8 posts from April 2008

I'm an evil bastard.

When I heard that Mitsui Aika would be absent for medical reasons the first word that popped into my head was "pregnant".
When I read that the initial symptoms involved abdominal discomfort, I thought, "So she really is pregnant after all".
When I saw there was a timetable for her return, I reasoned, "Ah. She got an abortion then."
Then I noticed that she would be out two weeks and I pondered,  "The recovery time for an abortion shouldn't be two weeks. Perhaps she really is sick."

I'm sure I'm not the only one to think along those lines, but I'm not any happier being in that kind of company...

Anyway, if she had acute appendicitis does that mean she had to have an appendectomy? You can tell what my priorities are, because I'm wondering how that would affect future bikini photobooks. I hope they don't feel a need to cover her up because of a little scarring. Even if the scarring is extreme I doubt I would notice it if her boobs are out there... God, I'm so evil...

Regardless, I hope you feel better soon Aika. I'm sure there are lots of people wishing you a speedy recovery.

You know, I'd like women to like me because of my evil, rather than in spite of it, and I thought Shugo Chara!'s resident P-I-M-P Ikuto might provide some instruction in that area. So I studied his moves and discovered there were some important lessons to be learned:

To start with, first impressions are important. You want her to know from the get-go that you are doer, and that when you set your mind to something, you get what you want. To prove that point, when the two of you first meet you should feel her up while stealing something precious to her.

After you do that, make sure you leave her to fall to her death, after all you don't want to appear too clingy right off the bat.

Next, you're going to have to peek on her when she comes out of the bath, just make sure you aren't subtle about it. You want to make sure she sees you as a sexual being, and the best time to do that is when she feels the most vulnerable.

She may pour her heart into little projects from time to time, frequently these will be stupid things like helping needy children and cooking.

You'll want to make sure that all her efforts are for naught. If you can make her cry too, that would be a huge plus. She needs to understand that you are the one that decides what is okay for her to do or not do.

After you have destroyed something that she worked hard on it is time to show your sensitive caring side. Head down to the 7-11 and pick up some snacks to replace the dessert she slaved over. Nothing says "I'm a sensitive, caring man" like a pack of Slim Jims. Just be sure not to say "I'm sorry". Sorry is something you say to people at your own level, and in any case, in this relationship you must remember that you are never at fault, no matter what you do.

Use your tongue whenever you can. Lick various things, her eggs if possible, a girl likes it if you say, "my tongue can reach all the way to your eggs" and then you are able to back it up.

Crush the dreams of children. Nothing says "I'm a rebel and I don't play by society's rules" like picking on those who have no means to defend themselves.

Anyway, if you are going to try and hook up with 5th graders you're going to need that kind of maverick spirit.

Play an instrument. It probably doesn't have to be a violin, but it should be something that you can use to express the inner torment of your tortured soul. After all, you can't go wrong with a musician.

The last step is to save her from falling to her death. This will negate the leaving her to die from when you first met, and from that point on her heart will be yours... to do with as you please.

I've been watching fansubs of Shugo Chara!, which is the series that Buono! does theme songs for. I originally started watching it because of the Buono! connection, but it is a pretty well done, fun kids anime and I think it is worth watching on its own merit. The basic premise is that children's hopes and dreams for the future manifest themselves in the form of an egg within the heart.

If the child's desire to change into someone different is strong enough they lay their "Heart's Egg" and out of it comes small spirit called a "shugo chara" or guardian character. Shugo charas represent that person's wished for self and can help their child by giving encouragement and bestowing special powers through character changes or magical girl style transformations. The show's protagonist, Hinamori Amu, is a girl who has all kinds of unreasonable rumors about her "Cool and Spicy" character but wants to be seen as a normal person and make friends. Amu's desire gives birth to three shugo charas (most people have one at most) and she joins the school's elite "Guardians", a group of special students with shugo charas who protect the school. The Guardians are led by a pretty boy named Tadase who is seeking the legendary "Embryo"; a magical egg that supposedly can make any dream come true. Opposing them is the evil Easter Corporation which tries to obtain the Embryo by convincing children their dreams are impossible and turning their eggs in to destructive X eggs. One of Easter's main henchmen is Tsukiyomi Ikuto, a young man who transforms into a cat-boy.

Woo, I pass!

I don't really have anything to say this week, I suppose that is both good and bad in a way. I don't know if ignorance is bliss or not, but it is at least some sort of related pleasure.
   

   
Status quo isn't too bad. Might as well let things continue as they are for a while.

   
"If a bear craps lemonade, you'd better drink a glass when offered."

Thank you for your time.

So, the PV to C-ute's latest single is out, and I brought out the old trusty text editor to jot down some of my initial reactions. Here we go:

I don't particularly care for Nakki's hobo outfit, and Mai looks like she is playing an eggplant in a school play...

In this post I thought I would continue with the introduction material and talk about the origin of my H!P fandom and how it has evolved over time. Where I live I guess there is a fairly large Japanese speaking population since they broadcast some Japanese programming on one of the local television stations. When I was younger they used to schedule a number of music variety shows, like HEY!HEY!HEY! and that type of thing, and I would sometimes watch them because there might be attractive women on as guests. I had absolutely no interest in Japanese music or entertainers beyond that purely superficial level and it was more of a "sound optional" television watching experience. As time passed my household eventually got cable TV and with it the "International Channel" which expanded my exposure to those programs. Then one day I tuned into one of these shows (I don't recall which one) and when the guests came out it was bunch of little girls wearing blue and yellow dresses with knee pads. I don't remember, but knowing me it is likely I said something along the lines of "What the Hell" at that very moment. I didn't see a performance by those girls, in fact I didn't even watch the entire talk segment with them, it is likely there was something else I wanted to see at the same time. In any case, I filed that little piece of information away and continued with my life.

I didn't think much of that incident until I was walking home one evening in late June of '05. I don't know what triggered it but suddenly I started wondering what had happened to those girls; whether they had fulfilled their dreams and found success or if they had fallen back into the obscurity that I assumed they had come from. It seemed to me that since they were a group of little girls it was very unlikely that they would last longer than one record. I believed their main selling point would be novelty value, and once people became accustomed to that they would have no reason to go back for more. Curious about the fate of those girls I turned to the source of all knowledge, the Internet, for answers. I didn't even know the name of the group so I had to use my 1337 Google skillz to identify them. I don't remember what search terms I used (though I'm sure the NSA still knows), but it was probably something like "blue yellow dress girl jpop". Well, I had some success and learned that the name of the group was Berryz Koubou (or Koubo or Kobo or some collection of lines I had no hope of deciphering) and that they were part of a larger music collective called "Hello! Project". I also learned that another Hello! Project group called "Morning Musume" had their own television program where Berryz Koubou would sometimes appear as guests, and that you could steal episodes of this show from various places on the internet. So I joined Hello!Online where the first two torrents I ever downloaded were this one of "Nanchuu Koi wo Yatteru YOU KNOW?", which was the first PV I ever saw and is to this day one of my least favorite Berryz songs. The other thing I got was the most recent episode of Hello! Morning in the hope that Berryz would be present. Berryz Koubou wasn't there but I was treated to a very funny episode of Hello! Morning where Morning Musume had to speak what could loosely be described as "English".

It was the first time I saw that Morning Musume was entertaining in its own right and not just a path to get to some phantom group I had seen once before. Also it was the dawn of my fandom of "cheese in refrigeeta" Kamei Eri and "Meron! Meron!" Michishige Sayumi. I now understood that great pleasure could be had in following Hello! Project and I continued on gradually seeing more and learning about the various aspects of idols and H!P that you don't really see in U.S. music, like photobooks and shuffle units. Well, I suppose groups like New Kids on the Block probably had photobooks, but I really wouldn't know for sure. Anyway, there was one of these Japanese peculiarities that had a fairly significant impact on me.

The 2006 Hello! Project sports festival came around and I was full of eager anticipation since it would be my first time seeing one. At that time I'd only ever seen small clips of the previous festivals, but I knew it would be a chance to see (almost) all of Hello! Project together at one time. I thought the whole thing was lots of fun, however, the single most significant moment for me happened in the first few minutes of the event as the contestants were walking out onto the field. I was watching them line up and all I could think was, "Whoa! Nakajima Saki is sooo pretty!".

I'm not sure what it is I like about her, I do like her smile a lot, I have huge teeth like her and feel a sort of kinship over that... she also has a very round head... but I suppose these things don't really need a reason. In any case, at this point I knew nearly nothing about C-ute, the only member I could recognize was Murakami Megumi, who I knew from Sexy Otona Jan, but the rest required tables of photos and names. However from this point on I knew that would have to change and out of my desire to see more of Nakajima Saki I started watching all the C-ute I could. In contrast to my view of Nakajima, my initial feelings towards Okai Chisato were a lot cooler. I liked that she seemed to value play quite a bit, she would spend time goofing around with Hagiwara Mai while the other girls her age would spend more time with the older three. To me this meant that Chisato wanted to extract all the fun that life had to offer, and cared about that more than appearances and being "grown-up". That's the type of prioritizing I like, though if you were to ask me what I  thought of her, I might have described her as being too homely. Things continued like this until I first saw the Hello! Days Volume 5 DVD that featured C-ute. When they were doing the nickname segment and the suggestion of "Okai-shounen" (岡井少年) came up and Chisato replied with something like, "Um. But I'm not a boy..." I was so overwhelmed by her cuteness that I had all my doubts about her dispelled. Watching the backstage segments, seeing the staring contests and her janken face off with MaiMai I thought that maybe there was greatness in Okai that I hadn't truly appreciated before. Afterward came the stage segments where she was talking and everyone else was looking at her like she was crazier than an antarctic nudist. Okai frequently seemed like she was in her own little world talking with Mai and Murakami Megumi there, and by the time she was acting out the dispensing of soft serve ice-cream and sassing Megumi for doubting her I knew I had new favorite in the world of idols. Later on, I learned that Chisato can sing too! Shoot, from that point there has been no one besides Okai for me, she has all that I am looking for in an idol.

This post has sort of turned into an Okai Chisato love fest, but I think that is okay... after all, my whole life has sort of changed into an Okai Chisato love fest. Looking back, I have been around for less than three years, and in that short time I've seen sex scandals, teen pregnancy, expulsions, and the end of great things like summer shuffles, sports festivals and Hello! Morning. Heck, I've even seen Nacchi nearly commit vehicular manslaughter, and in spite of all of that I'm still here. I think that is proof that I just don't learn too good... though my school transcripts alone should be proof of that... *cough*. Still, there is lots of wonderful entertainment within H!P and as long as there is joy to be had I want a share of it, even if it comes with a taste of drama now and then.

So the events of the past few days have given rise to a new, theoretically regular, segment here entitled: "This Week in Otingocni". It is set to be my anything but objective analysis of my recent actions. Let's begin:

Well I got an F. But at 54% it is a "high" F, practically an F+, so I won't cry about it... this time. Next we will look at a general breakdown of the past week.