Harugon/Kikuchi – X-Game Movie Trailer

If the thought of seeing two of your favorite idols being tortured make you feel a bit queasy then don’t look at the trailer below for the J-horror movie X-Game (Batsu Game). Harugon and Kikuchi are the 2 AKB48 members taking part in this extreme revenge movie along with somebody from the group D-Boyz. It looks nasty as hell! You have been warned!

French Kiss – Zutto Mae Kara PV

Finally the full PV for French Kiss’ debut single Zutto Mae Kara has been made available on Youtube for everybody to see. It’s a nice PV revolving around a baseball team which is fitting really seeing as the song will be used as the ending theme for the 6th season of the anime MAJOR. Enjoy the PV before it gets taken down.

Super Enpou Tickets – Now Even Easier For Foreigners To See AKB48!

With the rising popularity of AKB48, getting tickets to see their performances lately at the theater in Akiba has been getting increasingly difficult and frustrating for foreign fans visiting Tokyo but no more!

Announced yesterday is a new ticket specifically for those coming from abroad who want to see their favorite team and member. The ticket is called Super Enpou and check this out – if you win one of these babies you’re guaranteed a front row seat!! Yep, that’s right – 6 seats for each show around the stage left block area in the front row is just for us foreign fans which will make it better for us to interact with the girls and you know full well how they love to see us foreign fans at the theater.

So how do you get one of these tickets? Pretty simple. About a month before you land in Tokyo you’ll have to send an email to the AKB48 theater stating the dates you’re going to be in the city, your name, country of origin and which teams you want to see (in my case all of them!!!). It’s easy and it’s something I’ll be doing before I’ll be going to Tokyo in mid December. For further details head over to the Stage48 forums where there’s a thread about it: http://stage48.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2521

Thank you Akimoto and AKB48 management for giving us foreign fans a golden opportunity to see our favorite idols up close and personal.

Why Has Sasshi Changed Her Name?

I’m a bit confused as to why Team A member Rino Sashihara has decided to change her stage name over the weekend to Sashiko? It’s got to be a joke by her hasn’t it? Even her profile on AKB48’s website has been changed to reflect this. It all began with a CM for Heavy Rotation which you can see below. Will she say something on her blog in the next few days about how we’ve all been fooled by her and that she’s reverting back to her real name? It must be something to do with the 24 Hour Television charity event that’s taken place. Expect this ‘ inside joke’ to be revealed to everybody soon. There’s no way that this name change is permanent!

EDIT: It’s been revealed that it was a  joke after all by AKB48 management.  That puts an end to all this nonsense then. Thanks Melos for clearing it up. Panic over!!

Here Comes KNU23!!!

No sooner had I posted all about KISS&KISS that I hear about another new idol group that’s going to be making their debut soon. KNU23 is their name and it consists of 16 gravure idols. Apparently the KNU part of their name has 2 meanings – “keep natural under” and the other one which made me laugh refers to “kyonyuu” – large breasts!!! It is said that all of the members are rather well endowed.

KNU23 is going to have a school theme with members being divided into 2 classes – “P” and “X”. What’s the significance of the classes being P and X? There’s even talk of a senbatsu election coming up to decide on between 5-8 members for the group’s “student council” of sorts.

KNU23 held their debut event yesterday in Tokyo stating their intention to hold live performances and release CD’s but no dates has been given yet as to when either will happen.

No Sleeves Album Release Postponed

No Sleeves’ debut album which was supposed to hit the shelves on September 15th has been postponed for various reasons according to their website. They don’t explain what the reasons are – I don’t think they’d cancel because of the competition coming out the same day (NEWS album). I’m really disappointed with this as I was so looking forward to buying it. No new release date has been given yet. We’ll just have to wait and see when they’ll announce it which I hope will be soon.

AKB48 & Morning Musume To Collaborate On TV

No, you’re not imagining it – Morning Musume and AKB48 will collaborate together on TV on the 29th when they’ll sing a medley of Ghibli songs on 24 Hour Television. I’m not sure if they’ll sing the same songs together but even so this will be an interesting thing to watch – two of the biggest Japanese idol groups in the past 10 years teaming up on TV. I can’t wait to see this and I hope there’ll be some interaction between them. This is sure to add more fuel to the fire on the war between the two sets of fans online!

New Idol Group KISS&KISS

How many more idol groups is there going to be coming out of the woodwork? 2010 has seen many of them emerging from nowhere to try and emulate AKB48’s success. KISS&KISS is the latest one. This group comes from the Kansai region and consists of 14 members gathered from 5 different agencies. Their look suggests to me they’re directly trying to copy AKB48.  One quick peek at their lineup which you can see from the Youtube video below and I could spot the Takamina lookalike straight away.

They’ve also got an official website: http://spike-j.com/kisskiss/

I think the song accompanying this video is going to be their debut single which comes out on September 29th called SchoolDays. I like the song if I’m being honest.

AKBingo 25th August 2010 Summary

This week’s episode is a continuation from what was started last week. Tatsuya Yamaguchi from the group TOKIO is back in the studio trying to pick his oshimen. The first stage is Tatsuya asking questions for the girls and they answered on a small white board. He picks an interesting answer to talk about with everybody.

But before the episode actually gets underway, there’s an announcement before the credits that Heavy Rotation has gone straight into no.1 in the Oricon Charts.

Right, we continue with the 1st stage and there’s one more question to be asked before Tatsuya can pick his oshimen. I had no idea what the question was all about so I’ll move on to who he picked – it was Miichan who goes a little OTT with her celebration (running towards one of the cameras!).

The 2nd stage is 2 role play situations. 3 members are picked for each scenario. The first is about a couple watching the Summer fireworks. Acchan, Rena Matsui and Takamina did this. After each person finishes their part, Miichan and Yuko comment about the script which was funny. I was bored with Acchan’s but Rena’s was cute (asking for a kiss which left her very embarrased at the end) and Takamina was great as it got the rest of the girls faking that they’d fallen asleep listening to her.

The 2nd scenario is something on the beach and it was Kojima, Sae and Jurina Matsui who participated. Tatsuya was surprised that Jurina is only 13 years old. So which member out of the six would Tatsuya pick – I had a feeling he’d go for Acchan and I was right.  He should have picked Rena!!

They say a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and for the 3rd stage 2 teams of 3 members cook a nice dish for Tatsuya. The red team consists of Yuko, Kitarie and Kasai and they will cook some katsu curry. The white team which has Tomochin, Amina and Mayuyu will cook some goya chanpuru (whatever that is!). Miichan is the roving reporter going back and forth between the two teams to show their progress. Tatsuya can only pick 1 member at the end of this stage and not a whole team.

After both teams have cooked, it’s time for the taste test. Tatsuya liked both dishes although I suspect he was faking how much he liked the white team’s dish. So which member got to be Tatsuya’s oshimen in the end? It was Kitarie as she made some heart shaped cabbage with the katsu curry.

It’s decision time for Tatsuya as he has to pick the overall best oshimen from the 3 girls he’s chosen from the 3 stages but before that…………

News – Watarirouka Hashiritai’s new single Gyu comes out next week and then we have a live performance of Heavy Rotation.

To close the show we return to Tatsuya picking his favorite oshimen and it’s between Acchan, Miichan and Kitarie but Tatsuya does a swerve and choses Tomochin instead to receive his guitar shaped prize. Oh dear, Miichan is really pissed about this.

A fairly interesting episode but for me Miichan was too much of a camera whore. I have a love/hate liking for Miichan. Sometimes I like her and then at other times she gets on my nerves like today’s episode.

Next week: looks like it’s something to do with cooking again?

Oricon Top 30 Charts – Week 34

30 Katate SIZE – Sparkly Start
29 Dream – My Way ~ULala~
28 AKB48 – Ponytail to Shushu
27 ARASHI – To Be Free
26 Yamashita Tomohisa – One In A Million
25 Mimi Kitagami (CV Mana Ogawa) with MM Gakuen Gasshoubu – Mecha Motetai
24 Daichi Miura – The Answer
23 TOKIO – NaNaNa (Taiyou Nante Ira nee)
22 Team Dragon from AKB48 – Kokoro no Hane
21 Ikimonogakari – Kimi ga Iru
20 John-Hoon – Al Dente
19 Justin Bieiber – Never Say Never feat. Jaden Smith / Somebody to Love feat. Usher
18 CHEMISTRY + Synergy – Shawty
17 HO-KAGO TEA TIME – Utauyo!! MIRACLE
16 HO-KAGO TEA TIME – NO, Thank You!
15 TETSUYA – LOOKING FOR LIGHT
14 Kana Nishino – If
13 FUNKY MONKEY BABYS – Ato Hitotsu
12 Various Artists – ROAD TO PLAYZONE
11 KARA – Mister
10 Kishida Kyoudan & THE Akeboshi Rockets – HIGHSCHOOL OF THE DEAD
09 Choshinsei – Ai Kotoba
08 Shoko Nakagawa – Flying Humanoid / Sen no Kotoba to Futari no Himitsu
07 Perfume – VOICE
06 SMAP – This Is Love
05 T.M.Revolution – Naked arms / SWORD SUMMIT
04 Masaharu Fukuyama – Hotaru / Shounen
03 AAA – Makenai Kokoro
02 Acid Black Cherry – Re:birth
01 AKB48 – Heavy Rotation