Personal

Anything personal by nature, from rants to Arashi-related travel.

smile again and again

Almost a year into the hiatus announcement, and I think the fandom is doing FINE. Some of us have accepted things as they are, some are still scared, most of us are sad however else we feel about it, but they’ve been throwing announcement after announcement that it’s sometimes hard to stop and catch our breaths! At least, that’s my observation from my tiny corner of the fandom. I haven’t been that active in a long time, and I’m mostly just lurking and talking to the same fandom friends I’ve been talking to since forever.

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New 5×20 Goods List

Pamphlet * | 2,200yen

Jumbo Uchiwa 2nd Ver. | 600yen (5 types)

Poster 2nd Ver. | 800yen (6 types)

Clear File 2nd Ver. | 600yen (7 types)

Super Duper Original Photo Set 2nd Ver. | 800yen (Group *, 5 types)

Penlight * | 2,500yen

Shopping Bag * | 2,800yen

Mini Tote Bag | 2,000yen

T-Shirt * | 2,800yen

T-Shirt (Grey) | 2,800yen

Hand Towel | 1,000yen

Masking Tape Set * | 800yen

Pouch * | 1,600yen

Multi-Blanket * | 3,200yen

Strap * | 300yen

Karuta * | 1,600yen

Luggage Tag | 1,200yen

Venue Limited Charm 2nd Ver | 600yen

Mini Uchiwa 2nd Ver | 400yen (6 types)

Accessory Case | 800yen

* same as first leg of concerts

I was kind of hoping for the goods list to remain the same as it would be safe for my wallet, but it looks like the list is updated with small changes! There will be new jumbo/mini uchiwas, posters, clear files, and photo sets (except for the group photo set, which remains the same), as well as charms, a grey t-shirt and entirely new items like the mini tote, hand towel, and luggage tag. And the accessory case! I’m really curious about that one as it was list listed as “komono ire” and sounds like something I might really like more than one of.

I’m back

It’s been a long while since I last posted here. I missed the entire Are You Happy? run, for one. I guess I was trying to get immediately back into everything but it was too hard when it comes to Arashi, because it’s something I shared with my sister, and because my sister died on their concert date, which made me think of her death every time I listen to them, and made me think of missing their concert every time I think of her, and it was just bad all around. So I decided to step away from Arashi for a bit. This was helped a lot by the fact that I missed Japonism entirely – the new rules and facial recognition for the arena tour meant that it was out of the question. And the title of their then-next album (Are you happy?) just felt a bit mean, I guess, considering that I was (and will always be) grieving.

I stopped listening to their songs for the most part. I watched maybe two or three episodes of Vs. Arashi throughout the entire last year, and not much else. I don’t remember if I watched Kouhaku, and I don’t think I watched all the Music Stations or NTV Best Artist or other TV performances they did. I still loved them, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch them.

The change was gradual. I balloted for Untitled (I didn’t for Are you happy), and didn’t get it, of course. Doubt I’d ever get a ticket under the same ID again – has this even happened before? Those I know who won the ballot more than once all had multiple memberships. I watched episodes of their shows every now and then. I started to download my playlist back into my iTunes. And two weeks after the Untitled album came out, I listened to it. And… it was like discovering them all over again. No – maybe more of a reunion, like Sho said in the Are you happy making. (Plus, the title of the Sho/Jun duet made me wanna come back!) I felt like I’m finally able to return to this place, and I’m so glad, because Arashi and their fandom is one of the very few things that can make me feel happier in mere seconds.

Last night, Salwa and I watched the Are you happy? making together and I have so many fanfic ideas in my head right now.

Arashi News Round-up

Yesterday we got to see the Japonism goods for the first time! The masking tape (venue-limited item) for Nagoya is blue. And it comes in a set of two tapes! I’m all excited about it, but I didn’t really order any, because it’s too expensive with our current exchange rate (T_T). Anyway, you can check out the goods here.
Ninomiya Kazunari will be starring in Fuji TV’s New Year drama SP which will be aired on January 3rd 2016, at 9pm. The drama will be “Botchan”, based on Natsume Soseki’s novel. Since lately I’ve been feeling like reading and/or rereading Natsume Soseki, I’m looking forward to timing my Botchan read with the drama 😀
Arashi, along with TOKIO, HSJ, Ikuta Toma and Totsuka Shota, supported V6 at their 20th anniversary concert. Arashi went onstage as backup dancers during the encore, for “TAKE ME HIGHER”. Look for the news clips all over dailymotion and tudou; they’re fun to watch XD

Blast in Miyagi (19th September)

This is a report (of sorts) for the Blast in Miyagi concert I went to. Salwa and I went to see Blast on September 19th, which was Arashi’s 16th anniversary of their debut as a group. Today is November 3rd, the 16th anniversary of their first single. Happy Anniversary, Arashi!

We were lucky to get arena seats, I suppose, and less lucky with accommodation, which filled up almost as soon as concert announcements went up. I knew from experience that even though the concert was supposed to end at 7:30pm, I would be really lucky to make the last train back to Tokyo from Miyagi, because (1) of course the roads would be congested, and (2) 50,000 people trying to get back at the same time? Even getting out of the stadium wasn’t going to be easy. So even though it would seem cheaper to purchase a ticket directly, I opted for a JR Pass, which would at least allow me more freedom in taking trains and re-reserving new tickets if I missed my train. Turned out to be one of the best decisions I made for this trip, as hard as it was to make (I was on a really tight budget, so it was extremely tempting to not take the JR Pass.) (more…)

Japonism Goods – Updated

Now with prices for all the goods. J-net also updated the selling times for Nagoya; goods will start selling on November 4th. Can’t wait to see the previews!

Japonism tour goods announced!

Venue Limited Item: Masking Tape | TBD

Kids Line
Mini Uchiwa | 400yen
Japanese Stickers | TBD

As usual, the list is out, but the prices have not yet been announced. I’m really excited about this year’s goods because I didn’t get the Waku2 masking tape when it was out and I’ve been hoping for Arashi to have masking tapes in their goods list again ever since! And not only it’s in the list, it’s the venue limited item – which means 5 different colours to choose from! I’m getting overexcited just thinking about it… of course, I will most probably not have enough money to order them all, haha.

Other goods I’m interested in: the “wa” stickers, the Japonism calendar (how overdone is overdone, I wonder?), the wrapping cloth and the envelope. These are all the sort of items I’d use normally. I think I might want the pouch and the blanket, but I’m expecting them to be over my budget. The t-shirt will probably be too tight again, so I won’t consider it. I was thinking of not getting uchiwas or penlights this time around, but the description of the penlight intrigues me. I’ll be looking forward to see the goods preview (on November 5th, before the Nagoya Dome tour, probably?).

note: by the way, leaks for the album are out. As usual, I have no idea where to find these leaks and am torn between asking around or just waiting patiently for my CDs to arrive. Right now I’m doing the latter, but it’s so hard being online when everyone’s already talking about the album!

A trip to Keikarou

On September 22nd, Salwa and I went to Keikarou. After my first trip (during which I didn’t make it for lunch but managed to get in for dinner), I had always tried to arrive about half an hour before the restaurant opened. I only managed to go twice since then (in January and November 2012), and had been in the first batch of customers to be let in both times. Because of that, we thought it was safe to arrive around the same time again, especially since a lot of fans were flocking to Miyagi, and sometime in 2013 Keikarou had stopped displaying gifts from fans. Unfortunately, we underestimated the power of Silver Week. By the time we arrived, the queue was already very long, and we ended up in the line for over an hour under the very hot sun.

Aiba’s mother came out several times while we were in the queue, handing out menus and talking to customers, and saying stuff like, “are you okay?” and “sorry about the wait.” One of the staff came to us and tried talking in English; she seemed to be struggling a bit, so Salwa told her that Japanese was fine. She gave us the Japanese menu and talked to us in Japanese after that, but when we were seated, she talked to us in English again. We figured that she probably wanted to practise, so we started talking to her in English as well. (more…)

A trip to Tower Records

My Blast write-up is still pending; in the meantime, here are a couple of photos from my trip to Tower Records (Shibuya) on the 17th, with bonus Shibutani Subaru:

Cataloging CDs and other things

Maybe it’s because I’m a bookseller now, and I was a school librarian (which is what we call students that do library page work) since I was about 11, but I’m just a tiny bit obsessed with cataloging stuff. I’m also somewhat of a completist. Anyway, since becoming an Arashian I’ve been wondering about the best way to catalog all the things I have related to them. It started with a plain text listing on LiveJournal, then various brief attempts of uploading photos to a on Pinterest, Tumblr, and Weebly…

None but Weebly stuck, and Weebly was kind of frustrating to use (which was why I moved to WordPress in the first place), and I was also cataloging my CDs on RateYourMusic. I probably would have stuck with RYM if adding new CDs (which I had to do, since not many people added info on JE music) didn’t mean taking a long time waiting for their moderators to approve every little thing. Recently a colleague suggested I try LibraryThing, which I’m already using for cataloging my books. I never included my CDs because I didn’t want them to mix with the books, but then I started making separate shelves for CDs, DVDs, and Arashi (all Arashi-related items, including concert goods) and decided that I liked it.

I’m still way behind on cataloging the DVDs and goods, but today I finished doing my Arashi CDs!

I think I’m definitely sticking with LT. It doesn’t have spaces for tracklists or formats or cases or any of the special columns that RYM has, but I can easily add the items I own and tag them, AND I can have them in more than one shelf if I want to, so my CDs are on my CD shelf (with non-Arashi CDs in the future) as well as on my Arashi shelf (along with DVDs, photo books and concert/drama/movie goods). I haven’t decided if I will start working on the Arashi DVDs next, or my non-Arashi CDs.

I wonder what cataloging system(s) other fans use?

嵐TV

Shukudai-kun re-watch, and other things Arashi