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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