KAT-TUN 2 Me

It’s another post with four shorter posts combined into one to make one super entry!!!

First: I am officially going to a KAT-TUN concert! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!! I’ve purchased tickets to the evening show in Ishikawa on July 20th, and even found someone to buy my extra ticket. To say that I’m excited is a humongous understatement.

Second: KAT-TUN is going to be releasing their second photobook on August 4th. Sweet. I’m not going to decide whether or not to buy it until I see previews. Here’s hoping for lots of shirtlessness and for Kame to stop trying to have facial hair before they shoot it. Seriously. His features are too delicate for that, and it makes him look homeless.

Third: The PV for Arashi’s new single “One Love” has been released. Since this single is the theme for the last installment of the ever-popular Hana Yori Dango, I imagine it will sell pretty well. Let’s take a look.

Online Videos by Veoh.com
Very cute. The whole “painting come to life” motiff is cool, if a little CG heavy. Or is it a wedding cake come to life? They look like they’re supposed to be painted, but maybe they’re just supposed to be made of frosting or marzipan? Yummy. Nino’s wearing shorts again. It makes him look more like a little boy than he already does. Tee hee. Anyway, like so many other Arashi songs, it’s nice and sweet, if a teensy bit bland. It’s like frosting! Ohhh, maybe that’s the connection to the PV. Also, what’s with the Irish-sounding music at the beginning? First Milky Way, now Arashi. Is a bagpiping trend about to sweep Japan?

Fourth: It’s back to KAT-TUN for a couple of parting quotes about their new album taken from the Oricon Style. I don’t take any credit for translating these, though I tweaked just a couple of things into smoother English. The full translation can be found HERE

Kame: I like Nakamaru’s voice!
Jin: Me too!
Junno: Me too!
Kouki: Me, not so much!
Maru: Oye! *laughs*
Kouki: Someone has to say it right!?

Maru: In Nannen tattemo, there’s one part of the lyrics that goes “Jinjin, its hot.” and Akanishi sings the line before that. That’s why that “Jinjin” starts sounding like Akanishi Jin’s Jinjin and I had fun recording

The Interviewer asks who does the “chu” at the end of 12 o’clock. Hey! I asked the same question!
Junno: SEE THERE! WHO!?
*All five turn to stare at Akanishi*
Jin: NO! NOT ME!
Junno: But, you sang all the way to the very last
Jin: I DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEFINITELY didn’t do it! Really, it isn’t me!
Junno: It’s not me
Ueda: Not me either
Kouki: I didn’t too
Kame: I…. didn’t too
Junno: Kamenash-kun!?
Kame: I… can’t say for sure I didn’t do it… I think. But when did I do it?
Maru: AH I DID IT!
All 5: EH~~~~~~~!?
Maru: I lied.
Kouki: I thought it was Kame though
Jin: If it was going to be done, it would be one of the two of us (Akanishi and Kamenashi)
Kame: But doing a “Chu” is more like me-ish, but I don’t remember how I did it…

I like Jin’s reasoning. It’s like, well, if someone is going to do a kissy sound it’s got to be either me or Kame, and I know I didn’t do it so… And Kame accepts this logic like, don’t remember, but I guess it must have been me, huh? They all find the very idea that it could have been Nakamaru to be completely ridiculous. Ah KAT-TUN’s hierarchy.

Chuuuu,

~Celestia~

This entry is for a couple random odds and ends that I’ve been meaning to post. But first…

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve figured out a way to acquire KAT-TUN tickets for one of the Ishikawa performances (7/20 or 7/21). The catch is that it’s spendy. What I want to know is if any English-speaking fan close to my own age (22) would want to accompany me. I’ll warn you, it’ll cost you at least $200, probably more. I have never paid that much for concert tickets before, and I swear that never will again, but this may well be my only chance to see KAT-TUN live, and if that’s the price that I have to pay, so be it. The problem is that I have to buy the tickets in a pair, and it’s just too expensive for me to justify paying for two and then dragging along a friend who isn’t even a fan. If you are willing to pay that and you are SURE you will be able to be in Ishikawa, Japan on the designated day, leave me a comment. I’m very serious about this offer, and I’m looking for a commitment here.

Next-

So, have you seen Cartoon KAT-TUN lately? There seems to have been a major format change. No word as to whether or not it’s permanent, but it looks like they’ve built a fairly elaborate set, so it might be. So far we have Ueda working out shirtlessly, Koki looking at weird pictures with some guy, Jin being shocked and scandalized by girls who tell him that they date 3 guys at one time (Jin: I don’t date a girl unless I think I could marry her some day… Girl: Hahahaha! You’re so young. *Jin looks worried and confused*), Junno reading love letters and then writing one…to himself, Kame wandering around asking random people “What is love?” (Baby don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me. No more), and, the best part, Maru being horribly horribly embarrassed by the lady he’s interviewing about “adult love”. It’s so fun to watch him squirm. The boys are all separated now though, so I kind of miss them interacting with each other. Here’s a picture about the show.

Finally-

I feel like I’ve been neglecting Arashi lately. Here are some very cute and love-filled pictures to make up for that.Thumbnails, so click for bigger.

Rabu rabu rabu rabu!

Leave it to group whore Satoshi to make a sly grab for Sho’s crotch.

You know how in middle school girls sometimes write, say, “Ashley x Jason= <3″ all over their binders. They left out the =<3 on these shots, but given the theme, I think it’s implied. Also, it really weirds me out when they call Nino “Kazunari”. It’s almost as bad as when they call Aiba “Masaki”.

Damn it Aiba, raise your hand! Someone has to volunteer to be the girl tonight.

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!!

Wow. This entry was all over the place, wasn’t it. I’m working on a sort of project right now, so I promise that the next entry will be more coherent.

Later,

~Celestia~

Not a real post, just some venting. I just got a new (long) letter from my host family in Japan and I’ve been up most of the night translating it. They want to meet my parents…hmm…I wonder if that would be a good idea or not? Also, my host father writes, “Are there any Japanese things you want? We’ll send them to you!” Oooooh how I want to respond with, “YES! Buy me KAT-TUN tickets. Lots and lots of them!!!” but I’m pretty sure that that’s too much to ask. Sigh. Must resist temptation.

Peace be with you,

~Celestia~

PS. There’s a new poll up!

Dates for KAT-TUN’s new concert tour are out. They can be found here

My plea is the usual one, can someone please, PLEASE, PLEASE help me get tickets? They’re not on sale yet, but I’m starting to look for someone to help me early because the thought of not being able to attend makes me feel kind of panicky. Lol. My Japanese speaking and listening is pretty good, but my reading isn’t that great (because I hate studying kanji), so I don’t trust myself to try to buy from ticket websites that are in Japanese without screwing it up somehow. Also, I don’t have a Japanese credit card, and while I can use one of my friend’s addresses to register, I’m not really comfortable asking for their credit card information.  I really want to go to either one of the Tokyo Dome concerts (August 2nd or 3rd) or the Ishikawa concerts (July 20th or 21st)  because I will be in Ishikawa staying with friends in late July and in my new permanent residence in Saitama by early August. Going to the Ishikawa concert would be my first choice because it’d probably be more convenient for me and maybe less expensive.

Ideally, I’d hope that someone would like to attend one of these concerts with me, but if you are just willing to help me buy tickets, that’s cool too. I’ll take what I can get (insanely expensive seats, crap seats, insanely expensive crap seats, whatever) as long as I can go. I really MUST go to one of these concerts. You probably don’t even understand how important this is to me. I’m willing to generously compensate you for your time and effort if you can help me. This may well be my only chance to see KAT-TUN live, and I think you’d be surprised what I’m willing to pay to make that happen.  Leave me a comment or an AIM address and we can work something out. I’m looking for a serious commitment here, not just “well maybe” so I can just stop freaking out about this. If I can’t go I may fall into a deep depression and never blog again!! You wouldn’t want to be responsible for that now, would you?

I think I’m officially a crazy fan,

~Celestia~ 

This first paragraph is going to be the same in both of my blogs. Just giving you a heads up.

Hey guys. I have officially returned from my spring break camp-o-rama, and I’m pleased to see that nothing HUGE happened while I was gone. I was so worried all week. If you were wondering what all I was doing, my school has an ‘alternative spring break’ program where instead of partying all night and sleeping all day, a group of 15 or so students spend the week doing ’service learning’. My particular trip focused on nature, so that meant I spent the week doing stuff like camping, surveying streams, removing invasive species, building trails, and planting trees. It was usually too cold to sleep, even with 12 or so layers of clothing on, we routinely got stuck in thigh-high mud, and my arms look like I lost a fight with an angry cat (blackberries are the devil), but I had a truly awesome time. What does this have to do with Jpop, you might ask? Well, 4 of our resident Japanese exchange students participated in the trip, and so I had the chance to get pretty close with them and learn a bit about their music tastes. Our sample group is made up of female sophmores in college, all around 20 years old.

When we first were discussing what kind of music we liked, I started listing off my favorite groups, and when I got to Arashi, I was met with excited squealing. Turns out that they all like them, and 2 out of the 4 are big fans and have been to several concerts. The conversation quickly turned to, “Who’s your favorite?”. One of them favors Sho while the other adores Nino (just like me!) which lead to more squealing and girly, “oh my gosh he’s so cute!!” talk. For the rest of the trip they’d occasionally start singing ‘A.RA.SHI’ and try to get me to join in. Also, all four of them watched and enjoyed Hana Yori Dango. One of the other girls in the group is a huge fan of Kanjani, and she was disappointed that while I knew the words to the chorus of ‘Zukokke Otokomichi’ I didn’t know the accompanying hand gestures. Sheesh. I didn’t even know it had hand gestures. As for KAT-TUN, none of them were fans really. Three of them generally liked them and enjoyed some of their songs, but didn’t follow them particularly closely. One of them (one of the Arashi fans) loathed KT because, “they’re arrogant, narcissistic, and rude to their sempais” I can only imagine that the Jun/Jin drama of the past was running through her mind at the time. Personally, I would argue that arrogance is the only logical response to being as handsome, talented, and popular as Akanishi Jin.

I’ll be back with a proper post once I catch up to everything I’ve missed this week. It could take a while…

HAGS,

~Celestia~