Two Yu Aoi posts one after the other? We truly are living in the new Yu Aoi Era. xD
On the 1000th (!!!!?) issue of Brutus, Yu talks about a skirt I only seem to recognized. MYSTERY SOLVED! Travel Sand is such a vibe, remains one of my favorite Yu Aoi’s photobooks because I loved Yoko Takahashi’s look for it.
Now, if only someone would get her to talk about this beanie, which I’ve been looking for the last twenty years.
Who ended up binge-watching Human Vapor (ガス人間)? Hai! Who’s watching Until the T-shirt Dries (Tシャツが乾くまで) weekly? HAI! Who’s currently obsessed with Southern All Stars’ version of Ellie My Love [1]? HAI.
I still have a few Yu Aoi films to catch up with (I found a copy of 1980!?), but Yu Aoi fans have been fed generously this season with Yu-chan’s open broadcast TV lead since… Osen, perhaps. 2005-2008 seems to have been a Golden Era of Yu-chan workwise. And it feels like we might get a good lead in a slice of life movie soon.
Open broadcast also usually means open promos, Japan is one or two episodes ahead of Netflix’s uploads, but Yu-chan and Kaho did a guest appearance on Bananaman no Sekkaku Gourmet!! (バナナマンのせっかくグルメ!!), where they visited Hokkaido to eat squid, sushi and shio ramen. I haven’t watched the episode yet, but I did find a way to watch it. I haven’t watched a Japanese variety episode, or Yu-chan appearance in one, in what feels like ages.
As pop culture fans, Yu-chan fans and Kaho fans may know, Yu-chan and Kaho (alongside Yamada Yu) played sisters for Canon commercials back in the day. How time flies. Look at those baby faces.
Yu-chan and Kenichi Matsuyama also played non-reciprocated love interests on Don’t Laugh at my Romance, around that same period. Now they get to play husband and wife, in a drama that is turning to be a mystery. Wholesome dorky 40-year-olds look like this. His children are probably in their teens now, but he looks like this. lol
I hope I get to find some of the pictures featured during the credits of Until the T-shirt Dries.
Like a rat/mouse, I want to be beautiful ♫ too, you guys. I love you so much.
The last couple of weeks (?) [about a month and a half ago?], the Linda Linda Linda movie team has been hyping the twentieth anniversary of the movie, which includes a gorgeous 4K restoration which some lucky people might have gotten the chance to watch on a big screen. The re-release, of course, included a very much luckier event with the cast (ALL THE CAST) and director Nobuhiro Yamashita in Japan, where even Kenichi Matsuyama recreated his love confession to Doona.
The class of Actors to Watch [2][2] from almost 15 years ago aged well.
To celebrate even more, because this is a pan-East-Asia geek event, Marie Claire Korea included a photoshoot with the Linda Linda girls.
Paranmaum desu.
I stumbled upon this re-imagined look for Demon Slayer in the ornate style of 1980’s and 1990’s anime, and it’s a dream. I enjoy Demon Slayer fine, but younger generations really have no idea what beauty they missed from old anime. Producers should really really look into making OVAs in this style.
[for some reason, I’m unable to embed?]
According to GlitchVerse comment, the song used in the video was done with AI and it’s titled Endless Struggle; featured on their channel. It is not mentioned what tools they used for generating the graphics.
Promotion season has just started for this dream collaboration that all quality J-Film fandom had wished for— a Koreeda series starring Rie Miyazawa, Machiko Ono, Yu Aoi and Suzu Hirose. Loads of crossover fandoms. Even if expectations are too high and are not fully met, it will still be good.
Specially good for Yu-chan and Suzu-chan fans who have been wanting a collaboration since we saw Suzu-chan in Shunji Iwai-verse.
Yu-chan fans are also being fed well with a quick comeback since Yu-chan became a mom and did her quick appearance on NHK’s asadora. Netflix’s Asura (阿修羅のごとく) re-adaptation is also a milestone for Yu-chan because longtime fans know Like Asura is one of Yu-chan’s favorite projects.
The +30min press conference is super fun, and YouTube auto captioning Japanese to English immediate translation is decent enough, even though translate features in browsers don’t seem to be doing well translating Yu’s name for some odd reason.
Netflix only has a 1min clip of the opening (of the show?). I would love love love the name of the song featured, though. I wasn’t able to find any info on that other than it being by Takeshi Yoshida (吉田武史) and Katsura Uehara (上原桂). The show is supposed to be available in early January 2025 (though Netflix has been known to make stuff disappear in different regions).
I’m really really excited about this project.
*Insert meme of “It’s been 84 years”*
After much mysterious drama, Marit and Marion have decided to come back together to make M2M a thing once again. You have no idea about the adrenaline rush I got when I saw Marit’s post, after missing the original posting on- “September 22nd, Sunday, twenty-five after nine.“
I love them. I hope they saw A*Teens performing together for their reunion at Melodifestivalen back in February this year and were washed by a feeling of nostalgia that they couldn’t resist. In fact, M2M has already announced The Better Endings Tour (to change the ending of The Day You Went Away, dorks), visiting a number of places in South East Asia were much of their fandom was concentrated, especially in Manila where they are already selling tickets.
My hope is that maybe, if they would like to increase touring chances in Latin America, they could get together with A*Teens and make it a Scandinavian thing. [Jokes on you! Who’s the dork now?] Thought I wouldn’t mind at all getting the chance to see Marit and Marion up close in more intimate venues, which are my preferred form of performances to witness live, anyway.
In the meantime, M2M have set up a website where you can join their mailing list, and follow them on their main socials Facebook and Instagram, Tik Tok, and a kinda left over YouTube channel.
I never really bothered with Halsey before (I’m old, this blog is old. This is a self-hosted blog.), but her sampling of Britney’s Lucky was really well done, and the music video directed by Gia Coppola took it home. It pains me to read whether Britney gave her consent for the sample, but then felt the music video somehow violated some unspoken deal, but then took it all back and called it fake news. The whole project made me nostalgic and blue.
I often think (a lot lately) about how audiences (and now fervent fandoms) literally live off and suck the life out of our supposed favorite stars. Tear them to pieces while they’re up on the spotlight and kick them when they’re down, only to regret having forgotten them in time when they’re gone. Whichever the way— tragic death or slow and lonely. “I wonder what happened to them?“
It’s sad that she seems to regret making a comeback due to mean comments from her own fans, because her whole vibe has really taken me back to the late 90s early 2000s, especially in this “stripped” version of the song where she wears baggie jeans and hot pink glasses. The colored glasses really really took me back in time.
Thank you for this beautiful, yet sad, homage to pop stars.
You’re often on my mind.
Thank you for giving us Two Tigers (兩隻老虎) and its theme song Ke Yi (可以) [1].
And off-topic, this amazing commercial.
It’s been about a month or so since the first reports of Nicole Kidman’s AFI Lifetime Achievement Award started trickling. I had already read that she was thanking the audience that had stuck by her doing some of her weird little films, but it was still different watching the video and hearing her say it.
the audiences that have stuck by me through everything — I just want to say thank you because there’s so many little weird films I’ve done and I know there’s people out there that go and find them and watch them. You’ve stood by me and stuck up for my weird, weird choices and I’m so grateful for that.”
I was obviously to young to watch To Die For or Portrait of a Lady in the mid-90s, but it is no wonder I’m thought of as one of those odd ones when I had dragged friends from school to watch things like Birthday Girl or Steven Shainberg’s Fur, which I have rewatched this past weekend. Reese’s speech about Kidman’s passion for cinema just reaffirms my love for Nicole and her body of work throughout these past two decades, in which she has been resurrected by the press more than once with so-called “comebacks.”
Here’s to two more decades of amazing films (and series). *Cheers*
Not gonna lie and say I haven’t been obsessing over the trailer for Crew since it dropped, and looking at the clips for Ghagra [1] and kinda giddy at the cover remix of Choli Ke Peeche [1].
I even finally re-watched Idhi Sangathi (with synced subs!) because of it.
Tabu finding riches in highly unusual places!
My only grip with the film, currently, is that my suspense of disbelief is dropped when I see them carrying kilos of gold. Autistic.
Other than that, I’m a super fan of potty-mouthed Tabu (I hope the announcement that theatrical was edited only means we get the potty-mouthed version on Netflix), and I want someone to ask them how much of the funny bits were ad-lib and improv, because that scene where they tell Kriti to sell her assets and the reaction to it was hilarious.