Kouhaku Uta Gassen 2012 live blog

Okay, I will have a live blog of this and JCD following. Because Kouhaku will have acts I will not care for I will probably have more time to write for it and I will even try screen grabs, we shall see how that goes though.

Unfortunately did not find a stream until a good way into the program. But at least I got to see the Disney collaboration.

While their segment was really short Kanjani8 made sure to live up to their reputation for laughs. Pairing them will Goofy of course makes perfect sense.

And it looks like they want to cram as many people on this stage as possible. But I am sure this was not the first nor will it be the last they will do something like this.

Also to note found another stream that looks to be in much better picture quality so I have switched to that.

The morning drama Jun to Ai gets promoted with cast so we get to see Hasegawa JunKazama Shunsuke, and of course it get pointed out that he's Johnny's. He's looking pretty nice and I think he is the next from Four Tops to gain a good amount of fame.

One of the things I love about Kouhaku are the over the top sets and performances. The enka singers excel at this such as the long dress here.

Probably because I am not a fan I did not realize that Nishino Kana had such an upbeat song. I've always thought of her as a ballad singer primarily.

Oh, and before I forget to mention it again I am not sure how I feel about Arashi's suits here. I guess if anything they are set to stand out and be remembered.

Kinda love how Kouhaku idol-baits people into watching some of the enka performers. The AKB48 girls here do look lovely though.

Ayaka was one of the acts I was looking forward to. Hajimari no Toki is such a fitting song for her to perform. And I love this stage, simple yet eye-catching.

Her current look reminds me of Utada Hikaru in her Heart Station-era though.


And sorry for not thinking of it earlier but if you want to catch the live stream here is the link to the one I am using: http://ja.justin.tv/anninoshi#/w/4469767088/4

Since it is the news break went to watch the NYC performance that I missed earlier. I loved the Haina! part of it.

And I was seriously impressed with whatever technology they used to make it look like they had Junior stairway to heaven going on.

When the news is over it should be K8 time!

Well that was a ton of fun though the stream quality was not the best all the way through. Give me a bit more and I will spam with performance screen caps.

And here we are. They performed Naniwa Iroha Bushi and Musekinin(sp?) Hero.

And of course it is TOKIO up next so I did not have enough time to sort the caps. Oh well, the issues of live blogging. And the reason why the JCD one will have no screen caps. I don't want to miss much of that.

TOKIO sang KIBOU and of course I loved it. But that is probably mostly out of my love for the group in general.

Loved Perfume's stage. They really looked like they were giving a true concert performance with the level of tech used.
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AKB48 and I spot NMB48's Sayaka! And AKB48's! But only could screen cap the former. I guess another reason to find the torrent for this later.

Love how they worked in the first costume change.

And AKB48 seem to have the making words out of people corner covered well. Especially when you consider this is just all the 18+ members of the groups.

Lolz at Nakai having to correct the saying of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's name.

Also she seems to have gotten the monster part of Fashion Monster down right.

This outfit looks rather normal for her though. But it works and that is one puffy skirt.

Arashi do their talk and performance of Furusato.

Looks like we get the start of the live feeds from around the globe. And we start off in Portland, OR, USA. Kinda nice to have someone in my timezone.

K8 gets to be with TOKIO as special supporters for an enka performance.

Nice to see Sakamoto Fumi still being boss.

Hey, Arashi got out of the ugly blue suits finally. To get into ugly blue and red ones.

At least those didn't last long and these look much better.

The tech they used looked tight. I was not sure about it when they began to talk about it in the news reports but it made the performance worth watching for sure.

A short tribute to the greats of Japanese entertainment that passed this year. RIP Mori Mitsuko.

Seeing Wada Akiko get teary eyed made me do the same. Really powerful performance.

MISIA's performance looks epic before it has even begun.

And it lives up to the promised epicness, especially those notes at the end. MISIA is a real treasure of an artist and I am so glad she was worked into the program this year.

I figure I won't bother to screen cap EXILE as they aren't bothering to perform anything new. Seriously guys, you have more than one song and it would be nice if you performed them and not this one over and over again.

Looks like Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is not the only fashion monster on the show tonight.

Massha of course being live streamed in even though he's just down in Yokohama.

I keep wondering how they plan on cleaning up all that fake snow after this performance while watching it. But at least it looks really impressive.

Yoshida has such a lovely kimono on. I love that she is getting all kinds of recognition this year after winning gold yet again at the Olympics.

SMAP up. And they give a solid performance from them, so yes some painful singing moments.

Will be switching over to JCD shortly, with hopefully a stream that will work. We shall see.

It's voting time and I think I won't chance another screen cap as I search for the best JCD stream.

And the winner is WHITE TEAM!

And I will be switching over to focus on JCD now.

The Shounen Club 21 November 2004 review

Cannot believe I am already hitting the end of the 2004 episodes. 2005 should be rather interesting as there are more changes to come for certain Junior groups and KAT-TUN should be gearing up for debut as they only have a little over a year before then.

The theme of the episode is Omoi, which is a tricky word to translate into English as there is no true equivalent unless you are using it in a sentence. But the best would be thoughts & feelings for an idea of what it should be. Like the last episode it is just KAT-TUN talking about the theme with the other Juniors just standing around on stage.

Surprisingly enough KAT-TUN is not all over the medley for the theme. Instead the other Juniors make up the main parts of the medley. And I have to admit that I felt happy seeing that the members of J.J.Express and Kis-My-Ft. that go on to debut ended up being paired up together for the song they sung together.

After that medley we have Yabu Kota leading a group of Fresh Juniors in covering V6's Can Do!, Can Go! And while Takaki Yuya is in this group (stuck behind Yabu for a good portion of the song) there is another familiar Junior that I was happy to see. Sanada Yuma makes his Shounen Club debut this episode, or at his debut as a Junior with a mic and getting his name on the screen.

Another thing to not is that part way through the song Nikaido Takashi and Senga Kento come out to join Yabu being the main singers of the song. I guess this confirms those two as the leads for A.B.C. Jr. In any case it is nice to see at least a couple members of that group do more than just back dance.

The game segment for this episode is the return of Attate Pon! and it is thankfully KAT-TUN lite at least.

This time it is Ueda Tatsuya to have something about him to guess, which was what he made to learn since he was a child.

Jimmy Mackey gets to do the Shounen Club Box VTR segment and he visits old familiar faces, Ikuta Toma and Kazama Shunsuke. The two are a part of the cast for the WEST SIDE STORY production that starred Arashi's Satoshi Ohno, Sakurai Sho and Matsumoto Jun. Yamashita Shoon was also part of the cast, which probably goes to explain his absences from the program.

When we go back to the live filmed part of the show it is for KAT-TUN to perform a song. The song is called MESSENGER and I can only assume it is yet another one of their original songs that have been abandoned post-debut. Something I can understand why because there is nothing all that outstanding about it except for the guys showing off their ero-dance moves.

We get a letter reading corner between Totsuka Shota and Tanaka Koki. It always amuses me how embarrassed Koki gets when others praise him for his kindness. He truly is the biggest softie in KAT-TUN no matter how he tries to present himself.

I was happy to see Toshin Yoshikazu & A.B.C. get some good screen time with having more than one performance on the show. They got to perform the Japanese versions of Dancing Queen and I Can't My Eyes Off of You, both songs that from time to time come back for Juniors to perform.

Imai Tsubasa performed another one of his solo songs, Serenade. When I saw his mic I could not help but wonder if Sexy Zone will get ones just like it sometime in the future.

Kamenashi Kazuya gets to sit and talk about the theme of the show. Of course this segment has frequent screams from the audience in it.

KAT-TUN then sing Hoshikuzu no Spangle, and I always enjoy seeing this song performed. Though whoever was in charge of the dry ice, or whatever they use for the smoke, seemed to have gotten a bit carried away.

The ending song is the same of the usual. The back dancers (A.B.C. and Kis-My-Ft.) get some camera time at least. And while I have no idea what Totsu was trying to do here I have the feeling this was not the planned outcome.


It really frustrates me that some of the non-KAT-TUN portions of this episode could not have been mixed in with the previous one. This is a much more balanced show when it comes to showing all of the Juniors and while I am very glad to have it after such a KAT-TUN centric one I cannot help but think that they should have had more of this balance in the first episode of the month.

Of course with KAT-TUN's debut coming nearer I cannot hope that perhaps they may be too busy to do so much on SC in 2005 to keep being such a large part of the show.