KAT-TUN 2 Me

This week’s episode of Arashi no Shukudai-kun was so cute! They were doing an “Okane ga Nai” special because, apparently, they’ve spent too much money buying expensive food for the guests, so some guys removed the entire set (presumably to sell to to fangirls), there was no guest, and Aiba was in charge again. Oh how I love it when Aiba is in charge of Arashi no Shukudai-kun. Such a little ball of skittery energy. Anyway, the episode was especially good because there was no guest, I think. I really don’t care what Grauve Model X or Comedian Y has to say. I watch ANS to see Arashi! Preferably Arashi being gay affectionate all over the place, which is exactly what you get with this episode.

Anyway, I have been inspired to make a few screen caps and a couple of .gifs, mostly featuring Nino because I wuv him.

Aiba attempts to introduce some cheap foods, which get mixed reviews. This section is particularly fun because Nino is hanging on Ohno most of the time.

At one point they were both off giggling on their own and Ogura-san had to snap at them to stop playing around.

Trying to force feed Nino. They ought to do this more often.

Has there always been a bunny in fishnets at the back of the set?

Next, Aiba proposes a contest to see who can fall asleep the fastest. It turns out it’s difficult to fall asleep with a hyper Aiba-chan wandering around and chirping at you constantly. “Come on guys! You’ve really got to sleep! For reals! Are you sleeping yet? Huh? Are you??” Oh Aiba-chan… His attempts to hypnotize Nino are also met with minimal success.

Jun doesn’t even try to sleep, and starts reading manga. This displeases Aiba, who forces Jun to put his head in his lap (I know!), gently brushes away his hair (much to Jun’s annoyance), and starts prodding him in the ear with something. How that’s supposed to help him sleep is completely beyond me.

Checking to see if Sho’s asleep…

Nope!

Then Aiba gets the bright idea that Nino doing a magic trick for Sho will make him fall asleep. Okay…Unfortunately when he’s done, Nino’s a little bit reluctant to go back to bed…

What a brat.

In the end, the winner is Ogura-san, who buried his head under the covers and successfully drowned out Aiba’s noisiness.

Sweet Dreams,

~Celestia~

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~

Before I start the image rush, a quick announcement. I already wrote about this in my other blog, but in case you don’t read that, yesterday I found out that I got a job I applied for to teach English in Japan for the year, which, as wu-san kindly pointed out, is just a cover for my real purpose: attending concerts and buying merchandise. So, if any English speaking Johnny’s fans will be in the Tokyo area from August 2008-July 2009 and would like to attend a concert with me, please drop me a line! It’d be nice to have another Gaijin with me there. It seems that I’m arriving about a week too late to catch Arashi’s new concert tour (dang it. I wonder if I can think of an excuse to leave a week early), but I’m sure that they will be having some really awesome 10th anniversary concerts in 2009, so hopefully I will be able to catch one of those. It goes without saying that I will do everything in my power to attend any concert featuring KAT-TUN or any of its members.

And we’re back to the frozen North!

So this isn’t really funny if you don’t speak Japanese, but basically, they had to shovel a path up those steps, and the guy asks why it gets narrower at the top (because they got lazy!). Jin, in one of his bouts of strange cleverness, explains that it’s so if you are walking up with your girlfriend, you’ll end up pulling in close together as you approach the top.

“Yuu-kun (hereafter referred to as ‘Adorable Child’), which of them do you want to stay and read you a story?” Guess who he’s pointing to.

Smart kid. Now we have reason to feel sorry for Nakamaru #3, he has to go back out into the cold and build a snowman. Jin gets to stay inside and play with Adorable Child.

Demanding a recount, Nakamaru questions Adorable Child again.

Rejected! Reason to feel sorry for Nakamaru number #4.

Watching Jin play with Adorable Child makes me want to have his babies even more than I already do.

Next, a contest to clean off the ice for skating. Winner gets hot soup, loser has to sweep up the rest of the snow. Reason to feel sorry for Nakamaru #5, he cheats (look at all those parts he’s skipping!), and he still loses by quite a bit.

Revenge! I’m pretty sure this hurt Maru a lot more than it hurt Jin though. Is it just me, or does Kame look kind of concerned up there?

Jin and his minions skate around and harass Nakamaru while he tries to sweep.

They had dinner with everyone after this, but it wasn’t particularly interesting to look at, so now back to the studio. What’s this?? Kame announces that Adorable Child has sent presents for Jin and Maru. Jin: “Yaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!” Maru: “Bitch didn’t even like my snowman”

Jin was tearing up a bit when he saw his present. Awwwww. Here we also have our 6th and final reason to feel sorry for Nakamaru, the picture Adorable Child drew for Jin is much better than the one he drew for Maru, and everyone teases him about it.

One last shot of Jin and Adorable Child. Just when I thought I couldn’t love him more, he has to go and do something ridiculously endearing like this.

This will be my last post before I peace out for Spring Break. I’m going to be camping, so I’ll be away from my computer and the internet, which means that amazing and blog-worthy events will happen next week. Last time I went away for Spring Break they added Chinese members to Morning Musume. So, if it is revealed next week that Ueda is pregnant or that KAT-TUN has declared war on Arashi and there are heavy casualties on both sides, my bad.

See you next week,

~Celestia~

Inspired by photo/witty commentary filled reviews of recent Haromoni (the reviews are much more interesting than the actual show, BTW), I’ve decided to do the same thing for the recent most excellent Cartoon KAT-TUN special where Jin and Maru are sent to Hokkaido to freeze their asses off. I made too many for one post (it’s an hour-long special) so part 2 with the second half is immediately to follow this. Uh, and I hope you like Akanishi, because there’s quite a lot of him…

No doubt JunJun would be horrified at the waste of a perfectly good banana. They’re pounding nails with it to prove how cold it is.

Since this is a “punishment game” they have to ride in a convertible. Hehehe, Jin looks like a turtle.

Bakanishi is pwned by a tiny pony (it bit him). He looks so aghast!

As this episode progressed I began to feel more and more sorry for Nakamaru. Reason to feel sorry for Nakamaru #1: He got assigned the job of shoveling horse doo-doo. Reason to question Nakamaru’s sanity #1: He decided to smell it.

Meanwhile, Jin is being all manly and chopping wood. It took him a while to get the hang of it…

Attempts at kicking the log into submission were met with minimal success.

But he gets it eventually!

“Okay. Now I’m going to chop the biggest damn log you’ve got!” he exclaims in typical Jin fashion. Maru once said that Jin is unstoppable when he puts his mind to something. It’s somewhere in my quote collection, but the story was that back in his earlyish Jr days, when he couldn’t really do a backflip yet, some of the other Juniors were teasing him about it, so he went and did an even more difficult type of backflip that he’d never even attempted before just to shut them up, and he pulled it off.

Needless to say, the log didn’t stand a chance.

Maru, we’re eating. Please recount your poop-sniffing story some other time. Love Jin’s smile though.

Back to the car. Hey, where did JinJin go?

And now we take a break and return to the studio to repeatedly lock Kame in a freezer.

“Guyyyys! C’mon guys! That’s not funny!” Sorry Kame, but it is.

Reason to feel sorry for Nakamaru #2, Kame froze his shirt.

Jin was very impressed with the frozen spaghetti.

If the Lips PV ‘Making of’ taught me anything, it’s that Bakanishi loves megaphones.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

~Celestia~