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Today was the day we all had to go and get our tickets for the Expo tomorrow (some mildly boring photos of people queuing can be found here, ptom : Queuing(?!) At The Expo). I headed down to the main location with everyone else (although not as early as some) and done a tiny amount of queuing before disappearing to get lunch for people. If I'm honest it was a disorganised mess with pretty much nobody knowing what was going on (and by 'nobody' I mean the staff members). Although to be honest I can't say I was much better, as unknown to me at the time the Junket and press registration was being held in the hotel I'm staying in, so I could of had a nice lay in and not made the quick rush back when I realised I was in the wrong place and going to be late :S

So just as the Junket was starting in the hotel I was being told that I needed to head there. I said my goodbyes and dashed out to grab a taxi, with the expo and the hotel being fairly close I was there and running up the stairs to the event within minutes. Coming in about 20 minutes late I thought I'd get on the interview list with no problems, unfortunately there would be no such luck, it was the only list to be completely filled up :( A quick discussion later with the guys running it and I tagged my name onto the bottom on the off chance that if someone wasn't around I might get my chance to step in.
In an attempt to not look like a total lemon sitting by myself I did a quick scan of the room and saw two guys in P9D tshirts, so headed over and introduced myself. Turns out they were from Hello!Online, Henry and Joshua (I have no idea what their user names are on H!O unfortunately) and had a brief chat with them before they got called away by Chase (the guy organising the press side of things) for a talk about their interview.
A few minutes later they returned with the sad news that they weren't going to be interview them as UFA's handler had decided that they didn't want them to, I can only presume this is because of the downloads the site offer via the tracker? Being the nice guy that I am, lol well one reason was because I didn't like the thought of anyone missing out on a chance to interview their fave idols and secondly because the idea of going in alone had me very nervous, I said they could come in with me if they wanted to and obviously if I got my chance to go in. Unfortunately the Expo staff wasn't having any of that either when it was mentioned, so off they trotted in an understandable sad mood but plus side, apparently they'll reply to their questions if they email them over so I guess it's not all bad news.

So there was me sitting on my own, twiddling with my thumbs for a bit. Perfect time I thought to organise my questions and jot down a couple more so I wasn't totally winging it. Having wrote some of my own questions, I went through some of the suggested questions in the H!B Gets a Press Pass post and added them to my list, jumped onto MSN and caught Gina who suggested another and then with even more time to kill I picked up the phone and called Hexi in the hope she was around to add a couple more questions to the list...which she wasn't and considering how this story ends, turns out to be no big loss.
And then just as I was getting bored and thinking about turning around and chatting to the guys behind about Guilty Gear, in walked the JPH!P guys, opsmonkey and Terrie (who I've no idea what site she's from, I should probably find out). Now, there was me thinking that the H!O guys were organised, but Daigong and his guys were set up good and proper. With quite a few people doing specific jobs and even a kick ass JPH!P microphone, which I wish I'd got a photo of, they really looked like they knew what they were doing (keep an eye on their site and you might see me pop up in one of their videos, I was in super slouch mode at that point).

And so we all waited... and waited... and waited...

And finally the guy strolled down from upstairs with the great news that H!P weren't going to follow the plan that the Anime Expo guys had set out and that all the other Guests of Honour were following, oh no, they were going to pick and choose who they wanted to see. Which unfortunately wasn't any of us as time ran out with some of us being called up but not making it in and the rest left waiting downstairs, I feel really sorry for opsmonkey who was 4th in the list as he would of definitely got his chance if they'd of just stuck to the list.

So, obviously everyone who attended isn't overly pleased with UFA at the moment. Although no reason was given as to why H!O were denied their interview by H!P I can only presume that this was down to the whole file sharing side of the site, I can imagine that they weren't best pleased to see what is essentially the biggest community for dodgy H!P downloads getting the top position for an interview. So as to whether this situation was the cause of the rest of the pick and chose approach from UFA who can say, perhaps they weren't overly keen on the fan sites in general getting in the door with the press passes, I guess even if these sites meet the requirements to get a pass they're still Fan Sites and not "Proper Media". I am however curious to know how many interviews were given to non-Japanese based press, as to me it seems fairly pointless to come all this way just to do press for Japan.
I did also overhear some people from JaME saying they got an interview, but also from what I heard they were saying it basically consisted of the girls introducing themselves and that was it :S

But, as sad as it was not to get to interview the girls I can say that I still had a great time. Much like my failed attempt to hang out at the airport yesterday to meet Morning Musume as they landed (lol, one day off oops) the anticipation and enjoyment was fun, I also got to put some new faces to names and had a good laugh hanging out with everyone there, which is what I'm sure we're all here for? An interview would have been cool (and I guess until they tell us they aren't doing the 1on1 interviews during the expo then the chance is still there), but meeting up with everyone is something I'm really enjoying, it's going to be great attending the concert and the Hello! Party with everyone there, good times! Now all I hope is I can remember every bodies names, I'm useless with names :S
Ooohhhh, the other plus side is with the odd mix up I had with my tickets, my concert ticket was registered to my normal pass rather than my press pass, I managed to bypass the long queues and get a fairly decent seat :)

TAGS [ Stuff ]

I'm quite surprised as to how well things are turning out, my total lack of organisation, although it shows, hasn't really hindered anything. I've got to where I've needed to get to and I've met who I've supposed to meet and all this without any problems.
I arrived at LAX a couple of days ago, grabbed a Superfood (*vomits*) from Starbucks stressed online that I had no idea who or where I was meeting Edmund and as my battery slowly died on my laptop a moment of clarity hit me "I'm in the wring terminal", so out I headed into the correct terminal picked up my phone dialled.... "Hey Edmund it's Paul...", "Yep, I can see you"... How cool is that, no stressful hunting around for each other it was that easy! We then went on the hunt for Enrich (I hope I've spelt that right) and Philip who again were fairly easy to find, and jumped on a shuttle to the airport we were staying in for the night.
So what to four guys do when in Los Angeles with an evening to kill? That's right we rolled out a stupidly long piece of paper, got out some paints and started making a banner to wave at the airport the next day on the off chance that Morning Musume turned up.


Unfortunately they didn't (from what I'm hearing there arriving today, should we go back?) but it was still a fun morning, we bumped into a couple of the guys from the JPH!P who were down for the same reason and we met up with Edmund's friend Steve, so it did look promising...it just wasn't to be :(

After this in a way exciting but a bit of a let down morning, we all headed to our hotels. I arrived a little early (well at least I thought) so grabbed myself a drink and was promptly asked for ID, I like to think it was because of my youthful looks making me look younger than 21, rather than the fact the guy asks everyone. And as started sipping, my phone rang with Jyoru on the line telling me he was in the room, again an easy find.
Bags ditched we all headed to Little Tokyo, on the way meeting up with Matt_D and Lampshade a little stroll later we bumped into Mozenator and grabbed some food, in a nice little Japanese restaurant with quite possibly the worlds cutest waitress!
Heading back to the hotel, we went to the 31st floor to the revolving bar... amazingly you feel drunk even before you've started drinking and we were lucky enough to catch The Dodgers July 4th celebration.
All in all it was a great night, it was good to finally put faces to names and have a chat and a laugh about H!P (amongst other things) with people that knew what we were all joking about and not having to do it through MSN.


At the moment I'm wondering what the plan for the day is going to be? Some people were planning on heading down to the Expo at about 7ish this morning to get their tickets but this plan seems to be not happening now after the news that Morning Musume will be at the airport today, as tempting as it this time I think I might give it a miss and catch up with everyone after, I know I'm probably going to kick myself when they all turn up with photos though.

TAGS [ Stuff ]

Right, well that it I'm practically ready, just need to put the rubbish out and set for LA!! Have to say I'm cutting it a little bit fine as I really wanted to try and get a bed by about 11ish and get myself some decent sleep before the flight as I'm guessing they'll be plenty of decent films on and...well...I should really start preparing if I do actually manage to get an interview with Morning Musume :S
Anyway, so I'm off to bed to try and get at least a coupe of hours sleep, fingers crossed I won't sleep through my alarm and be woken up by the taxi outside ranting and raving outside my window because he's been waiting for 20 minutes and I still haven't came out lol!

I'm going to have my laptop and my phone whilst out there so if you're out there and feel like meeting up give me a shout as I 'should' be able to pick up my emails and what not.
If things go to plan and my phone is working, I'll probably be updating my other blog ptom.co.uk more often then here as I update it straight from my mobile (cell phone, if you're American ;p) and should be uploading photos as and when I take them.

For those heading out to LA....SEE YOU THERE!!!!!

TAGS [ Stuff ]

I finally got a chance to pop to the postoffice a couple of days ago and pick up a couple of parcels that have been waiting for me. I love it when and I have some new H!P items to look through! Awhile ago Gina offered to get me a Sayumi P9D t-shirt, it worked out cheaper than going through Ohta so I thought to myself why not. And it's arrived with perfect timing, just in time for me to take with me to LA. And with three signings scheduled I don't even have to debate whose shirt to wear, I can wear Sayu's for one and Koha's another. Which just leaves me wondering whose I should wear on the third? If I had a Gakisan one that would have been next my option, but I haven't so that ideas out the window. If I remember rightly the only other tshirt I have from the current line up are Aichan and Reina, so I'm guessing it'll be one of those. Ohhh, with Yossie (sorry, Hangry) being there it'll give me a chance to dig out her Sexy 8 Beat tshirt I have :)
Also, rather unexpectadly there was a couple of extra little gifts in the parcel were a couple of H!P uchiwa's. One from the 2003 Hello! Project Hawaiian Style Alo-Hello Festival and a cute Aibon one from Morning Musume's 2003 Non Stop concert. Thanks, Gina!

And finally my copy of Ai's latest PB and Berryz Alo Hello DVD were waiting for me as well. And I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to have a look/watch of these tonight. Ai's PB for obvious reasons, serioulsy has anyones bum ever looked so good than in this PB? And the Berryz Koubou DVD because...well, more than anything the clips of the strange guy jumping out the van has really got me intrigued, who know that UFA could be so cruel? I'm in for a fun evening!



TAGS [ Aibon Aichan Berryz Sayumi ]

Sometimes you're stuck in work and browsing YouTube and you stumble across something genius, now this isn't as funny as the monkey peeing into it's own mouth clip, but it's still a work of genius! Lol, the length some fans will go to ;p....says me with my Chinami pillow.


And, here's how you make one, I didn't realise such time and effort had gone into it :S



TAGS [ Reina Stuff ]

H!P lay down the gauntlet with their release of the official PV for 3, 2, 1 Breakin Out!, after offering the opportunity for the fans to have a bash at making their own OPV we're shown how it's really done. Using what looks like the same footage we've been given to mess around with (well not entirely as this is a full PV) it gives us more of an idea of the effort actually gone into the making of a PV.
Admittedly the majority of the people entering the OPV competition aren't going to be professionals and I know from my attempt that actually getting the inspiration to do something is quite tough so seeing what can be done by a professional team with access to the same footage is quite interesting, although I'd wager that the footage was made for their idea rather than the other way around for us.

Much like the recent PVs from H!P this is different from the norm, it's essentially your standard PV but done with a bit of style. And I find it quite interesting that the girls are all cut outs and have the excess white around them, perhaps the makers of this PV were having the same problems I was having when trying to remove the background bits just couldn't be removed in their entirety, this way it's less obvious? Lol, probably not, I doubt they had any of the basic problems I had.


So as impressive as that is, could be possible that a H!P fan can do better than the pros within UFA? Well to put it bluntly, hell yes!
I spent this evening checking out some of the videos uploaded onto the MySpace Video Page and was blown away by the number submitted, at the time of writing this a total of 485 have been uploaded. Unfortunately because of the shear amount up there I haven't been able to watch them all, below I've embedded some of my favourites but if anyone has a fave that I've missed out please share the link as I love watching these.


First up, the clear winner of the competition, mine ;P I just had to put this back up just to blow my own trumpet, it's awful but it always makes me smile it's so aimless and crap. Now all I have to to claim my winning prize is submit it XD


I was so close to actually closing the window when this first started playing. It reminded me of the OPV uploaded quite near the start of this competition which just featured trains, watching the start of this I thought it was going to be much of the same, but with footage of scenes around Japan, how glad I am that before I had a chance to click that close button things suddenly changed as this could quite possibly be my favourite out of all the uploaded ones so far.
Using only a very small portion of the footage available the approach taken is of a group of Japanese fans at work and racing to reenacting the group dance scene and individual poses. It reminds me a lot of the PV for Berryz MADAYADE, obviously there's the office environment but what really reminds me of it is the humour and the cheese. Throughout the whole PV there's some great touches of humour, I particularly liked the guy with the megaphone just standing there it had me in stitches at 1:10 and the individual member poses towards the end is pure genius!!


Another stupidly impressive OPV, done with much the same approach as the one above...well not really, but it uses very little of the actual Morning Musume footage which I guess make them similar? Appearing briefly at at the start, middle and end this PV focuses more on the tale of two little creatures living underground attacked by a giant dinosaur, yes it's obvious now why I love it. It's all done using stop motion animation, so this must of taken an age to make but the end result must of made it so worthwhile. It's even cuter than Mittsi in her hat and hoody combo.
This and the previous OPV I find to be really inspiring, as their approach is so different to anything I would of dreamt of. When I downloaded the clips and thought to myself "what could i do with these" the idea of not actually using them as the main focus never even crossed my mind, so envious of the people behind both of these, sometimes I really wish I could be that creative.


Sticking with the slightly odd themes still, but this time the Morning Musume girls feature throughout, this effort gives us both pocket size and giant size versions of the girls and I can't quite figure out which idea I enjoy the most. Obviously pocket size has it's advantages, *sings* Koha in my pocket as cute as can be.....Now I can take them all home with me....sorry 80's advert flash back. And who wouldn't want their home town brought to total destruction by a hyper giant rampaging Koha?


This is my favourite story line to any of the videos currently up, the idea alone just had me laughing out loud, but that combined with the clips had me rolling around the floor in hysterics. No Dancing! That's the general theme and once all caught the title of this track really gets meaning as they then escape. Only to be chased by a giant robot!!! Hmmm, I'm beginning to see themes as to why I like these. But giant robots aside, this makes some great use of the provided clips, really adding to the story of this OPV.


I was totally confused when I started watching this for the first time. Aichan is up first and she's singing into a microphone, didn't really think much of it to begin with but the microphone started moving up the screen and obscuring her face, "odd" I thought. Then it was Gaki's turn...but there was a humongous hill bopping up and down hiding the majority of her and that's when I figured out, that's the point. And in turn each of the girls get close up shots with something stopping us from getting a clear view of them. My favourite has to be the umbrella spinning over Reina.
It's odd to like this I know, as one of the main reasons for a PV is to show us the girls and this does the total opposite and for me that's the reason why I like it, it's taking the idea of the standard PV and warping it just enough to make a really quite funny OPV.

There's a lot more really good OPVs on their MySpace page and some really contendors to win, get a feeling that it could be tight with some of the entrants. Good luck to everyone that's entered!!!

TAGS [ Morning Musume PV ]

So as LA draws closer and closer I'm getting more and more nervous. A few days ago my request for a Press Pass was confirmed, meaning that I have the opportunity to interview morning Musume. At the moment I've put in a request to attend the Junket on Day 0 (does anyone actually know what a 'junket' is?) here you're given the opportunity to have a 15 minute interview with any of the Guest of Honour or Anime Expo Officials. It's done on a first come first served basis, and boy do I want to get served!
Reading through the process there however one problem, I'm required to register and to do this you have to provide photo ID (not a problem, I'll no doubt be carrying my passport with me at all times) and a business card... This wouldn't have been problem if they'd except any business card, just whip out one of my work ones and sorted, but I'm guessing that perhaps it might cause a few problems when they look down and go "but aren't you supposed to be from Hello!Blog?". So in times of emergencies the net always comes in handy, I headed over to goodprint.co.uk and used their online business card maker and order it for next day delivery. To be honest I'm blown away with the quality of the cards and how cheap they were, £35 for 100. I was worrying so much that they'd arrive and all of them would be unreadable, having gone for a simple look, tons of little versions of the logo and basic contact details on the other side, there wasn't much to go wrong, but working with jpegs and not really a print quality version of the site logo the fear struck me, I need semi decent looking business cards as the whole business card nature is an important aspect of Japanese culture and I really want to try and at least give a good impression.


So with registration and cards sorted the only worry now is whether I want to request more than just a 15 minute interview with morning Musume. To be completely honest I'm really wary of even doing the 15 minute one. What can I say, I feel a little self concious walking into a room meeting a group of people I practically worship, plonking myself down on a chair looking over and going "a'lright? good flight?" and then entering a vegetable like state where I stare unable to form words and dribble (hopefully UFA staff will be to hand to help dry me off). What am I going to say, will I even be able to say it, will I look stupid with my diddy £90 camera taking snaps, how will I transcribe the whole thing? I don't have the kit, I have my camera and a laptop, I can probably wangle a video camera off of a friend, but again I'll no doubt feel like a lemon as I set it up. Am I going to need a microphone so that I can get everything clearly, is it even going to watchable? Am I going to fail big time in front of girls I idolise and then am I going to post about it for everyone else to read? LOL!
Yes I'm nervous if you haven't guessed and I'm fairly sure the option of sitting there smiling and staring whilst waving is out of the question, much like asking if Gaki, Sayu and Koha want to come back to my hotel room after the interviews and create an international scandal ;p

So, what I'm after is a little help, if anyone wants to ask anything to the girls please let me know and I'll do my very best to form coherent sentences and ask them. I'm working on a couple of questions but would dearly love a hand with some more, I'm stressing big time and I guess the bottom line is, I don't want to look like a complete dick and an amateur in front of them, hahaha I struggle forming sentences when I'm confronted with one girl I like, imagine what I'll be like confronted with 9 *crumbles and dies*
Well, it's stupidly late (again) so I best roll over and catch some sleep. Although I'm beginning to get that feeling that I get when I try to sleep at Christmas Eve...yes I know I'm a big kid.

Oh and I think I have about 99 business cards to many...so if anyone wants one, lol!!!

TAGS [ Morning Musume Stuff ]

Falling stupidly behind with posts this week and as I'm going away for the weekend (if you happen to be in Magaluf and see someone throwing up in the street in a H!P shirt come say "hi"...lol, although I'd like to think I may have changed since the last time I was there, hahaha I can probably make it to the toilets XD) it looked like I'd be fallen even further behind, BUT luckily for me Christoph has stepped in and has offered to make a post about Mano's latest single, so it should certainly be an interesting read! Cheers, Chris!! So expect that on Saturday....Just thought I'd share Chris's comment he's literally just made "can't wait until you get herpes this weekend" LOL! ahhhh friends ;p
But for the minute it's my turn and C-ute's single Shochuu Omimai Moshiagemasu.

The thing I enjoy particularly with C-ute's singles is the variation in musical style, you never know exactly what you're going to get. This release is a cover of a Candies song and unfortunately as I type this I haven't been able to give the original version a listen as both Google and YouTube are down (yes I know there are others sites I could use, but I'm stubborn in my ways) so for the minute I can't compare versions, fingers crossed I'll have sometime tomorrow to have a quick listen.
The C-ute version however is an odd release. It has to be the first single release I've heard from them and straight away gone "I don't like this". On my first listen I wasn't taken with the song (the PV yes, but the song...) and this was one of the reasons I've taken so long to post about it, but over the past couple of days as I've listened to it more and in particular now as I type this I can't seem to stop listening to it. It's a totally catchy and 70's sounding song and now I'm loving it! And although it's not as mature sounding as their last releases it still fits into their style totally, this mix of music style really keeps them an exciting unit.

Much like the recent Morning Musume and Berryz Koubou PVs, a bit more effort has gone into the making than usual and we're treated to more than just your standard dance shots, although I've yet to see a C-ute PV which I haven't fallen in love with. So what makes this so great? Well to start off with the red outfits... WOW!! Seriosuly how hot to these girls look? Nakki and Chisato are looking killer! Nakki is obviously a given, she's amazing, but Chisa is a member that I'm getting more and more excited about when it comes to her looks, oddly for quite awhile now I've considered the 'most attractive member within C-ute', I can't quite put my finger on why I've been thinking this especially considering her boyish appearance in the past has always been something I haven't been a fan of. But here, she's completely stunning, totally awesome haircut and when did she gets legs to rival Chinami?...Well maybe not that good, but they're up there.
The real disappointment with the PV is something that seems to be a regular with C-ute releases these days, the complete lack of anything Erika based. She's there, in the corner (as usual) and the camera doesn't really feature her too much and there's no solo lines...totally sucks being an Erika fan :(

The great thing with this release is the little clips that aren't close ups or dance shots, yes that right it feels like a proper music video! Fun water melon smashing scenes, with a slightly unflattering but totally hilarious jump from Chisato, photo taking and postcard writing shots and to finish it off a scene with them posting all the said postcards off. Far from a work of genius but by H!P standards it's another great PV, taking a slightly different direction than the norm.



CD Release Date : 01 - 07 - 29    DVD Release Date : 08 - 07 - 09


C-ute - Shochuu Omimai Moshiagemasu (CD Release)
CDJapan | YesAsia

C-ute - Shochuu Omimai Moshiagemasu (CD + DVD Release)
CDJapan | YesAsia

C-ute - Shochuu Omimai Moshiagemasu (Single V Release)
CDJapan | YesAsia

TAGS [ C-ute PV ]

Goods On Demand Custom Pb are back with the customisable PBs and having fallen in love with the last two that I bought (Nakki Concert Solo Photobook, Kohachan Concert Solo Photobook) there's no way I'm going to be missing out on getting another one.
This time around it's just Berryz Koubou, so the selection is that little but more limited but it does give me the chance to go and do that thing I keep moaning about lately, CHINAMI PB!!!
I've managed to briefly break away from staring at the 100 photos to choose from to write this, but I know I'll be straight back over there as soon as I'm done. It's going to take ages to get this all right, I want to try and make sure that every shot has an awesome pic of her legs...but then there is 4 months (12th September) still to get the order in :)



TAGS [ Berryz PB ]

Awhile ago I had one of them urges to buy some photos, no matter how much I try to fight these urges you can guarantee no matter how much I try to resist within minutes I'll be on eBay hunting for pics. I bought a few photos off of HelloProLand over a couple of days, 10 I think in total. And because of some problem with the post, both lots of photos ended up getting returned to sender for some unknown reason :S they've taken an age to actually to get to me, well...so far I've just received the one lot, hopefully the others will come in the next few days.


The ones that arrived today are a random bunch of photos that really caught my eye (the other ones if I remember rightly are a mix of Koha and Sayu...mainly Koha though), a mix of C-ute, GAM, Buono! and Athena & Robikerots.
I need to start getting some more photos, expanding more on the units and members that I don't have. Oddly as much as I love Buono! these two images are the first two I've bought apart from the ones that accompanied the t-shirt I ordered, how great to they look in the black and pink outfits? As for Athena & Robikerots...I need to get as many photos of this unit as possible, the girls look amazing in their outfits!! Although I can't image there's a great many photos of them around :(



TAGS [ Athena & Robikerots Buono! C-ute GAM ]

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