SMAP, other artists to perform in concert one year after the 03.11 disaster

Photo courtesy of Hunan TV

The concert is entitled “Toward Tomorrow,” and will air from 7:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. on NHK General TV and for six hours from 4 p.m. until 10 p.m. on BS Premium TV. The program will be broadcast live from two locations—Makuhari Messe in Chiba and Sugakawa City Cultural Center in Fukushima Prefecture. SMAP singer Masahiro Nakai, 39, will be the MC.

SMAP, AKB48, Perfume and seven other groups will perform at Makuhari Messe, while singers Saburo Kitajima, Fuyumi Sakamoto, Yo Hitoto, and Ayaka Hirahara, will perform at Fukushima.

I read some nasty feedbacks from commenters (not Japanese) at an online newspaper, but guys, it's through the power of music that these artists want to deliver their message of hope to the people in the disaster area. I'm sure that the organizers had done a survey (don't the Japanese love surveys?) if the concert will be acceptable before giving the go-ahead. Donations? How much more donation do you want from SMAP?

SMAP in Shanghai for Lunar New Year Gala

 SMAP flew to Shanghai a couple of days ago to film their performance for the New Year Gala. Those suits must be heavy on the lapel with all those beads. Each members greeted everyone albeit nervous, Tsuyoshi forgot his lines. Hahaha!

Kimura is being coached to tell the lady that she's pretty and the audience just go wild! Yeah, surround him with girls, all kinds, and he will love it.

After gamely wearing their spring colored Kung Fu suits on stage, SMAP does the fist wrapping salute (time salute?). Is Kimura's color perinwinkle? I think Goro looks the best. Nakai's green and Shingo's blue are okay too. Yellow is always better on darker skin.

Men should learn some charm lessons from the legendary ladies' man. Cameras and mobile cameras focus on KT during their meet with the press. I so envy these ladies standing inches away from him. I wanna sniff him!

Petto no P-chan (ペット の p ちゃん)

P-chan making his move on U-chan.

Female guests are forewarned. P-chan seems like an innocent-looking pink poodle but the truth is he is a pervert, a certified ero petto.

He doesn't talk unless you're alone with him. He seduces women through flattery. He forcibly kisses girls - young and young once, humans and other pets alike.

Beware of sharing a room with him alone or taking a seat beside him in that sofa. It will make it easier for him to pin you down to accomplish his sleazy misdeed.

If you scream for help, don’t shout out Papa Goro’s name, he will never believe you, but you can count on the kid Shingo-kun to be nearby to witness everything and collar P-chan redhanded. The kid will later challenge P-chan to a game of ping pong, basketball or pinball where the loser gets punished by drinking a bitter melon smoothie; most of the time, P-chan loses.

As for me, I just love that pink devil P-chan!

Kimura Takuya new CMs

Many patients still on holiday are missing their appointments, which is a good thing to happen sometimes. I need rest/sleep and physio to suggest a regime for my shoulders. Cross-arm add is painful, at times I struggle to touch my C7!

During my spare time, I watched some Kimura CMs – TamaHome, Secom and Nikon. I noticed the pout, that sexy pout! But I think he looks too pretty (prettier than the girl?) in the new TamaHome CM. It also got me wondering, was he the one who broke up with the girlfriend? Maybe he wants to move to a new house and she isn't ready yet? Notice how his eyes light up when he sings 'Happy life, happy home'? I want to do some gumshoeing on this relationship. Hahaha!

Here's another CM showing those perky lips.

I took out some pictures from a drama from years ago. Here, you see the same sexy pout as Ryu in Million Stars Falling from the Sky, but I'd like to draw your attention to the eyes. So intense. His eyes look amiably on Yuko even as she confronts him. Really a meany on the right as Yuki speaks, who observes those eyes look gentler on Yuko.

SMAP gets highest ratings in 62nd Koukahu Uta Gassen

Jump for joy!

"Research firm Video Research, Ltd. has official numbers for the instantaneous ratings of the 62nd NHK Kouhaku Uta Gassen. The company has not publicly released the data, but newspapers have revealed a portion of it in news reports today. For the second year in a row, SMAP had the highest ratings out of any of the artist performances, at 48.2%.

"This is SMAP’s 19th appearance at Kouhaku, and they have been the highest-rated performer 7 times. Four of those were when SMAP served as the ootori (the final performer), including the past two years." - Tokyograph


Some people think that the final performer is expected to get the highest ratings. Not exactly. I will copy an explanation from a fan called noonew from LJ who cites a fact that, "...since 1998, there were only 5 times that the last performers received the highest ratings. And 4 times out of those 5 were when SMAP was the last performer."

SMAP rules!

SMAP FaNxFuN PARTY 2011

P-chan! Did you kiss her?!

First off, let me greet my ichiban Kimura a very happy birthday! *kisses*  Still looking young and hot, hot, hot!

SMAP held a fan event on 12 November at Tokyo Dome. It's almost a mini concert. Fans who attended the 2-hour event blogged about it, of note was P-chan stealing a kiss on a girl in the audience!  It was a riot. Only Kimura (and P-chan the ero pet) can get away with that.

They gave out souvenirs. One of them was a silver coin to commemorate their 20th anniversary. Tsuyoshi was hoping for gold coins - yes, it'll come some 20 years later. Eternal idols! I will love you - gout and all.

SMAP also announced they will be releasing a new single, Boku no Hanbun, in December. According to the press release, the song is about "unrequited love".  They showed a preview of it, but I await to listen to the whole song.

So many Kimura Takuya Facebook page!

I was searching for SMAP and Kimura Takuya updates and was pleasantly surprised to find so many Kimura Takuya fanpage on Facebook.  While I'd love to see them merged into one (to see how many KT fans there really are - at least on Facebook), it's still quite interesting to visit all of them because page has it's own style and resources.  Some pages are more active than the others, some have more Likes (but not have a lot of updates), and others have lots of superb photos! It just tickles me to see awesome KT photos.

This is one of my favorite KT Facebook fanpages.  This is also nice.


By the way, I didn't know that the t-shirt that Kimura wore to a SMAP rehearsal for the Beijing concert caused quite a stir.  

I've never seen any shirt that appears to be the Japan flag, but I've seen Stars and Stripes and Union Jack on almost anything you can wear. Now, on the back of that are paw prints.

Anybody here who knows where I could get this, please let me know.

SMAP in Professional Shigoto no Ryuugi

I finally got to watch SMAP in The Professional after waiting for so long. It was definitely worth the wait. It didn't matter that I understood only a little of it. I'm sure NHK World will have this in a few weeks (fingers crossed).

It's really interesting to go behind the scenes, what goes on before their concerts, how the SMAP members are before their cue to go on stage. I thought the bursting of energy begins backstage, it seems like they just let go of the energy when in front of the audience. Lots of pacing backstage, the boys looking all nervous.

If I were you, girl, I would smother him with kisses.

The girl above is a dancer. She's so, so lucky. Wishing I was that girl and Kimura touching me like that. I could imagine some sort of electric sensation passing through from his hand to my body. *sigh*

 

Different moods of Kimura (from NHK Shigoto no Ryuugi)

In the photo above where he was looking up to his right, Kimura must be visually recalling relationship with Mori. All the photos got me goshing right now.

So cute! All three of them!

I'll sneak in a few more screencaps later. I'll probably re-watch The Professionals again, hopefully English subbed.

SMAP to appear in NHK documentary Professional

Things are going absolutely great for SMAP this year. They celebated their 20th anniversary, had their first concert overseas - in Beijing - and will be featured in Professional Shigoto no Ryu-gi on 10 October!

There are two firsts about this documentary. First, it is SMAP's first time since their debut to appear in an NHK documentary. Second, it is NHK's first time to feature entertainment idols! (I know Kimura once said that he doesn't consider themselves as musicians. He's more comfortable being referred to as entertainers.}

Here's the link to the news from Tokyohive.com

By the way, Professional is one of my favorite shows in NHK because it is so inspirational. The subjects are mostly out-of-the-box thinkers. However, I've not seen it for a long time, (been too busy and I forgot its sked) the last one featured a road accident investigator and it was an encore.

The format is usually like this. The subject is followed by a camera for several months to document what they do, their daily schedule, how they work and how they deal with the problems they face each day. It seeks to unravel how they rose to the top and be successful in their field. Towards the end, the professionals will define what is a professional, and they will give lots of quotable quotes that provide for the motivation to be like the professional. Watching one episode of this is like attending a business/life coaching session. It's awesome.

I'm so excited because it will feature SMAP and I don't see them a lot on NHK except in the yearender Kouhaku. NHK is the only Japanese channel carried by the cable we subscribe to. I'm assuming that the English version will come out a week later. Fingers crossed.

Here's the announcement in NHK website.

SMAP in Beijing

I'm so upbeat about this concert, even though I can't go to Beijing to see their performance.

This news is from Mainichi. It just tickles me every time I read any article about SMAP.

Wow! It was called off three times! There's no holding back now!

I wish you all the best and success in this concert!

A fanmade design for a t-shirt. Oh my gosh! They look so cute! I want one!

Below is a photo from Kyodo News. They're holding calligraphy of their names.

20 Years of SMAP

I can't blog as much as I wanted to because of studies and work and travel, and work and studies and travel, that my body is beginning to complain now. My holiday is a few weeks away and I can't wait to be off to the beaches in Palawan, Boracay and Bali.

I'm also thankful for this short break as I can listen to some old SMAP CDs and watch SMAP on YouTube. There is one particular video that I keep going back to every time I get sentimental – a video of Kimura singing Hajimete no Chuu (First Kiss). I guess he was 23 at that time. The original Hajimete is actually a fast song, but it was awesome when Kimura sang the ballad version.



He likes experimenting with songs. He once sang a nursery song Donguri Koro Koro, but he sounded like he was singing a love song. I wish someone would share that video again.

This year, SMAP is celebrating their 20 years as a group. What a great milestone! They never even thought they would make it that long! Now, they're still thinking of keeping things going for as long as the fans cheer and love them.

It is interesting to note that on their debut 20 years ago, there was a typhoon so they sang in the rain, and at their first press conference not one question was asked by the press. (I feel a knot in my throat now) I wondered what was racing through the boys’ minds at that time. They must have made a great resolve as from thereon they became the greatest boy band ever in Japan.

I just love the thought of loving these guys. I will continue loving and supporting them forever!

Always.

SMAP trending on Twitter

SMAP suddenly becomes a trending topic on Twitter. Read more

Oh yeah? Do they even care?

It seems like most international artists who go to Japan pay a visit to SMAPxSMAP. I'm hoping they won't sing together. Tee hee hee

I kind of prefer to see them act in a skit or interact in Bistro SMAP.

SMAP sings of unity, harmony, peace, songs that uplift the spirit without sounding preachy, while Bieber songs are mostly about longing for someone. SMAP is so past that.

If SMAP sings in English, fans react how great they sound, and I cringe sometimes. I wish SMAPxSMAP producers just make foreigner singers to sing in Japanese.

Is he for real?

Again, I'm a few weeks late for this. Just saw Kimura's CM for Gatsby's Water Wax and it was both cool and hot, but mainly hot! One fan commented is he for real? He is just too hot in this CM! Lucky girl there enjoyed Kimura rubbing his face on her bossom. There's a part were the laces seem to come off!

I want to see a longer version of this CM if there is one available!

He looks so beautiful in the picture above. I just love that pout!

This blog is a work in progress

That's an excuse for being lazy.

It has been 2 months since I started this blog and this is only the second time for me to write another entry. I have been very, very busy with studies and work lately. Now I'm enjoying a few days' break and so here I am.

I visited YouTube today and good grief I had missed a lot lately (my blog title so unfits me)! Anyway, I was going through the list of videos under my Ichiban's name and my search yielded so many I haven't seen, including the intro to Kimura's Beautiful Life, which is my first dorama ever watched. Back then (saw it in 2002), I didn't think he was THAT handsome until it got to the part where Takako was pulling and squeeshing Kimura's face, and I thought, wow! he looks really cute! Since then, I'm so in love with his smile and am so goshing when he pulls a serious face.

Then, there's another fanmade music video for La La La Love Song (shouldn't there be 6 la la's in the title?). He's gloriously handsome in Long Vacation even if he had to wear crumpled shirts all the time. He should be suspended for driving many girls insane!

Still another fanvideo on Hero. I must admit that although I've seen Hero many times, I skip rewatching the final episode up to the goodbye-colleagues part and hello-again-Amamiya part. Too sad that he can't fight the system.

Well, I still have a few videos to swoon over and perhaps later put more progress in this blog.

Regolith no more

I have been regularly following up Renzuke's blog at http://blog.fujitv.co.jp/rensuke/index.html for the past month or so. It's probably the closest way to get to know what is going on in Kimura's mind. He writes in his blog daily, sometimes several times in one day. Never mind if it's in Japanese, Google does the translation. Never mind if it's not perfect, I get the gist of what is going on.

Alas! There are no more updates ever since the final episode of Tsuki no Koibito last Monday. The messages from fans kept growing by the day. Does he still visit his own blog to read the messages? I wish that somehow the pouring of messages would compel Renzuke/Kimura to return writing even another short "Thank you again" note.

It seems impossible though.

Sure will miss Tsuki no Koibito and of course Renzuke's blog.