素直な気持ち伝えるのさ

So much has happened since the last time I posted. I should have posted on Sunday or Monday after seeing the concert on Saturday, but it didn't happen. I have lots of things to say, but first and foremost...

Is anyone else watching Shige's drama?? I had a lot of mixed feelings about it at first just in terms of the quality of the show, but while it's still pretty goofy, I'm really, really enjoying it, and in particular, I'm totally in love with Seigi and Yuuki's characters right now (sorry Shige!). I'm tickled that they got a 5 episode arc about their character development, and I really, really enjoyed their interaction with each other and Zero in Episode 8. If anyone out there is watching, please drop me a line and let's discuss the show, because I'm really enjoying it and I want to know if anyone else is, too!

That said, other things that happened: I saw JUMP in Tokyo on Saturday! It was weird going back to the same complex as AjiSta again, but I was very glad I was going into the smaller venue. I never have a great impression of concerts the first time around, so I'll certainly have more to say later, but, can I just say, OH MY GOD INOCHAN'S SOLO. There aren't even words to describe how amazing it was. I don't want to post too many spoilers here since the tour just started, but let me just say that it was the sort of thing that I would never expect to be even allowed in Johnny's, not to mention done by my tan. I can't wait to see it again next weekend *__*

The other thing that happened is that I got a new phone! I finally swapped out my little SE (which had a horrible battery life at this point, among other problems) for a new iPhone 8! So far, I'm liking it a lot. The screen is so much bigger; I had been worried that my tiny hands wouldn't be able to type on the keyboard, but there's a setting that moves the keyboard from the center to either the right or left side to make it easier to type, which helps a lot. It's also fast, and the screen color and resolution is amazing. I haven't tried wireless charging yet, but I'm looking forward to trying that as well!

I haven't watched the most recent episodes of Inochan's drama because it comes on so late at night, but I have them recorded, and I'm looking forward to them! I was also extremely excited to see Inochan crossdress, and see his character turn dark. I enjoy that he always plays dark characters, ahaha. :3

That's about it for me. I'm headed to Miyagi this weekend to see a show on Saturday and Sunday each, so I'm looking forward to that. And of course, hopefully I'll be home in time catch Shige's drama on Sunday night!

Whew, long time no see, LJ. I can't believe how quickly summer flew by, but I'm also amazed at all the things that happened. Looking back...

☆ As I mentioned previously, I went back to America for two weeks in July. My current workplace has summer vacation about two weeks earlier than my previous job, so it was a little off from previous years, and it actually had me sort of jumbled up based on things I usually am able to do surrounding my summer break (for example, I missed The Music Day, which was annoying, but all in all, I had a good, relaxing time at home with my family! I got to see my pets, eat nostalgic foods, and watch American TV, so... that's a win for me? XD;

☆ After getting back, I randomly was able to go see Reia when Seven Men Samurai appeared in the Hi Hi Jets Summer Station show. yomimashou is still a member of the Junior fanclub, and we balloted on a whim when we heard that Reia was going to appear... and hit! It was really nice to see him perform again (he's still wonderful and talented ♥), but man did I feel like a grandma surrounded by all the screaming teenagers there to see some teenagers who think they're really cool. I don't know anything about Hi Hi Jets and I have absolutely nothing against them, but I have to say, the appeal was lost on me. It was sort of depressing to know that I'm getting old. |D;

☆ The next day, I went to see Massu's play at the Globe. Despite the fact that yomimashou and I balloted for it 15 times (!!!), we didn't hit even once, and had to pay a stupid amount for resale tickets for the very last row, but it was definitely worth it! A musical made up of only Johnny's songs was, as expected, pretty great, and I always enjoy Massu's singing. His acting left something to be desired, but that wasn't really the point of the play, anyway, and it was just a really fun watch from beginning to end.

☆ In the meantime, both Shige and Inochan's dramas started! Having both of my tans have dramas at once has been a really strange and overwhelming experience (I've bought so many magazines in the past few months!), but I'm really happy about it! Unfortunately, Inochan's airs past midnight on a week night, so I'm not able to watch it in real time, but I've been recording it each week. While it's sort of weird and goofy with a lot of sex and otherwise body-related humor, which is not usually to my taste, it somehow fits Inochan well, and his character is pretty delightful. I'm actually not totally caught up right now, but I'm looking forward to when I get the chance to watch the most recent episodes.

☆ On that topic, COSMIC☆HUMAN is also a really great song that I really enjoy a whole lot, and I'm so happy Inochan had such a perfect song for his drama theme song. The sales weren't great in comparison to JUMP's recent sales, which was sad, but I'm just happy Inochan had such a really wonderful single made for the theme song for his drama.

☆ Meanwhile, Shige's drama actually started while I was in America, which was crappy timing, but after the first episode, I've been able to watch in real time. The premise is extremely goofy (the parallels to Yu-gi-oh are a little ridiculous, and Shige's character was supposed to be a high schooler in the original manga, which shows in his behavior if you ask me, lol) and I feel like they're trying to fit a 26 episode (two anime seasons) series into 10 episodes (presumably? Most dramas run 10 episodes), but it suddenly got way better last week, and this past week's episode (episode 6) was a real treat. In particular, I really am enjoying Tego's performance (I was not expecting that!), as well as the way the stories have started to turn out maybe slightly more nuanced and slightly less straightforwardly "let's solve this with the power of friendship by the skin of our teeth" shonen anime style. I really hope it continues to go well for the second half of the drama!

☆ Relatedly, I also really like Ikiro as a song, and I'm anxiously awaiting the CD release (which is sadly distant). Seeing the guys sing it really emotionally, enough so that Tego cried, at the 15th anniversary concert really moved me, and it's really grown on me especially since then. I'm also waiting with bated breath to find out what's in the mystserious anniversary box (though they did give some spoilers in the concert).

☆ Tying into that previous point, I saw Strawberry both days at Ajinomoto Stadium, and boy do I never want to see another open air concert ever again in my life. I'll try to write up a report at some point (I know, I know...), but the humidity was killer, and having so many people in that venue made the logistics of going to the stadium, getting inside, getting out again, and getting home totally miserable. The arena in particular was set up really awfully, with only two entrances that had pinch points such that people basically had to wait in a single-file line to get into the arena, which is what led to the show starting so late on Saturday. But, the guys did a really good job with the set up and (presumably) minimal rehearsals that they had, and I had a really great time. Happy 15th anniversay, NEWS! They've gotten through so much, and I'm really proud of them.

☆ JUMP's album comes out this week, which I'm looking forward to! I don't really like the dance style that they've chosen this time (the light and fluffy cute pop style is more to my taste), but I'm still interested to see what they do with it, and I really can't wait to hear Inochan's solo! I'm really, really excited that they're finally having solos for the first time, so I'm definitely on the edge of my seat to see what he does with it. I'm also going to see one of the Tokyo shows of the tour, so I'm interested to see what they have planned for the tour, as well.

☆ Maybe the last bullet point of this stupidly long post is that I recently bought a Wii. You may be thinking this was an interesting life choice 10 years after the Wii was originally introduced, but... I really wanted to have the Wii Fit game so that I could work out in my own home. I made Miis of all the Johnny's I like (as you do, lol) and I'm enjoying cycling and jogging and doing other goofy excercise activities with them, so I think it's been a success so far. XD;

I can't believe that August is more than halfway over! Work is about to go back into a busy cycle, but at least I'm prepared now that I've been here for a year. Ganbarimasu!

I should be in bed, but I'm currently watching the TBS CDTV Halloween music special, and I wanted to drive by and say that it's been pretty great. JUMP and NEWS performed back to back, which was convenient! Also:

→ Inochan wore his hair styled such that it looked like cat ears! It was seriously the cutest thing ever. I love that he's still running with the cat-boy theme even 2 years (!!) after that fateful Hanako magazine was released!

→ Shige's costume was something I didn't recognize and stared at through the whole performance trying to figure out... and then when they were asked to explain their costumes, he replied that he likes the book "Clockwork Orange" and so he dressed as a character from it. OF COURSE HE DID. Shige, how the heck do you Shige so hard, lmao.

But now Inochan needs to get home and get to bed! He has to be on TV at 5 am tomorrow, after all. Poor baby!

...and I also should get to bed. XD;

Sorry for lateness; life has been crazy, but... I saw Peach Girl last weekend! In fact, I saw it three times in two days, because I'm cool. XD; But it was totally worth it! And that's coming from someone who usually hates romance movies. I really enjoyed how the characters and the story were handled, so I highly recommend it to anyone who has a chance to see it in theaters!

On Saturday, I got to the theater I usually go to a half hour after they opened to find that there were still a few goods left, luckily! I hadn't been sure how quickly they were going to sell out, and if my theater had the mug, that was sold out (but there was no price tag or indication, so maybe they never even had it?), but I was able to get the hair accessory, the pencil, the cell phone charm, the pencil board (I skipped the clearfile because I figured I only really needed one of the manga illustration goods, and I liked the pencil board better), and the pamphlet. Hooray!

I saw the movie at the first showing, so I also got a postcard! The majority of the people there besides me were middle schoolers, lol, but luckily the theater was far enough away from my city that none of them were my students. They all started crying during sad parts in the movie, and squealing during the kiss scenes, which was kind of cute |D;;; But I'm glad that the movie seemed to go over well with them, and I personally really enjoyed it! I liked it enough that I saw it a second time in a row right then; the first show let out at 12:10 or so and I went into the second showing at 12:30. XD;

On Sunday, I went all the way out to the middle of nowhere to see the show and stage greeting! The movie theater was really a pain to get to, but the movie was once again enjoyable, and then the talk afterwards was really fun, and Inochan was, of course, adorable! I took notes and plan to write a full report when I have time, which will hopefully be this weekend.

Normally, I would also write a full movie summary, but I have to confess that I honestly don't know if that's going to be doable this time around. My life is extremely hectic right now, and I have a lot of work responsibilities that are eating into the free time I usually use to write reports and fic, but... I'll do my best!

For now, I'm looking forward to seeing the movie at least once more, probably this weekend!

Why does it take so long to put stupid chocolates into stupid bags?? Sheesh. I spent like 2 hours today packing up the chocolates for my JHS so that I can give them out tomorrow... 36 baggies, which is less than half of the total chocolates I have to package up over all. T__T;;;

But at least it's done, and I can do elementary tomorrow, and everything else as it comes, so I'm not too worried about it at this point. The worst of the chocolate-ing this year has passed. T__T;;

In other news (haha, news), I've now listened to Emma more times than any other NEWS song, and the obsession isn't showing signs of stopping OTL. Why did this happen to me?! And that doesn't even include plays on other people's phones and plays of the PV. I read an analysis of the lyrics on a Japanese blog and the fact that there's way more there than first meets the eye only made me love it more, OTL.

Also!! How about that Peach Girl trailer! Inochan's first crossdressing on TV *EVER*! And NEWS announced an album today, too. So I really can't really complain; today has been pretty good XD;

In an (almost, maybe?) all time record of lateness, here's my second new year's meme of the year. I was crap about writing fic in 2016, but I still wrote some worthwhile stuff, I think.

( Fics for 2016! )

This week is already long, ugh, but the first week back always is, I suppose. I'll do my best to keep being productive!

Main Karafuto Ojisan translation page here.

( 1. Night )

I'm back from Tokyo! I had a great time celebrating my birthday (which is on December 2-- same as Hikaru!-- but I'm busy next weekend) with my friends, and we had fun shopping for makeup, clothes, and Johnny's shop photos, as well as playing Pokemon Go, eating, and just hanging out. Also, I got some awesome gifts from my friends! I'm really happy with everything, but the most relevant thing to my LJ is that one of my wonderful friends found a copy of the Karafuto Ojisan script! Which means that (hopefully) I'll be able to share it here. So please look forward to that!

I got back pretty late though, so for now I'm going to crash. This week is going to be pretty long, alas, but only 3 more weeks until winter break?

Yesterday, all the first images and CMs from Peach Girl came out! I watched the broadcast on Mezamashi TV with the interview that Inochan clearly did on Thursday after his regular Mezamashi broadcast XD I have to say, I usually hate romance movies, but I was so kyun'd and excited when I saw the preview that I watched it several more times online and then decided to make the promotional graphic into my phone background.

I managed to get my hands on some fliers today, but I made this off of scans I found online before I got my own fliers, so the quality isn't super awesome, I'm sorry about that! But I figured if anyone else was as excited as I am about the movie, they might be interested in this as well XD;

If you're interested, please check behind the cut! Sorry for the large image. It's made for an iPhone 5/5S/SE.

( Momo & Kairi~ )

I'm already anxious to see the movie in theaters, and it won't be out for another seven months! (@ A @) But for the time being, I can't wait to watch more trailers... or maybe just watch this same trailer a bunch more times. XD;

Fantastic Time dropped today, which means that I got it and was able to watch it yesterday, but I watched it again with my friends today, and I have to say that I really love it. I like the costumes and the dance really speaks to me! The choreographer was apparently someone new who had never choreographed for them before, and I really liked what he did. I want to watch the dance video a bunch of times so that I can learn the choreography and do it myself! XD;

Also! Can we talk about the amazing Inoo and Hikaru part in the second verse?? It's a shame it will never get performed on anything since it's in the second half, but it's so cute when Hikaru puts his hand on Inoo's shoulder and Inoo looks at him, ahhhh.

I really enjoyed the ridiculous making, too, and the PV as a whole. The guys look so good and seem like they're doing well, so I'm really happy. ♥