Thursday saw Rena Matsui coming to the Fukuya Book Store in Shinjuku for an event to celebrate the release of her 1st PB Kingyo (Goldfish). 1,500 fans were invited to join her through a lottery. She looks stunning in the red dress.
Before the event took place, Rena sat down and talked to the press. She sees her future in the acting profession and revealed that it was Aki-P that chose the name of the PB. Rena said although she’s like a goldfish now, she would prefer to be compared to a coelacanth in 30 to 40 years time and be a ‘living fossil’. Rena – I don’t think anybody would like to be called a living fossil!!! I hope Aki-P will listen and get some acting jobs for Rena in order to try and get some experience for her if that’s the route she intends to go down once her idol career is over.
I’m ecstatic that my SKE48 oshi Rena Matsui will be releasing her first photobook next month. It’s been a long time coming, I thought Rena would have released one last year considering how popular she is with fans.
Rena’s photobook will be called Kingyo (Goldfish) and the cover depicts her in a fishbowl in a red dress. The concept behind the PB is ‘what if Rena wasn’t an idol’ so she wants the fans to see a different side to her. Naturally there will be photos that fans want to see and that’s swimsuit and schoolgirl shots but there’s also some casual shots included too such as Rena eating spaghetti!
I’m definitely going to buy this. Take a look at some truly remarkable preview pics from the PB below. The PB will cost 1429 yen.
Last year Rena Matsui topped SKE48’s Request Hour Setlist Best 30 2010 with her brilliant solo song Kareha no Station and with the selection this year going up to Best 50 you would have thought it would have been highly unlikely for a song to remain at no.1 for the 2nd successive year but that’s what happened at the end of this year’s SKE48 Request Hour Setlist Best 50. The fans decided that Rena deserved to be no.1 once more and I couldn’t be more delighted for her. You’ve got to admit that the song is fantastic and yes, some of you might say that there are more deserving SKE48 songs that should have topped the countdown but not for me. I wish I could have seen her beaming face as the announcement for the no.1 song was made.
The Best 50 countdown went like this:
50 Pajama Drive
49 Pinocchio Gun
48 Utaou yo, Bokutachi no Kouka
47 Seifuku no ME
46 Tsuyokimono yo
45 Seishun wa Hazukashii
44 Chime wa Love Song
43 Nakama no Uta
42 Dareka no Sei ni wa Shinai
41 Lamune no Yomikata
40 Cosmos no Kioku
39 Kagami no Naka Jean da Arc
38 Onna no Ko no Dairokkan
37 Namida no Shounan
36 Anata to Christmas Eve
35 Ame no Pianist
34 Kizashi
33 Hohoemi no Positive Thinking
32 Hanabi wa Owaranai
31 Usotsuki na Dachou
30 Bazooka Hou Hassha!
29 Te wo Tsunaginagara
28 Junjou Shugi
27 Ai no Kazu
26 Nice to Meet You
25 TWO ROSES
24 Tokimeki no ashiato
23 Temodemo no namida
22 Shoujo wa manatsu ni nani wo suru?
21 Kodoku na ballerina
20 Choko no yukue
19 Aozora kataomoi
18 Glory Days
17 Wimbledon ni tsurete itte
16 Tenshi no shippo
15 Hazumisaki
14 Cross
13 Manazashi sayonara
12 Koi wo kataru shijin ni narenakute
11 Mangekyou
10 1! 2! 3! 4! Yoroshiku!
9 Banzai Venus
8 Gomen ne, SUMMER
7 Okami to pride
6 Finland Miracle
5 Omoide ijou
4 Oki Doki
3 Pareo wa emerald
2 Omatase Set list
1 Kareha no Station
And here’s the winning song for all of you to enjoy:
You read all about it on Sunday that Yuko, Kasai and Rena were going to team up in a new Pachinko game unit called Sukeban Girls. Now watch this specially recorded movie by a fan which has been uploaded on Youtube. It’s a video featuring the Sukeban Girls on how to play pachinko for those that have never tried it before. I’ve played pachinko once on my first trip to Tokyo in a parlour that was in one of Shinjuku’s backstreets and to be perfectly honest I didn’t have a clue what I was doing! Even the young man who was helping out in the parlour and was dressed like a shark complete with a shark cap on his head couldn’t help me out as we didn’t understand one another. Still it was great fun trying it out though I’ve never had another go. If any of you guys ever come to Japan please have a go at pachinko. At least you’ll be able to say you had the experience of playing it! You might not understand what the hell you have to do but it’s the taking part that’s the main thing.
Yuko Oshima, Tomomi Kasai and Rena Matsui have formed a unit for a new pachinko game. They will be called Sukeban Girls and apparently will have a big role in the concept of this new pachinko game.
As well as appearing in the game ‘Bikkuri Pachinko Sukeban Deka’, there will also be 2 special music PV’s. The first song ‘Tsupparu Riyuu’ will come up during normal gameplay but the second song ‘Tomo yo Yoake ni Machiawaseyo’ can only be viewed if the pachinko player meets certain conditions. Naturally all 3 girls will appear if you’ve won the jackpot. The main member and the one who gets more screen time in the game is Yuko. If you do manage to win something you can exchange the pachinko balls for some exclusive ‘Sukeban Girls’ special items. I’m not really sure if ‘Sukeban Girls’ will release any songs in the future or not?
I think these 3 would perhaps be fantastic in a new Sukeban Deka movie. We all know how badass Rena was as Gekikara. She’d be even more lethal with a razor sharp yo-yo in her hand!
AKB48 are continuing their roles as ‘support angels’ for Hewlett Packard and feature in a new CM for their latest product. The new CM has Yuko, Rena, Mariko, Yukirin, Kojima and Sae in some great looking outfits with the CM based as in previous ones in the future. The CM also previews a Team A song “Rinjin wa Kizutsukanai” which will be included on AKB48’s 24th single which comes out in December.
Starting on October 1st, SKE48’s Rena Matsui will be starring in Bee TV’s new mobile drama “Oshare ni Koi Shita Cinderella ~Okarie ga Yumi wo Kanaeru Made”.
Rena undergoes a huge transformation from her usual self to play ‘gyaru’ blogger Okarie – a real person whose name of Rie Okamoto. I hardly recognised Rena in the picture above. I haven’t got a clue what the plot is all about but there is some comedy as Rena herself admitted that she was embarrased to do some comical acting. It’s good for Rena to do something like this – fans naturally will think of her as Gekikara for years as she played that role so well but acting as somebody so completely different from Gekikara will show everybody how diverse she can be in her acting. Personally I think Rena could be a fine actress if she wanted to go down that line in the future.
As I’m a big Rena Matsui fan, it’s great that the magazine Shonen Championen has decided to do a special birthday pictorial on her. This is Rena’s 2nd pictorial for the magazine and it does not disappoint. She’s such a photogenic young woman with that beautiful smile of hers. There was also a small interview with Rena in the magazine in which she said her ideal birthday present would be going to Disneyland with the fans, other SKE48 members, family and friends. What a nice person she is! I really think that she hasn’t got a bad bone in her body even though she played Gekikara with such glee! It seems that other SKE48 members also love Rena a lot as they keep pampering her all the time – not that she’s complaining about receiving such treatment!
Check out some of the gorgeous pictures of Rena from the magazine.
Today saw W Matsui (Rena and Jurina) appear on the variety show “Star Hime Sagashi Taro”. Rena had promised in a previous episode that if their single “Pareo wa Emerald” went to no.1 in the daily charts she would plonk her face into some tiramasu cake! Rena loves tiramasu a lot. Maybe she thought the presenters of the show (comedy duo Black Mayonnaise) had forgotten about her promise but they hadn’t! As she had celebrated her birthday a couple of days earlier, the duo and Jurina presented Rena with a tray full of tiramasu and asked her to put her face in the tiramasu. Rena not one to back down from a promise duly did that. Her face became imprinted on the cake. It did not stop her from eating it aterwards!
Watch the hilarious segment below. If you don’t want to watch the NMB48 segment just fast forward to 8 mins into the clip and then you’ll find Rena’s face dunking cake challenge!
IXA Ready - Fist On! 