HarimaKenji’s blog

1. You have found a magical J-pop genie who will grant you one J-pop related wish (so no wishing for a million dollars or world peace or anything like that). It can be virtually anything as long as it’s directly related to J-pop, and don’t worry, because this is the nice sort of genie, not the kind who will try to find a loop-hole and screw up your wish. So, what do you wish for???
I want to trade souls with Tsunku.

2. Is there any J-pop artist or group who seriously pisses you off? If yes, who, and why?
No. That happens sometimes, but I always end liking the same artists. Or I just forgot about them, so they don't bother me anymore.

3. Who do you think is the sexiest japanese singer out there?
Can I have two?

4. How about the cutest?
Now it won't work with less than three...

5. Best personality?
Yuuko.

6. If given the opportunity, would you rather date person 3, person 4, or person 5?
Konkon.

7. You work for a Japanese music magazine, and you have the opportunity to interview your favorite artist or group. What are a couple of the questions you want to ask them?
I'd like to ask Momusu's OG what they think about the current line up, the Kids, and the way their career continued after they got out of Momusu. Some of them I think have no reason to complain (Yossie and Rika, for example), but I'd like to see what Yuuko would say. And Yasuda. Yasuda said back in some Utaban that she wanted to be an actress, and she's been in some plays since then, so it seems it worked... but is she happy now or would she want a solo singing career?

8. What’s the best (J-pop) song to listen to when you are really sad?
Hum... I choose music based on whatever I'm doing while I listen, instead of how I'm feeling. If I'm studying, it's classical or nothing; if I'm reading RSS, it's completely random from my whole collection; if I'm programming, writing or busy with anything else, it's J-Rock. Right now it's Iron Maiden - Rime of the Ancient Mariner though. J-Pop enters when I'm bored. Sometimes I get addicted to some group, so I'll listen to it all the time for about a week. Then it goes back to normal.
But then, if I had to choose the best "cheer up" j-pop song I know, it's quite easily ZARD's "Makenaide". Best sad j-pop song, I'd have to think a lot more about it...

9. When you’re really happy?
Best happy song would be... hum... Either Lucky Cha Cha Cha or Koko ni Iru zee... with Shiawase Beam definitely in third place.

10. Do you often sing along to your favorite songs?
Sure, all the time. Old habit. Just never in public.

11. How about dance?
Never.

12. Artistic integrity question!! If someone offerrered to pay you for blogging, but they were allowed to censor some of your opinions or veto some of your blogging ideas, would you do it?
No. Not really because I care about "artistic integrity"... Well, I do, but I care more about money. I see nothing wrong with writing whatever you're told to for money - isn't that what all marketers and most journalists do? But I wouldn't try it anyway, since I have no plans to make money writing. This is a hobby, and the moment it turns into anything else, I'm out.

I'm back, if anyone cares to know that =P
Here's a cute Nacchi photo so you can't say this post is completely useless:

Question 1: What were you doing 10 years ago?:

Probably playing Super Mario World or some SNES RPG.

Question 2: Five (non working) things on my to do list today:

I guess non working for me means non studying, which leaves... well, nothing. I don't anything like a to do list, that's why I'm mostly wandering around online if I'm not studying. Let's see, five things I have to do...

- I have to finish rewatching Ikiru, I stopped in the middle two days ago and couldn't get back to it
- I'm late with the last, uh, 47 episodes of Berikyuu!, something that should change.
- My RSS reader is always demanding attention...
- My e-mail is also always demanding attention...
- MIKITTY SUBBED ALOHELLO!!!! <3

Of course I won't do even half of these today. Especially considering the day is almost over for me (9pm right now). But I'll be taking care of the last item soon enough :)

Question 3: Snacks I enjoy:

I usually don't have snacks, but if I do, it's probably a banana. Or senbei.

Question 4: Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

First I'd give a good amount to my parents. Then I'd make a nice donation to every open source program I use and to Wikipedia. Then I'd live somewhere in the United States, buy every Apple product in existence, and go to Japan quite often. In Japan, even though I'd be a billionaire, I'd stay in capsule hotels in Akihabara, and I'd make some anime studios and UFA very very rich.

Question 5: Places I have lived:

Lots of cities around the same region in Brazil.

Question 6: Jobs I have had:

None.

Taking a quick break from Konkon posts (yes, there'll be more) to answer broomhead's survey...

Goals:

    * Why do you blog?
    Because in a distant week last year, I was feeling very bored while I waited for something new to appear on IntlWota or anywhere else, and blogging seemed like a nice solution.

    * What long-term goals do you hope to accomplish, if any at all?
    Right now my goal is to promote my favorite idols and all cool stuff I can find related to them, especially when I think these things aren't already out there. Not sure if I'd call it a long-term goal, My interests change, my blog and its goals change accordingly. Although I'll never stray too far from H!P subject, since that's what drives people here (through IntlWota links)... I'd probably open a new blog if I wanted to talk about anything else.

    * If you do have goals, what will accomplishing them do for yourself?
    Nothing. I'll just have fun in the process.

    * What do you want to gain out of blogging? A creative outlet? Praise from others? Personal satisfaction? Money?
    Praise from others is always good, and gratitude makes me happy too.

    * Do you feel that your blog should meet a requirement for amount of entries? Do you feel any particular entry should be a certain length?
    No. 

    * For any particular entry, what motivates you to start and finish blog posts?
    I do most posts on a whim... I find something I want to share, so I do it.

    * Do you actively consider long term goals for each individual post?
    Sure. I look for topics that I can't find good info already available anywhere (like musicals), and promote things I like, mostly scenes from H!M when I do birthday posts...

Subject Material:

    * What do you blog about?
    H!P.

    * Would you be keep a blog even if it wasn’t about the subjects you tend to cover?
    I have other interests outside H!P, and I'd write about them... But if this question is talking about something I'm not interested in, then no, never.
    I could think about it if money were involved, but who would want to pay me?

    * Do you write about the material to promote it to others?
    That's my goal.

Readership:

    * How much do you care about readership?
    Vox doesn't work well with any tracking sites, but I think there's about a hundred a people reading this post, and that's good enough to me. Especially since most of my posts are mainly videos and images... I'm happy that I can reach way more people on YouTube, it's pretty moving when you see your videos get more views in a day and a half than your whole blog did since its beginning... Although this wasn't that impressive when you put it into perspective (I'm afraid of MorningBerryz's stats on YouTube)

    * Does it satisfy you to know people are reading, even if they don’t comment?
    Of course.

    * What effect does receiving a comment have on you?
    It makes me remember life is beautiful =)

    * Do you write with a particular audience in mind or an unspecified general audience? Why?
    I guess H!P fans are already a particular audience...   

    * If you write for a particular audience, is it International Wota? If yes, why?
    Yeah, that's indirectly true since I don't see many other ways for people to know my blog exists... Although I can't see the right referrer URLs here on Vox, I'm quite sure 90% of the people reading this came here through IntlWota.

Community: (The International Wota section)

    * If International Wota didn’t exist, would you blog?
    No idea. My reasoning in the beginning was pretty simple: if it's up on IntlWota, then there's lots of potential readers seeing the summary there, and some of them will eventually read the post. It meant there was an audience, and a certain way to reach it. But not having that  doesn't mean I wouldn't try to start a blog. It'd just be more difficult.

    * When IW covers an entry of yours, are you encouraged to blog more or less?
    * When IW does not cover an entry, are you encouraged to blog more or less?
    When a post is not covered, it's as if it didn't exist, readership-wise. One or two friends see it, plus some anonymous readers, but that's it. Not much I can do about it, so I just keep going and maybe the next post will have more luck.

    * How often do you read other blogs?
    I read almost everything that appears on IntlWota about H!P. And if this includes other subjects, there's more than fifty other blogs in my RSS reader. I read them daily.

    * How often do you comment on other blogs?
    No comments lately... I've been low on time, so I started commenting less.

    * If another blog covers a topic that you wanted or wished to cover, do you still blog about that specific topic? Why or why not?
    Not likely, only if I think I have something to add. I mean, more than just my opinion.

Commitment:

    * How serious is your attitude towards blogging? Do you consider it just as something to do for fun?
    I'm not being paid, which means I'm doing it for fun. There's no point otherwise.

    * How often do you blog? How often would you like to blog?
    * Do you see yourself blogging in 6 months? Why or why not?
    As often as I feel like and have the time, and as long as I have something to say/show.

Personal:

    * Would you say you blog for yourself?
    No, if it wasn't read by anyone I wouldn't waste the effort.

    * What is your feeling after posting an entry? Is it relative to the time and effort you put in an entry?
    I used to feel anxious to see if it would appear on IntlWota, but I don't care anymore. Now I just let my posts go online and forget about them. I'll go back to answer whatever comments I get if any, but other than that my thoughts are on the next post.

    * Do you consider yourself a writer?
    No.

    * Do you consider yourself good at writing? Good at blogging?
    I believe I'm good enough so that others understand what I write, but I'm not sure of anything more than that.

    * How much of your personal life do you share on your blog? If none, why do you leave this out?
    None. Why talk about me when I can talk about Konkon?

Today I'm sharing some videos I chose from good old H!M News segments. These were taken from a period when the segment was called Hello! Pro Wide and included the obligatory Yuuko (sometimes other people got most of the spotlight - like Kamei - but Yuuko will always be the best part of this segment for me), Ogawa and Konkon. Ogawa was the one who read the news (announcements of H!P products), Yuuko commented on them and Konkon was the reporter, supposed to interview whoever's merchandise was being announced. But for this post, I've decided to choose the best Ojamarushe (the name of the character Konkon plays in this segment) introductions from all the 40 and something episodes. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Let's start...

I just had to put some extra scenes in this one... It's from three different episodes where she kept the same "rebellious high school girl". Love how the poor girl gets embarrassed. And I've thrown in an Ogawa introduction too, because it's awesome and it makes me laugh XD even Yuuko entered the mood... Here, this screams for a screencap.

Just look how happy Konkon is with her shiny new personalized uniform, with Ojamarushe Konno written, and how jealous Yuuko is as she says "Why are they putting so much effort in this?"

And to finish the three first places that are also  coincidentally the three most unique costumes, here's the "Yakuza" or "bike gang member" costume, I'm not sure which would describe it better...

Konkon has some fun with filming equipments, and then goes visit Gocchin, whose 18th birthday was just some days before this show aired (2003.09.28)...

Cute <3

Poor girl T_T I admit I laughed though. Bad HarimaKenji... >_<

While talking to semified and Andra in my last post's comment section, I figured there must be a lot of people out there that don't have as much patience and/or time to waste as me, and have given up on Haromoni@ long ago... Missing some interesting stuff in the process. To me, at least. While last week's episode was the first to be completely members-only, member segments have been appearing on MouTube for quite some time, and I always thought there were some interesting ones. I've gathered and uploaded every one of them since HM@ 2008-02-03, which was about the time they started appearing... I don't have the episodes before that with me, so I can't be sure. I know there was one GakiKame segment before that, I'll upload it when I have the chance. So, now you can watch your favorite member's appearance, without having to go through the dog that rides a bicycle, the bartender penguin (that one was interesting, actually), the guy who stops a remote controlled car perfectly in a very tight parking slot... OK, enough of that.

But still, it's not like these segments are all of the same quality. Anyway, let me organize them in a quick Top 8 (because there's not enough for 10) ^_^

01 - GakiKame

Obvious choice, just look at the things they do in these videos. And they're so cute <3 It must take a lot of time to plan and film one of these, I guess that's why it's not so regular as some others...  But it's worth waiting <3 I'll miss these if MouTube ends.

02 - Air XX (JunJun & LinLin)

These videos helped me make my mind about the Pandas - JunJun is the cute one (just look at how she usually finishes the videos with a smile and a peace sign) while LinLin is the crazy one. And it makes me think they could be the best thing to happen since TsujiKago... But then the videos end and I get back to reality.

03 - Memory

Look! It's a game segment!

Now, if they just put some food or penalty in this, I could put it on first place.

04 - Aichan

Aichan has some strange segments and some of them are boring, but I like them anyway. Maybe I have a crazy enough sense of humor to match hers? And I just knew that baby was going to cry... Never try to play with babies, I know that very well, those little ungrateful... Err... Next!

05 - Reina

I don't know what to make of her segments... First it featured a Kamei drawing (Pikachu), and that can't get too bad, right? Then, the next episode she had a segment, it changed style completely, to some torture like investigation techniques... I can't understand some of them...  She did another one in that style, and then changed it again to a boring commercial of curry. And then (although it's not uploaded here) the girls were shown eating it on the program when the video ended.  In other words, in HM@, seems like there's no need to fight over food. Where's the fun on that?

This is the turning point - the ones below are the not so good ones.

06 - Gaki

Gaki does comedian impersonations while talking in Korean. There was some deja vu in seeing her Antonio Inoki monomane, even if it was usually Ogawa who did those back on Hello! Morning... At least back then, even if I had no idea who it was they were impersonating, the costumes would make me laugh. Now these are just boring.

07 - Koharu

Seeing how she's promoted on H!P, you'd think she has a strong presence on HM@, but she doesn't. She only had this one segment. Or maybe she had another one before 2008-02-03 and I don't remember that. Good costume, met my expectations of something absurdly crazy that I wouldn't be able to forget for quite some time (like most things Koha releases), but when it ended, I was just disappointed. All she does is talk very fast. Whatever. Next!

08 - Sayumi

Those who gave up on Haromoni@ to avoid the boring streetwalking from the first episodes and the silly animal tricks from MouTube, this might be a good time to try it again. At least that's the feeling I get from this episode and the small preview of the next one. Why the optimism? Every segment on this one features a Morning Musume member. No random people and no animals. That makes me very happy. So much that I thought I'd upload some of the segments. Maybe I'll start reviewing Haromoni@ if it keeps up like this.

First up is the memory segment (video), this time with a competition between Aika and JunJun. The video starts with Junjun complaining about the unfairness of this game: although she knows some Japanese and can generally memorize some words, she's not very good at it, so she's at a disadvantage. Aika doesn't like that very much, and says that JunJun always did well at this game. She looks pissed and ready to fight...
...while JunJun shows her own fighting spirit by saying three times that she's not going to lose...
...but Aika doesn't really care as she's full of confidence today.
Have I said I love Aika?
The girls had to memorize 40 names and photos of people in 20 minutes. They take turns saying the name of whoever appears on the screen, and if one of them can't answer, she loses if the other gets it right. And so the competition begins...
And ends. Poor Junjun.
Aika could go all the way and get them all right. Impressive.