Category: Japanese

  • Best Songs of 2000-2009 – Part 2/5

    To keep things interesting, I’ve decided to switch to the newest songs that made the best 100 songs of the decade. Just the heads up, it turned out to be very Asian. Is it trying to tell you something?

    One of those examples was the Welcome to Beijing song, which had a HUGE bunch of Asian (mostly Chinese, Taiwan and Hong Kong) stars. The scale of the project is probably similar to (or even bigger than) Michael Jackson’s We Are the World song… which in its time was epic. To me, and to many Asian (and non-Asian) people who keep track of the Asian music industry it marked an important time. Not only did the Olympics opened China to the world… and the world to China, but it also felt like a huge switch on everything from basic economics, industry… and entertainment.

    It’s as if Chinese musicians had been enclosed all those years while the economy started to pick up, and have exploded with a huge fireball of creativity. It’s amazing at the amount of talent coming out from there, especially now that they can upload their music through the many Chinese music websites like douban.com and haoting.com, and the amount of blogs and communities that are reporting on them.

    Some really awesome music, which I have already blog in this place. This is the reason, I want to get over these ones first, before I post many other songs from 2002-2006 when I didn’t blog that much (or at all).

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  • Camouflage – Aoi Yu x Yottsu no Uso – Chapter 2

    Finally got the chance to watch the second chapter of Camouflage fully translated. Why? One, because I didn’t have the time, and when I had the time ViiKii wasn’t letting me stream.

    So… anyway! I’m pimping subscribers! I want more people to subscribe, and I guess most of the visitors are coming here for their Yu Aoi fix, so please. Add this blog to your Google, or your Yahoo…. or just add the blog’s Feed to any reader you use, that way you can keep up with your Yu Aoi reading. ;P

    Okay, pimp time is done.

    BARAIRO NO HIBI, or Rose-colored Days is the 2nd 3-episode chapter of Yu Aoi’s Camouflage, which aired a LONG time ago. The title seems to be a play on words on “rose-colored g lasses” (aka. pink-colored glasses) which refers to seeing something nicer than it normally is. A common word that is often used (and I often read about 5 years ago) was delusion. Delusional people aren’t really crazy per se, but they are living in an illusion that they’ve created.

    In this case, Yu’s character, Makoto.

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  • Best Songs of 2000-2009 – Part 1/5

    Ever since the internet began playing a bigger part on what is music today (with places like MySpace, YouTube and Peer to Peer), I said it… there will never be a fuly 100 Greatest Songs for this past decade. You will watch a VH1 (or MTV) Greatest Songs of 2000-2009, and you will always feel they will be nothing compared to their list of Greatest 90’s songs, or Greatest 80’s songs where you would sit, listen and say “Wow, I remember this song. It brings such memories” – Those days are over, and it’s kind of nostalgic.

    With the internet, the market for music was open in such a way that you do not need to listen to the radios. You are not obliged to listen to what the record companies decide to send the radios… you simply do not need to listen to anything they produce as there’s a market from pretty much any small artist willing to put themselves out there. With the internet, you do not need to restrain yourself from listening to something just because it’s not sold on your region. You can find out about any group around the world, singing in any language, and you can most likely get their albums digitally or through online stores.

    And so my list of 100 Best Songs of the Decade doesn’t reflect what was supposed to be popular in America… or America Latina… or Europe… or China… or Japan, but it reflects the best of everything that was available anywhere in the world. There is most likely you will find something here that will bring memories to you.

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  • Yu Aoi on NHK’s Taiga Drama Ryoma den!

    NHK will begin airing their new Taiga (historical) drama on January 3rd 2010, titled Ryoman den (龍馬伝), and Yu has been announced as a cast member.

    NHK’s 49h taiga drama centers around Ryoma Sakamoto (January 3, 1836 – December 10, 1867) a leader of the movement to overthrow the feudal regime of Tokugawa shogunate. Ryoma Sakmoto is thought to have been a visionary who helped spur Japan to modernization.

    Yu Aoi will be playing Omoto, and we don’t know anything else. So those rumors weren’t so far off~~~ LOL We have no idea how long she will play Omoto… maybe 4 episodes? When? If you can read Jap, please let me know.

    Best announcement for Xmas ever~ xD

    I just need to wait for subs hahaha

  • Best Albums of 2000-2009

    Well, I’ve found it easier to narrow down the number of albums for this Top100 Albums of the Decade, than to narrow my list of songs to 100. LOL I have around 350 songs at the moment. This is gonna be difficult… and also in every possible language xD

    Anyway, I’m sure that I had to take out some albums to include other albums. It was all a very difficult process to figure out what to include… going from “do I really have to take this song out?” to “OMG, I really love all these songs from this artist!!! Which one should I choose!- So please, bear with me, and comment what to add.

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  • Best of 2009: Songs

    Well I don’t think I have listened to much 2009 music, and I know there are a couple of albums that are still on my list of “want to listen” but I figured if I wasn’t rushing to get them, I wasn’t gonna fall madly in love with them.

    So here is my provisional list of best 2009 songs. I’m also planning a Best Songs of 2000-2009, but that’s gonna take wayyyyyyyy longer. At the moment I have pre-selected the songs from 2000-2006 which are nearly 500 songs. I need to listen to all of them and begin taking songs out. I’m pushing for a 100 songs list.

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  • Work in Progress: Best Films of 2000-2009

    This is my “work in progress” list of Best of Films 2000-2009. Why a “work in progress”? Because there’s films I haven’t seen, and because there’s films not on the database.

    Best of 2000-2009

  • Best of 2009: Television

    I am most certainly rubbish with this. Mainly because television requires a lot of hours of your time, which just doesn’t help if you need to watch everything. While votes on award shows are only required to watch 2 episodes, I try watching all the episodes on a season (of good shows). The bad ones never make it pass the 2nd week. LOL

    So this year, I don’t think I watched too many shows. And I don’t watch reality any longer, maybe an episode a month of things like Iron Chef, or Project Runway, or So You Think You Can Dance, and/or Ramsay’s The F Word. I like Ramsay. He reminds me of my uncle. Hahahaha.

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  • Where the Wild Things Are Gets Some Chicago Love~

    And the nominations and winners continue, this time with the Chicago Critics’ nominations (and tomorrow with the SAG nominations). It is a busy time.

    Leading the nominees with six is one of the many awards favorites, Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air. But hold on just a moment. It has a co-pilot. Also riding a wave of six nominations is Spike Jonze’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are,

    …

    Joining both films in the Best Picture race from Chicago are Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (each with five nominations) and Joel & Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man with 4.

    some nice changes and surprises!
    check the nominees!

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  • Yu Aoi for Period Drama Raiou with Masaki Okada

    Julz sent this to my email, and then saw it on Nippon Cinema.

    Thank you, Yu. Just what I asked for!
    And before I get to see Ike-chan! LOL

    Also, gonna quote NC coz it seems more precise. Yu and Masaki Okada have worked together on Honokaa Boy, but Yu was in such a small portion of the first 10 minutes of the film, that it shouldn’ t really count as working together. LOL

    But here goes~

    Yu Aoi and Masaki Okada are set to star in an upcoming jidaigeki film called Raiou, which is based on a best-selling novel by Mari Ueza inspired by Shakespeare’s classic tale of star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet.

    …

    Okada will play Narimichi, a young man born into the family of the shogunate, and thus bound by the shackles of his own bloodline and the expectations of Edo period society. Aoi will play Yu, a girl who has been living deep in the mountains since being kidnapped at a young age. Under normal circumstances, these two would never cross paths, but a chance encounter in front of a strange tree called “Raiou” sparks an unlikely romance.

    The project will be directed by Ryuichi Hiroki who previously worked on Eita’s movie April Bride, which I dunno… gives me some doubts. I didn’t really think much of April Bride, and I do love Eita a lot. However, the idea of Aoi playing a “savage” [insert shameless Savage Yejin plug here] makes it interesting.