Mutou Mika graduating from Hello! Project

So, Some Boys! Blog today reported that Mutou Mika is graduating from Hello! Project in order to lead a normal life. =(
I’m not a huge fan of her- I mean, I barely know the Eggs in Ongaku gatas. But right after Mano Erina graduates to become a solo artist, we have another girl leaving. What does this mean for Ongaku? I really hope they don’t just disband. I really loved their singles; not so much their album tracks, but still! Maybe it’s time for new members, or maybe they’ll just continue on with the girls they still have. Either way, I really want them to keep going and releasing new stuff…

Well, good luck to Mika. Sad to see another H!P member leave, but if it’s what she wants, then it’s good that she actually went ahead and quit.

Holy crap. MORE??

Why does it seem to me like the Prince of Tennis music is getting way more busier than usual even though it’s ending really soon? xDD
No, seriously! 7 news items in one day! Info about 7 CDs, some new and some announced earlier. And this is the day after they released covers and info about 4 other CDs!

FIRST!
Sanada’s upcoming single has a title now! =D

タイトル：Ｄ気持（初回生産完全限定盤）
アーティスト：真田弦一郎
発売日：２００８年５月２１日（水）
品番：ＮＥＣＭ－１０１０２
価格：￥７７７（税込）

Title: D Kimochi (limited release)
Artist: Sanada Genichirou
Release date: 2008.05.21 (Wednesday)
Code: NECM-10102
Price: 777 yen

D Kimochi? O____o
Oshitari had a single called “A Kimochi” once. Is it somehow related…?

Sono Bamen de Bibiccha Ikenai jan! radio rip

I just found out that a radio rip for this song was out, so I went and searched for a download. This song is the b-side to Morning Musume’s upcoming single Resonant Blue.
There’s a lot of talking over it. It seems like a pretty good song, and the line distribution seems more even than in Resonant Blue…but I’ll wait for a better quality version to come out before I really go into my thoughts on it.

Download here

New CDs from Yesasia

I got home from the Dominican Republic at like 2 am last night, but instead of sleep, the first thing that crossed my mind when I got inside the house was “Where’s my Yesasia package??” xD

I ordered:
Buono! – Cafe Buono! (limited edition)
Buono! – Renai Rider (limited edition)
Inui Sadaharu – DISTANCE (limited release) (re-release)
Hyoutei Eternity – Fujouri (limited release) (re-release)
3 Guava Trio – BRAND NEW DAY (limited release) (re-release)
Kai Yuujirou – Valentine Kiss (limited release)
Echizen Ryouma – future / WHITE LINE arrange C (limited release) (re-release)

Ainori

I’m not really a review person or anything, but I thought I’d talk about this TV show for a bit and maybe get more people to watch it!
Ainori is my favorite Japanese non-anime show. I’ve been watching it since this fall on TV- in America, it airs on AZN Television at 9:30 on Sunday nights, unsubbed.
I’ve explained Ainori in the past as kinda like an MTV reality show mixed with a travelogue, as they try to find love while in foreign countries. 7 young single men and women are on the Love Wagon (which basically a van painted pink with Ainori logos), which travels around the world to tons of different countries. Right now I believe they’re in the Czech Republic. They were in Germany up through last week’s episode, 394, but the latest episode was released while I’m here in the Dominican Republic so I can’t download it yet.
The basic premise is that while traveling, the 7 young people fall in love with each other. Once someone falls in love and believes that the other person likes them, they confess by going to the Love Wagon and asking for two tickets back to Japan from the driver (a native of whatever country they’re in), then giving one of the tickets to the person they are in love with. The next morning, they wait outside the hotel and when the other person comes out, she or he gives their answer- if yes, they kiss and return to Japan as a couple. If no, they return the ticket, and the person who confessed returns alone.

Resonant Blue PV

I’m kinda late with this, but the internet at the resort I’m staying in here (I’m in the Dominican Republic until Saturday night) died last night and I just got it back. Actually the internet here just kinda sucks in general, it seriously took at least an hour for the Resonant Blue PV to load fully yesterday. I was planning on thinking it over for a bit while I was at dinner, but then when I came back ready to write the internet was dead.

So, Resonant Blue. Morning Musume’s 36th single and the namesake for this new blog. As I mentioned in the last post, I don’t think the song itself is all that impressive or special, but at the same time, it’s really catchy and I can’t stop it from getting stuck in my head all the time.
Here’s the problem: It’s dominated by Reina, Ai, and Koharu.

Catching up

So this is my first post after moving my former blog, ~ lurking in the shadows ~ (on Blogger, here) to WordPress. I got the idea for it about a week ago, then like 7+ j-pop blogs got deleted from WP so I decided against it, but after Kawaiirrhea figured out what was causing the shutdowns (Pony Canyon downloads), I decided to just go ahead because I don’t have any Pony Canyon downloads on my blog (and as of now I don’t plan on ever having any). I like WordPress better than Blogger, so…
There’s also a new name. I kinda was getting tired of the old name, and since I’m moving this anyway, why not? xD Resonant Blue was the first thing that came to mind…named after Morning Musume’s upcoming single.

As my first post here, I should catch up with everything I’ve missed lately. I’m going to attempt to keep this blog up-to-date, update it much more, and write some posts that have some actual content besides just quick news posts. xD

(my g key’s broken, and while I’m copy-pasting the lowercase g it’s too much trouble to keep copy-pasting the uppercase and then having to go back to the lowercase…so that’s why I might have random fail moments in terms of capitalization)

Ikemen Samurai – Dear Prince ~Tennis no Oujisamatachi e~

Another new single announced today! Dear Prince ~Tennis no Oujisamatachi e~, meaning Dear Prince ~To the Princes of Tennis~, should be kinda familiar to fans of the manga, as it’s the song that was used in the last chapter of the manga last week. I still don’t see the point of that, all it was was the lyrics written on the page, I think they were trying to imitate a song playing in the last episode of an anime but it doesn’t really work with manga. I hear it was hell for scanlators. xD But anyway.
Ikemen Samurai? xD I thought it would be a serious song but the group name (meaning something along the lines of “Good-looking Samurai”) makes it sound like it’s totally not. Though, according to the website, Konomi chose the group name, so…
The group consists of Echizen Ryouma and Tezuka Kunimitsu from Seigaku, Atobe Keigo from Hyoutei, Yukimura Seiichi and Sanada Genichirou from Rikkai, Kite Eishirou from Higa, and Shiraishi Kuranosuke from Shitenhouji. Lots of different schools being represented here…Seigaku and all the teams they faced in the Nationals.
I think this would be a good ending or opening song for the Finals OVA series. I’m sure it’s going to be the ending for the last episode, at least.

タイトル：Ｄｅａｒ Ｐｒｉｎｃｅ～テニスの王子様達へ～（初回生産完全限定盤）
アーティスト：イケメン侍（越前リョーマ、手塚国光、跡部景吾、幸村精市、
真田弦一郎、木手永四郎、白石蔵ノ介）
発売日：２００８年４月２３日（水）
品番：ＮＥＣＭ－１０１０１
価格：￥１，０００（税込）

Title: Dear Prince ~Tennis no Oujisamatachi e~ (limited release)
Artist: Ikemen Samurai (Echizen Ryouma, Tezuka Kunimitsu, Atobe Keigo, Yukimura Seiichi, Sanada Genichirou, Kite Eishirou, Shiraishi Kuranosuke)
Release date: 2008.04.23 (Wednesday)
Catalog code: NECM-10101
Price: 1000 yen

April 23rd…that’s a normal release date (aka Wednesday). For once. xD

Tong-tai – Ya.ki.ni.ku

@_@
Another Prince of Tennis unit, this one being one of the more “wtf”-inducing ones. This new unit, just announced today, is based off of the special Yakiniku no Oujisama episode that’s being released on March 16th, where Seigaku and a lot of rival schools meet at a yakiniku place and have a contest to see which school can eat the most in one hour. This song is apparently going to be the ending theme for that episode, and I can only hope that it’s -only- that episode…
The unit is made up of Tanishi Kei from Higa, Kabaji Munehiro from Hyoutei, and Chinen Hiroshi from Higa. From the manga, I remember Tanishi’s uber yakiniku-eating skills, and Kabaji copied those, but I don’t remember Chinen…?

タイトル：や・き・に・く（初回生産完全限定盤）
アーティスト：トング隊（田仁志 慧、樺地崇弘、知念 寛）
発売日：２００８年５月９日（金）
品番：ＮＥＣＭ－１０１０４
価格：￥８００（税込）

Title: Ya.ki.ni.ku (limited release)
Artist: Tong-tai (Tanishi Kei, Kabaji Munehiro, Chinen Hiroshi)
Release date: 2008.05.09 (Friday)
Catalog code: NECM-10104
Price: 800 yen

Wonder what’s up with the Friday release again? Maybe the next DVD is going to be released then or something.

Arashi’s "We can make it!" is a cover?!

This just blew my mind.
We can make it! is one of the two songs that got me into Arashi. I love the song and it has a really high playcount on my iPod.
I just found out today that it’s a cover. Apparently the original is “Love is All Around”, by some woman named Agnes Carlsson. Well.
So I immediately went onto Youtube to find the original. After a search of the artist + the title, I didn’t find any music video or anything. However, I found this:

Ohhh wow. xDD I’m only a casual fan of Arashi, I listen to their music but I don’t know any of their names or anything. (I can’t see myself ever getting into Johnny’s like I did with Hello! Project, one uber idol group is enough. X_x) Still though, it’s really amusing to have a girl’s song playing over a video of a guy group. xD And apparently the Arashi version added some parts, considering this video has to cut to audio from We can make it! in order to fit with the PV. xD

It’s always weird to find out that a song I listen to a lot is a cover, cause I always think of the one I heard first as the original. I kept almost referring to We can make it! as the original in this post…