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~

So…. guess who, according to Oricon, has the number 1, 2, 3, and 4 best selling single this year?

Arashi of course!!! Can you believe it? EVERY SINGLE ARASHI RELEASED THIS YEAR SOLD BETTER THAN ANY SINGLE RELEASED BY ANYONE ELSE. Ya know, I thought they had hit a peak last year, but things just keep going up and up for them.

I’m curious to know where KAT-TUN’s songs ranked. Probably in the top 10, but the whole list hasn’t been released yet. It was just an article about Arashi’s success. Also on the KAT-TUN side of things, well, not much has been going on with the group lately, has it. Two singles in quick succession at the beginning of the year (which was great) and then…nothing. I mean, there’s a lot of Jin stuff right now what with the movie and solo debut song, but not a lot of KT stuff. I’m hoping that will change soon. Not that I don’t love Jin, but all this solo stuff makes me nervous. This isn’t a sign that he’s getting ready to quit the group is it?

Anyway, when I told some of my classes that I went to their concert on Sunday, my students were insanely jealous. Like, half of the girls class got out of their seats in the middle of class and ran up to me to press me for information.

When I go back to this blog, I go back with a vengeance, don’t I?

~Celestia~

Secretly updating from work.

I OFFICIALLY HAVE KAT-TUN TICKETS!

Yayay! No telling what kind of seats they are, but whatever. On April 16th I`ll be seeing KAT-TUN live again, whether or not I`ll need binoculars to actually see them.

By the way, the new Arashi concert DVD is really good. Yay for being in Japan and being able to buy it on the day it came out. I can`t believe how fricking huge the Olympic Stadium really is. 60,000 people. Sheesh. I want so so badly to do screen-caps and GIFs for the concert, but my computer situation makes that impossible. Sigh.

4/16!

~Celestia~

X posted on both my blogs

Around December, my laptop started to develop a crack in the corner where the screen meets the keyboard, around the hinge. Probably my fault, because I may have picked it up by the screen a time or two. Well, that crack has slowly expanded, and recently I began to have problems with the screen working. More and more often it`s been turning blank or becoming covered with delightful colored stripes at random, and it`s now gotten to the point that my computer is pretty much non-functional. I still have internet access via the computer at work, but it`s pretty limited. I can`t use it very long at a time or view most images or watch any streaming video, so I`m afraid that updates here may be a bit few and far between for a while.

I promise I`ll try my best!!! Please don`t give up on this blog. I`ll get back to regular updates as soon as I get a new laptop.

So sorry!

~Celestia~

OMG OMG OMG! Take a look at the sales numbers for the first day of Arashi’s “Believe”.

214,618 COPIES IN THE FIRST DAY!!!

The first day! I mean, I knew this song would have good sales. It comes at a time when Arashi is extremely popular, more so than they’ve ever been, and the song is damn good. It’s been getting a huge positive response from both inside and outside the fan community, but posting those kind of numbers on the first day is unheard of. I mean, KAT-TUN set a record when DUES had a first day index number of 104,864 about (180,000 copies) and this 30,000 more than that!

I’m going to go out on a limb and predict right now that this single will sell over a million copies before its chart run is over.

As long as I’m on the subject of Arashi, I had an interesting conversation about them today with my 5th graders. I swear, I didn’t start it! One of the girls, a Johnny’s fan, brought it up. So, our Arashi focus group today consists of 6 elementary school 5th graders (11 year olds), two boys and four girls, and occurred over lunch. Conveniently, ten interesting points emerged.

1: Every single kid there knew the names of all members of Arashi, dramas/movies they had appeared in, and had an opinion as to who they liked and who they didn’t, including the boys.

2: Ohno Satoshi was surprisingly popular. In fact, two of the girls and one of the boys cited him as their favorite, and another girls said he was her 2nd favorite. That kind of surprised me, but it seems to mostly be attributed to his recent dramas. “Uta no Oniisan” was a favorite with the girls, and the boy thought “Maou” was really cool.

3: On a similar tangent, dramas/movies the guys have been in were a major factor in how much the kids liked each individual guy.  One girl, a Nino fan, had a Ryuusei no Kizuna planner. I think with kids, most of Arashi’s variety shows are on too late at night for them to watch, so they probably get to know who’s who on an individual level more based on the dramas. The songs seemed to be the biggest factor in how much they liked them as a group though.

4: Sho was also very popular with the kids, probably second after Ohno overall, and appealing to both the boys and the girls.

5: Nino would probably have ranked in 3rd.

6: Two of the girls and one of the boys really disliked Aiba. They said he was weird…the other boy said he was his favorite though

7: One of the girls also had a rather intense hatred of Matsujun. She said he was “kimoi” (disgusting). None of the other kids shared that feeling though, so I’ll consider her an outlier.

8: The kids actually got into it enough that they were passionately arguing about who in Arashi was the best. The poor Aiba-loving kid was helplessly outnumbered by the Ohno fans, but he fought hard!

9: When asked about which songs they liked (they asked me first!), a lot of the most recent songs came up, unsurprisingly considering the kids age. I mean, they can’t have been interested in music for that long. A couple of them mentioned A.Ra.Shi though, which did surprise me. I mean, they were about 1 year old when that song came out!

10: As far as other groups, discussed briefly, one girl liked KAT-TUN, two liked Hey!Say!Jump (again, not surprising considering their age), and one girl and the boys didn’t really have an interest in any other Johnny’s groups.

I hope we’ve all learned something here. I feel like I ought to take some surveys or something. Form more accidental focus groups. Make some graphs!!

~Celestia~

No, despite the title this isn’t about NewS, but it is news! Hahaha! It’s a double pun, because how many days in a week? 7! And how many consectutive days will KAT-TUN be performing at Tokyo Dome this May?? That’s right, 7!

Basically, they’re breaking their own record on Tokyo Dome performances. Each night will have its own theme too. KAT-TUN, breaking records, just because they can.

AND NOW FOR AN OFFER YOU SHOULDN’T REFUSE *EDIT* Thanks, I think I’ve got this worked out now, but I’ll let you know if the situation changes!

I wasn’t planning on going to a Tokyo Dome concert really, since it’s so large and there are a lot of bad seats out there, but in this situation, I might just have to give in. It’d be nice to find someone who speaks English to go with me. On my end, I’m pretty much positive that I can get tickets. I live in Japan, and I know several ways to go about securing them. On your end, you need to be pretty much positive that you will be in Tokyo on the appointed day with the money (in yen) to pay for your ticket. I’m not sure yet how much that will be, but rest assured that it’s not going to be less than $200. I won’t be trying to make a profit here, just cover whatever I had to pay for the ticket. Also, only females over the age of 18 please, and I can’t make any commitments unless you are sure you can come.  I know it’s early, but any takers???

You know you want to,

~Celestia~

PS. The release date for “Rescue” has been set: March 11th, just 1 month after One Drop. KAT-TUN kind of had a lazy 2008, but 2009 is shaping up to be much busier for them! Incidentaly, I saw the covers to One Drop. They put some kind of fur stole on Jin. It makes him look girly. Reeeeeal girly.

I just got a call from the DVD store! My copy of the Queen of Pirates DVD has arrived! I shall pick it up tomorrow.

Kind of an interesting phone conversation. If you’re not familiar with the Japanese language, they have this way of speaking called “keigo” which is used to denote respect to the person being spoken to. It’s usually used by service people, sales people or waiters, for example, and it’s almost an entirely different language from normal japanese. A lot of the words bare no resemblance to their normal Japanese versions, and the verbs are conjugated to within half an inch of their lives. Anyway, the conversation went something like that.

Her: “Is Miss ****(my name) there?”

Me: okay, I can understand that much keigo, “Yes, this is ****”

Her: “This is blah blah video store in kawagoe. keigokeigokeigo  keigo keigokeigo keigo, etc (for several minutes)”

Me: Wha??? It sounds like she’s apologizing for something, but keigo always sounds apologetic, maybe she’s sorry the video wasn’t there before? Oh shit. She seems to be expecting a response now, “Ummmm, yes?”

Her: (happy now), “Keigo keigo keigo keigo!!! When keigo keigo?”

Me: Is she asking me when I’m going to pick it up? That’d be a normal ‘when’ question to ask at this point, right? “Uhhhh….tomorrow?”

Her: Okay, thank you very much!

You think the sales people would figure out that if they’re talking to a foreigner it’s okay to revert from ultra-polite speech to something more comprehensible, but nooooo, it’s just too ingrained in them I guess.

~Celestia~

Well, I just got back to Japan, and I’ve been trying SO hard to buy the new KAT-TUN concert DVD, but it seems that just about everywhere is sold out. Why didn’t they just make more to begin with??? *pounds head on desk in frustration*

Today I finally gave up on finding one and put my name in to reserve a copy at the nearby DVD/CD store. They’ll call me when they get more in…but they have no idea when that will be.

It’s not fair! I want to see high quality video of that glorious concert nowwwwwwwwwwww!!

Whine,

~Celestia~

OMG the Queen of Pirates concert DVD is out and I can’t buy it because I’m not in Japan right now!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve had to settle for watching what I can find on youtube instead. *sobs*  My early opinions go something like this, “Damn they’re hot” followed by lots of drooling. Anyway, I want to do a nice review, but not until I can rip some high quality video, screencaps, and .gifs to accompany it. I’ll be back in Japan on January 3rd, and I plan to buy the DVD asap after that. I hope you don’t mind the tardiness of my upcoming QOP post.

In the meantime, I’m working on a Best of 2008 post since I can do that from home. Look forward to that, and for those of you who already have the QOP DVD in your posession….I hate you.

~Celestia~

Just got back from a trip to Kyoto!

I ended up buying that magazine with the awesome Akame shot in it. I can now confirm that it’s 100% real.

Queen of Pirates concert DVD is going to be released on New Years Day. On the one hand, YAY! I was starting to get worried at the lack of DVD announcement. On the other hand, NO! I will still be in the states for Christmas on New Years day, and I won’t be able to buy it until I get back a few days later!

Finally, some magazine did a poll for “Most Kissable Lips” , showing pictures of a bunch of celebrity’s lips (not the rest of their faces). Jin got second place!! Want to know the most hilarious part? They were polling guys, and Jin is the only man to make the top 10 list. LOLOL. Jin’s lips are turning the men of Japan gay without them realizing.

~Celestia~