Archives For japan

Yu Aoi is old enough to have a daughter… from the future for this latest CM.

For some reason, her daughter has her same hair-styled bun and that adorable fuzzy hairline that everyone loves. Otherwise~ good casting! Why need a dad when your kid looks just like the mom!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOGL8z-g7v0

Also, I hope this doesn’t disappear because Japanese brands have this crazy idea that they can delete videos and accounts once the commercial’s season is over. No, people, these stay.

I haven’t caught up with Dr. Rintaro since the first episode, but Yu-chan’s name has been going around on Twitter. Apparently — according to Twitter/Google/Bing translation — Yu is one of the actresses/actors who smoke. You know Japanese magazine rags, though, all text no images xD If anyone is shocked/surprised/following this, please do let me know. Otherwise, disregard. If Yu is, in fact, smoking… for years, hats off. Gurl, how do you keep yourself so young? Genes, I tell you, GENES!

In other news… The Case of Hana & Alice is (finally) coming out on DVD/BR disc in August.

There’s also news that Yu-chan will be voicing a character (I suppose the female robot) in an upcoming Disney Channel Lilo & Stitch SP. Complete with Yu & Stitch photo [picture][link].

lilo-stitch-disney-channel-sp-yu-aoi-002

… and finally~

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I thought I could hate Sonam Kapoor and Fan Bingbing with a passion, but hey! Look at Mainland actor Huang Xiaoming or Japanese actor Masaki Okada, they never fail to make me want to punch them in the face. While Masaki Okada does have a sizable fandom of girls, I’ve yet to find someone (ANYONE!?) who likes Huang Xiaoming and his smug face. LOL

huang-xiaoming-vs-masaki-okada

Battle conceded to Okada, I guess. xD

Oh, man~ my Japanese has gotten so bad. Or at least, my non-food related Japanese. I ran into these interviews Yu-chan did to promote the release of her last interview-PB Yu Diary book, which includes the nugget that she almost quit acting at age 23. But please, feel free to guide me through all these chunks of text.

The other interview includes info on the process of making the book… as well as these three photos of her.

— August 20th 2015 —

Ran into more shots of this shoot [1][2].

docomo-entame-yu-aoi-nov2014-001

Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s Time of Eve is one of my favorite animations of the decade so far, though I do prefer the series, I think. I don’t know how I missed the Kickstarter, though I’ve grown tired of them and it brings the Time of Eve release at the same price of the Japanese release. Sighs. Japanese products.

But look at this beauty~

time-of-eve-the-movie-store

The ones offered through Amazon, do not offer shipping to my location :( but The Time of Eve Shop does… at a kinda expensive price. Nearly $20 USD in shipping!

Yu-chan doesn’t get much social media play, but she showed up in (Twitter via) the Facebook page of the Isenoumi Sumo Stable (伊勢ノ海部屋) (WHY is it called a stable?). It takes me back to that Glee Japan commercial, ne?

isenoumi-stable-sumo-yu-aoi

o-hisashiburi desu, Yu-chan~

It’s really been a long time since the last time I saw you SAW-YOU, thuogh it’s only been a year since Wakamono-tachi. So much time that your hair is no longer short. LOL I still got plenty of movies to catch up with, but it’s good to see you as an Osen-san-meets-Omoto-meets-Mina type of character. I’m not sure how Dr. Rintaro is dealing with the topic of clinical depression, considering how Asians view mental illnesses… but I’m interested in seeing why your character acts the way she does- is it Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)? Or are you just blowing Dr. Hinorin off xD
Also- can’t complain when this thing happened:

dr-rintaro-ep01-yu-aoi-train1 dr-rintaro-ep01-yu-aoi-train2

Many more screencaps and some GIFs below the break~

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Well~ that was a LONG process. Buth ere it is, after nearly four months of movie-watching and voting… the YAM Magazine team’s favorite movies of this decade so far~ Hope you find one you like, discover one… and that we included some of your favorites!

yammag-best-decade-so-far

Do your thing~

Of course I need this in my life~

When I visited China — already nearly a decade ago — I got myself a seal with my name on. It’s made of jade, square, and it’s pretty big, to be honest. I’m also not fond of the font used, so I scanned the print to illustrate it and did a digital seal of my own that I use to sign photographs and whatnot. But ever since, I’ve wanted to get a new proper seal. I’ve only got my grandfather’s old seal.

Though most websites dealing with Japanese seals (hanko) look sketchy, I finally ran into Hankoya.com — I didn’t know they made titanium seals! Woah~ The website is, of course, so chunky and hard to browse if you can’t read Japanese. I doubt they’d do international shipping.

But~ my gosh~~~ they even do silver and gold seals! There’s also wood ones (like maple or sandalwood), but how sketchy is it with ivory and horns? Is it legal to even sell anything remotely done with ivory?

The amber resin and the Satsuma cornus kousa (薩摩本柘) look so good too~

Oh, Happy Chinese New Year! Let’s start my (supposedly) bad-luck Goat Year with the now-mandatory Letterboxd list of my film collection~

amys-film-collection-letterboxd

I have a really weird history with films– born in the late 80s, you’d think I would’ve grown watching loads of 90s kids stuff, but I actually grew up with a lot of Silly Symphonies (which were released in the 30s) and loads of Disney 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s stuff, plus a lot of more grown up 80s movies. Poltergeist, The Thing, The Fly and The Stuff were particularly scary stuff (and I’m pretty sure I was scared of yogurt or white stuff at some point).

I don’t ever remember buying any original VHS tape, except for the rare birthday gift of a Disney’s Sing-Along Songs chapter or that X-Men tape I have. My first DVDs buys were Coyote Ugly, She’s All That and Loser — you can’t blame me. I was a 15-year-old girl. The collection grew bigger, and possibly exploded during my years abroad. I’m nearing my 500th movie.