Kanjuu go Samurai

It was announced at the Kansai Junior Christmas Concert on December 25th that the Kanjuu will be starring in their own movie, titled Kansai Johnny’s Jr. no Kyoto Uzumasa Koshinkyoku!, that will be released in theaters in Japan on March 30th. The two main leads will be played by Kiriyama Akito and Shigeoka Daiki with Kanjuu, Nakama Junta, Hamanaka Bunichi, Fujii Ryusei, Kotaki Nozomu, and Mukai Koji also being in the cast.

The Kanjuu will do the theme song, NOT FINALE, for the movie and plan out the choreography for it.

JE News Daily article (English)


This announcement has me so happy. Things really feel like they are looking good for the Kanjuu. Sure they still do not get all the chances and breaks that their Tokyo counterparts do but you can hardly say getting their own movie is all that shabby. Especially when there is also a Tokyo concert coming up for them as well.

I hope that the theme song they will do will get released as a single. I think if the Tokyo Juniors can get all kinds of one off singles and temporary groups that get to release something the Kanjuu should be able to get the same chance. Not to mention if Johnny's wants to gauge the selling potential of the Kanjuu, or at least this group of them, it would be a great way to do so.

Like always I hope this is something that will lead to a debut of a Kanjuu group. Right now I just really want B.A.D. to debut in a group, especially Kiriyama as he has really begun to impress me recently with his interactions with the other Kanjuu. I have always though him to be talented with his singing, though in the past in need to knowing to dial it back a bit as he had the habit of overpowering everyone else.


EDIT: Speaking of that Tokyo concert, it has become concerts as there are now three concerts scheduled for the Kanjuu to do on January 1st, the first at noon followed by one at 3pm and the final at 6pm.

Junior News Round-Up 002

Time to gather some bits of Junior news to share.

First off the rumors about a couple of the members of the Bakaleya6 transferring schools have been proven true. Both Matsumura Hokuto and Kyomoto Taiga are now current students at Horikoshi high school, the school known for having a flexible schedule for those in the entertainer track. Both reportedly had to go back a year so Taiga is in the same class as Tanaka Juri and Hokuto in the class with Sato Shori.

Kyomoto Taiga LJ community post (English)

I think this transfer makes a lot of sense. Hokuto has been in dramas non-stop since Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou so going to a school that allows a good deal of schedule flexibility is perfect so he can keep up with that kind of work schedule. For Taiga the school he was attending is one that is strict about missing class, which is probably one of the reasons why he has not gotten as much work as some of the other members of Bakaleya6. So hopefully with the change in schools we will be seeing more of him, as Johnny's does like to push their lead singers in groups.

With Morimoto Shintaro starting high school next year I think it would be safe to say that he will be going to Horikoshi. Especially since his older brother is attending the school. So that would be four out of the six members of the group being eventual alumni of this school. And Shintaro could end up being classmates with Sexy Zone's Matsushima So, as they both turn(ed) 15 this year so they should be in the same grade. That is of course if Matsushima decides to go to Horikoshi of course, as it is an expensive school to go to.

Takada Sho will be in the movie, Sakura, futatabi no Kanako, that will star Japanese actress Hirosue Ryoko and SMAP member Inagaki Goro. Little is known about his part outside of the fact that he has one.

JE News Daily (English)

I am happy for him. Takada's biggest breaks seem to all be with acting so I personally would not mind if he becomes one of those Juniors that take an acting route instead of the usual idol route. Especially as he has never been in a Junior group yet.


Nakayama Yuma is scheduled to perform on Music Station next week.


Glad to see Yuma getting on MSte so quickly. This should hopefully mean he will be on the program at least twice, this once the week before the release and next week when the single is actually released. 

Movie casting news

A couple of announcements about movie castings have come out recently.

First off Kusanagi Tsuyoshi will have a part in the upcoming Japanese movie Suteki na Kanashibari. It doesn't mention what role he has but as the main cast has been announced it probably won't be big.

Tokyograph article. (English)

Akanishi Jin is set to be in the Hollywood adaption of the 47 Ronin movie that will star Keanu Reeves. Jin will play the role of Oishi Chikara, which is one of the more prominent roles in the story.

Tokyograph article. (English)

I'm happy for Jin, as even if his music career doesn't go anywhere in the U.S. if he can get a good foot into movies he may still find success in the States after all. So I hope he does well and the movie as well as it could lead to bigger things for him.

Kazama Shunsuke to star in Visual Kei film.

It's been announced that Junior Kazama Shunsuke will be starring in an upcoming movie where he will play the lead singer of a visual kei band. The movie has already begun filming and is scheduled for a theater release in Japan in February of 2011.

Tokyograph article. (English)

I'm happy for him, as it's probably a good sign that Johnny's is changing in a way that even if one doesn't debut in a singing group that their career with the agency is over or that they won't get the chance to find another way to stand out and be recognized.

Of course I can't help but wonder that if Yamashita Shoon was still with Johnny's if he would be following in the foots steps of Toma and now Kazama and get the chance to become an acting Johnny's.

News round-up

Since I have some free time I figured I should do a quick round-up of news pieces here and there from the past week or so.

First up is that Ikuta Toma's Genji Monotagari film has announced more of the cast and he will be joined by fellow agency member, Higashiyama Noriyuki, who will play the man the author of the original tale is based on used for inspiration.

Tokyo Graph article. (English)


Then Koyama Keiichiro will be starring in a play version of the 0 Go Shitsu no Kyaku drama. The play will only have the story that Koyama had a part in but it mentions that they will have Yokoyama Yu reprise his role via pre-recorded video segments during the play.

The play will run from November 13th to December 5th at the Tokyo Globe Theatre and the from December 17th to the 20th at the Sankei Hall Breeze in Osaka.

Tokyo Graph article. (English)


And then there are a couple of SMAP related pieces of news.

First Inagaki Goro will be in the upcoming drama Nagereboshi, which stars Ueto Aya. He will play her brother in the series.

Tokyo Graph article. (English)


And SMAP has gotten a mention in international news. In a BBC news online article about the recent troubles between Japan and China their canceled Shanghai concerts have a mention as one of the many affects this has had between the two nations.

BBC news article. (English)


Finally a little update about how the photo scanning is going along. I do have them all finally scanned so I just have to sort them all into ZIP files and upload them to a downloading site. Hopefully I'll have the time to do this before the week is over.

Ashita no Joe promo begins

Even though the movie is not due out in theaters in Japan until February of next year promotion of Yamashita Tomohisa's Ashita no Joe movie has begun. So far there is a promo picture of Yamapi in character and on the official website for the movie they have a short 30 second trailer up for the film.

Tokyo Hive article. (English)

Ashita no Joe movie OHP. (Japanese)

Even though it's only a short clip and the promo photo available isn't the greatest of quality I still find it much easier to believe Yamapi as a boxer than I ever could Kamenashi Kazuya when he played on for the One Pound Gospel drama. But that's just my two cents.

Toma to play Genji

It was announced that Ikuta Toma has the lead role in a movie adaptation of The Tale of Genji. The Tale of Genji was written in the Heian period of Japan and is cited as the first Japanese novel. Toma will be playing the lead character Genji in the film and the film is set to be released sometime in 2011.

Tokyo Graph article. (English)

Personally I've read parts of the story and I am curious to how they will do this adaptation because the actions of several characters, especially Genji, are quite questionable for the modern day. I mean I don't think raising a girl as your daughter so you can eventually make her your wife is just not something that does not come off as creepy in this day and age. But considering how long the story is and the length a movie would have to be I'm sure they'll be changing quite a bit of the story anyway.

Sakurai Sho to star in film, Kami-sama no Karute

It has been announced that Sakurai Sho will be starring in an upcoming film titled Kami-sama no Karute. He will be playing a doctor who meets an elderly woman with cancer and the movie shows how he changes from knowing her. The other actor that has been announced for this film is the actress that will play his wife, Miyazaki Aoi.

The movie is slated for a late 2011 theater release in Japan.

Tokyo Graph article. (English)

SP movie starring Okada Junichi

SP looks to be one of those drama franchises that will be sticking around for some time. After a full drama series and a special episode the series will be getting a theatrical version. The movie is being reported as having two parts, so it's technically two movies, with the first slated to begin its run on October 30th with the second part scheduled for a Spring 2011 opening.

Okada Junichi will continue on as the star of the series for both films.

Tokyo Graph article. (English)

Yamapi to star in live action Ashita no Joe movie

It has been announced that Yamapi will be starring in the live action Ashita no Joe movie. Filming for the film will be from March to May and no release date has been given yet. In fact there isn't much other news about the new film other than the filming dates and that Yamapi will be the lead actor.

Anime News Network article. (English)

Personally I'm happy to hear the news, as I'm really hoping NEWS will get to do the theme song for the movie like they did with Kurosagi. And while a release date isn't given I would assume there wouldn't be too much post-production work so it would be released this year which is another reason I want NEWS to do the theme song for it as it would guarantee that they would be releasing at least three singles this year.

And while I'm on the topic of NEWS' singles there has been a date change for the release of Sakura Girl. It will now be released on March 31st instead of March 24th. I think it can be assumed Johnny's made this change because of Avex's announcement that Tohoshinki will be releasing a new single on March 24th and they didn't want NEWS to lose their singles number 1 streak.

Ohkura's film debut and new Kanjani8 live DVD

The rest of the main cast for Ninomiya's upcoming movie, Ooku, has been announced and he will be joined by fellow Johnny's talent Ohkura Tadayoshi. This will be Ohkura's film debut and his character will be the rival for Ninomiya's character.

Tokyograph article. (English)

And Kanjani8 fans have a lot to be thankful for right now as it has been announced that the 2009-2010 Countdown concert in Osaka that the group did will be getting a DVD release. It will release on March 31st and Johnny's net has the listing up, though it doesn't have much information about it yet.

And to give people a heads up, cdjapan does have the recently announced V6 album up for pre-order already. I can only assume that the Kanjani8 DVD will be listed soon seeing that it will release on the same day as V6's album.

EDIT: cdjapan actually already has the Kanjani8 DVD up for pre-order.

Various other news.

Alright, I'm just about caught up finally after I'm done with this post, which makes me happy, though a bit worrying too, as I haven't figured out what to do on a day when there's nothing to report. Though I guess as I have more free time I could go back to working on some simple translations again, which I should do to help practice my Japanese anyway.

But anyway onto the actual news to share.

First off Inohara from V6 has landed a position as a newscaster on NHK's new morning news program that will begin March 29th. This will be the first time a celebrity has been a regular newscaster on a NHK morning news program, which seems pretty impressive as NHK has been doing morning news programs since 1966.

Tokyograph article. (English)


Next in TV news, Kanjani8 will finally have their first national TV program. It will air on TV Asahi on Sunday mornings and will feature the members of Kanjani8 going to different locations all around Japan to showcase the locations.

Tokyograph article. (English)


Then there's a piece of movie news. Nishikido Ryo will finally get to be a lead actor and will make his film debut in the upcoming movie Chonmage Purin. He will play a samurai that somehow winds up going through time to the modern age and then ends up becoming a pastry chef.

It sounds like one of those movies that only with the right script, director and actor could it be pulled off well enough to be enjoyable to me. I think it's a good sign that Ryo is in the cast, as I think he's a good actor, but I think like many I'll have to see and hear more about the movie to judge whether it actually would be worth trying to see.

Tokyograph article. (English)

Ninomiya to star in Ooku movie

It has been announced that Ninomiya Kazunari will be starring in the film adaption of the Ooku manga series. He will play the lead character of the first volume, which will be the only one adapted for this film, Mizuno Hiroyuki.

The manga the movie is based on is by the multi-award winning mangaka Yoshinaga Fumi and has five volumes published so far. It's story is based in medieval Japan where a strange unknown plague has struck that only affects men, severely reducing the male population, which has made women the dominate gender of the nation.

Anime News Network. (English)

I'm rather interested in this film. I don't know a lot about the manga itself, just bits and pieces here and there. Though I do know that the second volume of the manga switches over to a new cast of characters, which is probably why they're doing only the first for this movie. Of course being set in the time period it is it means a good chance Nino is going to have to have the hairstyle for it, which you can see in the ANN link. I have the feeling he'll just wear a wig like most actors do (think Tegoshi and Takaki from Shabake) but I think it'll just look so strange to see him like that.

Arashi in drama special and Kusanagi in a movie

Catching up in news now that I have a little free time, there have a couple of announcements over the past couple of days.

The first is that all five members of Arashi will be in a drama special. An air date hasn't been given other than near the beginning of 2010 and it will air on Fuji TV. The title of the drama will be Saigo no Yakusoku which translates into English as, Last Promise.

Daily Sports article. (Japanese only)

The other announcement is for SMAP's Kusanagi Tsuyoshi, who will starring in an upcoming movie. His co-star is Takeuchi Yoko and the film is titled Boku to Tsuma no 1778 Monotagari, which simply translates to 1778 Stories of Me and My Wife.

The film is based off a true story about a sci-fi author who writes a short story everyday for his wife, who is dying from cancer, after taking a doctor's advice that laughter can help the immune system.

The movie is set to finish filming at the end of December and looks like it will be strongly promoted overseas as a Cannes showing has already been planned for it.

Nippon Cinema article. (English)

After reading the article for this movie it really makes me want to see it, even though I'll probably end up in tears. But this is the kind of tear jerker movie that I'm really weak against so I hope I get a chance to see it.