Sunday, 11 December 2011

Yonpara FUTURE Game Battle 111211

So I decided to keep doing this one, I'll also say now that Shukan summaries will depend entirely on whether or not I understand what the hell is going on.

I'm just gonna say now that I love the trilby look all of the girls have on the standby screens.

Yuko's in a shop in Akihabara, Yui's in some cafe, Kitarie's in a cat chop it seems and Sasshi is in the AKBCafe again, I think she's trying to complete some AKB card collection, and points out that Yuko's card's a shiny (Is that still used for rare cards anymore? Or was that just pokemon). The MC notes how many of the gold coins everyone's won so far: Yuko has 5, Yui 1, Kitahara 0 or 1, I think he got her wrong, and Sashihara has 2.

While the MC's explaining the first challenge someone at the cafe comes and takes one of Sasshi's earpieces and the MC asks him some questions before he goes. Before we get much further Sasshi has to bring in the girl serving her as well. After she goes off to do part of her job, we see Sasshi's food, which is interesting, it has a heart in the middle. Apparently it's delicious. We continue talking, and at some point it turns to the subject of spoons. Not sure how. We then get the guy from earlier brough in. Actually I think the guy initially came in to talk about the dish Sasshi would be eating. Yui either says she can guess what's in the dish, or suggest one.

We get back from the break to Yuko sorting her hair out, after wards Kitarie's laptop get's attacked by a cat and her picture freezes. She goes offline, but answers when they call back. We finally get to an identifiable challenge, with the girls pulling out their paper pads, and have to do something to do with 'sentokun' but I can't work out what that is. The girls set about drawing and while they're drawing he briefly flashes a picture of what I guess is sentokun (Is kun often used in mascots then?). He does it again for a bit longer just after Kitarie looks down again. Yuko finishes first, and starts eating her sushi? while the others still work as the Sentokun image comes up briefly. I think Yuko sees it the next time as she's offering sushi to the camera. While we're focused on her Yui and Sasshi have finished, and Rie finishes moments after.


Yui's drawing looks like an bald man in a kimono with a jewel on his forehead and antlers on the top. Sasshi has a bald head with antlers and the jewel, but has only drawn a hand otherwise. Kitahara's has the basic head deatails, but Anime eyes, no jewel, a necklace and shorts rather than a kimono and some hiragana written next to him. Yuko's has buddha ears sort of, and has a sash I guess on but no shirt. The MC then shows the image of Sentokun he has. We get to the voting, and Sasshi wins by 2 votes, Yuko gets none.

The MC says something, then walks off, the camera following him. He brings us to a man and a woman, the man looks like a restaurant chef. The MC has some kind of quiz on the guy, the first question has Sasshi giving a wron guess but Yui's is right. Apparently the MC is now in the FUTURE Seven Cafe, conveniently located right next to the studio. The MC is given some food, and makes kind of a mess in the eating. We get another question which seems to be about what time you should eat the food he's eating,

Before we get the answer though we get some of Pera Pera Perao. You know whats really annoying. You can't find the full version of that anywhere. The MC is seen to be shovelling the food in. The answer is apprently 28, which I guess means 4 in the morning, but Yuko wins with her answer of 18.

24 days of singles day 11: 10nen Zakura and Sakurairo no Sora no Site de

Like Sakura no Hanabiritachi this is a graduation themed song, so lets see how it goes.
Senbatsu
Team A: Itano Tomomi, Oshima Mai, Kitahara Rie, Kojima Haruna, Shinoda Mariko, Takahashi Minami, Fujie Reina, Maeda Atsuko, Minegishi Minami, Miyazaki Miho.
Team K: Oshima Yuko, Ono Erena, Kasai Tomomi, Kuramochi Asuka, Miyazawa Sae
Team B: Kashiwagi Yuki, Sashihara Rino, Watanabe Mayu
Team S: Matsui Jurina, Matsui Rena

10nen Zakura talks about leaving school and not seeing the people you love anymore, and asks that they meet again in 10 years. The MV starts, before we get any music, with Maeda reading a letter while stood on a wall, and we're informed it's 2019. We also have Itano, Kojima and Watanabe talking about the past. Maeda's joined by Yuko, who's pregnant, and they talk a bit as well. We then get to the music in 2009, with the girls together in school, messing around on the bus, in the classroom, Mai and Minegishi sharing pringles etc. We then get them going home on the school bus together for the last time. Initially their all still messing about, but things calm down as the girls start leaving the bus in pairs, until it's just Maeda and Takahashi, with Atsuko asleep on Minami's shoulder. Maeda wakes alone, with the letter in her hand and turns to see Takahashi behind the bus as it leaves. With the end of the music we return to 2019, Atsuko and Yuko discuss Takahashi, as the 3 girls notice either them or some other girls, it's not terribly clear. we get a brief shot of Takahshi, who seems to be watching her, before Atsuko and Yuko walk together for a bit, and Yuko says she's naming the child Sakura.

The B-side talks about being handed flowers at your graduation by your first love, and how for now the people just want things to stay the same.

This is the last single to feature Oshima Mai, as between here and the next single she graduated.

Saturday, 10 December 2011

Shukan AKB 111209

I don't know if I'll do another of these, as I had trouble in the past understanding what was going on. But it's not the girls who were on everything I've seen previously, and a different MC, so I guess this is recorded like AKBINGO

In the event for this week the aim seems to be for a group of girls to act out a scene, by first picking one of 5 envelopes (A, B, C, D or E) and asking the two men with props for the script of the title in the envelope, and go from there.

First up are Fujie, Moeno and Asuka, and Asuka chooses evelope A. I think the MC says there are 3 lines that can be used at a paticular point and they'll have to make it up from there. The scene begins with Asuka and Fujie together discussing a certain sempai of theirs, and how much they like him, but Asuka resolves to help Fujie confess to him rather than confessing herself. Fujie keeps on stumbling, but I can't tell if thats her forgetting lines or  part of her character's lack of confidence. Eventually the boy they've been discussing, portrayed by Moeno walks in, and Asuka encourages her to speak. A teacher coe sin briefly, before leaving, and Fujie gives her confession. However Moeno reveals that 'he' actually likes Asuka, causing Fujie to run off, Moeno stops Asuka following. They say a little more before hugging, and I can't help be suspicous of Asuka the way she's looking. I have to say I think Asuka gave the strongest performance, and not just because I like her more than Fujie, although given my uncertainty with whether or not Fujie was deliberately flubbing lines or not she might gain a few more points. They give a quick overview at the end, and point out how Fujie's nostrils were constantling flaring, which actually caused Moeno to stifle a laugh after the confession. Asuka's evil look at the end is also brought up.

The second cast has Asuka again, Shimuda, Ichikawa, Oota Aika and Yamauchi Suzuran. Right so Aika's the one who kinda looks like Amina got it. (This probably sounds odd, but before I worked out her name I called Kitahara 'not-Asuka' and I was either calling Ichikawa, Love-tan, Amina or all 3 of them 'not-Chise' as in Natsuki from Boukenger, and I haven't even watched that show yet.)
Anyway, Miori is sent to choose an envelope and picks C. We start in the classroom from the other scene, but now made up to look different. There is a chalk outline of a man on the gorund made of string. Aika, Ichikawa and Suzuran, a man and another of the girls but dressed up stand over it. The man is a detective, and calls over his partner 'Kura-san', but Asuka seems to be too busy playing the drums on Rockband, but evtually comes over. He's introduced to the girls nd the woman. The other detective starts listing details from the case. We learn that Shimuda (the woman) is either the victims wife, or the one who found him, and there was a message in the victims blood on the boards near the body. She starts to describe finding him before crying. She did it, I'm calling it now. Actually given the look Aika just gave the camera it's eiter her or she didn't realise the camera was pointing her way. Kura asks Shimuda to place some evidence (now bagged) where she found it. The maid it seems was in the kitchen when she heard something. The gardener was gardening. Ichikawa seems a little to enthusiastic for someone who's presumably the victims daughter, but then they all burst into tears. Kura steps away, and the lights dim as he gives his monologue of his deduction. One hint was the dying message. Kura then says it was the gardener (or is it his caddy for golf). Apparently the dying message says golf. She starts crying more, and Kura points out the golf clubs on the floor, which hven't been marked as evidence. Seems one of them had blood on it, and she confesses everything, while also drawing me to my initial conclusion that all the girls are the victim's daughters. She's then led away as far as I can tell, by invisible police officers. The others depart, and Kura delivers one final line.

For news we have stuff on Ue Kara Mariko, I guess HKT48 have launched their first stage, more on SDN's 4th single.

24 days of singles day 10: Oogoe Diamond and 109

So here we have it, the first AKB single under You Be Cool, though not much has changed yet, it will in the future.

This is the first single as I understand it to have both a Regular and Theatere edition, and the theatre audition is the only theatre edition to come with a DVD. Now, the Senbatsu, still singing all the songs here.
Team A: Itano Tomomi, Oshima Mai, Kawasaki Nozomi, Kitahara Rie, Kojima Haruna, Sato Yukari, Shinoda Mariko, Takahashi Minami, Maeda Atsuko, Minegishi Minami, Miyazaki Miho
Team K: Akimoto Sayaka, Oshima Yuko, Ono Erena, Kasai Tomomi, Miyazawa Sae
Team B: Kashiwagi Yuki, Sashihara Rino, Watanabe Mayu
Team S: Matsui Jurina
Yes Team S, as around this time SKE had been formed, though I don't think they'd be releasing any singles for a while. Akimoto had clearly decided by this point that not only was the 11-year old Jurina going to SKE's front girl, he also made her centre for this song, and most if not all subsequest AKB singles will feature at least one member from the sister groups. I'll also note that across the 2 releases are special team versions of Oogoe Diamond, a Team A version, a Team K version, an Team B version, quite notably a Team Kenkyuusei version and an SKE48 version.

Oogoe Diamond is a song about only realising what it is you have after you lose it, specifically in relation to love in this instance.The PV is kind of different to most of the previous ones, as the dance segemnt is part of the story. We start before the song itself begins with Jurina running into a concert hall, walking past Maeda leaving as she walks in, a voiceover announces the performance of Oogoe Diamond, and we get girls rushing around to enter the theatre, I believe all these extras are non-senbatsu members. As Jurina joins the others just off stage we see Maeda looking sad as well as Sae texting someone. As the music starts the girls rush on stage and get in a bit of a difficulty initially in finding their places. The dance scenes will now be integrated with the rest of the story. In the past at school we have Mayu and Jurina listening to an iPod together and Mayu talking about the song, a little later Shinoda comes by and Jurina and Mayu present a poster for an event to her. While getting ideas for their performance a few girls watch .... AKB48 performing Oogoe Diamond on TV, in an attempt to learn the dance steps. It seems initially they were quite disorganised. As they start to practice, Sae who's doing her own dancing with some other girls stops and notices what they're doing, and all 4 join in the preparations. We also get Oshima, Oshima, Kojim and Ono preparing some decorations. Notably Meada's in the flashback scenes but not in the performance itself. W then learn that Sae and Maeda got into some kind of argument. We see what Sae's message was, she was sending Maeda an image of the group. Maeda rushes in stage, soemhow having had the time to be in full costume, and gets in position, and a microphone is passed down to her, Sae smiling to her as she hands it to her. The rest is pretty mush all dance.

109 is a confusing one really, the girl's just found another girl in her boyfriends room, and is upset but still wants to be with him, even saying she'll believe what he says even if it's a lie, but it seems somehow going to 109, wich is apparently a department store, is helping her to grow emotionally. We also haven't gotten far enough for the other songs to have PVs of their own.

Friday, 9 December 2011

24 days of singles day 9: Romance, Irane and Ai no Moufu

Senbatsu:
Team A: Itano Tomomi, Oshima Mai, Kojima Haruna, Sato Yukari, Shinoda Mariko, Takahashi Minami, Tojima Hana, Maeda Atsuko, Minegishi Minami.
Team K: Akimoto Sayaka, Oshima Yuko, Ono Erena, Kasai Tomomi, Miyazawa Sae.
Team B: Kikuchi Ayaka, Watanabe Mayu.

Romance, Irane is about how love can change things again, and how theres no need to rush into it, and about the consequences it caoud have on your life, leading to the conclusion you should wait. The PV is literally just the dancing, no story this time. However the song is both opened and sort of finished by comedy duo Nachinon, other wise known as Noro Kayo and Sato Natsuki of AKB48. I may be wrong, but I believe this is Kayo's only appearance in a PV until something further down the line.

Ai no Moufu is about how you shouldn't just try to deal with your problem alone, but should have people who can help you through things.

Due to the fact that Sakura no Hanabiritachi 2008 has already covered, our next single came in 9 months time, after the label change to You Be Cool. It's here where things are going to start changing.

Thursday, 8 December 2011

Bimyo 11

As far as I can tell the first scene was a photo shoot, with this guy in a suit, a photographer and what was in appearance a blue-haired vulcan. The vulcan has issues with the shoot I think, but still participates in the groups poses, despite complaining about it all the same. At the end two police come in, I think they said they were time police, but they arrest the guy in a suit, though they do one last pose as he's dragged away.

Sayaka is giving a motivational speech to a distraught, tears flowing everywhere team of girls. He tells them to go but they cry even more. He singles out Ichikawa, but get's no where, so he gives her a dope slap, before she moves. After the next girl's complaint he grabs round her waist, before another slap and being sent on. Whatevers bothering Moeno causes him to fall on the floor. He gives her more encouragement, but she stays stood there as he moves on. He hugs the next girl after listening, and tells her she's cute. Amina causes him to shout out of the room before sadly saluting, saying if you please. Sumire turns out to just be joining in, before he hits her out of annoyance, causing her to actually cry. The coach is now in despair himself, crying while crouched down.

Rabutan and another girl are together in one of their's bedroom. Seems they are doing their homework. The other girl while writing however decides to hit Rabutan with a ruler. They get back, but Rabutan almost immediately decides to hit her with soemthing.  Each time this happens the one being slapped has fallen asleep, and the other girl now has a fan. The other girls asleep, gets twanged by an elastic band Rabutan put one end of inside her mouth. I think the aims reall for them to stay awake the whole night. Rabutan sleeps again, so the other girl has what seems to be a metal container. I cna now confirm it was, in fact, a metal container. They then decide to just go to sleep, putting cushions on the table and resting their heads on them, then waht looks like an old tin bath talls from above on both of them.

Shizuka is scolding three students, aving them repeat what the aim of the school seesm to be, harmony. We then get a buddhist monk performing some form of prayer, while presumably parents watch and the girls and teacher s=kneel in front of him as he chants AKB48, but the 4 don't get into harmony.

A women is asking her doctor to be forward with her, but he keeps silent. Eventually he gives his response, whatever the problem is, is somewhat surprising, seems serious. He gets a hot dog from the microwave and some hot sauce, when the womens daughter, the one they're discussing, Miori walks in. She asks her mother something, before noticing the hot dog and asking if it's for her. The mother tries to stop her eating but she takes it and eats it quickly. She then goes hyper, causing the mother panic, the doctor remains calm. She then grabs something from a cupboard, deciding to drink it*. She takes a sip before spilling it  out of her mouth. The doctor explains something, and then tells Miori she must never drink strange liquids. She leaves, and he's glad it worked, just as Miori's voice comes from offset.

A gut calls in a group who look like from memory a group who appeared on soem sports special event with AKB and SCANDAL. The aim seems to be to demonstate some form of skill, Sae seems to be squeezing a grapefruit for it's juice. Kitahara demonstrates her skill at filling two bowls of salad, even going back to the first one to add a couple of tomatoes. The other two come up together, and demonstrate their aility to squeeze lemons.

You know how yestersday I said I was going to cover my two favorite Yui Bimyo scenes, but forgot one of them. I just remembered. While the scene I covered was from the first episode of Bimyo I saw, this was the first scene I saw. An unconvincing monster goes 'gyao' at two girls, and they beg for soemone to save them, prompting Yui to show up as Honmayan. While human sized and apparently wearing Ichigo's belt, the abilities seem to be like Ultraman. The girls say there's a suspicious figure, but Homayan initially thinks they're just messing with her, before turning round to say 'honmaya' or 'It's true'. They then try to convince her to use her Honmayan beam, which she also thinks is a trick unti she uses it, again saying 'honmaya'. A light starts going off, like the Clour Timer, and they explain she'll die if it goes off, but she's not convincedn leading to her last word of 'honmaya'.

The reason I mentioned that is it looks like this seen is a sequel. From the first second anyway. Two slightly more convincing monsters scare two girls (Amina and Takajo). Yui's voice comes from off screen, and the elevator comes slowly up with, Honmayan exits the lift, closes it and delivers her inenthusiastic introduction. They ask for help from the kaijin, but naturally she doesn't believe they're there, despite looking at thme sheer moments ago (I'll forgive). She turns, to give her 'honmaya'. They ask her to summon Honmaya Blue, who she is naturally sceptical to existing. She relents, calling her. I think the girl playing her's named Miyu. She gives her introduction, and comes over. Surprisingly Blue just suggests they fight the monsters with out needing convincing, but Honmaya isn't convinced the technique mentioned exists, and while deciding to try Blue is grabbed by the monsters, and the dinosaur uses an attack, seemingly killing her. She then contemplates if the Honmaya Thunderbolt suggested exists, but uses it, shocking the monsters and Blue. The light goes off again, but she fails to be convinced she'll die (again), and delives on last 'Honmaya'.

Well thats this weeks Bimyo then.

AKB48+

On it's 6th birthday, the 8th of December, AKB48 and Google+ have announced a partnership wherein fans will be able to follow their favorite members' activities. This is of course just my approximation. The first announcement of the video was Akimoto-Sensei announcing this project will affect AKB, SKE, NMB, HKT and even JKT, though I can confirm at the moment only profiles for members of those first 3 groups are up, in addition there are no profiles for Kenkyuusei or Team 4, and probably some others. A man from google saind some than yous, and Takahashi, Shinoda, Maeda, Sashihara and Takajo said some words, and mae the first contribution to the new project by taking a picture together on an android they'd been handed, which was then shown on the big screen.

I'm off to get me some Google+