KAT-TUN 2 Me

Here is the promised “fun thing” that I have been working on. I’ve made a video ranking what I consider to be Arashi’s funniest choreographed dance moves. Making this video has left me wondering what kind of magic Arashi has that allows them to perform this kind of thing all the time without getting laughed off stage. All too often while making this video, I found myself squinting cross-eyed at a particular dance section and saying, “well sure it’s ridiculous, but is it unusually ridiculous?” I’ve limited it to single choreography because if I included free-style stuff I’d probably have to include 50 clips of Matsujun alone. I did sneak a bit of unchoreographed shenanigans into the introduction though.

This video is kind of an experiment in combining media with commentary to make one neat video package. There are still a few kinks to work out. Some of the volume levels are weird, and I didn’t have high enough quality versions of some of the clips I wanted to use. Still, I’m pretty sure that the end result is amusing. If you are an Arashi fan you will probably grin appreciatively, if you hate them you can go ahead and laugh mockingly, and if you are indifferent, who knows, this might even change your mind. Anyway, be nice. I’m still figuring out this video editing thing.

I think I’ll end with a nice Arashi quote or two. It’s been a while since I posted any. Let’s call these,”Evidence that Arashi lives in their own little Arashi world”

MatsuJun: You know, the other day I thought out of the blue, wouldn’t it be interesting if we held the press conference announcing our marriages all together? (laughs)
Other four: Ahahahaha!
Sho: Just like when we made our debut, the five of us get together, show off our rings (laughs).
MatsuJun: In Hawaii, aboard a boat.
Nino: They’ll be like, “Leaving your brides alone…just how much do you guys like Arashi!?”

Ohno: This is happiness right now, when we’re saying these things.
Other four: You just said something good just now!
MatsuJun: The happiness when the five of us can be together

November 2006, TV Guide
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You know, you could solve the problem of abandoning your brides to hang out with your group-mates if you all marry each other. Just sayin’

Matsujun: No matter what, if it’s Party or GOKON, if someone puts “A.RA.SHI’ in Karaoke, we will just have fun just the 5 of us. All surroundings are left behind! (Laugh)
Aiba: I agree! (Laugh) After finishing the entire song, we may just leave.
Sho: “Thank you for today. Will do it again!” Like that? (Laugh)
Nino: Is that a concert or what? Though people who are in the place will be dumbfounded, we will really be satisfied!(Laugh)

May 2008, Popolo
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Oh man. Can’t you just imagine this happening? Someone puts A.ra.shi. on karaoke and they break into full song and dance routine, and then go frolic off somewhere together after the song ends, completely forgetting about their dates who are just sitting there going, “WTF? They’re coming back…right?”

Welcome to my happy place,

~Celestia~

I might be addicted to quotation qorners. It has been a whole 2 entries since I did one though! BTW, I think that this entry might have been skipped in all the confusion, and I kinda like it, so check it out if you want. For today’s entry, it’s Jin being an ass and Nino being…difficult. I don’t want to call him an ass, so we’ll go with difficult. And yes, I am very biased and I do write about my favorites much more often than the rest of them.

I’ll do Jin first (yeah I will) . I’ve gone to such great lengths to prove that he’s an air-head lately, haven’t I? Truth is, he can be clever on occasion, but those occasions are almost always when he’s taking shots at the other members, particularly Nakamaru and Taguchi.

Jin: If you hear this, it will appear in your dreams.
Ueda: Jya, everyone, let’s go back.
Jin: Close your eyes.
Maru: But its scary…
Jin: Imagine it vividly in your head.
Ueda: Iyada! Iyada!(no! that’s awful! similar sentiments)

*dramatic pause*

Jin: Nakamaru when he had long hair!

Summer 2007, Cartoon KAT-TUN

Kame: I heard that if you only think and don’t move for a long time your arms and legs could become paralyzed.

Junno: I’ve never had that happen. I only know sleeping or awake.

Jin: Well, that’s all you know.

November 2007, Cartoon KAT-TUN

Scene: KAT-TUN members have just undergone a personality test where they have to befriend a dog.

Kame: And coincidentally both Akanishi-kun and Taguchi-kun decided to call the dog ‘John’

Jin: I almost called it ‘Jun’ but then I thought that someone would get mad at me again

Matsujun: *’I hate you so much’-type smile*

Jin and Jun don’t get along (though Jin seems to be trying to mend fences lately). It’s sad because if they were friends I would call them Junji and their combined sexiness could take over the world.

2004, Utawara

Scene: Writing about going on a location shoot to Hokkaido with Nakamaru.

Jin (writing): Nakamaru no baka (Nakamaru the idiot) was asleep for almost the whole trip. I thought about burying Nakamaru no baka in the Hokkaido snow, but Nakamaru no baka was sleeping so peacefully that I stopped myself.

February 2008

So like a spoiled little kid, mad because Maru wasn’t paying attention to him. At least he stopped himself, right?

Scene: Talking about misplacing train tickets

Junno: It makes me feel like I really wasted something

Jin: I know what you mean. I feel like I’m wasting my time talking to you right now.

Cartoon KAT-TUN

Interviewer: Do you ever look at yourself and think, “Man, I’m really cool”?

Jin: Yeah, whenever I’m standing next to Nakamaru.

Unsure, sorry

As for Nino, he’s certainly not mean, but he’s infamous for being difficult to interview. Getting a straight answer out of him that’s not, “<3 Games!" or "<3 Arashi!" is damn near impossible. I think that interviewers must hate him, but oh how I love reading what he comes up with. Sometimes he’ll flat out refuse to answer the questions, sometimes he’ll make up something ridiculous, and even when he gives a plausible answer, since it’s Nino you can never be quite sure if he really means it or not.

One of my favorite examples comes from an attempt to psychoanalyze the boy’s romantic tendencies through a series of questions. This kind of thing is quite common in Japan. Sho, Matsujun, and Aiba gave sincere answers (though Aiba’s were predictably spacey) Ohno gave answers like responding to the question “what time would you pick her up” with the current time and “what music would you play on your date” with the song that was currently playing in the room. Nino seemed to make it his personal goal to stump their psychologist, and I’d say that he thoroughly succeeded.

Q. You have a date with a girl on Valentines day. What time to you meet?

A. Valentines? Let’s see, 3 AM in the morning I think. We should use that day fully.

Q. You’ve gone out for a meal. What is her outfit today? (I’d like to note that Aiba’s answer to this one was ‘Naked!..oh wait, was that bad?’)

A. A judo outfit. Black belt… no, green belt. I guess she’s not strong enough for a black belt yet.

Q. After the meal is over you receive a Valentines present from the girl. What is it? o:p>

A. The belt she was wearing. She’ll say, “because I’ve risen to black I’ll give it to you”

Q. You both are now full. Where to next?

A. Batting center I guess. She’ll catch the ball with her bare hands. It’s to measure the strength of her grip. She’ll catch a ball flying at 120km with her bare hands, release it, then catch another one and another one.

The poor psychologist’s final analysis of Nino is (summarized): Those were some very unusual answers… If I have to pick one, I’d say that rather than romance he just wants to play actively. He really values uniqueness.

You can just hear the psychologist getting more and more pissed off as the interview goes along. It’s great!

March 2008, Duet

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The little bastard truly enjoys messing with the interviewers.

Nino: Recently, I always just tell interviewers about playing video games. I’ve really only talked about playing video games in all my interviews for the last three months. They’ll ask me, “What have you been doing recently” and I’ll answer, “Playing video games” and they’ll have this expression on their face like, “AGAIN??” So… I’m going to continue answering that way for the next 3 months too *laughs*

Baystorm (his radio show)

Later Skater,

~Celestia~

I posted some of Jin’s brilliant one-liners already, but this time I’d like to focus on a few that are a bit longer as well as one very short audio clip that you MUST listen to. I’ve come to realize that the thing about Bakanishisms is that they’re really best taken in context, because a lot of the humor comes from how the things he pipes in and says often are from way out in left field and barely connected to the current conversation at all. Don’t worry though. I still have plenty of choice moments to share that don’t require me to transcribe ten minutes worth of dialog. They’re not all exactly stupid…per say, but of that special random/dumb/adorable hybrid nature that can only be classified as ‘Bakanishi’. Hard to describe, but watch Jin for a while and you definitely know it when you see it. My comments are in purple.

Interviewer: If the members of KAT-TUN were musical instruments, what would they be?

Jin: Kamenashi would be castanets… no, the director. Tanaka would be the drums, and Taguchi the flute. Ueda is the guitar… wait, no, the piano. Nakamaru is the amp and connecting cord, and I’m the castanets.

1. ‘director’ is not an instrument

2. Neither is ‘amp and cord’

3. WTF castanets??

March 2008, Potato

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Scene: Shounen club, some Johnnys are telling stories of when they first met. These are great examples of things that aren’t so much dumb as random and out of nowhere.

Nakamaru: The first time I met Jin was on the second day of our audition. He came up to me and asked, “Are my eyes swollen?” And I thought, “How should I know? I’ve never met you, so I don’t know what your eyes looked like in the first place”, so I just said, “Maybe a little bit”

Jin: What? I don’t remember that at all!

Koyama: I remember the first time I met Jin too. We were at a studio recording and he suddenly came up to me and said, “Your eyes are really narrow”

Nakamaru: Eh??? That was what he said to you on your first meeting? That was the first thing he ever said to you? as a greeting??

Jin: I definitely didn’t say that!

Koyama: You did! I didn’t know what to do, but since Akanishi-kun was my sempai I bowed and said, “Thank you very much!”

2007, Shounen Club

Scene: The members have to write little individual messages about their new single “Signal”. Koki is reading Jin’s aloud.

Koki: This time the world’s attention is focused on the 5 of us. (NOTE: kat-tun has 6 members). We have released our 2^nd single. Please listen to it before sleeping! The song name is (various things have been written here and then scratched out)…eh…so please listen to it!

He knows neither the number of members in his group nor the title of their new single? It’s a one-word title! Also, for the record, his handwriting is atrocious. Oh Jin, I do worry about you sometimes.

July 2007, Music Station

Scene: Cartoon KAT-TUN episode with Erica Toda. They’ve prepared her favorite noodle dish using her mom’s recipe. Erica tastes it.

Erica: Ah! This tastes just like my mom’s!

Jin tries it.

Jin (with his mouth full): Mommy!

This earns him a well deserved swat on the head.

January 2008, Cartoon KAT-TUN

Scene: Cartoon KAT-TUN concert MC. The topic is “dramas”

Nakamaru: Speaking of dramas…

Jin:Anou, Dreamboys…

Nakamaru: No!! (Note: Dreamboys is a stage play, NOT a drama.)

2007, Concert MC

And I could go on and on and on…really, you have NO idea how many of these types of things I have. Oh, and don’t feel bad for Jin being shot down by Nakamaru like that, because he’s always taking shots at Nakamaru. Actually, ‘Jin being an ass’ will probably be featured in a future quotation qorner.

And finally, a very short clip from Jin and Junno’s radio show. Apparently Jin is trying to come up with a catch-phrase for himself like Junno’s “iriguchi deguchi taguchi desu!” thing. What he comes up with is just….wow. Just wow. DOWNLOAD ME!!

Another Server

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Still here? Okay then, I can’t resist posting another adorable Ohmiya exchange that I just found.

Interviewer: Okay then, were there times in 2007 that you looked at your work partner and thought about how cool he is?
Ohno: Nino’s altogether cool.
Nino: Leader’s also altogether cool.
Ohno: Even when we’re eating, I really don’t know, but he’s cool.
Nino: From the time he comes onto the scene, I think he’s cool. As expected, I think I just respect him.
Ohno: Yeah. I was thinking I feel respected. That’s what I had felt (laugh).
Nino: I adore Ohno-san. Anytime, anywhere.
Ohno: Nino’s profile is really nice when he’s playing games and other such things.
Interviewer: So then, what about points of cuteness?
Nino: Every bit’s cute.
Ohno: Every bit’s cute. I think he’s cute every day

2007 Fan Club Letter, source

Admittedly, the interviewer is baiting them but still… If I heard a normal, straight and openly dating couple say those things I’d think it was kind of nauseating, but coming from Ohmiya I just think, “Awwwwwwwwwwwww”. You know, Ohno and Nino are many wonderful things, but I’m not so sure about ‘cool’. Also, every bit huh?

Celestiafuuuu~

Don’t get the sign-off? Listen to the audio clip then.

Warning: Post contains little to no KAT-TUN.

“The Mystery of Ohmiya” might sound like a good title to a Nancy Drew book or perhaps even an Indiana Jones movie, but what I actually want to write about is one of the most unusual and fascinating features of Arashi: the Ohmiya relationship. Ohmiya of course stands for Satoshi Ohno and Kazunari Ninomiya, who are known to be a little bit too comfortable around each other, making a regular habit of holding hands, playing grab-ass, and generally being joined at the hip whenever Arashi is together. Sure, it makes the fangirls squeal, but after watching 8 years of this and hearing the other members say time and time again that, if anything, they’re even worse when they’re not on camera, makes it difficult to believe that what we’re seeing is mere fan-service. So what the hell is going on? Is there some kind of romantic relationship? Are they just doing this, as they claim, because they’re good friends and it amuses them? Do they like each other that way but they’re in denial so they tell themselves they’re just playing around? Have they gotten so used to the fanservice thing that they do it when the fans aren’t watching just out of habit? Does my collection of Ohmiya quotes have the answer? Here are some of the better recent ones, arranged from “aw, they’re good friends” to “have you no shame!?”

Nino: Even if we meet every day, I still always mail leader (note: he’s talking about cell-phone mail)
Sho: Really? You guys sure get along well.
Nino: If we’re counting, I probably mailed him about 6 times yesterday.

Okay, I’ll dedicate one line to KAT-TUN. Remember how I have a student named Tanaka Koki? Well, I was tutoring him today when one of his friends called from across the room, “Oi! Kattun!” and he looked up and said, “What?”. The guy answers to “Kattun” rofl

Did I just give this feature the worst title ever? Possibly, but I’m kind of in a weird mood, so just go with it. I have a habit of collecting, amongst other things, translations of interesting things said by my favorite idols in interviews and such. Let’s just say that I have pages and pages and pages of word documents full of them, all sorted by category of course. I think it might be fun to share some of them with whatever readers might stumble upon my humble blog. Even if you’re not a Johnny’s fan, I guarantee that you’ll find at least some of them to be entertaining.

Ah, but what should be the themes for this first set? We’ll have to go with my two favorite types, stupid things Jin says and Arashi being all lovey about their group. Since these are by far my most prolific categories, you may expect more in the future. Where I didn’t do the actual translating, I’ve provided links to where I got them from. Credit where credit is due, right? I can’t promise that the translations I did are 100% accurate, but I think they’re pretty close.

Jin: Such an Adorable Idiot- Probably already known to any fan of KAT-TUN, but worth sharing anyway. I mostly got this particular set from a forum…but I forgot where. Gomen ne!

Jin: (During a concert MC) Thanks to all the fans who gave me a Japanese dictionary with the note ‘please get more intelligent soon’. (he has…problems reading Kanji sometimes, lol)

Koki: I’ve started going to the gym recently
Jin: Ah, but don’t eat too many proteins! It’ll make your eyebrows change color.

Jin: I often see molesters, especially on trains. There’s men and women. Actually… more men than women. *considers* Actually…it’s like 5 or 6 times more men than women.

(Out of nowhere when Nakamaru had been talking about his interest in space)
Jin: There are people living on Mars
Maru: Huh?!?!
Jin (totally serious): No really! It’s true!

Jin: I fell asleep on the train and missed my stop. You can’t blame me though! In my dream, I was also on the train, and when it was my stop, I got out like I was supposed to.

Jin: At the moment I don’t have a bed, so I sleep on a futon. I jumped on the bed I had before and now one of the metal pipes is bent and I can’t use it anymore.

Jin: One of my ancestors was Italian, so Italy is practically my hometown!

Arashi Wuvs Each Other -These are my favorite recent quotes, one per member! +1 more of nino because I love him


Nino: When there are the other four around, I don’t need other friends because it’s enjoyable, and that is enough for me.

Jun: Ah! He said it! He is the person in charge of saying “I love Arashi” *laughs*

May 2007, More Magazine

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Sho: There’s a conclusion that I got recently, that for me Arashi are friends, work partners, and family… If asked, for our 10th anniversary how would we want Arashi to be, then the answer is, ‘to not change’ because I keep thinking that our present selves now are the best!

September 2007, Nikkei Entertainment
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Question: What do you treasure most?

Aiba: Arashi

2007, Myojo

Interviewer: Do you feel different when you’re working with the five members of Arashi than when you’re working alone?
Ohno: Different hmm? When I’m alone I sometimes think “Ah! The other members aren’t around!” When the five of us are together, I feel safe. They are guys that I really trust and so I really rely on them a lot. ha ha
Interviewer: Of course. It does seem like the relationship between Arashi’s members is always rapidly improving.
Ohno: It is, huh? I feel that way too. It feels like Arashi’s atmosphere has somehow been improving every year. Could this be the best year so far?

February 2007, H Magazine

Jun: The relationship with the members… I can’t really put it into words. I feel like it’s a combination of various things. If someone asks me “are you family?” I don’t think it’s that we’re family, but if someone asks, “Are you friends?” I don’t think it’s that we’re friends. It’s more like friendship and family combined. There are things that we can do because it’s us five. If it wasn’t the five of us, we couldn’t have done it!

2007, Myojo Magazine

Nino: We are able to do anything for each other. It’s because we trust each other that we’re able to go out and do the things we like (solo projects). Because there’s a place to return to. There’s this feeling of “I’ve finished what I wanted to do. Now I’m back”

January 2008, Nikkei Entertainment
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Lots of Warm Fuzzies!

~Celestia~