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...

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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....

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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...

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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,...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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....

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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...

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