KAT-TUN 2 Me

And we’re back with part 2!

The next game…is kind of hard to describe. They have to make a bridge from one end of the screen to the other by stopping the bar moving up and down by hitting the red thing with a club. Any part of the bar that’s left hanging off of the already established bridge is lost. That probably made no sense, so let’s just move on to the pictures.

Strategizing. Yes, Matsujun is in fact too good to kneel on the floor with the others.

Just so you can get a better idea of how the game works.

Not enough pictures of Matsujun up in here.

Nino is feeling a bit woozy from staring at the flashing lights for so long. Good thing Oh-chan is there to gently shield his eyes (yes, that’s really what’s going on)

It takes them a couple of tries, but Arashi prevails in the end. In the next game they have to run on treadmills and answer questions. Oh noes! The majority of Arashi members are clinically underweight (according to BMI) or close to it. Instead of making them run on treadmills, perhaps they should feed them some pie?

I took this clip for the cute smile. Only later did I notice the bling. Matsujun really likes rings. Expensive girl’s rings to be precise. Rumor has it that he has recently purchased about $400,000 worth of them, but that’s just a rumor.

Aiba’s pants are falling down, again. Maybe if you ate more pie this wouldn’t happen so often. Ne, Aiba-chan?

What do you mean I’m the only who doesn’t get pie?? Just because I can’t shop for clothes in the little girl’s department like the rest of these jerks…

They won that game too (of course), for they are Arashi and Arashi cannot lose! Only one game left, and it’s air hockey. But what’s this??

Their opponents are cheaply costumed monsters from Power Rangers! Someone ought to tell the producers of this show that Kanjani are secretly Power Rangers, not Arashi.

Matsujun looks happy, but Riida doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Evil Totoro is lurking behind them, ready to eat whoever loses the match.

In a game that takes it down to the match-point on both sides, Arashi finally emerges victorious! This calls for Nino/Jun huggles! The carnivorous totoro looks on in bitter silence. It shall not feast on boyband tonight. It consoles itself with the thought that they are probably all too sweet and fruity-tasting anyway.

I would also like to mention that 5 of Arashi’s 9 points were scored by Nino (2 by Aiba and 1 each by Sho and Jun). None were scored by Ohno, further backing up my MVP and LVP designations.

They win their Disney Vacation with a perfect sweep of all the games. Now, for the bonus round! They have to throw darts at a spinning wheel, and try to win some prizes specifically requested by each of them. The prizes are: fishing stuff, an electronic dj-mixing thing, plush white sofa, some scuba diving equipment, and an obscene amount of playstation games. If you can’t guess which prize belongs to which member, then you don’t deserve to call yourself a fan of Arashi.

“I’d rather be doing this with a blowgun”

The boys aren’t that great at the darts game. Matsujun wins himself his prize, and Ohno wins Aiba his, but all the rest of their attempts result in failure and scrub-brushes. Hey, it could be worse. When KAT-TUN failed at darts, two of them got sent to Hokkaido and someone ended up sniffing horse poo.

Arashi makes a nice stack out of their booby prizes, like little kids playing blocks. Once again, Matsujun is too good to lower himself to ground level.

Jenga!

~Celestia~

We are in a serious KAT-TUN lull right now, and it’s driving me nuts! I know it’s all because Kame and Koki are busy doing like 12 performances of Dream Boys a week or something crazy like that, and I know that soon we will have a new single and all the performances, magazine interviews and such that come with that and a new concert tour in not too long. Right now though….there’s pretty much only the weekly Cartoon KAT-TUN to give me my KT fix, and that’s not nearly enough. I regret that this blog has been so Arashi focused lately. It is not my intent, but they are just everywhere right now, with all their new shows and new album and new concert tour and whatnot. KAT-TUN’s time will come, and soon, but I’ll continue to focus on Arashi for now with this batch of screen-caps taken from Arashi’s recent appearance on Tokyo Friend Park. Basically, they are playing a series of stupid games for prizes, and I’m a sucker for stupid Japanese TV games. For the record, Nino rocks at this. He’s easily Arashi’s MVP when it comes to playing stupid games, but that’s to be expected after all. Our LVP is Ohno…he’d best forget about the games and stick to his strengths: dancing, singing, and being groped by the other members.

First, they perform “Step and Go” but I’m not going to bother with that. On to the stupid games! Seifuku-clad girls explain how this is going to work (they get one of those plaque things for each game they clear and the grand prize is a trip to Disneyland Paris). Moments later, both girls were devoured by the fanged earless Totoro thing over there. No one really cared.

Game 1: Jump on a wall wearing Velcro-covered suits. Arashi thinks that being covered in sticky Velcro is a good excuse to molest each other. Then again, they’d probably think a mild breeze was a good excuse to molest each other.

Jun goes in for a kiss, but Aiba rejects him. How sad.

Nino also rejects Sho’s advances as Ohno looks on in evident concern. Nino, by the way, is the only one to clear this challenge.

A close-up of Sho’s velcro-clad ass being groped by disembodied hands, for your viewing pleasure.

Game #2 is spelling things on a giant keyboard. They finish it just in the nick of time. It’s not very interesting to look at though, so we’ll just move on to #3. One person has to play a certain song by hitting the correct flashing lights (the melody only comes out when the right button is hit) and their partner has to guess the song.

Sho kind of fails, but at least he ends with a fruity pose.

I ask this all too often, but what the hell are you doing Nino?

Nino guesses correctly on the first try, based only off of the one or two notes that Matsujun manages to play. Gloats. Then on his turn, yells at the light and beats it up for not playing right.

Either Ohno is confused, or Nino spit in his eye for still not guessing it right when he managed to play almost the entire song.

On his first try as light wacker, Ohno fails to play a single note, but at least he looks really cute when he’s befuddled.

“Ack! Nino is yelling at me! I hope he’s not too mad to cuddle tonight…”

Ohno makes a series of bizarre faces at Aiba in what I can only assume is an attempt to send him the answer telepathically. His plan fails because telepathy requires the recipient to have a brain.

Aiba nervously fumbles with the headphones for like five minutes while Nino yells at him again. Me thinks that Nino and Reina need to get together and form a support group for overly-competitive idols. He’s seriously shrieking at his teammates this entire game.

A sneak peak at choreography from Arashi’s next single!

Yay! We win! Queer Arashi love circle time!

Next is a series of carnival games of which they have to win at 4, but they won at all 6 of them because they’re just awesome like that. Highlights:

Nino inserts his rod into the hole. (gawd. I did not just write that caption)

Somebody get JunJun in here. I bet she’d know just what to do with all those giant bananas (I’m pretty sure I didn’t write that one either)

OMG blowguns! I’m not kidding, read the subtitle. The Johnnys are training to defend themselves against the crazy fans. Also, Aiba seems to be quite good at blowing things, if you know what I mean. (I swear, I can’t stop myself now)

Seems like a good place to cut off. Expect part 2 in a little while

Keep in touch,

~Celestia~

I posted an entry in Bikkuri project which relates specifically to neither Johnny’s no h!p but addresses more general issues relating to the idol/fan relationship. If you’re interested, link is HERE

This post is just a few things I wanted to share that weren’t long enough to be worthy of their own entry.

First, some fun KAT-TUN news. Apparently Jin went to see Dreamboys (musical staring Kame and Koki) and they dragged him up on stage during the KAT-TUN songs and made him sing. He was totally lost as to where he should stand and when he should sing, so I imagine it was quite funny. And oh isn’t it good to see Akame getting along again? Apparently, he’s the first other KAT-TUN member to attend. When he was told this he said, with surprise, “I thought Taguchi would have come by now. Actually, I thought he was in this…” (he’s not Bakanishi dear, he’s not). Here’s a link to the synopsis.
Link

As you may know, Arashi has two new shows, Himitsu no Arashi-chan being brand new, and VS Arashi thankfully replacing the dreadfully dull Golden Rush Arashi (not their fault. the show just had a terrible format). VS Arashi is off to a promising start, so I’ve linked to the first episode. Basically, they play a bunch of stupid games against their guests, and at the end they all vote for who is the most worthless Arashi member that day. Bright colors, a live studio audience, and lots of action makes it fun to watch, especially if you love Arashi but aren’t fluent in Japanese and are therefore lost when it comes to talk segments. Watch as Ohno stylishly catches poles, Nino nimbly scampers up a wall, and Matsujun…well, I’ll let you see for yourself what happens to Matsujun. Can Morning Musume please start doing this kind of thing on Haromoni? Please??
Link

I was thinking again about Johnny’s “scandals” and the more I think about it, the less it makes sense. There’s a key difference between a Johnny being photographed with a girl and a H!P idol being photographed with a guy. H!P idols don’t talk about their love lives on camera at all, and so maintain the illusion that they are pure and innocent. Johnny’s, however, talk openly about dating girls. They’re constantly answering interview questions like, “How do you ask a girl on a date?” or “What’s your worst dating experience?” and that sort of thing. Why in the world should fans be shocked and horrified if a chaste picture of one of them with a girl surfaces? You know that they date girls and you know that those girls are not you!! Why does having a specific face (or hairstyle maybe if the face is blurred) to attach to it make a difference?

Today I visited the only Japanese book store within driving distance of where I live. It doesn’t really carry the usual idol magazines, but it does have Non-no, which just so happened to feature 15 pages of Arashi this month. Want to guess what I bought?

And finally, I realized that when I did my mp3 carnival I didn’t include any live performances. I generally prefer studio versions of things, but there is an unfortunate preponderance of Johnny’s songs which are performed live but never get studio releases, particularly solos. It surprises me to see Johnny’s pass up a chance to make money by selling these songs. They should make a CD full of previously unreleased solos from all their groups. I bet it’d sell really well. Anyway, in case you were interested, links to the audio rips of the two solos I posted in my “performances that make me cry” entry as well as KAT-TUN’s Six Senses, an unreleased group song.

Care

Konseki

Six Senses

Toodoloo,

~Celestia~

This is a direct follow-up to the post about scandals, because my final conclusion ended things on a rather sad note, didn’t it?

Fortunately, even though homosexual relationships are generally much more taboo than heterosexual, implied groupcest is very much accepted by Johnny’s Jimsho. Which brings me to my favorite “couple” in Johnny’s. You should probably know who I’m talking about by now. I still say that there’s nothing sexual happening between them, but I say it with a much lower confidence rating than I have on some of the other Johnny’s “couples”. Jin and Kame have never dated. Neither have Yamapi and Ryo. I’m 99% sure about those ones. When it comes to Ohmiya though… I’d say I’m only about 65-70% sure nothing is really going on there. More than half, but considerably less than 100%. In fact, I’d set the odds slightly in favor for whether or not some kind of “accidental” very drunken kissing had ever occurred between them. Anyway, here are a lot of pictures showcasing Nino and Ohno’s adorable, if somewhat suspicious, friendship. They’re sure to cheer me right up.

They sit next to each other on “Arashi no Shukudai-kun” Nino’s definition of “sit” is rather broad sometimes.

Ohno still manages a peace sign, despite having his arms full of Nino.

There’s an Ohno back there somewhere.

“Grrr. Stay away from my Nino”

“I mean it you!!!”

Why does this strike me as one of the gayest pictures out of all of them?

Judging by the unusually innocent expression on Nino’s face and the grimace on Ohno’s, I have a pretty good guess as to where Nino’s left hand is right now.

Look how snuggly they are when they’re eating. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was a couple and Nino was a girl with short hair.

And the award for dorkiest Johnny’s goes to…

A personal favorite.

Remember those bits of Ohmiyaness in their most recent concert MC’s that I posted a few days ago? It certainly seems like they’re getting bolder and bolder with the kind of things they’ll reveal to the audience, doesn’t it? Some of those stories really should have never seen the light of day (still can’t get the naked together in the shower washing each other’s asses with our bare hands incident out of my head), which makes me wonder, where could this be going next? Should we expect an mc like the following at the dream A live tour?

Sho: So you know how these guys always do weird things? *gestures to Ohmiya who grin sheepishly*

Aiba: *jumping up and down like an excited puppy* hai hai hai! They do! They do!

Sho: Well, during Jun-kun’s solo in yesterday’s concert I came into our dressing room and they were making out on the couch with their hands down each other’s pants.

Matsujun: Ehhhhh???

Nino: *laughing * we.. we…we were just feeling really bored so…

Aiba: You do that because you’re bored? *incredulous* Really Riida??

Ohno: *is momentarily stunned out of his reverie*… well… yeah *absent sort of smile*

Matsujun: *exasperated* You need to stop doing that or people will get the wrong idea!

Nino: *smirks*

Ohno: *has resumed his usual blank-faced stare*

Matsujun: Oi! Say something you!

Aiba: Guys! Guys! Guess what I ate for breakfast today!!! It was sooooo delicious!!!

Matsujun: *gives up and goes to sulk in the corner*

Doesn’t sound that unrealistic really, does it? And then, maybe in a year or two…

Sho:I went to try to steal my shampoo back from these guys *gestures to Ohmiya who grin sheepishly* and they were totally having sex in the shower!

Nino: So we were feeling really, really, really bored and….

Aiba: Ne ne ne ne ne! Aren’t tigers like the coolest animal ever!?!?!

And so it goes…

~Celestia~

I generally ignore all of the minor Johnny’s scandals that pop up every other day in the tabloids. However, a recent post in Raid my Minibar prompted me to look a bit further into the major Arashi “scandals” of the past. I’m not even going to try with the KAT-TUN scandals. There have just been too many of them, particularly if we’re talking about Kame or Jin who have each been linked to approximately 1,000 girls (and ladies old enough to be his mother in Kame’s case) in Tokyo (and LA in Jin’s case). Anyway, as far as the Arashi members, here’s what I’ve come up with as far as “major scandals” go. And by “major scandals” I mean, clear pictures of one of them somewhere in the general vicinity of a female.

Jun- Has been linked to quite a few girls, but I’m not finding much in the way of photographic evidence. There’s a picture of someone who could possibly be him kissing a girl in a car from a while ago, but his face is turned away. Then there’s these latest pictures from before Arashi had even debuted with some girls. Again doing nothing sexual, and they’re in a group. So the big scandal here is that 10 years ago Jun and Sho had some female friends! GASP! Interestingly enough, in my research I’ve heard several rumors that the release of these pictures, able to garner attention but innocent enough and long enough ago to not do any real damage, was actually done by Johnny’s in order to raise Arashi’s profile before their new album comes out. Conspiracy theories I suppose, but you never know.

Ohno- scandal free? I can’t find anything anyway

Nino- A magazine published pictures of him with a girl (actress Shiina Noriko) which are dated 2001. They are fully clothed and not so much as kissing in any of the pictures, but they do appear to be dating. Yes, this qualifies as a major scandal *rolls eyes*

Aiba- Has the very worst scandal out of all of them by far, and perhaps the only one I’d consider genuinely scandalous. In summer 2003, pictures surfaced of him with a girl (ex-girlfriend), both of them topless, and kissing in one of them. Nothing explicit is shown or anything, but it’s generally believed that this almost got him kicked out of Johnny’s. Harsh. Poor Aiba isn’t smart enough not to take racy pictures with the girls he dates. He probably trusted her. Sigh. Hope he’s learned his lesson.

Sho- And now our most recent scandals. The same magazine that published Aiba and Nino’s pics has blaring headlines about “Sho’s sexy photos!!” people begin to panic and imagine pictures on an Edison Chen scale. Geez. Sho is supposed to be the smart one. If he ever did anything that dumb, I say he deserves what he gets. Fortunately, it turns out that they just have some photos of Sho, from before he even joined Arashi, with a girl, both fully clothed with absolutely nothing sexual going on at all. Once again, major scandal? Also there the aforementioned photos with Jun not doing anything sexual once again.

Okay, one minor KAT-TUN scandal, just because I find it so amusing. There was a rumor floating around a while ago that Junno was dating Morning Musume’s Sayumi. The evidence for this? Someone took a picture of Junno doing a gesture that resembled Sayumi’s trademark “usa-chan peace”. If that’s not a stupid basis for a rumor then I don’t know what is.

I have no problem with Johnny’s boys dating. In fact, I really really hope that they do date. They are a bunch of attractive males in their prime of life, and if they’re not getting any, that’s kind of sad (imho). It is my understanding that they’re not explicitly forbidden from dating, and I’m not foolish enough to believe that they are saving themselves for me (or each other, lol). That said, I really really hope that they don’t get caught by the press in a compromising situation, because if it’s bad enough, there’s a chance they could be put on probation or even kicked out of the company. So far, it seems that this has only really happened over illegal things like underage drinking (hey NewS), but Aiba obviously pushed the limits of what is allowed as far as relationship scandals. Likely, were he a member of a less popular group or were all 5 Arashi members not so integral for their success, he would have been sent packing. Fortunately, Johnny’s seem to get a lot more leeway than h!p girls (photo holding hands with a guy? dishonorable discharge from Morning Musume and long term suspension for you young lady!!). I’m sure that Arashi is going to be just fine and people will forget all about this sho/jun thing in another week or so. They’ve been through worse, and it probably won’t hurt that it happened 10 years ago. They can play it off as youthful foolishness if it come to that, but I kind of doubt that they will bother making any public statements addressing this at all. Still, I hold my breath every time there’s word of a new scandal within any of the groups I follow, because until the initial panic dies down and real details start to come out, I have no idea how bad it’s really going to be.

My main point: It makes me very sad that the existence of  groups that I love are so fragile that potentially, a single blurry photo or careless comment could completely tear them apart.

~Celestia~

Jin totally pwns him at soccer.

This is just a clip I cut out of this week’s Cartoon KAT-TUN. The boys all had to show off some skill, Jin said soccer, and Maru claimed to be better than him at it. This was disproved when Jin throughly kicked his ass at pk’s, wearing a tuxedo no less. I don’t really blame Nakamaru though. As someone who has played soccer for quite a while, I can attest that Jin is damn good at it. Look at the slow-mo versions of those saves, not to mention how powerful his shots on goal are!

Online Videos by Veoh.com
Mostly this is just an excuse for me to swoon over JinJin being all athletic though. Oh, and PS. youtube is doing some kind of serious crackdown on Johnny’s related videos these last few days, so download the ones you like before they’re gone! I guess I’ll start offering downloads of the clips I post, even if it’s a pain, because I don’t want to have to replace them when they go down. That’s more of a pain.

Go! Fight! Win!!

~Celestia~

Since I’m experimenting with posts that apply to both h!p and Johnny’s, I’m worried that some of you might get confused as to which one I’m referring to at any given time. That’s why I’ve made this reference chart highlighting the key differences between Johnny’s and h!p.

Oh, and if you didn’t get the reference, the title of Bakanishi’s new solo is indeed “Lovejuice”. I don’t know whether to laugh or sigh and acknowledge that I’m most likely going to be watching performances of this and drooling over them for months. It could have been worse, I suppose. Kame’s solo is “w/o notice??” and yes, I did spell that right, Koki’s is “Cannival” again, spelled correctly, but Maru wins hands down for worst solo title with “Smack”. Teheheheh

Hope that clears things up,

~Celestia~

I’ve decided to allow myself the luxury of writing some posts that relate both to Johnny’s and Hello Project. I’m going to only put the actual post in one blog and a link in the other. This time, the post is about the most tear-inducing idol performances, so if you feel like crying, I suggest you click HERE

I found a collection of translated concert MCs from Arashi’s Summer 2007 concert here, and since I seem to feel that this blog is not inundated with enough Arashi Love, here are a few of the choicer bits. My comments in purple

Aiba makes an attempt at expressing more queer arashi love in order to distinguish himself. They’re talking about songs they like to sing.

Aiba: ‘Only Love’!

Matsujun: So who are you in love with right now?

Aiba: These four people *points to the rest of the group*

A solid effort, but Ohno (group whore) can outdo that easily

Sho: And then I said, “Captain, lend me some lip cream (like chapstick)” and he said, “Hmm? Oh, I see” and then *puckers lips towards audience* (there is some debate amongst the boys about whether or not Sho wanted to accept his offer to take it directly from his lips)

Nino: Leader…. (jealousy Nino?)

Sho: I honestly didn’t think he’d take that path

Matsujun: But even so, he was kidding, right? After such a long time..

Sho: Well, it would be great if we could pass this off as a gag, but he’s pretty serious about it

A comment by Matsujun in response to that conversation

Jun: After all, within the five of us, it wouldn’t be that weird if two of us ‘came out’

Truer words never spoken, but let’s cut to chase and let Ohmiya, the undisputed masters of queer Arashi love, have the floor

Nino: He kept staring at me that entire set! (referring to Ohno)

Ohno: Well, he always touches me, and he suddenly didn’t do anything today. I kept looking at him and wondering why he hadn’t touched me at all

Matsujun: Why do you sound so disappointed? Shouldn’t it be, “he always touches me and I don’t like it”

Ohno (poutily): but…but…he always touches me. He always touches me!!

Of course, Nino gave Ohno what he wanted, groping his butt for a while and then escorting him off-stage with his arm around his shoulder.

This last one is long, but an excellent example of Ohmiya suspicious behavior.

Sho: Kitael (concert venue) has only 4 shower stalls

Nino: And how many members in Arashi?

Jun: 5! very good jun, you get a cookie

Sho: Therefore, there is always one person who gets left behind (talks about Ohmiya invading his shower stall together to steal his shampoo, but then forgetting the shampoo and leaving without it because they’re too busy chatting)

Nino: But then when we went back there were no wash cloths

Aiba: Oh, there were five of those in my stall

Sho: You should have said something earlier then, like “Oh, there’s 5 in here!”

Aiba: I thought that everyone had brought their own *shakes head fondly* oh Aiba…

Nino: Therefore, we washed each other with our hands. We rinsed each other’s backs…

Ohno: He washed my butt too

Nino: He has a nice butt

Ohno: Nino also has a very nice…

Jun: Stop that! It’s gross.

. Aw Jun. Why’d you have to spoil the fun? They did return to the subject though and make plans to shower together again after that concert. Then there’s this video, most of which comes from that concert series’s MCs as well. The rest is just bonus Ohmiya love. When Ohno’s calling Nino “futoshi” that’s just a character name from the ohmiya sk skit things. Oh, and I didn’t make this video, btw.

So trouncing around stage like that is obvious fan-service, but I ask again, if it’s all an act for the fans, why is so much going on behind the scenes? Even if it is Japan, I can’t believe that straight men who are just friends would lovingly wash each other’s naked bodies, asses included, with their bare hands just so they have a good story to tell the audience later. Also, in reference to the tackling clip, for god’s sake Ohno, stop making sex noises, and Nino, stop panting like that! You can hear that even the fangirl-filled audience is starting to get weirded out!

Rabu rabu,

~Celestia~