Japan

Yui Aragaki – Heavenly Days

. J-Pop, Japan, Lyrics

Yui Aragaki - Heavenly Days

On the 5th December 2007, sweet and natural popular idol Yui Aragaki has release her debut album “Sora”. The album consists of 10 soothing tracks including “Heavenly Days” and “Memories” which is the insert song and theme song of her movie called “Koizora” and “Koisuru Madori” respectedly. With her frequent exposure in various fields, Gakky appears as one of the biggest and most promising new music star right before the end of 2007!

According to a personal interview with her in Music Station in November, singing has been a dream of her. Well, I’m happy of her because it is a dream comes true! To come out with the best results, her dream was assists by many popular singer-songwriter including Tsuji Ayano, Ando Yuko, Toko Furuuchi etc. Besides that, she also participated in writing the song lyrics too. She has very pampered and soft voice, so her songs almost are comfortable and sorrow like “Heavenly Days” which I am introducing here.

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15 more Hirano Aya pretty pictures

. Downloads, Japan

15 Hirano Aya pictures courtesy of Bomb.tv

It’s been a while, here are 15 pictures of the pretty and talented Japanese idol Hirano Aya! I get to know her because of my forum friend Igorism who his blog entry about Hirano Aya had deeply poisoned me. I am not sure why I admire her, but it is going to be her multiple talents. She is a seiyuu, she sings and she plays music intruments, not to mention her cuteness and sexiness!

Hirano Aya (平野 綾, born October 8, 1987) from Aichi Prefecture, Japan, is a seiyū (voice actress) and J-pop singer who has had roles in several anime, visual novels, and TV commercials in Japan. Her popularity was increased significantly thanks to her breakout role as Haruhi Suzumiya in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. She also did other voice over characters in several animes like Nana (as Reira) and Lucky Star (as Konata Izumi).

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Asao TOKOLO – master of modern pattern designs

. Art & Design, Japan

Asao TOKOLO - master of modern pattern designs

When the first time I saw his designs, the uniqueness of pattern design immediately draws my attention. Introducing Asao Tokolo. TOKOLO was born in 1969, and studied in architecture design. Now, he work as a part time lecturer in Musashino Art University. His most significant work of design is TOKOLO Pattern Magnet, which is one of the winner entry of Japanesque Modern Collection in 2006.

Japanesque Modern Collection is a collection of Japan made stuffs that uniting the traditional crafts, techniques and culture with the modern technology advancements, which can fit well in modern living lifestyle and also bring international competitive advantages to Japanese industrial works. The stuffs here can be in any genre, including product design, contents, services, systems, environmental and others. I think it is a great honor if one’s design was selected, so big congratulations to Asao Tokolo!

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The yokai of Gegege no Kitaro

. Japan

Gegege no Kitaro!

I recently watched a Japanese movie “Gegege no Kitaro” starring Wentz Eiji and Inoue Mao. The movie was originated from a manga which drawn by cartoonist Shigeru Mizuki in 1959. Recently yokai or supernatural creatures had gaining its popularity in Japan, and many yokai themed animated films were produced like “Dororo” and this movie.

You can read more about this movie from lunapark6.com review. The movie was good, with eye-candy casts as well as the variety of cute, funny and evil looking spirited creatures. I know some of the creatures since small, like the umbrella yokai (Kasa Obake) and sandal yokai (Bakezouri) shown picture below, because I had seen it in Doraemon comic and Ikkyu cartoon since small.

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What is Getsu 9 drama?

. Japan

What is Getsu 9 drama?

If you have watched quite some Japanese Dramas probably you will heard of this “Getsu 9” term. Getsu 9 or 月9 (pronounce as Gekku), is the prime time ‘golden hour’ drama series on Fuji TV, and normally it will be the spotlight drama of the season. It was named “Getsu 9” because the drama was aired on Monday from 9.00pm to 9.54pm, and it was very popular because of the high rating achievements too.

The term “Getsu 9” was created in 1995, when an author who compiled the drama profiles that aired on Monday 9pm, and announced it on a TV Forum of NIFTY-Serve. And during that time, there was no “Getsu 9” to be heard but a potential recognition of “Nine o’clock of Monday is interesting (月曜９時が面白い)“. After then, Monday 9pm was recognized as “Getsu 9”, and become the prosperous name for Fuji TV dramas that aired on that time frame.

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Japan culture, design, tech, entame ALL ACCESS!

. Japan

These few days I had been collecting websites and blogs that talks about Japan, and the result is a lot! Maybe because it is so much to talk about Japan like entertainment, interesting stuff, trends, tech, designs, culture and many more.

Well, I successfully collected almost 30 sites of them, so just glance through all of them and pick the sites you like, bookmark, subscribe to RSS or delicious them. With all these sites, you can know Japan even better. This is going to be a long post.

3yen

News, Lifestyle, Tech, Entertainment, Trend

http://www.3yen.com/

Blogs on Japan

RSS, Culture, Funny

Welcome to Blogs on Japan. Here I hope to share with you some of the best/interesting articles relating to Japan. Be aware, some links are NSFW (not safe for work).

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FUNKY MONKEY BABYS – Mou kimi ga inai

. J-Pop, Japan, Lyrics

FUNKY MONKEY BABYS - Mou kimi ga inai

Eh, why is Toda Erika on the cover? Well, I will explain it later. Introducing FUNKY MONKEY BABYS with their 6th and latest single “Mou kimi ga inai (もう君がいない)”. The title means you are not there anymore, this suggests that this is a sad love song but its warmhearted melody is perfect for the current opening winter season.

Who is FUNKY MONKEY BABYS

FUNKY MONKEY BABYS is a Japanese hip-hop band grouped in 2004 under the record company DREAMUSIC Inc. All members in the group are from Hachiôji, Japan. There are three members in this unit: Funky Katô (MC), Monn-kichi (MC) and DJ Chemical (DJ) who joined later. Clearly, “BABYS” is an intentional spelling error for “BABIES.” Known as fann-mon(ファンモン) in short.

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Stunning Japanese Foliage Photoshop brushes

. Art & Design, Japan, Resources

Japanese Foliage brushes by DesignFruit

Probably you already know this, but I still want to take an opportunity to write about it. The post banner above is done by wonderful Japanese Foliage™ brushes brought to you by DesignFruit. In fact that I used this stunning sets of brushed for my several previous banner designs. The brushes are very high resolution and has a variety of different brushes to play with.

The creator, Jason Gaylor created these designs after being inspired by Japanese-style prints. He offered the Photoshop brushes and PNG free for download, however you need to purchase for the vector file. Feel free to use it for personal stuff, but be sure to read about the license agreements for non personal projects. Below is the example pictures uploaded by himself.

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Yuna Ito – Urban Mermaid

. J-Pop, Japan, Lyrics

Yuna Ito - Urban Mermaid

Today, Yuna Ito is back with her latest single “Urban Mermaid” after the collaboration song “Mahaloha” with Micro of Def Tech. From the song name probably you can guess that this song is dedicated for the women with its cheer-up tune! The song is very nice and the promotional video is also very beautiful too. Yuna Ito looks gorgeous in it.

I’ve been a fan of Yuna Ito since her debut song “Endless Story”, she is a professional singer. As mentioned earlier, this is a song for the women, to support and cheer for them. So, in the PV for this song also featured a lot of women walking behind Yuna Ito and gather together in a room with Yuna Ito singing at the center, shown in the picture below.

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Yui Aragaki debut songs preview!

. J-Pop, Japan

Yui Aragaki debut songs preview!

Can’t believe nowadays, many idols to start their singing career, for example Sawajiri Erika and now Yui Aragaki! But instead of debut single, she will release her debut album named “Sora” on December 5, 2007, which contains a total of ten songs including “heavenly days” and “Memories”. You can listen to the song preview right here!

Besides, she will have her first live performance at Nippon Budokan, in front of 10,000 fans. According to Tokyograph, Gakky is only the third artist (and first for female idol) to debut at the Nippon Budokan. She is preceded by TOKIO in 1994 and rock singer Michiyo in 1997. The song “heavenly days” is the insert song for movie Koizora (恋空), while “Memories” will be the theme song for movie Koisuru Madori (恋するマドリ). Yui Aragaki acted in both of these movies.

Both of the preview of the songs are soft ballad and emphasize on the sweet and soft voice of Yui Aragaki. I think the song suits her voice well and it actually sound not bad. You can listen to the preview of the song below.

What do you guys think of her songs? I think with her refreshing image and sunshine smiles, her debut will be a success! 😀

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