You know I have to do it… LOL
I wanted to add one more panel, but I thought it would be too spoilerific of the episode. I really really REALLY hope and wish someone subs Shokuzai because it’s only five episodes, and buzz seems to label it as “the drama” of the season because of the amount of talent involved [1].
See, this would be a mega-talent post if NHK would only let me embed Shiina Ringo’s performance at the latest Kouhaku, but no~~~ they gotta make things difficult.
Anyway, I think I may have died a little and gone to heaven. One of my wishes from last year may be coming true or something. Faye Wong singing new material — for New Year nonetheless — it’s like the creative muses got together and made Shiina Ringo and Faye Wong perform so close to one another, some babies may have been born with no talent at all because the concentration of it might be too much. LOL
as per usual with Faye Wong stuff, I have no idea what this song may be call except for Yuan (愿) which can mean “desire, wish, hope, willing, ready” — take your pick. You can listen to the studio version here.
The live version is… off, apparently Faye — diva and all – recognized she messed up a bit. I’m really blaming her time off stage, but it doesn’t matter… I can just LOOT AT HER. THAT STAGE. That stage is stunning beyond words. I can salivate looking at that stage and love that I can see it in high definition… there are just no proper words to describe it.
Thanks to Cfensi for the heads up.
How was the new year celebration?
Most importantly~ did you catch adorable Mana-chan performing? If you didn’t, the Maru Maru Mori Mori performance blended with the Arashi/Disney performance and anything with Disney is full of win for me. I found you this link on Nate.com of the Disney performance.
Mana-chan also had the most graceful fall on stage, that I swear it’s going to last all year and be name Most Graceful On-Stage Fall of 2012~~~ which wasn’t even 2012, but just for the sake of upload times, it was.
[iframe src=”https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=163309537107207″ width=”580″ height=”326″ /]
You can read my “review” of this years show over in: NHK scouts the web for clips, but we can’t help by talk about the Kouhaku~ blog post.
Oh, I guess I gotta watch NHK all day to get fed all their upcoming series — at least for January. We all knew that Kenichi Matsuyama would be doing this year’s Taiga (Time really does fly!), but who knew Hikari Mitsushima (Love Exposure [1], Sawako Decides, Villain) is ending up on NHK?
The Pioneers, which is wayyyy easier to type than Kaitakushatachi (開拓者たち), showed a small clip while I was watching and seemed pretty good. According to Tokyograph:
A special “documentary drama” mini-series to commemorate the launch of its BS Premium channel and the 40th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic ties between Japan and China. […]
The story is set in the region formerly known as Manchuria and is based on the groups trying to resettle there in the years after the Manchurian Incident. The central characters are a family of four siblings who live there, but who are forced to flee due to the Soviet invasion of the region and Japan’s defeat in World War II. As a result, they return to Japan and attempt to forge a new life on a farm in the Tochigi prefecture.
The clip looked really good. We all know Hikari Mitsushima is a pretty good actress and this seems to be one of those projects. But as anything Japanese, no clips online to embed so I stole these:
Continue Reading…
Kenichi Matsuyama looks so grown-up now… promoting his upcoming NHK Taiga, Taira no Kiyomori — all I know about Kiyomori I learned in Yoshitsune [1] haha. Anyway, as you know I was pretty pumped [1][2][3] for Gou and I defended Juri through it all [1], but I knew Gou’s fault.
Anyway, I’m pretty pumped for Taira no Kiyomori, and this promo for it with a manly Kenichi Matsuyama is kinda… really inspiring haha. I kinda really love that photo.
are you going to be watching?
She’s like… the cutest thing EVER. She was even cuter in this 30sec commercial when she was super tiny. OMG, I just wanna squish her little face on that hahahaha.
And she’s SUCH a great actress. You just gotta watch her break YOU down on Mother. At a drop of a dime, she’ll break your heart and make you cry. She is, obviously, since then the biggest (child) actor/idol EVER. She’s done tons of commercials, sponsors, small roles on films, headed her own television dramas, guested on several talk shows, headed her own talk show or whatever…
I don’t remember when I first watched this clip, but I remember I saw just a bit of it — the first two lines — on CCTV. Maybe it was during the 10th anniversary of the Macao Handover, but I remember the little girl singing.. it was just that, and then they cut away. At that time, I spoke no word of Mandarin (or Cantonese, or any dialect),my mother was watching with me as she listened to it and translated. She turned and told me “you know my name is not Macau, that is not my name.” — A sudden rush of emotions came over me.
I have no idea why that line was so powerful to me, I literally had to go to my room because I felt a little dust bugging me and my tears forming.
There’s another version here, just in case. And the audio on 1ting.com
That was then. I have no idea what got me tonight — must be The Flowers of War business, I always get like this when I read a lot of negative press against China since the Olympics LOL. Anyway, I went on a hunt for that song because I didn’t know what it was called, and my mother didn’t grow up in China singing it so she had no idea it was a popular children’s song.
Called the Song of the Seven Sons – Aomen (七子之歌-澳门)… apparently there’s a Taiwan version as well, but it’s not as hip [1]. I thought there might be 7 versions of the song for different regions that were part of China or something xD
Anyway, a really GOOD translation of the lyrics is hard to find, but I managed to find a good one without doing any translating work (because I’m so lazy like that) but a lot of googling. Chinese, pinyin and translations after the break!
Actually, I’m really surprised at the way the trailer for this has been cut… like, not a hint of being a Japanese trailer. Is it because it’s a Warner co-production or something?
The teaser is better than I was actually expecting it to be…
Also surprise at the amount of comments in Spanish for the video… goes to show you that films like that shouldn’t just be released in North America. By the way people are talking among themselves, they sound a lot like a Peruvian crowd — and if they’re not Peruvian, it’s very likely they are all Latin American.
I don’t get to watch Nigella on tv any longer, mainly because I’m not stuck to it — and when I am, it’s only on the news channel. But I used to watch her show as often as I caught it running.
I had always thought Nigella had a way with words because she had an MA in language and, as such, knew the right way of talking to get you interested. LOL and then my friend told me she didn’t watch her show because she felt Nigella was flirting with her through it all xD
I guess I got caught in between all the flirting.
Anyway, Nigella is the guest editor for this month’s (?) Stylist Magazine, so all their frontpage at the moment is covered with Nigella content ranging from videos, recipes, tips and things~ and with that a lusciously dirty cover with Nigella’s face covered with salted caramel.
Her post on her love affair with salted caramel is also a good read, with loads of good dirty quotes. Like “I don’t want merely to experience pleasure, I want to wallow in it – gloriously and gratefully – while it lasts.” or:
Not since the first ever infant suckled at its mother’s breast had a food – it felt – had so much instant impact. If I’d been in a cartoon, my eyes would have bulged, stars would have emanated from my head, and I would have been licking my saliva-spurting lips wolfishly.
Seriously, time is flying.
We probably need someone to translate – cough, queue Nina xD
Does anyone know if a fansub group is taking this? And… are you guys watching this?
