NEWS: So Morning Musume's musical Cinderella began yesterday and it got some good press. Here is a little sample of the play focusing on Takarazuka, Mire Aika.

C-ute also has a new video today, their performance of Edo no Temari Uta II finally airing on Music Japan, well over a month after they filmed it. It kept getting pushed back and back but it's finally here and honestly it's not all that flash.

I did like the performance overall but nobody really performed up to par. Saki and Erika were pretty good, and Airi is always rather decent. The other girls left much to be desired especially in the singing department. Chisato messed up the choreography and Mai got her line wrong, Maimi and Kanna sounded winded when singing. All round it was a bit of a mess. It is C-ute though, so my bias shines through and I loved it! C-ute!

Arihara Kanna & Sudou Maasa have appeared in the magazine B.L.T.U-17 sizzleful girl Vol.7 2008 Summer with their own solo photo shoots and both look really cute. (Click for high res)

Kanna is always very cute in her photoshoots so this is nothing new from her, looking as great as always. All the Kanna pics don't seem to be there, so I'll update it if the other ones pop up. Maasa (who let's be honest, sometimes looks like a mess) is actually looking great here and it just shows what a pro photographer can do when compared to those H!P folks.

Each edition came with a set of trading cards and both Kanna & Maasa had their own specific cards which are also on the pics, as well as a long interview.

PREVIEW: Some pics have surfaced of Morning Musume's dress rehersal today for their new Cinderella Musical which begins tomorrow. Click the pics for slightly larger images:

The musical looks very promising and the costumes are very cute and vibrant. Gaki is just so amazing! *heart*

NEWS: Berryz Koubou has been chosen to represent Japan (along with W-inds) at the 2008 Asia Song Festival in Korea.

The event is held in early October with Berryz to perform on the 4th. Korean groups Tohoshinki (Tong Vfang Xien Qi) and Girls' Generation (So Nyeo Shi Dae) are also performing as well as a number of other Asian artists. The website lists Berryz as an Asian Newcomer and it is a great opportunity for the girls. It will be their first international performance, so they are sure to be excited.

For more info check out the 2008 Asia Song Festival Website.

NEWS: I know I have been really slacking off on the news portion of this blog lately so first up I'm going to be going through all the latest news (that I know of)... so here we go:

Morning Musume's new single has been announced and will be released on the 24th of September which isn't TOO far off, I guess. The title hasn't been announced but there has been some speculation that it may be the beautiful ballad (Ame no furanai hoshi de wa aisenai darou) that was the closing song of the current H!P Wonderful Hearts concert. I personally would prefer a brand new song, along the same lines of Resonant Blue, purely because I want a new fresh song. The ballad would be great as a high class B-side imo.

Buono!'s Gachinko de Ikou! is released soon (20th Aug) and a commercial has begun airing giving us a sneak peek at the PV.

The white background is very pure and refreshing and helps us focus on the girls in the dancing shots of the girls, while it is contrasted with the crazy band shots which are much more hectic. Not too much to say from that tiny 15sec clip but it does seem like it could end up being a great PV.

C-ute was on Yahoo! Live Talk on Thursday, which I watched live, and they were really good. Kanna was present which was fantastic but she was a bit quiet at the beginning (though she seemed to loosen up after she was asked some questions). The best portions of the talk were when the girls each got up and showed off their outfits and described them, also when they showed off their talents. Download it at the Hello! Online Tracker.

Maimi & Erika also appeared on Tombori Station to promote their new single Edo no Temari Uta II. You can watch it on the Tombori website.

The Aku Yuu Monogatari TV drama aired yesterday evening and you can watch Takahashi Ai & Niigaki Risa as Pink Lady below:

The performance isn't very long but I love how Ai & Gaki's voices blend together, they harmonize very well. They seemed to get into the dance and performance well. I believe they performed more than just the one track, but this is all I could find atm.

Suzuki Airi also performed but I haven't seen a video of that pop up yet.

Berryz Koubou performed at the Osaka King Festival about a week ago but I forgot to post about it *sorry* I'm not sure if a video of the performance popped up, I didn't see one but if someone did feel free to let me know.

The girls were also on MBS Radio Sound Kingdom wearing the same outfits they wore at the Osaka King Festival performance.

Concert Time: A whole bunch of info on upcoming concerts and events were announced recently.

Ongaku Gatas will have a new tour in December this year. It is currently untitled. Miyoshi Erika will appear in a stage play while she will join Okada Yui for a FC Bus Tour in October.
Sharan Q will have a 20th Anniversary concert which will feature H!P performers as guests. At the moment Abe Natsumi, Nakazawa Yuko, Morning Musume, Berryz Koubou, C-ute and Matsuura Aya are known to be participating. Berryz Koubou will have another Gekiharo Gekidan stage play coming up and Matsuura Aya will have an Xmas Dinner show.

Random Ramblings

So I began my blog 3 weeks ago today and I originally wanted it to be a blog which posted every bit of news, was heaps up to date, all that wonderful stuff. I did start out like that I think but it is very difficult trying to keep up with everything as you can see from all this news I had missed in the past few days. I definitely will still be a H!P news blog, posting the most interesting tid-bits but I believe I will probably phase out the less news-worthy stuff unless it truly interests me and focus more on my reviews and random, interesting stuff I've found.

Big thanks to Int Wota who have written about me I think 4 times since I began and it has really helped. I recently began monitoring my hits to the site and it was much better than I expected and then after Int Wota wrote a story about me it just shot up. It's nice to know there are some folks who seem to be constantly coming and checking out this blog. I'll do my best to keep it up to date for all you. Ganbarre masu!

I added the media center to the top of the blog a few days ago so that I could add songs that I reviewed and such. The tracks are only 64kbps so they should load very quickly and I hope it doesn't stuff anyone's viewing of the page up. They aren't download-able atm, but I can check that option. I'm not sure why people would want the low quality tracks though and I don't want to get in trouble and the blog to get shut down so I think I'll leave them as just listen-able.
I know (think) the site has troubles in IE. For me at least it sort of freezes while it loads, I can't seem to figure out why and I'm not tech savvy enough to fix it so I apologise and hope it isn't a huge issue.

One last thing. Please check out my Canaria Club DVD review *shameless plug* If you haven't already. I really think it's a good look at a backstage view of an idol concert + it took me literally hours and hours to screen cap all of that and write on it and nobody commented yet *sad*

In the upcoming week I hope to be doing reviews of THE Possible's backstage DVD as well as their new single, C-ute's new single and Canaria Club's latest single. I'm sure I'll get the time so just keep an eye out for them.

Thanks again,
Mars.