Goodbye to a Decade. Gokurasama, 2009!

Here's a not-so brief recap of my life from 2000 to 2009. No big accomplishments. But I take life as it is (with a grain of salt) and although resolutions aren't my thing, this is definitely the right time for a milestone post :)

My head's merely going with what I can dig up from my weak memory.

1. [2000] Final year of school life. Aah~ the bittersweet times of being a teenager.


2. Death of my love for L'Arc~en~Ciel. It was a joy knowing them but I have moved on. Thank you for introducing me to Jrock, Hyde-san ;)


3. Malay-dominated Matriculation course in Pulau Pinang killed my English. Seriously. So few English-speakers to befriend. Malay songs rotted my brain :[


4. Death of a loved one [2002]: My mother. Al-Fatihah.


5. Shortly after that, I enrolled at UKM studying Computer Science. Another major reason why my English proficiency died. XP


6. But if it wasn't for UKM, I wouldn't have berjinak (sorry, can't find a better word for it) with Korean entertainment. And I wouldn't have met my beloved separate-end-of-the-Pole twinnie Farah. ♥


7. Koreans overtook my heart. I flitted around a lot at first before stopping at Shinhwa and Park Hyo Shin. Hmm actually I've now cut down to only Shinhwa. Even just the six of them hurts my money.


8. Rise and fall of a kingdom. Heart still pains over this. "Gaining Through Losing" is an apt metaphor.


9. SHINHWA IN SINGAPORE! Enough said. *eyes crinkle from awesome unforgettable memories*


10. The trials and tribulations brought us all closer. ILY, Orenji Famili.


11. My slow but sure return to Japanese rock with the help of several bands I call my saviours: Gazette [2006], MUCC [2006], RENTRER EN SOI [2008].


12. My very obvious rekindled love for LUNA SEA [2007]. They were my sole reason I could survive in Penang for 1 year without reliable Internet connection. Although I couldn't forgive them for disbanding, their comeback made me realise where my loyalty truly lies.


13. A 'steady' career working with Elderaan Technologies, if I may call it that, ensures that I have an almost steady supply of Kpop and VK. And no, I'm not thinking of continuing my studies.


14. Har har. So much for Kpop eh? Jaded-ness has ruined my respect for the Korean music industry. Goodbye, fake love.


15. Family rifts. I'm neither here nor there nor on the fence. I sway whenever it pleases me. However, I will NOT end this cold war with that asshole of a person I should be calling Brother.


16. Sarina Abdullah Thani and Siti Aishah Khairazan (+ her sporting hubby). My bestfriends and soulmates? ILY as well. ♥


17. My disgraceful yet verrry satisfactory downfall into Johnny's and Associates fandom. All thanks to KinKi Kids, my newest heroes who protected me from a period of depression during early 2009.


18. Japan. Oh my God, JAPAN. My utmost travel dream came true. ♥♥


19. Visual Kei and Orenji Famili. Highly impossible to be crossed over was my first thought. LOL. Look at us now. We're even holding concert nights :D


20. Two weddings in a year [2009]. My eldest brother and my younger brother.

A lot of good and bad things happened this year. I may have even changed a bit eventhough I'm still generally young at heart. *cough*

I dunno if I'll be able to think up of more because you're in danger of falling asleep from boredom. Guh.

December VK Reviews

After yesterday's heavy spazzing over KinKi's lovelove performance on Music Station Live, today I shall handcuff myself to the keyboard and write an overdue VK review post. Who shall I eliminate today? Hmm...

Oh! I've finally listened to Plastic Tree! PuraTori's been around for a long time, ne? During my first few years of VK fandom, I found their music to be too soft (?). But being a judgemental fool, I cursed them for being as un-Jrock as Ryuichi's solo career without even understanding what the meaning of Rock is.

I was too absorbed in Diru, Laruku, Luna Sea and Pierrot that I kept comparing other groups with them. So I wasn't an exceptional Jrock VK fan back then boooo and was stuck in that mode until only recently (ehh the past 2 years, prolly). Maa maa, experimentation in a period where torrents and broadbands didn't exist was truly a barrier.  Augh! Why do I suddenly sound like an old woman?!

Obachan here would like to suggest all readers to put aside all reservations and listen to as many numbers of bands so in the future it'll be easier for you to go "I've heard this before" and "They write better songs now". Then you can show off to other people the total of bands you've heard or liked! 8D

[ reviewer!Arfah: "Is that the whole point of this story, obachan?!!" ]

Title: NOW Band: girugamesh Verdict: 3 stars. First of all, what's with the cover art? Yeesh. giru's suffering the same Gazette-like symptoms of churning out the typical heavy-beats-and-heavy-riffs but lacks depth and skill. I can't name one that really captures my attention except 'Arrow' due to its milder course while everything else sounds the same after 2-3 plays. A pity 'crying rain' isn't included, it could've been their only salvage. Go for: 'Arrow', 'I Think I Can Fly'.

Title: ドナドナ (Dona Dona) *AWEFUCKINGSOME* Band: Plastic Tree Verdict: 5 stars. Brilliant! Not what I thought I'd be expecting, a different path from the usual roads I tread but not bad. If you like kei (of Kannivalism) then this band's an excellent choice to like. Dona Dona is wrought with emotive calm and expressive riffs. Ryutaro's voice took me a while to get comfy with, but it suits them. But what I'm in love with is the instrumental: 'Anten'. A subliminal song, from its calming melody to the epic entrance at 3:20. Go for: 'Anten', 'sunset bloody sunset', '1999', 'Fukuro', 'Gagaji'.

Title: GHOST†HEART *HOT* Band: Lovely Mocochang aka LM.C Verdict: 4 stars. I'm surprised I've never once reviewed them. They're my guilty pleasure :3 Sort of I'm getting back at Kirito for breaking up Pierrot so I'm gonna like Aiji's band more than Angelo. Never had the chance to collect their discog but from what I do have, none are disagreeing with me. This single's pretty decent and 'A Blueberry Night' is cute. Mmm can't think of what to say. Need to find their albums. Go for: 'GHOST†HEART'.

++ Bonus review

Title: Murder Scope *HOT* Band: Matenrou Opera Verdict: 3.5 stars. Ohkaay, I was so wrong to have given them such a low rating for 'Anomie'. Their live tracks are really good! I may need to give that album another chance *sheepish smile*. In the meantime, the 2 new songs are majorly awesome especially the title track. Go for: 'Murder Scope', 'Cocoon', 'Hiai to Melancholy (Live)', 'Eve (Live)'.

++ Super Bonus: Highlight of the month

Title: Canticum Band: forbidden days rhapsody Comment: fdr is founded by Mika (ex-RENTRER EN SOI drummer). Look out for their 1st mini album! No uploads in sight yet, but the CM is up at his official site which also serves as theirs. Mika previewed their first trance/house song called 'Refill (Rough mix)' in August and it was awesssome so I've been waiting for something from them since then. Sounds promising!!

Friggin' Making Me Poor

Oi. Oi. Oi. Enough with the barrage of information!

My heart is still struggling to recover from abs' sneak peek song off their new album. And then realising I'm a few days late to listen to SUGIZO's latest 2 digital singles caused a blow to my pride. Now SUGIZO's telling me to save up for yet another solo concert DVD. Okay so there's no official announcement of a release yet, but how else would he be earning his money??

Oh EFF all you rich old fogeys. Can't a girl enjoy the coming new decade with a lot of money in her pocket? You jusssst had to, huh? Grrrrrr.

At the moment I can foresee BIG $$$ loss in the year 2010:

1. abingdon boys school [Abingdon Road] - Jan 27


2. KinKi Kids J concert DVD - sometime during summer?


3. Middle East trip


4. Japan trip savings (for 2011)


5. Koichi BPM 2009 DVD


6. Sugi's DVD


7. Shinhwa? I doubt they'll have anything important but you never know.. huhuh


8. Starbucks coffee - thank you, addiction

Hmm. What else?

Anyhoo. Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

VK Night Out 1 update

It was fun! We should do this more often. But then that'd mean I'll have to download more concerts, ne?

Alice Nine is a talented bunch, actually. My bad for dissing them all this while. ^^;;

Luna Sea. Ohhh Luna Sea. I will never tire watching your reunion concert. In fact it always somehow tears me up inside that you guys are no longer together. But... all breakups lead to truer love, imo. Sugizo's  actively saving the Earth and spreading his Divaness self onto so many different projects. Shinya's, well, still the unsung King of Drummers. J is seriously successful now and and and his marriage (sorry Farah, I forgot he got hitched this year). Ryuichi is happily married and bounced back to the correct path with Tourbillon. And thanks to Ryu, Inoran is not all alone anymore.

Next band? Hmmmmmm what do you we rock out to abingdon boys school? Mish, when are you free? 8D

Welcome Back, Yaracchi!

Ish verrrry happeh to read his name in the same paragraph as Yone, Macchin, Tsuyo, Koichi and the word 'concert'.

Yaracchi mentioned in his Jweb about his new hairstyle for J Con, and from misosiru's translations it made quite an impression on the audience. MWAAAAH I cannot wait to see pics/fancams but anyway, he's now back and safely ensconced in KinKi's arms. Yay! Machida and Yonehana, please tie him up so he won't run away anymore! D:

Also, the above link has a surprising fact as to why Koichi only appeared during the baseball match on last Saturday's sports day. Johnny-san had to call him up because he was still sleeping! (KinKi prolly started rehearsing already)

Maybe the reason Tackey became captain was because of this as well? tsktsk

Suteki KinKi Winter

Tsuyoshi kissed Koichi. On the *lips. Again.

（*＾＾）＾*）☆ chuu!

It's only been the second day of KinKi-san's J concert tour but seems like the frugal weather in Hokkaido has warmed up their spirits and fired up their LURVE!! ♥

Happy touring, my loves. I can hardly wait for the Tokyo con to see more action! Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ

* Awaiting confirmation from more con repos.

Visual Kei sleepovers

Since Fridays are 'Whee No Work!' days this month and Mish is on holiday, lets have Visual Kei concert screenings? I have Luna Sea and Luna Sea and SUGIZO and abingdon boys school and Rentrer en Soi (and X Japan if anyone is interested in old men).

I'm willing to share fandoms :)

It's December!

I may have given too much slack towards KinKi's J album. Replayed the coupling songs on 'Swan Song' single and they were soooo good. So now I can't help but think that they somehow dropped their, cough, high standards. Honestly, I do like the new songs on this album. But after a moment of pondering, I felt it won't be sufficient to keep us fans satisfied for the next year or two... Since the both of 'em will be focusing on solo activities in 2010.

No KKL for another year. 12 additional months of T-O-R-M-E-N-T, I tell you.

Oh well. At least I'll have something which I sincerely, from the deep of my heart, hope will happen next week at KinKi's winter concert: The Return of Yaracchi! This guy's been missing from KinKi and Koichi related events since February (after Endless SHOCK '09) by keeping himself busy in butai after butai after butai.

Doesn't he miss MA? Doesn't he miss Kochan? *sigh* Oh sure~ he did express his sadness at being absent from the KinKi you 2008 Tour but from the way he's being worshipped by the Juniors now, who knows what he's thinking, ne?

Either that or he's being forced against his will to become a trainer to those wimpy looking Kisumai/ Kiz-My-Ft2.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="He could very well be in chains right at this moment!"][/caption]

I'm evil for wishing my guy to lose all his other theatre opportunities. Just so long as Yara returns to his 'once upon a time we were happy' family unit! Hence old boy Macchin can take a breather and gain weight. THAT man looks too deathly thin now.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Once upon a time, there were four... (clockwise from L: Machida/Macchin, Akiyama/Akki, Yara, Yonehana)"][/caption]

I. Miss. Musical. Academy! (and Akki, oh, Akki!)

Jettai ni! J dake ni.

My baby's here!

Kochan and Tsuyo reached Farah's office this morning. Even though I don't celebrate Christmas but I'm gonna treat it like an X'mas prezzie xD~~~ *drools* It's a day earlier than the release. Which is why we love CDJapan so much, ne? *kyaas over first official new KinKi release purchase*

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="282" caption="Jettai ni... (Zettai ni...) KinKi Kids Forever."][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="282" caption="Miskin pun miskin lah. J dake ni."][/caption]

Silvery shine and sleeping Kochan is win although the photoshoot's kinda boring after flipping through it twice.

The main highlight of J for me is obviously the willowy 'Kaze no Sonetto' (Sonnet of the Wind). It's very Shock!Koichi-ish and hearing Tsuyo singing it is an even bigger plus. Hmm yup, definitely loving the ballads more. Can't wait to see them dance to 'Houseki o Chiribamete' (Scatter Gems) because I absolutely LOATHE the pathetic 'Swan Song' performance that everyone else claims to like.

Maaaybe the album is a tad safe by Jyaniz standard without all the embellishment and heavy reliance on dance numbers. I guess it's definitely better than Phi which was un-KinKi, right? Melancholy and ballads suit them to a T so the undeniable allure to this is the calmness. Not for people looking for fast and fun KinKi. Yet after a degree of time everyone would need to wind down from the harshness of life and to listen to something slow and relaxing. Desu yo ne?

I quote from this LJ: "the 'J' stands for Jack as in the 11th card in a suit for a deck of cards and this, their 11th album. The Journey into the next decade, and how they Just wanted to simply, directly, bring these 11 tracks and 11 photographs (in the cd liner) to the fans. (Hence most marketing for this, the regular edition, list the total track number as '11 + 1' instead of 12."

The Junction?

CD Japan shipped out my baby J this afternoon! *breathes deeply to remain calm* If I'm lucky, I'll meet up with Farah tomorrow... oops, later tonight after work. I'm gonna need that few precious hours of serious discussion to vent and spazz about some random Jyaniz stuff. Lol.

Some KinKi fans are - for the lack of a better word - bitchy about the minimalist J Album promotion, concept and sub-par performance. I think they're still disgruntled over the Moody!KinKi appearance on FNS. But I'm so far unaffected by their spoilers and critic because I want to keep this magical feeling of purchasing my first KK 'new release'.

What's making my mood worse is the fact that SMAP is associating themselves more and more with Tohoshinki. I really don't get their marketing ploy here. What on earth can SM achieve by leeching from an almost down-and-out (no offence cos I do like SMAP) Johnny's idol group? What on Planet 51 is SMAP Manager-san (the one rumoured to be fighting over successor rights with Julie Kitagawa) trying to do?

Ohkaaay let's skiiiip to the Happy News for today:

KinKi held a secret live for 250 FC members at an underground tunnel in Shibuya. This secret event invited those exclusive few to a venue that was not informed beforehand, whereby the fans were 'smuggled' to this under construction J-shaped building for a short acoustic performance of their songs. I wonder whose pocket did all that money come from? [Read more here]



J = Junction? Junction in life? KinKi reaching a junction? What? *shrugs* We'll just have to wait and see, ne?

So there it was, a tiny bit of fodder for the nasty fans to chew on regarding the enigma of their currently tagline-less album. Personally, I think they're doing a great job so far. Reserving judgement til my package arrives.

Stripping for Free Candy

Friendster changed their design, huh? Trying to save themselves from dying, I see.

Oh heeeey! I owe candies to Shu and Mish for unconsciously causing me to include DaizyStripper into my Favourite Young Bands list. I stumbled upon the 'Brilliant Days.' song that Mish posted at FB after she was introduced to it by Shu.



I should have downloaded their mini-album last month when it was released but just never got around to it. Or the truth was... Since I firmly believe that the most important thing a band should portray is 'Music over Physical Appearance', their oshare look kinda turned me off back then as the stereotype bouncy-cutesy-AnCafe-ish-poprock which I strive to stay away from.

Seriously speaking, they sound pretty polished for a 2 year old group.  Not to mention, very different from my initial assumption. So from now onwards I will not judge a band by its 'pink factor' facade. *chants mantra*

DaizyStripper have both successfully fooled and ensnared me. Huzzah!

My formula to choosing a band is: emotive/unique vocals and memorable songs unique to that band and strong bassist or two guitarists. Looks are a plus, but it's no biggie. Luna Sea and L'Arc~en~Ciel taught me that.

OH! I think we should start calling Jrock as Visual Kei (VK). I've stuck to the old term for sooo many years and even passed it on to Mish and the others. Cough, I think only foreigners called it that. A confused store employee at HMV Shibuya spent 20 minutes figuring out that we were looking for the Visual Kei shelf. Gomen!

Awww but I'm reluctant to restructurise my archives and tags and basically my brain for that.

Diru and babies and dating

Random title, I know. *pats self on back*

Dir en grey's new single 'Hageshisa to, Kono Mune no Naka de Karamitsuita Shakunetsu no Yami' is out today! I'm not warming up to the death metal-ish title song yet but the remade/remastered 'Zan' and 'Shokubeni' versions are awe-fucking-some. 'Zan' was one of the two Diru songs that first got me into listening to J-metal back in 1999 while 'Shokubeni' also happens to be a fave from their Vulgar album (2003). Although I'm no big fan of Kyo's growling ever since Withering to Death but these two oldies have made an exception. This move to revolutionise their classic hits deserves two thumbs up! :)

Anyway, I was googling for updates on Inocchi and Asaka Seto's upcoming baby when I read the below and facepalmed myself for not knowing any sooner. Guh.

Aya Ueto? Eew. But yay for Aoi Yuu! I like her.

Seto Asaka is Expecting; Reporters Swarm Inohara Yoshihiko in Taiwan (Posted 19 September 2009)
Source: Mingpao
Translated by: sparkles_n15 @ asianfanatics.net

Japanese idol group V6 were in Taiwan yesterday to promote their upcoming concerts in November. However, all the attention was on Inohara Yoshihiko as he had announced earlier that his wife, actress Seto Asaka, is pregnant. Reporters were keen on asking Inohara his impressions on becoming a father, but Inohara decided to play dumb, only quietly thanking the reporters before changing the topic and asking them back in Taiwanese whether they've eaten yet. When asked whether his luck in love has transmitted to other members, specifically hinting at Morita Go, who's been in a long term relationship with 'Abarenbo Mama' actress Ueto Aya, and Okada Junichi, who is dating 'Hana and Alice' actress Aoi Yuu, Inohara only laughed as his glanced at his bandmates. Everyone else avoided the question and did not answer.