KAT-TUN 2 Me

Yay for lots going on recently!

First of all, new singles for both KAT-TUN and Arashi! I’ll probably write up more about them when the full PVs are out, but so far, I think both are winners. On the KAT-TUN side, we have “love yourself” followed by a bunch of other words, which sounds to be a little less “rock” and a little more “cool song to dance to” than what they usually do. Kind of like most of Jin’s solos, so I bet it’s a song that he personally likes.

LOVE YOURSELF (short audio preview)

Arashi’s new single “Trouble Maker” also is excellent. To be honest, I’ve been a little disappointed with some recent Arashi releases (I thought “My Girl” was really boring and uncatchy), but this new song reminds me of circa 2003-2004 Arashi style.

TROUBLE MAKER (audio only)

Of the two, I think I prefer KAT-TUN’s, but again, I like them both.

Lastly, I have a couple amusing Arashi-related happening’s to share with you.

-The other day at the beginning of a 9th grade class at the Junior High I teach at, a couple of the girls ran up to me all excited, tugged on my sleeve and said, “Did you know?? Today is Sakurai-kun’s birthday!! We’re going to eat cake after school to celebrate!”.

During lunch time at one of my elementary schools, they were playing student’s most requested music over the intercom. Students get to vote every month on what they want to hear. #3 was Angela Aki’s Tegami, #2 was Arashi’s “Kitto Daijoubu”, and #1 was Arashi’s “Believe”. The kids (4th graders) were going crazy, clapping their hands, singing along, dancing around. Then 5 boys ran up to the front and proclaimed that they were Arashi and started trying to do the dance! Needless to say, it was a very fun lunch break.

~Celestia~

Earlier, I incorrectly reported that Arashi had all 4 top spots in single rankings this year. It turns out that they have 1-3 as well as 5, with 4 going to enka hit “Ai no Mamade”. My mistake. They do, however, have a whole slew of other records, which I just copied from their wikipedia entry in order to shock and amaze you.

On December 18, 2009, Oricon announced that Arashi topped the annual singles, albums and music DVD rankings for 2009 in Japan.^[4] All of the group’s 2009 singles ranked within the top five placings on the Oricon singles charts: “Believe/Kumorinochi, Kaisei” at number one, “Ashita no Kioku/Crazy Moon: Kimi wa Muteki” at number two, “My Girl” at number three and “Everything” at number five.^[4][91] With monopolization of the top three spots on the singles chart, Arashi became the first artist in twenty-one years and the third artist in history—after Pink Lady in 1978 and Hikaru Genji in 1988—to do so.^[4] Furthermore, the group became the first artist in history to monopolize the top two spots on the singles charts for two consecutive years and to have four releases in the top five.^[4] On the Oricon album charts, All the Best! 1999-2009 became the best-selling album of 2009 in Japan by selling over 1.43 million copies, making it the first time Arashi has topped annual album charts^[92] As for their music video collection DVD 5×10 All the Best! Clips 1999-2009 and live concert DVD Arashi Around Asia 2008 in Tokyo, both claimed the number one and two spots on the annual music DVD charts respectively, making it the first time they have also topped annual music DVD charts. Due to their high sales for 2009, Oricon declared Arashi the best-selling artist of the year and awarded them the “Artist Top Sales” (ATS) award with 14.46 billion Japanese yen (approx. US$161.25792 million) worth of total sales in the singles, album, music DVD and music Blu-ray categories.^[3][4] As a result of having dominated three separate charts and emerge as the best-selling artist of the year, the group became the first artist in the forty-two years of Oricon’s history to have such a record in the same year.

Seriously, what can they possibly do that would be an improvement from this?

~Celestia~

So, I already posted about how well Arashi’s singles did this year, but wait! There’s more!
Turns out that Arashi has not only the top (4) singles of the year, they also have the top selling album, the top selling DVD, AND the top overall sales.

It’s a clean sweep. That’s fricking fantastic!

~Celestia~

I’m afraid I have some bad news about the whole Arashi concert thing.

Word on the interwebs is that they are getting much stricter about checking that only fan club members are attending the concert with their assigned tickets. Some kind of thing where you have to register your ticket before the show? I dunno. What this means is that while I’m still sure I can get tickets, I’m now much less sure that I’ll actually be able to see the concert.

Naturally, I am rather pissed off about this. I mean, why should I have to pay a bunch of money to join a fan club if I just want to see a concert? If I’m joining the fan club just to get the concert ticket,  because it’s the only way, then the real price of the ticket is like 10x what they claim they’re selling them for. And even if you join the club, you still might not get a ticket. Seems like sketchy business dealings if you ask me.

Anyway, I’m still going to try to go for sure, but I need to know which people, if any, are still interested in trying to attend with me. If I’m buying two tickets, I’m afraid I will have to demand payment whether or not we get to see the show.

Now, I’m hoping that it’ll all work out, but I can understand people not wanting to take the risk. It’s not a problem for me to buy just one ticket… just a little bit lonely.

~Celestia~

PS. And since that was kind of sad. Let’s all look at how utterly girly Ueda looks.

Do I see lipstick and eyeliner? That’s our pretty pretty princess.

December 4th, 5th, and 6th. Tokyo Dome. Arashi 10th anniversary concert tour.

You can bet your ass I’ll be at at least one of those. Probably two.
Anyone want to come with? I live in Japan, and I’m sure I can get tickets, though how much that’s going to cost I don’ t know yet. Must be 18 or over to apply. Leave a comment if you’re interested.

Oh. By the way, the first 3 concerts of the tour are at the Olympic stadium, but I’m thinking I’ll wait for the Tokyo Dome shows, because that place is soooo fricking huge, I’m worried about getting seats where I can’t see anything. Also, as an outdoor venue, it could be less enjoyable if the weather doesn’t cooperate. That said… if it looks like I can get some really cheap tickets at the very last minute, I might just try it.

And as for the simultaneously announced full singles collection, 10 years worth of singles from A.Ra.Shi to Crazy Moon, plus one new song and other member selected favorites on the first press edition…well, that’s going to be a “must buy” for me. I don’t buy a lot of CDs (just all of the concert DVDs, lol), but I can’t resist a complete Arashi collection in one purchase.

~Celestia~

First of all, congratulations to KAT-TUN for successfully completing 8 consecutive nights at Tokyo Dome and setting a record!!!

It seems that at tonight’s concert it was announced that KT will be having a summer tour, though I’m not sure if it’s a whole new tour or just a sort of continuation of this Tokyo Dome blitz, and whether or not they will be using the same costumes/set list. The performances all seem to be in places pretty far from Tokyo (from Okinawa to Hokkaido), so I guess they’re aimed at fans who live too far from Tokyo to go to the current set of concerts. On the other hand, I wonder if this was really just decided recently or if they’ve deliberately not told anyone that they’ll be touring outside of Tokyo and Oosaka in order to entice fans who live further away to come help with the Tokyo Dome record because they thought it would be their only chance to see KAT-TUN this year. Hmmm…

Well, possible questionable marketing techniques aside, KAT-TUN is certainly getting a lot of attention this year! Too bad that these new summer concerts are going to be held too far from where I live for me to attend. There’s still a couple Tokyo Dome shows left at the tail end of the current tour though….

~Celestia~

My new laptop has arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!

That means that I can get back to regular updates here, probably starting in a day or two. It’s so nice to have a computer again. You don’t realize how much you really use one until you don’t have one anymore.

And in the mean time… Jin did a photoshoot that involved him sprawled on a couch with his hand down his unzipped pants, and no one told me!?!? I thought it was a very high quality photo manipulation at first. I don’t think I’ll post it here though, because that’s shading into not work safe territory.

But damn he looks good.

Gotta go listen to new album previews,

~Celestia~

Well, 3rd year since debut anyway. It’s more like 8 years if you’re counting from the formation of the group, but whatever. I’d make a cake, but I think that after my double Cake Day it might be best if I hold off on cakes for a while.

This is also to announce that KAT-TUN’s 4th album (as of yet untitled) will be released on April 29th! So soon! That’s less than a year, but I guess they have racked up four singles since then, and the four singles to an album formula is tried and true. There are strong rumors of new solos for each member, and I for one am very interested to see what they come out with.

~Celestia~

I’ve been keeping track of some of the weirder searches that have lead people to this blog, and I think they’ve accumulated enough for me to share them with you! These are all real search terms that someone out there has typed in and somehow been lead to my site. My commentary in purple, search terms in bold.

“Skinny Shirtless Boys”- Okay, a little unusual, but I can understand why you’d expect to find that here.

“Is KAT-TUN still there?”- Why yes, yes they are… I always find it funny when people type full questions into their search engine.

“Arashi are girly girls”- Why, yes, yes they are… ROFL!

“KAT-TUN Queen of the Damned Concert”- I believe what you were looking there is “KAT-TUN Queen of pirates concert” PIRATES, though a KAT-TUN concert based on a cheesy vampire movie could be interesting too.

“Broad weekly”- Huh? How in the world did that lead you to a KAT-TUN blog, and what were you actually searching for anyway?

“Jin is watching Kame”- He is????

“Free download of weeeeek by KAT-TUN”- Oh no. NewS is going to be pissed when they find out that KAT-TUN stole their song.

“Exile fanfiction. Takahiro”- Another “How the hell did that lead you to this site??” Have I ever even mentioned Exile here? I don’t think so…

“2 girls attacking each others crotches”- (O_o)

And to finish off with a couple news blurbs.

-Arashi around Asia 2008 DVD to be released March 25th! Horray! Concert DVDs are my very favoritest thing about my Johnny’s fandoms..except for actual concerts I suppose. Please have some more before I leave Arashi!

-”One Drop”s first week sales are 281,359, which isn’t their best, but better than “White X-mas”, better than most Johnny’s groups, and hella better than most any other Japanese music group. Of course they debuted at #1, sealing 9 straight #1 singles for them. Congrats!

-On their Music Station performance this week, KAT-TUN had Jrs as background dancers, and Koki let his little brother Juri do his rapping part. How freakin’ cute is that?!

Happy Beleated Valentines,

~Celestia~

“One Drop” short version PV has been released! What’s with JE always releasing only the short version at first lately? It’s kind of annoying. I want to see the whole thing!

Jin cloesups are HOT, Kame looks cute with his curly hair, and the dancing at the beginning almost looks…together? Must be an illusion created by the camera or something. Everyone knows that KAT-TUN refuses to dance in sync on principle.

In bad news, Kami no Shizouka sucks. Like seriously sucks and the ratings reflect this. It’s not Kame’s fault, the plot is just boring. Most of Kame’s fans probably could care less about wine! Sigh. I just hope he’s okay.  I know he can be kind of sensitive and take his work really seriously….

Back to the good news, and maybe bad news for Kame, Maru’s drama is doing quite well. In fact, it’s currently sitting pretty at number 2 in viewership for this drama season. Looking forward to “Rescue” single stuff. After careful scrutiny, I think I like it better than “One Drop” though I definitely like both songs.

Finally, reader Soli pointed out something kind of interesting to me. Seems that a certain song by French R&B artist Priscilla sounds awfully familiar. Youtube link HERE. I’ve got to admit, the similarity to “Love Juice” is hard to deny. Coincidence? Plagerism? Either way, whatever. I never claimed to love Jin for his music composing skills.

Got to get to working on my member/group profiles.