Japan

JYONGRI – Lullaby For You

. J-Pop, Japan, Lyrics

Sometimes I think that Korean are singing really well in Japanese. This song further supports my thought. Introducing “Lullaby For You”, the single by JYONGRI, which released back in July 25. She had Korean ancestry but born in Osaka, Japan. Maybe because of this, no wonder I found that her singing style is close to Korean style Japanese song, every single lyric is clear and full of emotion.

Lullaby For You is JYONGRI’s third single. Lullaby For You was used as the Square Enix game Subarashiki Kono Sekai’s theme song. Lullaby For You is a very nice, gentle, and soft R&B song. It is quite romantic song I would say. You will feel very comfortable when listen to this song, although it won’t make you sleep :).

Actually, i know JYONGRI before this song, I think is her second single when she performed in Music Station (again!). What is catching my eye is that when she performed, the keyboard she played is front slanted! Wow, that’s flashy in my opinion. ThePPN also mentioned that one of her signatures as a musician is to have a forward tilting keyboard in her performances.

BeyondTheSea had posted up a nice review for it. Please continue reading to get to listen to Jyongri “Lullaby For You” as well as lyric & translation :D! Continue reading

Horikoshi High School – A popstars birthplace

. Japan

Today I want to talk about a school Horikoshi High School or 堀越高等学校, a private school institution located in Tokyo’s Nakano district (中野区). What is so special and popular about this school is that this school has many Japanese popular stars and sportsman study in it. Well, I will focus more about the pop stars in this post.

Why this school has a lot of famous artists, idols in it because this school has provided the special courses that specially targeted to them which called as “TRAIT” aka Entertainment Course. This course offers much more flexibility and wider range of classes to make them study more. As you know, in Japanese, many stars come out in very early ages, they have to work and study at the same time. It is hard for them to balance both so they enrolled to this school.

Below are some of the names of popular stars that I know: Continue reading

Japanese kaoani & emoticon

. Art & Design, Japan

Sometimes, small little things could cheer you up and help you communicate your feelings better. Introducing the Japanese Kaoani and Emoticon. In this cyber age, people using Instant Messaging has a lot in this world to chat…share feeling. But this emoticon can make your messaging even more cute and lively. Those emoticon can even appear in Japanese handphone text messages (saw a lot on dramas)! Their sms is really advance.

Kaoani

Kaoani is combination of two words, which is kao (face), and ani (animation). And their format is gif, since they have to move, jumping around. Most of them are cute. They can express both good mood and bad mood, hahaa. Below are some sites that has example of kaoanis.

1. The world of Kaoani
2. Kaoani msn icons emoticons
3. Kaoani 10000

Emoticon ヾ(＾∇＾)おはよー♪

I firstly known Japanese emoticon through a popular drama “Densha Otoko”. I was very impressive about the ASCII art (or Shift_JIS art) and the emoticons they used. Because of the emoticons is 2-byte, so you no need to tilt your head to read it, and the emoticon has way more expressions because they have more characters to do it. Basically just use whatever that can represent eye, mouth, hand etc.

Example of a popular emoticon:
キタ━━━(゜∀゜)━━━!!!!!

I found a great reference site of compiling the Japanese emoticon which shown on screenshot above. That site has a lot! Some of them are cute! Plus this site showing the Japan’s top 30 emoticon.

That’s all. Hope you enjoy it! Use it on your IM, chat room etc. Cute stuff.

Actually, I did a kaoani too, click here to view 😛

YUKI – Hoshikuzu Sunset

. J-Pop, Japan, Lyrics

Today I want to introduce you a relaxing song “Hoshikuzu Sunset” sang by former Judy and Mary member YUKI. According to thePPN, Hoshikuzu Sunset is the fifteenth single released by YUKI. It is her first CD release in over a year, and her first time working with composer mugen. The first press edition of the single came with a sticker. There hasn’t been a music video released for Hoshikuzu Sunset.

Hoshikuzu Sunset was used as the theme song to the TBS dorama Papa to Musume no Nanoka-kan. I watched this drama too and I like it very much :-D. Besides the kawaii Yui Aragaki (新垣結衣), but acting by the both father and daughter is great! This drama is about father and daughter exchanging body after the train accident. The father acted by Tachi Hiroshi (舘ひろし) from a manly man, suddenly becomes very girly and emotional and type Text Messaging at hyper speed! While Yui become a boyish girl. Their attitude totally exchanged! Greats!! Continue reading to listen to the song as well as lyric, as always.

Jayhan rating:

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Japanese rice paddy crop art

. Art & Design, Inspiration, Japan

Recent days I stumbled upon this article titled Pimp my rice paddy. The article and the pictures caught my eye. According to Pink Tentacle, each year, farmers in the town of Inakadate in Aomori prefecture create works of crop art by growing a little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety.

And this year’s creation — a pair of grassy reproductions of famous woodblock prints from Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mount Fuji — has begun to appear like the picture shown above. It will be visible until the rice is harvested in September. The picture shown below is the planning and work in progress of planting the seeds into the field, photoed back in May 27th. To be honest, I don’t know how they planning out the plan and how they precisely planted them into the right position because the crop art is pretty complicated and huge!

Inakadate’s farmers already practice this activities since years ago (can be traced since 1993), and they already created some magnificent work of art like pictures shown below. And it actually influence other towns’ farmers to do the same too. I think is pretty good because can grow food and doing something creative at the same time. Two benefit in an activity, brilliant!

Japanese crop art vs crop circle

Maybe you will start to think that this Japanese crop art is similar to Western crop circle (i mean those man-made one). Well, there is something different is the Japanese crop art that is planned carefully and the art only came be seen when the crop is fully grown, while the crop circle is appeared in middle of nowhere which causes surprises. Besides that, the Japanese is “growing” the art, while crop circles is produced by stepping down the crops, thus create the shape.

For more research and reading, visit:
1. www.vill.inakadate.aomori.jp,
2. www.am.askanet.ne.jp and
3. 田んぼアート（たんぼアート, Tanbo art）Japan Wikipedia.

Orange Range cover art

. Art & Design, J-Pop, Japan

I love Orange Range‘s songs a lot. I like their Okinawa style of music that is very unique, happy and alive. Besides that, I also like their CD covers too, especially their earlier released singles, because it always has a creative way to blend their logo and using the orange as subject matter.

As mentioned earlier, Orange Range is a Okinawan rock group. Okinawa is a very beautiful island and great for summer vacation. So their music was also very summer feel and sunshine! Their early stage of cover arts have these feelings but the cover art later on is not very catchy in my opinion especially their recently released best albums (consists two “Orange” and “Range“, it just look like a cheap photoshop copy and paste, quite dissapointed the first time i saw…

Well, below are some of my favourite Orange Range cover art. Continue reading

Hirano Aya 1st Photobook “H Stairway to 20”

. Downloads, Japan

Last week, voice actor Hirano Aya released her first photobook called “H Stairway to 20”! I just look through the photobook and I think this photobook is somehow unique and very stands out. The photo shoots are brilliant, together with nicely set up settings, colorful elements, great make ups and most important the cutie Hirano Aya herself.

From wikipedia quote, Hirano Aya (平野 綾), born October 8, 1987 in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, is a voice actor (seiyū) and singer who has had roles in several anime, visual novel series and TV commercials in Japan. She is best known for voicing over Haruhi Suzumiya as well as others. She received several recognition and awards too. Although I did not watch the anime, but I listened to her song “Breakthrough”, she has a great voice :D.

I first know her through igorism this website. He posted up her camwhoreism and wow, I instant like this girl already. I also do some picture research on her, and I found out that her appearance now is changing, from the pure and cute look, now she is more sexy and wild! Picture down there for proof. Girl’s look are quick changing huh?

Below are some of the previews and download. I would say this photobook is worth a look! Great photos with rich content that will make your day. Continue reading

GReeeeN – Aa, domo. Hajimemashite.

. J-Pop, Japan, Lyrics

Since when my site become Jpop lyric site? Nevermind, but actually I checked my site analysis, a lot of clicks is through the searching of Japan lyrics. Thanks for the support and this time I want to introduce you GReeeeN’s first full album “Aa, domo. Hajimemashite” (あっ、ども。はじめまして。). It is a very nice album! A must listen album for 2007.

The songs in this album that I prefer is: Michi, Ai Uta, Midori, and Tegami ~kimitachi e~. I had been search through this albums lyric but I only found the Hiragana version. Now I convert it into romaji and please have a look! Through the translation and my little knowledge on Nihongo, I found out that their songs are very meaningful and touching. All the album’s songs were written by them. Honto ni sugoi desu ne!

Album Detail

Released: 27.June.2007

Tracklist

  1. Michi (道; Road)
  2. Day by Day
  3. Ai Uta (愛唄; Love Song)
  4. HIGH G.K. LOW ~Hajikero~ (～ハジケロ～)
  5. NEW LIFE
  6. Koinu (子犬; Puppy)
  7. MISS YOU
  8. Tegami (手紙; Letter)
  9. Party People (パリピポ)
  10. Reggae Reggae (レゲレゲ)
  11. Midori (ミドリ; Green)

Actually I’m using translation site to translate it to romaji. And after the translation, I listen to the song and follow the lyric to make sure the lyrics is correct or not. Some songs in there is very fast paced, and only can say is the lyrics provided here is 95% accurate. Read on to listen to the song as well as lyric!

Click on song title to expand/hide lyric.

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Otsuka Ai – PEACH/HEART

. J-Pop, Japan, Lyrics

It’s summer, it’s happy and relaxing holiday season so Otsuka Ai brings you a single that full of summer happy delight called “PEACH/HEART”. This single was just released on the 25th of July. “PEACH” is the theme song of the current airing hit drama “Hanazakari no Kimitachi e” starring Oguri Shun, Maki Horikita and Ikuma Toma. I just checked the Oricon single daily chart, this single was topping the chart for 4 days in a row, I think it will become no.1 in the weekly chart too.

“PEACH” is happy song like Sakuranbo or SMILY, while “HEART” is slow soft song. Both of the songs are not bad actually, but I prefer HEART more, because Ai-chan can perform better when singing slow song. This single comes with 4 different covers, two covers for CD and DVD version each. If you look at it carefully, the covers are join able, demonstrated below. And the icon for “PEACH” and “HEART” is kinda interesting too, it is the same image but one is upside down.

Read on to get to listen to both songs as well as lyrics! For more single review, check Ikimasshoi+.

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本當超面白! Lets talk Nihongo influences

. Inspiration, Japan

Probably when you read the title you will think what is that?? Yes, today I want to talk a little about the Japanese language influence in Chinese contemporary language. 本當超面白 or in Jap “Honto cho-omoshiroi” means “very interesting”. I found this word while reading MILK magazine. The article is about Japanese stuff so the author integrate some Japanese word into it, and I found it quite interesting.

The Nihongo influence particularly strong in Asia countries that speaks Chinese especially Taiwan and China. Thanks to Astro, I got to watch many Taiwan entertainment shows. They use Japanese words like “人気” (Ninki – means popular), “卡哇衣” (Kawaii – means cute) and “哦衣西” (Oishii – means delicious). There is another which I think is worth mentioning is in the game show, when the guest is failed to advance, instead of putting “可惜”, they use “残念 (Zannen)”! Hahaha.

In my humble opinion, I think there is some reason of using Japanese language instead of original Chinese, first it makes the language more interesting. Second, it feels more trendy and young that will attract younger audiences. As you know, the Chinese 汉字 (Kanji) was been integrated in Japanese language, and Japan now is popular and this is common that those Kanji is being integrated into other languages.

Actually it is quite interesting on how the Japanese interpret Kanji, for example “人気” mentioned above. If direct translate to Chinese it means “people gas”. Because the thing is popular, so many people wants to buy it so the “gas” becomes a lot make the item “hot”. Another one is “無料 (Muryou)” which means FREE. So because is free so no need material (money). What about need money? Maybe you will think is “有料”. Yup, you’re right!

Some other interesting examples like “大丈夫” (Daijoubu – no problem. Chinese – gentlemen). Because even got problem you will also said no problem, so you are very gentlemen and “面倒臭” (Mendokusai – troublesome. Chinese – face down stinks). Because you feel troublesome, so you will turn down your face and it looks stinks”, hahahaha.