Hey! Say! JUMP's new calendar has plenty of eyecandy

Hey! Say! JUMP's, and all Johnny's, calendars were released recently. And I managed to come across the scans yesterday. And it's pretty much the hottest thing I've ever seen. Well, maybe not the hottest. But pretty close. And yet it makes uber sad.

When stuff like this comes out it reminds me how much I need a job. I have zero income to spend on things like this. So I rely on my mom to buy thing or me. But she barely wants to buy me magazines and calendars featuring the Jonas Brother, let alone Japanese boy. She dislikes buying me anything Japanese related. She so eloquently refers to it as "Amy's Jap crap." And there in lies my problem. But enough of my whining and more about HSJ.

What makes Hey! Say! JUMP's calendar so incredibly amazing and so hot? I think it's pretty obvious that the answer to that question is none other than Nakajima Yuto. It's no surprise that I love Yuto. I've professed my love of Yuto on my blog before. But Yuto seriously looks amazing in this calendar. Every picture he's in he's either, incredibly sexy or insanely adorable. Maybe I'm just being biased. But most likely I'm not. ;] Might as well critique each picture to make sure.

This picture is obviously hot. But really more of subtly sexy. He's also looking pretty innocent, which is hot. And I'm a sucker for plaid. So this picture is pretty much win.


This picture is super adorable. I'm not really sure what could be cuter than Yuto writing on a window. The last picture is the cutest and my favorite.


These pictures are pretty much half and half. Since he's not really doing anything he's his same cute self. But these pictures are hot because Yuto looks hot without even trying.


These are a little boring for my taste. Since he's not really doing much. The cheers with Chinen is kinda cute though.


This picture is pretty much too hot for words.


Cheap effect to use a picture from a magazine spread. I prefer the magazine spread picture though.


This is probably my favorite picture of all. Even though he's only wearing a suit jacket, that's close enough.


This is another example of Yuto not doing anything and still looking hot.




Besides Yuto the whole rest of the calendar is pretty hot. Mostly because of the overall theme of it. The hottest things a guy can wear are suits and plaid. And this calendar has both. Even though this calendar is nice to look at only a few other HSJ boys really stuck out.


Hikaru's pictures immediately jump out at me. Besides Yuto he looks the best. Especially in the ones where he's wearing a suit. I also love the suit pictures because he has black hair. Most of the time Hikaru looked bad with black hair. His new hair really suits him. But for some reason he just looks amazing with black hair.


Inoo also looks really good. But most of his pictures are dorky and adorable. These are the only pictures were he looks out and out sexy.


I'm a little disappointed by Ryosuke in this. Usually he takes some pretty hot spreads for magazines. But in this he looks pretty much normal. I don't know it felt like he was being lazy in this.

S/mileage's doki doki and waku waku new PV

S/mileage's PV fro their 4th indie single, Otona ni Narutte Muzukashii, was released today. And it is hands down the best PV H!P has made in a long time. Even though the video was filmed in front of a green screen, and mostly likely cost very little to made. That doesn't stop it from being really creative and extremely adorable. I think every element of this video works. The overly energetic and in your face cuteness about it are what I miss from old H!P videos. S/mileage is pretty much becoming the modern W, because if W was still around they'd be making video and songs like S/mileage is. I think that's a big reason I love S/mileage so much.

At first glance because of the white around them you can tell this video was made by the same person that made 321' Breakin' Out.


Which explains why the video is so well made. I thought 321 Breakin Out was an amazing video. One of my favorites Momusu has done.


I love that the video is layered. It's a great way to keep the close up, dance shot, story format. But changing it up to make it completely unique.


It's also a great way to give the girls maximum screen time.


I also love how absolutely gorgeous Kanon looks. She should always keep her hair curly. She's never looked prettier.


The dance is a little too simple for my taste. But it is really cute, so it works.


I think the purikura frame scenes are really cute too. They're a lot more fun then the regular close up scenes.


My favorite Kanon scene from the whole video.


The board in the back reminds me too much of Buono.


Gachink de Ikou PV.


This reminds me too much of Puffy AmiYumi.


Hataraku Otoko PV.


I don't think Kanon could get any cuter.


Is it just me or does Saki look weird in this? Her chin looks pretty big. XD


Yuuka looking as adorable as ever. She looks the cutest with her hair half up and half down like this.


I barely noticed Ayaka in this. She doesn't stand out at all.


Yuuka steals her scene completely.


But Kanon steals the whole video.


Doki doki!


Ja~n.

Cartoon KAT-UN comes to an end

It seems the rumors are true and Cartoon KAT-TUN will be coming to an end. The show which ran for 3 years will have it's final episode on March 24th. And will be replaced with a show called Jack 10 starting April 14th.

Now I'm not really a big Cartoon KAT-TUN fan. Mostly because I'm not that big of a KAT-TUN fan at all. But I know a lot of KAT-TUN fans out there are mourning. But they have no reason to do so. At least they had a show. NEWS has been around longer and they've never had a show. If you watched Cartoon KAT-TUN Ueda, Kame, and Jin were boring most of the time. Every so often they'd do or so something entertaining. Koki and Taguchi made that show enjoyable. They had the most fun personalities on the show. And If I didn't watch the few episodes of Cartoon KAT-TUN that I did, I probably wouldn't like Koki as much as I do now.

But there have been some awesome moments on Cartoon KAT-TUN. Koki excessively fanboying over Ne-Yo, locking Kame in the freezer, Hyde having way too much fun on the show, when they wear mustaches for some reason, Koki playing the piano. And probably lots of other things. But I never got that far into Cartoon KAT-TUN. Most of the things I just described were from the first 20-30 episodes.

It is still sad to see Cartoon KAT-TUN go. No where near as sad as seeing Haromoni@ go, but still sad.

Idols win big at the Japan Gold Disc Awards

The 24th Japan Gold Disc Awards were held in Japan on the 24th. And a good chunk of the awards were given to idols.

KAT-TUN's Rescue single won for the totally Johnny's dominated category of 5 Best Singles. Even though this was KAT-TUN's only win for the night, it's still pretty exciting. I love Rescue but I had no idea it was popular enough to win for best single. Shows what I know.

AKB48 also won a special award. I'm not exactly sure what the special award pertains to, or even if AKB48 deserved it. But they won it regardless.

And the most undeserving award goes to Mano Erina. She won for 5 best new artists at this years award. This is exciting news for ManoEri to be really popular and being recognized in Japan. But I gotta say I don't think she deserves this at all. Some of her songs are catchy and are growing on me, so I get the hype. But Erina isn't exactly the best singer in the world. In fact she can barely sing at all. It's cool that an H!P artist is getting this award, but it would be cooler if it was an H!P artist who deserved it. I know this awards are based on sales and she only won because she sells well. I don't know, it just doesn't sit right with me.

But the overall winners of these awards was Arashi. The won an astonishing 10 awards! Best new artist, Album of the year: All the best! 1999-2009, Single of the year: Believe/Kumorinochi, Kaisei, 5 Best Albums : All the Best! 1999-2009, 5 Best Singles: Ashita no Kioku/Crazy Moon ~Kimi wa Muteki~, 5 Best Singles: Everything, 5 Best Singles: Believe/Kumorinochi, Kaisei, 5 Best Singles: My Girl, Best DVD: Arashi Around Asia 2008 in Tokyo, Best DVD: 5x10 All the Best! CLlips 1999-2009.
It is absolutely incredible that Arashi won 4/5 of the years best singles. Japan's love for Arashi never ceases to amaze me. Believe and Crazy Moon were really great songs, totally deserving of being part of the best singles.

NEWS- Sakura Girl preview

The preview for NEWS' new single, Sakura Girl, is finally out. Which I'm super excited about!

I am pleasantly surprised at how it sounds. As I said before, I was expecting this song to sound like Taiyou no Namida. The song is a little slower than their last single, but I really love the song so far. It's got a really soft and pretty beat to accompany the sweet lyrics. And just like I expected the lyrics have a some what nostalgic feel to them. They also have a sad tone to them since they're about unrequited love. Which is something different for news. They very rarely have soft and meaningful songs. Ai Nante and Dreams is the closest they got. But Sakura Girl is a little more upbeat then them. So in a sense it's closer to Love Story.
The line distribution is pretty much how it always is. In this preview only Yamapi, Tegoshi, Ryo, and Massu got solo lines. But most likely in the second half Shige and Koyama will get their solos. It would be surprising if they didn't, since the line distribution has been the same since they became a 6 member group.
The signing itself wasn't really anything too special. Which is expected. Since it's a soft song there's not really room to hit high notes.

I'm really excited for the PV now. A school setting would be amazing. But if it was a school setting it would most likely follow 2 high schoolers. Which would be a nice change. NEWS doesn't really have any PVs that follow a story.

Road to becoming an AKB48 fangirl

Even though I have said a couple of times before in previous posts on my blog that AKB48 fails to compare to Hello!Project, I finally give up. I have finally succumbed to the awesomeness that is AKB48. And I gotta say, I'm actually kind of excited. I'm filled with all these fresh in the fandom feelings. Where everything is shiny and new. Though it's not all 100% new to me. As a H!P fan intrigued by AKB48 I dabbled in them a little. I know a few odd girl's names and I've heard most of the singles. But that's really about it.

Since I am relatively new to everything AKB48 related, I wonder which is the best way to go about learning about AKB48. When I first started to listen to Morning Musume I learned all their names first and then worried about the music after that. But when I first started listening to NEWS I made music my first priority. And shockingly I didn't know all the NEWS members names until 3 or 4 months after discovering them. So I'm pretty torn. AKB48's sheer size alone will make getting into the fandom a challenge. I'm going to have a super hard time remembering group line ups and names. Morning Musume generation 1-8 have only had 24 members. And in the beginning I thought I'd never remember them all. Let alone tell them apart. The only plus is AKB48 is fairly new, so learning all the songs will be easy.

I'm sure I'm unaware of a lot of things that seem to be common knowledge to most AKB48 fans. Like what's the difference between AKB48 and SKE48? What is the format for AKBINGO? What does Team A 1st Stage even mean? I'm sure there are a lot more question that I just can't think of now.

I'm most likely going to make this a series on my blog. To show how my AKB48 fandom is going. And so I can look back and remember all my AKB48 noobness on a later day. Just like how it was when I first listened to H!P and JE, there were a lot of things I was way off about. And even stupier things I used to actually believe. Such as Aibon and Nono were twins. Not to mention it took like a year before I knew why Uchi and Kusano left NEWS.

So everyone in blog land wish me luck. I won't be satsified until I know as much about ABK48 that I do about H!P. This could take a while. XD

Hey! Say! JUMP's Hitomi no Katana

The PV for Hey! Say! JUMP'S 5th single, Hitomi no Screen was released a few days ago. And all I can say it's about time. It's been 4 weeks since the first PV preview was released. Which seems a little unnecessary. But when you've been waiting a year and a half, what's another 4 weeks?

Hitomi no Screen is following the same theme of every HSJ PV, where the video has absolutely nothing to do with the song. But this PV doesn't even really make much sense. Hey! Say! JUMP is sword fighting a masked man for an undisclosed reason. Even though it leaves much more to be desired, it does give the PV some good scenes. The fighting scenes in general are pretty hot. What's better than a roughed up and dirty HSJ? When it comes to this PV nothing really. Especially since the close up shots are just boring white button down shirts. But at least they're not wearing the outfits they usually perform Hitomi no Screen in.


The outfits that make them look like professional figure skaters rather than idols. Wearing them would have ruined the video completely.
I was actually surprised by how equal the camera time was. Even though Ryosuke dominates the song he doesn't dominate the PV. He gets exactly the same amount of camera time as everyone else. Which is awesome. I love Ryosuke and all, but he's gets way too much attention. It's nice to see everyone else for a change. Though the screen time is great I'm a little sad that this video doesn't have any dancing. I guess since their last 2 PVs were so focused on dancing they wanted to do something different this time around. But still, I miss it. Granted the dancing is boarder line silly, because right now it has just enough Johnny's cheese. I'm just used to seeing HSJ dancing in every video.
Another thing that disappoints me is there's a lot of bad hair going on in this video.


I'm not liking Ryosuke's hair in the close up at all.


But during the fight scenes I love his hair. For some reason the weird ponytail hairstyle they gave him doesn't work face on.


Inoo's hair in the close up is equally gross. Which is sad because I love Inoo.


But again it looks fine in the fight scenes. I don't know what's going on. They must keep filming from bad angles.

I'm not a fan of Chinen at all, but his hair is seriously ugly.

He's still looking ugly as ever, but his hair is making it worse.


For the most part everyone else looks great. Especially Keito. Which is really surprising. Keito usually looks too much like an Alien for my taste.

But in this video he looks really sexy.


And of course Yuto is looking really great.

However, I'm not a fan of the necklace he has to wear.

Makes him look pretty gay. :/


And Takaki's pretty much looking as womanly as ever.


Another thing I love about this video is the amount of stupid faces everyone makes. Because they have to make intense "I'm fighting someone" faces


Hikaru usually makes similar faces regardless. So this isn't much of a change.


This is exactly a flattering picture of Yabu.


That's better. ;]


That's not really menacing at all.


Daiki definitely wins for most loltastic fighting pose face. XD


Chinen fails.


But Ryosuke wins.


Well almost.


XD