sexyness

I went to the city again today and downloaded the things I hadn't been able to download with the crappy Internet connection I have here: the latest 2 Ya3 shows, scans, more scans, even more scans. XD So yeah, today's post is mainly a yay!-scans post. =]

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I have to say the scans from the October (yeah, October already!, I know O__O) issue of Myojo and Popolo are really nice, but... oh, God, the scans from the Daibouken pamphlet Fiona uploaded to her Clubbox! *___* Such great pics!! The one on the left actually made my heart flutter, and I really don't care how cheesy that sounds. The beauty of that smile... *sighs* If I were any good at writing poetry -which I ain't- I'd write an ode to that amazing, heart-warming smile Shoon has.

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And the one below has definitely become one of my favourites as well. I love how Shoon can look all sexy and mature sometimes, and other times he's just so childlike and adorable. I photoshopped it a bit to remove everyone else from the pic and added his name at the bottom and on the left.

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And then... Oh, God, the Myojo and Popolo scans! The October Myojo pics are like... killer pics. Taiyô looking sexy -sexy Taiyô shouldn't be allowed! XD He's too young!- with his hair damp, and that white shirt with rolled-up sleeves; Shoon looking like the sexiest workmate/boss you could ever have; a sleeveless Hikaru leaning on a flashy sports car; and Yabu in a tank top, working out, with his hair damp too, looking like Heero Yui incarnate. H___H Heero Yui, for those who don't know, is one of the sexiest anime characters ever, from the anime series Gundam Wing. He's still skinny, but seeing that picture reminded me so much of Scribe's multi part fic Yugureden... "The arms around Shoon’s chest were wiry, but he had seen them break the force of a larger man’s blow, katana unwavering—they were deceptively thin." Are you reading Yugureden? 'Cause if you aren't you totally should! It's the most amazing piece of fanfiction I've ever read. It's really exciting and insightful, and Scribe's prose is just beautiful. I'm totally in love with her writing. If you want to read it go here. And I highly recommend her fic Victims of Abuse too. Dark, but equally awesome.

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Anyway, back to the scans... Um... does anybody else think there's a reason why Shoon often wears low neckline t-shirts and tanktops for photoshoots and performances on stage? Other than letting his beauty mark show? ;-) Oh, well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so...
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.... .... .... .... Uh, sorry, I think one of my braincells exploded just looking at that pic again. XD Anyway, credits for all the pics go once again for the wonderful Zansanhane, who scanned them. =]

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2007.10 Myojo

2007.10 Popolo

Nippon medley

On Friday I went to the city because I had to do some errands, and I seized the chance to download all the stuff I hadn't been able to download since I came here to the countryside, and also uploaded and posted Ya-Ya-yah's latest livestage (2007.08.11) at Mitsukai's site Singin' for You. =]

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Shoon and Hikaru sang together a bit of Takki and Tsubasa's new song, Samurai; Yabu a bit of Naniwa iro wa bushi with some chibis; Taiyô a bit of Made in Japan with Inô, Hasshi and Kamei; and then finally Ya-Ya-yah sang another bit of Samurai to close the performance.

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Judging from this livestage it seems things really are looking up for Taiyô and Shoon. ^__^ In the past it would have been just Yabu and Hikaru doing all the singing with Shoon and Taiyô backdancing and singing chorus parts.

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In this livestage, though, Shoon opened the performance with Hikaru, and the camera focused on him first too. And then Taiyô was featured on his own -okay, well, Inoo, Hasshi, and Kamei sang with him, but you know what I mean. ;-)

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It was a really great performance with a very cool staging. =] And samurai!Shoon is awesome. 8D

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By the way... is that a toothpick in his mouth? XD I guess that was just a prop to make him look like a bad guy, but it made me wonder. I googled for "toohpick+samurai" and apparently the samurai code says that a samurai must use a toothpick even when he has not eaten. It's funny because in 16th century Spain it was usual to see hidalgos going around with a toothpick in their mouth. Hidalgos were noblemen of the lowest rank. Even though they had a title, they often had no money but needed to keep appearances, so they went around with a toothpick in their mouth to make others think they'd had a copious meal even when they really hadn't.

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Anyway, you can watch this livestage and download it together with an mp3 rip at Singin' for You. Come this way. =]

Momo Taiyô

I'm spending a couple of weeks at a vacation house my family has in the countryside. It's very pretty here, with lots of trees and the sound of birds singing in the background, but I miss the Internet connection I have in the city! Here I have a lousy connection that is horribly slow. I wasn't able to download Sunday's Shounen Club T__T , so I'm really grateful to Kamichan, from Ya3Genshiro for uploading to Dailymotion two clips of the main moments featuring Shoon and Taiyô.

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I loved the way the audience cheered when Koyama introduced them at the beginning of the show, and Shoon's warm, bright smile. He smiles so much of late! It makes me happy to see him happy. =] It seems they only got to sing a little bit of Jet Coaster with Shige, but they appeared on their own on the MC segment, in which the talk revolved around the same subject as the show's theme: Summer. Major chearing from the audience again, by the way. =D

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Now, I REALLY would like to know what on Earth Taiyô was talking about 'cause I only got that he loves peaches, and something about Koyama being in some drama and underpants. O__o;;; It was great that Shoon was sitting in the middle, between Taiyô and Nakamaru, because at some points his face was really priceless. LOL

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At first he seemed amused, then confused, and at the end he seemed totally bemused. XDDD He even let out a shocked laugh when Nakamaru told him it was his turn. Actually Taiyô seemed a bit nervous -embarrassed?- and I wonder if it has to do with the fact that as Kamichan pointed out on his blog Taiyô's peaches resembled butts, or rather the way Japanese draw peaches makes them resemble butt cheeks -especially when drawn upside down, like the big peach Taiyô drew at the top of his board. Also, in mangas I've seen jokes in which butts are compared to peaches. And the fact that he talked about underpants... ?___? So yeah, if somebody understood what he was talking about, please do tell me, because right now I'm wondering if Taiyô is a bit of a pervert or I'm the one who's having weird thoughts. XDDD

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Anyway. ^^ Shoon talked about the memories of his first Summer holidays. He went to the seaside with his family, and one night there were fireworks at the beach. [By the way, the literal meaning of the word for fireworks in Japanese, hanabi, is "fire flowers". Isn't that beautiful? =)] His father had taken the camera with him, so they took lots of photographs... only to discover he had forgotten to put the film roll into the camera! (That's why Shoon drew only black slashes on his board.) Looks like my father and Shoon's are equally absentminded. XD The same thing happened to us once. We went to visit a castle, and the scenery was beautiful, so we took lots of photographs... or rather thought we were taking them. We felt really silly when we discovered he had forgotten to put the film roll into the camera after posing like idiots here and there. XD;;;

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Credits to Kamichan for the clip below (hope you don't mind ^^) as I can't upload a single thing bigger than 4MB while I'm here - I feel as if I were stranded in an island in the middle of nowhere. -_-

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PS: the title of this entry is a reference to a famous Japanese children story called Momo Tarô, about Tarô, a legendary hero who was born from a giant peach (momo in Japanese) floating on the river and found by an old couple. It's an interesting story; read it if you can. ;-)

clips and scans

I've updated Never Stop the Music with a couple of clips courtesy of my good friend Yungboy (thanks as always; you're a dear ^^B): Hikaru's rockish solo Kuroi asa, shiroi yoru, from the 2005.11.20 Shounen Club, and To the Freedom, from 2006.09.10. =] I should have done so on Monday, but I was busy. ^^U Anyway, better late than never, ne? XD *is cheeky*

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I've also scanned some more of the tearouts I bought from Princekira. =] The ones I've chosen for today have a Summer feel to them -even though they are from the November issue of 2002 Myojo, so I thought they were appropriate with the season. =] Click here to get the scans.

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Shoon is the greatest

And not just because I say so. XD On last Saturday's show, Shoon and Taiyô help a kid called Manaya make a wooden bench for his parents. Manaya and his dad like baseball, and Shoon has an idea to make the bench more special. Click here to watch a short clip of that moment translated and subbed by me. =]

requiem for 300 tearouts

Please take a moment to cry with me for the loss of over 300 Ya3 tearouts. ;__;

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I won them in different auctions of Yahoo!Japan through an auction service called Rinkya, and after 3 weeks of worrying it's now official: the package is lost. I asked Rinkya to ship it to me via EMS, which is not cheap, but it's supposedly safe (ha!) and fast. It should have taken 1 week for the package to arrive, and the week passed, 2 weeks passed... 3 weeks have passed already.

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It makes me mad because the shipping fees and Rinkya's handling fees were horribly expensive, and it makes me depressed because I was so excited about it! ;__; Some of the tearouts were from 2002-2005 magazines, and there were some rare ones, like a picture of the original 7 members Ya-Ya-yah. I was so excited about getting those tearouts and scanning them to share them with all of you. -_- I know it's silly to feel depressed for the loss of a handful of magazine tearouts, but... *sigh*

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I've asked Rinkya to check what happened to the package, but after so many weeks... *shakes head* And I know I won't feel any better even if they give me my money back. -_-

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Oh, well. It cheered me up a little when I saw this afternoon that Zansanhane and Mimini had posted scans of the latest magazines and some things made me smile.

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Things like seeing that Hikaru has hair on his armpits already XD , like seeing Shoon with a fake orchid on his hair...

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...like seeing Yabu show off his smexyness, like seeing Shoon making weird-cute faces...

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...or finding pics that match oh, so well! XD (yeah, unfortunately the pic below is a manip - sorry to disappoint you ^^)

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Shoon & Taiyô bring down NHK Hall

Yabu-kun, Hikaru-kun: please be absent more often. =p Taiyô and Shoon were so awesome tonight. *__________* Taiyô has such a nice, deep voice! It impressed me so much! I'm so proud of you, Taiyô! ^___^ You really shined. =] And he seemed so comfortable on stage on his own. Damn, I even liked the song when at first I didn't like it - at all. And Shoon... How do you manage to make me fall over and over for you every time? I was literally melting when watching the performance... and not because it's almost 40ºC here today. ^^p I wish they hadn't cut the song so short, but I had the feeling they would, so I was prepared. I had another outfit in mind I wanted him to wear -the black suit with the white tank top-, but I was so relieved it wasn't the Sgt. Pepper/Puppet outfit! And the black and orange "fireman" outfit is my second favourite, so yay! It pissed me a little that he had just a couple of backdancers, unlike Tsubasa, but well, I guess it's not so bad that he had the entire stage to himself so no backdancers were blocking him from view. LOL They changed the choreography a bit too, but I liked it. And I loved the way he performed the song. Ah, I'm going to watch and listen to this medley like a million times.

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DOWNLOAD VIDEO - DOWNLOAD MP3

Midori-san

Remember Midorinu, also known as Midori-san?, Midori-sensei from the older Ya3 shows? =]

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Red wig and funny clothes? Yeah, that one, Ya-Ya-yah's obaachan (granny).

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There were times I disliked her a bit, because she was rather tactless with some of the boys, and showed a certain favoritism towards others.

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However, she did seem genuinely fond of them, like when she teased Taiyô, when she embarrassed a not so young Yabu, cupping his cheeks in the Tegoshi dokkiri (prank on Tegoshi) episode [see clip below], when she hugged Hikaru in the Universal Studios episode, or when she bear-hugged Shoon in the Aikido episode -that's one of my very favourite Midori moments, without a doubt. =]

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Midori embarrassing Yabu - subs by NEWShFAN

video deleted by YouTube, sorry :(

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Anyway. Ever wondered what her real name was? Ever wondered how old exactly she was? Ever wondered what happened to her after she left the Ya3 show?

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You'll find the answers to all those questions in this post.

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For starters, her full artist name is うつみ宮土理 (Utsumi Midori), but her maiden name is 内海 三重子 (Utsumi Mieko), and her married name is 井川 三重子 (Ikawa Mieko).

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She was born in 1943.10.01 , so that makes her 63 years old (won't turn 64 till October) and in 2003 when the Ya3 show started she was 59.

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Before the Ya3 show she worked in a number of theater plays, radio shows, TV series (like the 5th season (1999-2000) of Kinpachi Sensei), movies, and TV shows, both adult and kids TV shows. Among the kids TV shows she appeared in there was まんがはじめて物語 (Manga hajimete monogatari), in which she appeared both as herself, and as a cartoon with a muppet called モグタン (Mogutan) [see pics below].

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And then after the Ya3 show she's continued working in the showbiz of course, with more TV

shows, radio shows, etc. She was in the 笑っていいとも! (Waratte ii to mo) show with Massu last year (anyone has the 2006.12.07 show? I'm curious! XD), and if I understood correctly, she's working on a TV series in Korea this year. Wow! Go, Midori! o^o^o

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For more info on Midori-san check these links:

+Midori's official site

+official news blog

+Wikipedia article

+article about Midori