Yaguchi could be gettting married soon

Tokyograph has translated an article from Japanese online news site Sanspo which reveals that Yaguchi Mari could very well be getting married this Spring to actor Masaya Nakamura. It was already confirmed (by Yaguchi herself) that Nakamura and her were dating and now it seems like they will be husband and wife before long. It's not 100% confirmed yet, but I'll update if anything new develops. Congrats Yaguchi! More info at Tokyograph: http...

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CDJapan 3 day sale

Right now CDJapan has a sale that will end January 3rd (Japan time). There are 16 different Hello! Project CDs and DVDs on sale as much as 50%, which are great deals. I have compiled a complete listing of the H!P sale items for this post: Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game (Limited A w/DVD) - normally 1600yen, on sale for 800yen Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game (Limited B w/DVD) - normally 1600yen, on sale for 800 yen Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game (Single V) - normally 1500yen, on sale for 900yen Shining Power (Limited A w/ DVD) - normally 1600yen, on...

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S/mileage wins!!

S/mileage was nominated for a pretty big award - the Best New Artist category of the 52nd Japan Record awards - and won! They were going against K-pop group SNSD, who sold 100,000+ copies with their last Japanese single. Considering the K-pop mood Japan seems to be on right now, I thought S/mileage had no chance. Oh how wrong I was. Earlier this year S/mileage made a somewhat controversial statement saying they won't lose to SNSD (because S/mileage wants to be considered a group with great legs and well, SNSD is a popular group with great legs)...

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Dance de Bakoon! Autograph

A couple of weeks ago I treated myself to an early birthday/Christmas present and the goods arrived today. I bid on and (obviously) won two Dance de Bakoon! posters at Yahoo! Japan Auctions (the Japanese equivalent to eBay). First is a normal Bakoon! poster. Akuma de Kyuuto, Campus Life, Bakoon, and Aitai singles help hold down the fort But the real star is the signed Bakoon! poster...

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1 More Morning Musume Auditions Special Episode

It seems like next week's Bijou Gaku episode will be focused on the member(s) that were chosen in the 9th Generation Auditions. It won't air on this week's episode because, well, there is no episode this week. Bijou Gaku is on vacation. So, only 3 days until the concert! via the Bijou Gaku website: http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/bijyoga...

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C-ute 2010 Summer Concert review

Finally released to the internet the other day was C-ute's 2010 Summer Concert Tour (not sure whether to call it fall or summer because the title says "natsu aki", which translates to "summer fall", but since it started in August I just call it their summer tour). 1. Dance de Bakoon! Surprisingly this was my least favorite performance of this song. I love it to death but a combination of the outfits (makes a hot song like this less hot) and placement of this song (I wouldn't have picked this to open the concert) contributed to my conclusion....

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H!P videos you may have missed, 2010 edition

Staying with this end of the year theme I'm currently on, this post will list some of my favorite videos that have made their way onto the Hello! Online tracker, but either weren't too popular or were released so long ago you may have forgotten about them. This post is going to be really long because, well, tons of great stuff happened in 2010. Maimi + Airi Up to Boy Magazine making of Up to Boy is a pretty neat Idol magazine that various H!P members...

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Tsuji gives birth to her second child

Yesterday, Tsuji and her husband Taiyo became parents for the second time. Baby Noa now has a little brother to share the house with. Congrats Tsuji! More info at Tokyograph: http://www.tokyograph.com/news/id-7235 EDIT: Oh hey look, it's Noa holding her brother...

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Bijou Gaku 9th Generation Auditions Special part two

The second (and final) Bijou Gaku Morning Musume 9th Generation Audition episode aired on TV Tokyo Thursday. Most fans believed that the winners of the auditions would be revealed then, but we all know how that went. Still, this episode was significantly better than the previous "special" (which was four minutes of audition footage max). The episode starts with a small recap from last week: Tsunku talks about what kind of girl he wants and we are...

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Suki Sugite Baka Mitai: Blu-Ray style

I had hoped to have a DVD-Rip finished by now, but I've had other things to do that drew my attention away from encoding. Doing a proper Blu-ray rip is a lot harder than a run-of-the-mill DVD and I have very little practice working with BDISOs so it's taking a little longer than expected. Surprisingly the BDISO has been uploaded to H!O (not by me), so you can grab that if you want (assuming you have 50 GB of free space lol). I still plan on encoding...

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The Limited DVD of Chisato

Included with Okaichan's first photobook (simply titled Chisato, or as the DVD says, Chisato Okai) that releases today, the included DVD contains 14 minutes of making of footage. Let's take a closer look into Chisato's journey. The DVD opens with Chisato doing what I like to do the most - being lazy. Chisato is so beautiful ...

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Kikkawa Yuu and Sengoku Minami are no longer Eggs

Before all you Eggs fans faint, it's probably not what you think. For all intents and purposes, Hello! Project Egg members Kikkawa Yuu and Sengoku Minami have graduated (the official statement has been translated as "completed their HelloPro Egg training"). The question is, what exactly does this mean for their future? In Yuu's case, she almost definitely seems to be staying with H!P (or at least UFA) in some capability. She will be the opening act of the H!P 2011 Winter Concert Tour (similar to S/mileage opening for the recent Morning Musume...

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Best of 2010: Other J-pop

Since there are still two concerts that have not hit the internet yet (C-ute's and S/mileage's), I do not want to work on my top five best live performances of 2010 so I'm making a list of my favorite non-Hello! Project Japanese songs of this year. 5. Say I Love You (Takenaka Rina) If the name Takenaka Rina is familiar to you, it's probably because you remember her from being in the Eurobeat J-pop group HINOI team from 2005 - 2007. Say I Love You is Rina's soloist debut, which released in March. This song caught me by surprise because I wasn't...

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And the winner(s) of the 9th gen auditions is/are...

Stop reading right now if you don't want to be spoiled. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...Only Tsunku knows. It was announced that the results will be revealed at the H!P 2011 Winter Concert (Jan 2). lulz Let the waiting game recommence. EDIT: The results were finally announced. Click here to find out who made the c...

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Watching H!P in full HD: Fankora Blu-ray

My first ever Hello! Project Blu-ray DVD finally came in the mail. I recently bought a Blu-ray burner drive for my PC because my old DVD burner drive is getting old and has been acting weird lately. It's a cheap off-brand that I snatched from my old HP PC so I'm not really surprised. Newegg has a nice deal on a couple of Blu-ray drives (which is still going on right now) so I jumped at the opportunity to buy one. $80 for a Blu-ray burner drive...

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Best of 2010: PVs

I started off talking about my favorite albums of 2010, then my favorite A and B-sides of this year and now I'm writing about great PVs. I took into account every single type of PV - normal, dance shots, close ups, and even those kinda creepy lets-stare-at-a-girl-for-four-minutes solo versions. For this ranking, I did not pick PVs because of the quality of the song itself; instead I simply ranked them in order of which I enjoyed watching. So if I really like a particular song's dance, then its dance shot may make the list. Or if I had fun staring...

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Watching the audition results live

This is basically a reminder of the post I made last week about how to watch the audition results live: http://airiindeshou.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-watch-9th-gen-audtions-live.html Even if you missed last week's episode, you don't want to miss this week's. At the end of this Bijou Gaku episode, we are suppose to finally find out who passed the 9th Generation auditions. It will air 1 AM on Friday the 24th, Japan time. That's 11 AM on Thursday the 23rd for United States east coasters. EDIT: Fixed the time. Was a day ahe...

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Best of 2010: Songs (B-sides)

Yesterday I talked about my top five A-sides of 2010, and three days ago I ranked my favorite album songs. Today I'm moving on to B-sides. Because they almost never gets a PV, B-sides are often forgotten, or simply ignored by far too many people. That is a huge mistake. A lot of the time B-sides are pretty awesome and occasionally I will enjoy it more than the featured single. So anyway, here we go. Top 5 B-sides 5. Hello! Esper! Hello! (B-side to Mano Erina's Haru no Arashi) This was also the theme song to her awesome drama Hanbun Esper,...

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Best of 2010: Songs (A-sides)

Two days ago I ranked my top five albums of 2010 and today I'm writing about my favorite five A-sides of 2010. Tomorrow will be the top five B-sides. Top 5 A-sides 5. Akuma de Kyuuto na Seishun Graffiti (C-ute) I stated before that I'm not a fan of plays or musicals (even if a Hello! Project member is present), but this one is a bit different. It's been a good two years or so since I've watched a play/musical, but I'm sure I'll be watching this one when it releases. As for the song, it really came out of nowhere. Like I said, I don't care...

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The Reason

Okay so Luna started something interesting on her blog. I'm not really a fan of these tag game things, but this one sounded interesting and I have way too many songs on my iPod, so here goes nothing. All you have to do is open iTunes (or whatever you use to play music) and hit the shuffle button. This will randomize the order that your songs will play. Click the next button after iTunes has given you a song. Laugh at the results. Continue doing it until iTunes has given you a song to answer all of the questions. How would you describe yourself? PYT...

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Berryz Koubou to hold a concert in the States

They've technically been to the United States twice (Alo-Hellos), but this will be their first time performing in the mainland USA. It hasn't been made official by UFA yet, but apparently Captain announced it in an audio recording. They will be guests at Seattle's annual Anime convention called Sakura-Con April 22-24th. Sakura-Con's website confirms the information: http://www.sakuracon.org/ This isn't H!P's (well UFA) first time in Sakura-Con. Hangry&Angry (Yossie and Rika) performed there last year. The only problem with this announcement...

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Boyz II Men to release a J-pop cover album

Apparently acappella and R&B legends Boyz II Men will release a cover album of some popular J-pop songs (sung in English) on the 22nd. I honestly don't know how to feel. I've heard something like this before and that did not go well. At all. But after listening to a quick preview it doesn't make me want to vomit, so that's a good thing. There's no way I'm buying this (unless I find it in the 99 cent bin at Walmart), but Boyz II Men are normally...

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Best of 2010: Albums

Well, it's the end of the year so I'm going to look back on nearly everything H!P released in 2010 and rank them. I will re-listen to every song and re-watch every concert and PV to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. Since there are no more albums releasing this year, I'll start with them. Top 5 Album Songs I tried to pick songs from a variety of albums, but a few of the albums had a bunch of really awesome songs so that didn't work out too well. 5.  Grand Demo Rouka Demo Medatsu Kimi (from Berryz Koubou's 6th Otakebi album) I...

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Engrish fun at the grocery store

So the other day I found out about a pretty cool Asian supermarket that is somewhat near me. I scored a couple of pretty nice Japanese food items: frozen Nikuman, Yakiniku Don, Vermont Curry, as well as some typical weeaboo items like Strawberry Pocky and a six pack of Melon Ramune. But none of those could compare to what I found in the snack section. That's right, cock da asses. After seeing the title, I had to buy it. I didn't care what it...

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H!P Weekly Roundup #7

Doing another one of these to condense all of the new news into one post. Aitai Lonely Christmas 2nd Week Sales They sold 2,239 for their second week, bringing the total to 25,921 copies sold. This puts Aitai as C-ute's best selling single of 2010. It also has a real short of surpassing Everyday Zekkouchou, which would make Aitai C-ute's best selling single since July 2009. DAWA gets a photobook S/mileage member Wada Ayaka will be getting her...

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Bijou Gaku 9th Generation Auditions Special part one

About seven hours ago the first of two Bijou Gaku Morning Musume 9th Generation Audition Special aired on TV Tokyo. This was something that I was really looking forward to, almost as much as the graduation concert itself. Unfortunately, fans will have to wait at least another week for some sort of closure to the auditions. Continue reading to see why. The boss man himself. I think the text says something about the members being careless. A...

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