This Week’s Selection of PV’s – 31/3/09

Here’s my 5 PV’s for you to check out this week:

1. SOUTHERN ALL STARS – I AM YOUR SINGER

This was the last single by the prolific group Southern All Stars before they took an extended hiatus. Who knows when they’ll be back again?

2. MR CHILDREN – HANABI

This great song by Mr Children was also the ending theme to the dorama Code Blue.

3. SWEETS – SKY

Sadly this idol group is no longer active but here’s a reminder of how good they were.

4. BEFORU – Strike Party

This idol group is now unrecognisable from their debut as there’s been so much chopping and changing in their lineup plus they’ve changed labels from AVEX to Gambit. This song, Strike Party was their 2nd single to be released.

5. AYA HIRANO – UNNAMED WORLD

Voice actress Aya Hirano is probably best known to fans in the West as the voice behind the popular anime characters Haruhi Suzumiya and Konata Izumi from Lucky Star but she’s also a pretty good singing star in her own right.

Hope you enjoyed my selection. There’ll be more next week.

High Kick Girl Promo

I am so looking forward to seeing this kick ass Japanese movie starring 17 year old karate champion Rina Takeda. It might be low budget but I just don’t care. I’m all for a cute schoolgirl beating the crap out of some people and boy, does she get some height on some of those kicks! I don’t even know when the movie’s being released.

I’m not sure if it’s going to upstage the Thai martial arts/actioner Chocolate which I watched last year. It’s gonna take something to best Jeeja Yanin, she was just awesome in that movie. Have a look at the trailer for High Kick Girl below:

EDIT: For those that are planning to watch this movie specifically for the sight of AKB48 member Sayaka are going to be disappointed with her role. It’s a blink or you’ll miss it cameo in a fight with the main character. Was it worth her time and effort to even bother turning up for the role? I don’t think so but perhaps she had more scenes that were sadly cut out of the movie. The movie itself is rather good though the annoying slo-mo replay of the fights get tiresome after a while.

Top 10 H!P Members

Over at Paul Thomas’ excellent Hello!Blog there’s a poll running at the moment where you can choose from the many groups and soloists who is your favourite top 10 members in H!P. For some it will take a while pondering and to select their favourites but for me it didn’t take that long. Here’s my selection below:

I think I’ve told my reasons in a previous post why Mikitty is no.1. Some people love her, some people hate her – she’s always been her own person and speaks her mind. She’s just honest and that’s another reason why I love her. Let’s not forget that she’s got a great singing voice too!

Sayu at no.2 is not only cute but she’s deceivingly intelligent with a good sense of humour. I like girls with humour. Her singing voice is improving a bit judging by her solo track on MM’s Platinum 9 album.

I’ll quickly go through the rest: Airi and Maimi have been my top duo in C-ute so they had to be in my top 10. Mano Erina is the top soloist in H!P right now and she is just so adorable. Risako is my only pick from Berryz. Yossie is an old fave from her MM days (when she was a comedy genius) and Mari is the woman that got me interested in H!P in the first place all those years ago so I’ve always had a soft spot for her. Rounding off the top 10 at no.9 is JunJun with her love for bananas and her deadpan humour and lastly the beautiful Aya Matsuura. I just haven’t been a fan of her past 3 albums I’m sorry to say (slow, plodding and dull) but I really liked her first couple of albums.

It’ll be interesting to see the results of the poll when it comes out.

Mari Yaguchi – Seishun Boku PV

Here’s the PV to Mari Yaguchi’s new single Seishun Boku which was released this week. Looks like they haven’t spent that much on it at all so I’m really disappointed. Another gripe is that when she performed it live for the 1st time on Hexagon II she was shouting and I thought it was nerves and all that but even in the released version it’s the same – like she’s straining her voice at times. Mari has got a beautiful voice and this song doesn’t do it justice whatsoever. I still like the song but I hope they pick something that showcases her vocal talent better next time.

New H!P Unit – Guardians 4

A new unit has been announced for Hello!Project and their name is Guardians 4 based on some characters in the Shugo Chara anime which I’ve never seen. The new unit consists of Aika Mitsui, Risako Sugaya, Saki Nakajima and Yurina Kumai.

Their 1st single “Omakase! Guardian” will be released on May 27th but you’ll be able to hear the song when it becomes the new opening theme for Shugo Chara from April 4th.

AKB Idoling!!! – Chuu Shiyou ze PV

As promised a couple of weeks ago, I did say that I’d post the full PV once it came out on Youtube so here it is for everybody to enjoy.

AKB48’s Yuki Kashiwagi Becomes Weather Presenter!

One of Team B’s member – 17 year old Yuki Kashiwagi has been given a role as a weather caster on the TBS late morning show Hiroubi and she’ll appear every Wednesday and Thursday from next week when the show begins on March 30th.

Bit of a strange decision to pick a schoolgirl to give the weather forecast but if it attracts the wota to view the show and push the ratings up I guess it’s not a bad move.

This Week’s Selection Of PV’s – 25/3/09

1. Gackt – Journey Through The Decade

Gackt’s latest song is also the OP for the tokusatsu show Kamen Rider Decade.

2. Hidemi Uematsu – Trauma

Whilst looking for some new artists to listen to over the weekend I came across the name Hidemi Uematsu and just had to see what she had to offer so I searched for her name on Youtube and found this incredible song Trauma.

3. Nana Mizuki – Heaven Knows

I’ve been a fan of voice actress Nana Mizuki for a while and this for me is the best song she’s ever done.

4. Nanase Aikawa – Yume Miru Shoujo ja Irarenai

A blast from the past with this track as it comes from the mid 90’s. I really like this rock song.

5. Aiko Kayo – Yuuki no Chikara

Aiko’s a young idol singer signed to AVEX. She’s released several singles and 2 albums since 2003. The song shown below is her last single to date in 2007. She’s incredibly cute!

AKB48 – 10nen Sakura 3rd Week Sales/No Sleeves/Mano Erina

Just to update you on what’s happening with AKB48 attempting to break 100k in sales with 10nen Sakura. The bad news is they didn’t manage to do it this week. They sold an additional 3,689 copies pushing the total up to 96,290 and dropping down to no.22 in the charts. Only 3,710 copies need to be sold in order to reach the magic figure and it is certainly achievable over the next couple of weeks.

No Sleeves, the splinter unit from AKB48 consisting of Takamina, Kojiharu and Miichan broke into the Top 10 with their newest single Tane. It sold 15,304 getting them to no.8 in the charts.

H!P soloist Mano Erina also released her debut major single last week and did extremely well charting in at no.5 with 20,812 copies sold of Otome no Inori. Well done!

Mikitty To Get Hitched!

News is filtering through this evening that Miki Fujimoto plans to get married to her boyfriend Shouji Tomoharu sometime during the Summer. They’ve been together for 2 years and this was the main reason why she had to resign as leader of Morning Musume way back in May 2007 although she knew what she was doing at the time by admitting to the relationship.

I’m happy for her as Miki was my favourite in H!P for a long while as she was different from the rest of her peers. She didn’t conform to the usual idol traits. Add to that her mischevious behaviour during concerts by groping her fellow colleagues plus she had a great sense of humour. This made her so endearing to me.

She will look totally sensational in a wedding dress and her husband to be is one lucky man!