Japanese postal address - something alot of people don't understand why. I didn't either. But now that I'm a member it all makes sense. More on that in a minute though.

Anyway, needless to say, I do not live in Japan nor do I have a Japanese address. But I'm not the first foreigner to join the fanclub right? So there must be a way. I researched a few methods. From what I understand Himalia from Hello!Online uses a PO Box as his address and does everything through that. That's a fair system, but it wasn't going to work for me. That would be rather expensive and ultimately you need someone in Japan to collect and forward the mail you get. So that idea was out. What I needed was a proxy buyer/seller in Japan. And that's what I used. Celga offer to join various different fanclubs for you. You pay the price and they send do everything for you, using their own warehouse as the address on your FC membership ID. Some of you may have used them in the past to buy concert tickets or to bid on Japanese auctions. I hadn't used them, I'd only seen a couple decent reviews and when I emailed them asking if they could join the H!P FC for me, they were more than happy to. Just fill in a simple form on their site, which is actually too simple. So simple it was confusing. You use their webshop order page and put in the URL to the item, the number you want and the price, and then you have two big boxes to put information in. Namely information like what colour or size of the item you are buying is - obviously confusing what to put in there for a FC membership. And then there's a second box for additional info. I just filled it with any info they may need and sent it off.

So Celga ask for a 100% deposit. Namely you pay the exact value of the item up front, and then you pay for the cost of the shipping and Celga's own commission etc later. I had alot of trouble with this. That part was relatively easy, but later on they charged me multiple times for items I had already paid. A couple emails and it set them straight, but when they did it a 3rd time it started to get annoying. Don't let that deter you from using Celga though, they have great service. Lolli over at omame.co.uk and I both ordered this FC membership at the same time (and as such both were carried out simultaneously) and as far as I'm aware she didn't have any trouble. My own trouble, it seems was caused by the fact that my account email and Paypal are different. I don't have my own PayPal account, I use my dad's. And so when I would pay the deposit it would be from my dad's Paypal, but the account is under my own email address. This meant my payment details were all under two different emails on the system and caused alot of trouble. So be warned of that.

Celga took care of everything for me however. They do all of it. Send away for the forms, fill out the forms, and send them back. I can't imagine trying to do that myself without understanding a word of written Japanese. And this brings me to why the fanclub isn't open to overseas addresses. For a start, it's all in Japanese. No english. No romaji to help you either, Japanese people don't use romaji and a student of Japanese will tell you that romaji is only really used at the start of your lessons to help you learn the vocabulary and the sounds. Sooner or later you will need to learn hiragana/katakana. But that's another topic for another day. Bottom line is, if you don't read and write Japanese, you have no hope of filling that form out. Second of all, and the most important reason is the distance. The fanclub is old fashioned. You can not apply online. Everything is done via old-fashioned snail-mail. That's right. The post. It took 2 and a half months from me placing my order for the membership to me recieving that email saying I'd become a member. 10 weeks! And that was a process done almost entirely within Japan. Can you imagine how long the process would last (and how expensive for the company) if they had to do this with someone 6,000 miles away in the US?

Exactly. It would cost UP FRONT a lot of money to run such a fanclub. We gaijin fans are just not worth the money it would cost. At least not yet.

A time may come when they update their system or become big enough in the US that the doors open to a western fanclub, either a part of the official fanclub we already have or a new sepereate one all together. But for the time being, there isn't any profit in doing so, so UFI won't.

Anyway, 2 days ago I recieved an email from Celga. Apparently something had arrived for me from the H!P Fanclub. I haven't had that shipped to me yet, but I presume it's my Fanclub members' card. I was thrilled! So much so that I totally forgot that I had slept 2 or 3 hours in the couple of days before. I was exchausted. Then I heard the news, and felt energized. I decided that it was a good day because of all the other good news I felt had happened around the same time. The news of the Tokunaga Chinami photobook. It wasn't announced that day, but my blog post was published that day. And then that same afternoon my Love Machine figure set arrived. And my dad came home from a family visit to Sunderland with my ticket to Video Games Live this year in Gateshead. (Anyone going to this? Might be a good oppertunity to meet up and have a fun time with H!P and beer!)

All in all it was a good day, I feel.

But this morning, when I woke up, I awoke to an email from Celga which told me my FC ID and password. I now have access to the website. The store. The FC messages. The event tickets. It was a grand experience! So many things there I want on the store, but must resist the urge to buy that personalised photo from Umeda Erika celebrating her graduation. It's a nice memento, but one that clocks in at 20,000 JPY. Money which I can't really afford to spend at the moment. It's a shame to miss it, but can't be helped. A personalised message from Maasa, mind, I'd buy that up quick, and I hope to see one for sale over the next year. (But preferably not as a graduation memento!)

Right. Without trying to make this end sound too much like a LJ entry, it's getting late now. 2AM. I'm tired. Time to sign off and perhaps continue this tale - assuming there is any left to tell - another day.

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Chinami First Photobook!

Is it true? Is it actually freezing over in Hell? Well, looking at this hot new photobook will certainly thaw it out!

That's right, children. Chinami becomes the latest addition to the list of H!P idols to get a photobook. It's due for release in 9 days on the 11th. Her photobook closely follows a certain other member's photobook in the way it's been released.

Six months ago, on the first day in March we received news that shook the world. Sudou Maasa would get a photobook. We were given less than 2 weeks to preorder all our copies and get excited about it before it's release on the 11th.

Wait. All that sounds familiar. Isn't that what is happening now, six months after Maasa's? The dates are all matched up, hell, even the bikini on the cover doesn't look all that different. Sure, the colour and pattern are different, but the basic shape is the same. This is a copycat photobook! I'm onto your plan, Chinami! You can't fool me.

And if history really does repeat itself we should have a preview on DohhhUP! of the PB around this time next week. I look forward to seeing weather my predictions are accurate or now. But assuming they are accurate. Would it be far fetched to presume that 6 months from now, on the first of March, we'll hear news that Captain is to release her first photobook? She is the 3rd member of the "back three" as it were, and the only Berry now without a photobook - and to be honest, the member after Maasa that I most wanted to see a photobook of.

Anyway, judging from the wonderfully colourful cover of Chinami, as it appears to have been called, I think we can safely predict this to be an epic photobook and a well worthy look at what Chinami looks like in a Bikini.

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Nostalgia: A Year in Blogging

It's been a while. Berryz Kyuuden's first birthday and my first anniversary in the blogging world has come and gone. My 10,000th visit is on the horizon. Then I have the Church of Maasa blog which has also gotten it's fair share of readers in the last 9 months. These are incredible feats in and of themselves. I've really come a long way. Blogging is a difficult pastime, and generally a thankless one. But it's riddled with those little moments that make you think, "Yeah. It's great to be a blogger."

13 months ago I was just a forumer and a big fan of Hello!Project. But I wasn't at all known outside of Musume-Central. I'd made a mark there, a sizable one in fact. I'm one the longest serving active members on the forum - perhaps part of the reason seek saw fit to make a moderator. But the truth is even then only a small group of people knew me. On Hello!Online I was still a no-name poster with a dozen posts in the Sudou Maasa member thread. Now I'm a no-name poster with approaching 200 posts in that thread. But it was through the occasional visit there that I stumbled across Shirow and his blog, Wotaku Now!

After reading his blog I became a fan. I loved his writing style and I became inspired. "I'll create my own blog, and be like Shirow!"

Well, okay. I didn't quite sound like I was 7 years old, but you get the idea. Anyway, I created the blog and, luckily, I already had a name decided. I had originally tried to create my own Berryz fan site long before the blog and had named it "Berryz Palace", the English translation of Berryz Kyuuden which is, like the blog's name, taken from Berryz Koubou's 2007 Summer tour which was and still is my favourite concert to date. Well, that site and the idea to continue it was long since dead and when creating this blog I decided to go with a similar theme and gave it the same, or rather, related name. I wrote my first entry, then a second.

I decided to give the blog a bit more interest I needed a cooler theme. That's where my good friend Liamers came into it all. He's a top-notch graphics artist and I'd known him since he joined and became active on Musume-Central at the end of 2007. I can't remember if he offered or if I asked him to make the banner, but he did. And Liamers' work has adorned the top of my blog ever since as one image or another. I wonder, can you remember the first Berryz Kyuuden theme which Liam helped me create? Here is the banner which sat at the top of the page back then.

Ah, now that brings back memories. The blog looked much darker back then. Kudos to Liam as that must have been a pretty difficult image to work with that I gave him. But he still managed to create that elegant, yet magical, header I was looking for. I believe it was ripped from the back cover of the Berryz Kyuuden concert photobook and is the only theme to date that actually featured a pic from the Berryz Kyuuden concert in the header. I loved the costumes. And that spotlight on Captain.

I had that theme for quite a while. But it eventually got quite boring to look at. The whole blog was in that dark purple colour and made the blog quite dull and boring to look at. I opted for brighter colours and thought they would improve the blog. In the end this culminated into me giving Berryz Kyuuden a plain white background and the original version of the header you see at the top now. That time we decided to go with something more simple and reminiscent of a comic book. Although the header was edited by me recently. The image is still the same, but I simplified it a bit so it didn't interfere with my most recent theme change (more on that later). Anyway. I'd like to think that lightening the theme had a positive impact on the blog, but I can't really be sure.

What do you think?

For the early days however, traffic to the blog was minimal. It wasn't until that first write-up on International Wota by maiZe (CK later started covering my blog on there) that my blog got attention. Suddenly I was getting views. I was thrilled! View count may just be a number, but when you first start out blogging you watch that number every day hoping that more people are going to read what you have to say. And every little milestone you feel the need to celebrate. 100 hits? It's a miracle! Working up from a grassroots beginning is difficult but a satisfying process no matter what you are working on. And when my blog started to get acknowledged, not just by the IW community at large, but by Shirow himself - the man who had inspired me from the start... I was overjoyed! I began to feel that I had accomplished something.

Since then I began to make a name for myself. People would come up to me on various sites and IRC and say, "Hey, you're Dran from Berryz Kyuuden, right? I read your blog!" I must say that this is quite the ego boost. Nothing makes you happier than knowing that people read your blog, especially when those people can take something away from it. Really, that's the goal of any writer. Reading the occasional comments you people leave on my blog always cheers me up. My entry "An English-language guide to wotagei" sparked such an amazing response, it still gets the occasional comment today, several months after it was posted.

Anyway, the new theme? It's very much the same as it was before. But I've added in a nice little touch, namely those background pictures. So far I have 7 Berryz ones which will display at random every time the page is loaded. I hope to add more over time. There are still a few bugs I have to roll out at higher resolutions, but ultimately I'm rather proud of the whole affair. Let me know what you think. I honestly don't know why it took me a year before I thought of it.

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Mai Hagiwara First Photobook

Well, the news surfaced in the recent issue of UpToBoy magazine. Hagiwara Mai would be the new member to get her first photobook, and the 3rd member of C-ute to get one so far. Due to the very nature of this topic, I'm almost treating it as a continuation of my last entry on junior idols. I'm very much looking forward to this photobook, I'm sure there are others out there who feel the same.

However, I've yet to come across many of those people. So far I've seen a huge negative response to this news. From both the same conservative people who say that 13 is way too young to be shooting photobooks. My own opinion on that topic is fairly well documented in my last entry and on various topically-related threads on the Musume-Central forums. I could spend the next 5 paragraphs talking about my opinion on Junior idols and photobooks, but ultimately I'd just be repeating the same things I've said half a dozen times before - and the people in the conservative camp don't want to hear any opinion different from their own anyway. Interestingly, however, there is another group entirely who are dissapointed by UFA's decision. Who? Those hardcore C-ute fans who say, "Why couldn't it have been Nakky instead?" While it's true that there are plenty of H!P girls who don't have a photobook to their name yet, and no doubt deserve one, while certain other girls are pumping out their 4th... does all that even matter?

Ultimately the news that any idol is getting her first PB is great. Wether it is MaiMai, Maasa or Chisato, it's news to be rejoiced. "But this girl needs one more" arguements don't really hold much value. We already know that your favourite PB-less idol deserves one, but why should we let that take away from and ruin someone else's favourite's first PB? Right? Right.

Anyway. The Photobook is due for release on the 10th of October. As far as I'm aware it's currently untitled. Either that or her name is the title, which is pretty common for an idol's first PB so it wouldn't surprise me. I haven't seen it available for preorder on YesAsia yet, but I'll keep an eye out.

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Young Idols and Fans (Berryz Kyuuden Version)

Okay. So about a month ago yonasu did the first entry in his Wota Life series, where he questions several IntlWota bloggers about different aspects of their Japanese Idol hobbies to try and get a look into what wota are like and what these bloggers think about various issues and topics. It's an interesting read and I suggest you check it out and keep an eye out for future Wota Life entries. I know I am.

http://www.yonasu.com/wota-life-young-idols-and-their-fans/

So, I enjoyed the entries and reading what my fellow bloggers had to say on the topic - it also came at a very interesting time because when it was posted we were right in the middle of debate over on Musume-Central forums about the very same topic. So it felt incredibly relevent to me at the time and I decided that, even though I'm not one of the people in the Wota Life entries, I wanted to pitch my own opinions none the less.

At what age do you think it's appropriate for an idol to start doing bikini shots?

This is an interesting one, and was the point of debate on Musume-Central. This is something I can't really put a number to. To begin with the question on M-C was "How do you feel about young idols doing photobooks and what age is reasonable?" Well. I held a firm stance and repeatedly said that young idols getting photobooks don't bother me. 12 year old idol wants to release her first photobook? Power to her. It depends on the content of the book, after all, Yossy had 2 photobooks with no bikinis or swimwear what so ever, can you really look at them and say, "That'd be too much for a 12 year old"? No? That's what I thought.

But what happens when the photobook contains bikini shots? What do I think then? Once again it depends entirely on content. I've used this as an example before. Yurina, aged 14, in a swimwear photobook? You may think that's way too young for that kind of photobook, but look at the picture. It is the kind of costume that looks good no matter what age the girl wearing it, be it 12 or 18. It's not something you really have to feel uncomfortable about. I call that photobook CLEARED!

However, I'm not 100% liberal about this. Some things may be stepping a bit over bounds. Take a look at this picture. And before you get too comfortable looking at her, know that this girl is Saaya Irie, a junior gravure idol. That's right, the photobook that picture was scanned from was shot when Saaya was 11 years old. This is the grey area in my mind. Is there really much difference between this and Risako's first PB? It's a junior idol getting a photobook. Risako's is, unlike Saaya's, not normally considered "gravure" and when you compare the two it's easy to see why the distinction is made. But ultimately, do the people who look at Saaya look at Risako for the same reason? I'm sure some do, but I can't in good faith condemn the wota world based on that group of people. It'd be like banning dogs as household pets because a couple of people mistreat the animal.

Ultimately, while gravure junior idols is a bit of a dodgy market and there are those out there who will view these junior idol photobooks in an equally dodgy way, I'm gonna call them fair game. It isn't the idol's fault, or indeed her concern, what those people do with the photobooks they purchase. She's just doing the job she loves which is perfectly innocent. It's only dirty if you yourself bring dirty meaning to it.

What do you think of older (30+) fans looking at young idols in a sexual manner?

Like I said above, it's those fans' own choice what they do with those photobooks and, to a certain degree, the manner in which they view their idol. Much of it may even be psychological and not even their own fault. However, in the end if falls to the fans in question and, unless you are one of those fans yourself, it isn't really anything to concern yourself with. Focus on your own fandom and they way you view these idols, not on others' fandom.

However, I do know many people who may or may not fit into this category and it doesn't make them any less human. They are great people and fun to be around. In fact, to a certain level, perhaps even more fun than those who worry about that kind of thing. If one of them makes an off-hand joke about how cute or sexy Airi is, and everyone can enjoy it, without having to worry about wether or not your company are too closed-minded or sensitive to have fun in those situations then that freedom to say what you want turns out to be incredibly powerful.

Is it just as bad to look at young idols if you’re 20 years old? Does it make it weirder if you’re 30+?

In the end, age is just a number. If you enjoyed idols when you were twenty and still have a good time when you're thirty then power to you.

Who’s the youngest idol you’ve ever been a fan of and what made you become this idol’s fan?

Tough one to answer, simply because of the scale and time period involved. It might have been later in the idols career by the time I discovered them, but I discovered them via clips from when they were 14/15 years old. Yossy for example, my first favourite. I didn't discover her nor Hello!Project until the start of 2007, by which point she was already an adult. But I discovered her watching clips (and most of the stuff I was into back then was from the same era) from 2001 etc.

I will choose Sugaya Risako as my answer, though. I became a fan of her through watching Berryz Koubou's Time Slip stage play, in a way. That was actually what led me to become interested in Berryz and Maasa in particular. It took quite a while afterwards for me to regard myself as a fan of Risako, because I was biased against her from a Maasa fan's perspective of "Stop stealing Maasa's spotlight!" However, months of Berryz fandom and even those prejudices begin to collapse as you begin to soften to the girl's character and her voice. It was inevitable.

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