Please sign here, sir...

The newest addition to my H!P collection arrived today, just thought I'd share the news with you all. One night Liamers and I were browsing the Yahoo Auctions, and came across a ton of signed H!P goods. Most of them were signed baseballs (a Rakuten Eagles promotion), but we also found this...

That's right. A "photocard" signed by all 8 members of Berryz Koubou. I'd never seen this before, and I assume it's a rare item, so I asked Himalia over at Hello!Online to get it for me, I think he gets items from the Fanclub store and Yahoo Auctions for people frequently. All in all it cost me £70 for the item and the shipping. The item itself was only 5000en. But for a complete set of Berryz signitures (and 8 cute pictures to boot), I feel it was money well spent. I'm insane for buying it, I know, but I'm somewhat proud of myself.

I do, however, find the "Not for sale" printed on the right side of the card to be somewhat ironic.

So, readers, share your H!P autograph collection with the rest of us. Show off what you have. I'd love to see them.

Read more »

Instrumentals & Karaoke

Some time ago, in fact, back in July or something, I came up with the idea of posting H!P Instrumentals to YouTube, and since I didn't have the needed software to create a .kar file, I opted to take the ready-subbed PVs from Hello!Fansubs. That way the vids already had the PV and the Karaoke effects on the romaji (+kanji), they just need the instrumental put in, and I have my karaoke vid!

So I downloaded Berryz Koubou's Kokuhaku no Funsui Hiroba, which H!F had already subbed. And worked with a video editing program (Was before I got Sony Vegas Pro, so I was working with WMM) and tried to get the timing of the instrumental track I was overlaying ontop to match the video perfectly. Took me about 20 minutes of careful tweaking. I think I got it pretty damn close. So I uploaded it to YouTube and went through the same process again with Piriri to Yukou!

Following that I asked SacredCultivator for permission to do it with more videos. He mentioned something about the fact that for Veoh, all you have to do is download and change the audio option from 1 to 2. Like changing the language spoken in a DVD. (Which on YouTube you can't do yourself.) Well, I'll be damned. After all that, and I didn't even have to add the instrumentals myself, that had already been done. Anyway. SacredCultivator agreed to let me do the rest, but he asked that I create a seperate YT channel for that purpose.

I created HFInstrumentals. And it has since seen a few videos be uploaded, but has been fairly inactive. But I'm working on it again, and have already uploaded a few videos over the last 2 or 3 days. So I'm inviting you to come check it out. Especially if you're the kind of fan who likes to sing with the instrumentals. *wink*

I guess that's all I wanted to say. Ja ne!

Read more »

ADULTISM

First off, my apologies for not updating either this blog or the Church of Maasa for well over a month. Throughout most of December I was bed-ridden with a bad case of the flu. But I'm back now, and what an entry to come back with!

It's recently been announced that Kago will make her come-back with this new Photobook. From National Idol and MiniMoni member to Gravure model, Kago will be appearing in a "semi-nude" photobook, due for release on the 23rd of January.

From what I can tell from Forum and BBS posts, reception for this news has been pretty polarised. With many female residents saying "I don't like this new Aibon", and with the majority of male residents, like myself, excitedly awaiting more previews, and ultimately the release of the photobook. The latter is my own perspective, and the perspective this entry will assume. If such a thing offends you in any way, don't read, and don't flame in the comments section.

Ai has become famous in recent years for her scandal - underage smoking and dating an older man. And with this new photobook, I think it's very likely that she has been trying to show the world that she isn't the 13 year-old Minimoni anymore, and has matured into a woman. And, let's face it, posing for a nude (even semi-nude) photoshot is definately one way of going about that, it may or may not be the best method, but a method still. Of course, she later came to regret dating that man and in a recent interview said that after turning 20, she no longer felt the urge to smoke, even though she was now legally able to do so. I just hope this photobook isn't something she'll come to regret later like those other things.

The photobook, itself, is looking really ... interesting. I myself am really looking forward to seeing it. There were rumours about a nude photobook some time ago, looks like the rumours weren't too far from the truth. I do wonder, though, if I'll ever be able to look at Kago the same way again after seeing it? What do you guys think? Good? Bad? Ugly?

Read more »

Another little update

This is just a short entry to keep you guys updated. Sorry for not updating at all this week. I guess for me it's been a bit of a slow news week.

That said, I do have a couple things to report.

First off, the blog now has a custom domain name, and can now be reached at www.berryzkyuuden.com. I'm hoping this will help my traffic as I get more return visitors, because it is shorter and easier to remember, I find, than the old URL. People say things like "I don't write for the views. I write because I want to write." Or something like that. And while that's partially true of me, I do want my words to be read by others. When people read my entries and comment on them, it gives me some feeling of accomplishment.

And on a not-too-distant note, I've also added a chatbox to the left. I hope it will make it easier to communicate with you all, as sometimes what you want to say isn't very relevent to the entry you may be commenting on. I encourage you to use it. Even if you just want to drop me a little "Hello." or something.

And finally, I've set up a new blog. Partly inspired by Shirow from Wotaku Now! when he created his second, Maimi-dedicated blog I Love My Maimi. But the main inspiration for it is explained in depth in the first entry. The new blog? A totally Maasa-dedicated blog known as The Church of Maasa. It's new and I haven't done much with it yet, but I look forward to working CoM as well as Berryz Kyuuden. Yorishiku onegaishimasu.

Read more »

Iida Kaori's son passed away

This news is a few days old by now, and I'm sure you've already heard it. But I wasn't sure if I actually wanted to post about this or not. It's hard to find words to say, to be honest. But I've decided to post about it afterall.

It was announced yesterday that former Morning Musume member Iida Kaori's son passed away at 6 months-old on July 27th, 2008 due to kidney failure.

Back in mid-2007, it was announced that she was 10-weeks pregnant and would be married to Kenji of 7House, a now defunct band formed by Tsunku. It was a shock, but everyone was happy and supportive. People were saying, "I'm sure she'd make a great mother." And then when she announced her son's birth on February 3rd, everyone was happy for her. We all assumed that the child was healthy. But it appears that immediately after birth the child was hospitalized due to kidney problems, and Iida spend alot of time in the hospital visiting her newborn baby. Her son was cleared and allowed to go home in April, much to everyone's relief I am sure. But his condition deteriorated and he died on July 27.

No one could have seen this coming. But the fact that they came out and told the media, and Kaori announced that she will return to work during the Winter Elder Club concert tour, shows that she has overcome at least some of the grief, and she says that by going back to work and singing, it will serve as some sort of personal memorial to the child. I was shocked when I read, and maybe I'm just a gossiper, as the first thing I did when I read it was to find the only person on MSN at the time (Hey, shwee!) and talk to her about it. There's no news like bad news. But it's difficult to find words to talk about it, I can't begin to imagine how the family would have felt about this. But I'll continue to support Kaori as her fan, and I know you all will too.

Read more »