Archives For Japanese

Photobook Fever

July 3, 2008 — 6 Comments

Okay, I’ve decided! Japanese people are the master of things “must-get”. You’ve no idea how much will power took for me not to click on the “buy” button on YesAsia.com – I’ve got Photobook Fever. But Japanese photobooks are just so effing pretty, WORD.

I’m not talking about the calendars, or bikini shots. NEVER. Actually, I’ve never actively purchased a calendar or a celebrity photobook… mainly calendars, because western photobooks are not common. But calendars… my uncle once gave a 98 Degrees calendar (with a 98 Degrees album), but I’ve never bought one. But Japanese stars photobooks make you want to break your bank account because they’re so awfully pretty. I love me some artsy fartsy photos~~ And at the moment I want to buy those three Aoi Yu Photobooks on sale on YesAsia…. le sigh.

Kyou Konogoro – $21.49 *EDIT* – Scrapping this one in favor of Travel Sand photobook.
Dandelion – by Rhythmedia – $37.99
Kaiten Table wa Mutsukashii – $34.75

And holy mother of effing god, Juri Ueno photos…. A Piaciere ($39.49) – Lucky for you, and for me… and photo lovers~~~ There’s these two wonderful Flickr sets online:

Juri Ueno
Yu Aoi

It’s been like a month and a half since I last blogged about the music I’ve been listening. Of course I’m totally loving my Salyu albums since last post, and have been digging my Japanese trend these past few weeks… you wouldn’t believe. Everything Asian… le sigh. xD Including a lot of Asian films, therefore a lot of Asian Soundtrack additions because Amy loves her some soundtrack music.

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So… I saw the Linda Linda Linda movie the other day, and I got the songs stucked in my head. LOL’ The film released 2 soudntracks of sorts… One the official soundtrack, and one 6-track album performed by the actresses of the film as PARAN MAUM (Meaning Blue Hearts in Korean, referring to the * Blue Hearts covers).

* The original soundtrack contains 3 of the 6 tracks in “we are PARANMAUM” with bits with less lyrics.

  1. RINDA RINDA (Linda Linda) *
  2. Boku no Migite (My Right Hand) *
  3. Owaranai Uta (Never-ending Song) *
  4. Aoi Kokoro (Underneath Heart)
  5. BIZU Saiku (Beading)
  6. SON no BARUDO (Son’s Ballad)

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A little over a year ago, I blogged some music. I had discovered Kazumi & Maia, and it has been the most difficult thing to get their lyrics coz no one blogs them. Le sigh~~~ And their website (Record Company Website) wasn’t helpful either… Le sigh sigh~~~ u_U

Who are Kazumi & Maia? They are two Japanese women in France who do crazy genre music fusion in French and Japanese… or so called ‘chanson franco-japonaise” ~ Le gasp!! One of my best online music findings, because it was instant love! But if no one blogs them, how are they to become popular?? So I decided to blog them because I found out that Amazon.com has their album “L’Amitie” in their site. As of this moment, the item it’s listed as “out of stock” but they also have a note saying they’ll deliver it when they get it.

The hard-copy album, I think, it’s a bit pricey… BUT it DOES come with a so-called “Bonus DVD”, so who knows… it migth be worth it. Considering the state of their online ‘presence’, it makes me wonder if they would take much care to make a really kick ass bonus disc, though…. Le sigh sigh~ So if hard-copy is not your thing, you can get it through Amazon MP3 – you see, the good thing about digital downloads is that it’s always in stock, LOL – and if you’re not a US IP user (until Amazon MP3 turns international… when is that happening anyway??!?! I thought it was soon~~), you can get the album through Calabash Music.

When I was in Canada, one of my favorite programs on the Food Network was Iron Chef. Not the American version, I don’t care for the American version… but the Japanese!!

Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you what you are.

Funnyness ensued when they used REALLY bad dubbing for it. “Unh… Fukui-san” xD

I wanted to let you all know that the show will be broadcasting in Sony Entertainment Television (15 Cable Magico) on Saturdays at 8 p.m. (GMT -5, Peru Time).

Hahaha, the reason we love Nodame Cantabile is because Juri Ueno as lovable Nodame. Now, if you don’t know the series, you will still love this behind the scene of Juri Ueno singing Nodame’s Fart Exercise song.

It turns out that the song was so popular, Juri recorded a small album with kids songs. You can find the lyrics in Japanese, Romaji and English translation of the funnyness in here. (also includes imeem link)

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LOL. So the last episode of Last Friends was out last thrusday. Did you watch it? I hope you did, coz I might be spoiling some of it on this post.

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Following up this post.

I really really don’t know how many films I have actually seen from my list of “Want to See” LOL’ It’s most likely that my list have gotten longer than shorter, ha! So this is the current films I want to see.

  • The Dark Knight (156 days on my list)
  • Young People Fucking (Canadians! Go watch it!!)
  • Married Life
  • Smart People
  • Life Before her Eyes
  • Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
  • Mister Lonely
  • Wanted (LOL’ I know… but James McAvoy is hot!)
  • The Women (Will they pull this remake out?)
  • Young @ Heart
  • Meduzot (Jellyfish) – Does anyone have subtitles for this????? It’s been sitting on my hard disk for at least a month.
  • Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge (The Flight of the Red Balloon)
  • The Fall
  • Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
  • Blindness
  • The Babysitters (hahaha, I know~~~ *rolls eyes*)
  • Sangre de mi Sangre
  • Savage Grace
  • Towelhead
  • Bloodline
  • City of Ember
  • Religulous (14 days on my list)

And these are the films I’ve seen the past month:

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Shinobu Yaguchi’s work will be showing in Lima thanks to IX Ciclo Anual de Cine Japones, by el Centro Cultural Peruano Japones. Why is this important??? Because Swing GIrls is a Juri Ueno film!

Better late than never, non?

You can check their calendar in the website.

Waterboys will be showing on July 10 (Thursday) (video here *SPOILER ALERT*)
Swing Girls will be showing on July 24 (Thursday) (video here *SPOILER ALERT*)

Place:
Auditorio Dai Hall, Centro Cultural Peruano Japonés.
Av. Gregorio Escobedo 803, Jesús María.

Time:
7.30 pm (19.30hrs)

Entrance is FREE, so PROBABLY LIMITED.

Pricey Hobbies

June 16, 2008 — 5 Comments

Wah… That’s all I have to react, Wah~~~ hahaha

So because I’m a dork, I usually try to purchase stuff I really quite like listening or watching, or just for the sake of having it. So, for the past week, I have been totally addicted to Yu Aoi material – Films and Shows – so dorky me went “What the heck?” and I visited YesAsia.com to check on DVDs. I watched an episode of Camouflage, which I thought was BIZARRE, but surprisingly good as in “it almost looks like a film” type of show.

The show (also known as Aoi Yu x 4 Lies, or something like that) is told into four 3-episode-chapters (making the number of chapters 12), each chapter directed by a different director, who had no restrains to tell a story centering on the idea of lies.

So I watched it, and thought it was really good, but all episodes are not downloading so I went and looked them up. They’re coming out on DVD (Japan Region, 2) this July 15th, on 4 different sets. However, problem number one! They don’t have English subs. And problema numero dos, each set of 3 episodes is roughly $40USD, making the whole 12 episodes $160USD… roughly, give or take. So my mouth dropped, and profanity came out of it hahaha.

Because of this, I went and searched for Nodame Cantabile (just to check on average prices), which was roughly $240USD for the 11 episodes on the show. LE GASP! My heart broke, my brain cried, and my spirit was broken realizing how broke my bank account would be. Can you imagine?? Buying 3 different Jdrama DVD sets at $240USD each? Lucky, or unlucky for me~~ most of them are not English subtitled. Maybe not knowing Japanese is a perk? LOL’

The good thing is that Amazon.com has some Yu Aoi movie DVDs, but it’s VERY limited… at a reasonable price, but limited. And I doubt they will list Camouflage… le sigh. I might consider buying “Hana and Alice” and “Hula Girls”, though I will be missing Rainbow Song. T_T