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 13 February 2005 review

On the final month of this season of Shounen Club, or at least the final month of new content as March only has one lone recap episode. I am hoping for some changes with the new season as things are feeling a bit stale on the program right now.

We get the standard introductions for groups at the start. Toshin Yoshikazu is alone this month as it looks like all of A.B.C. is missing. I can only assume they are busy with some other kind of work as it would be odd to have an entire group missing otherwise.

The theme for the episode is Try. KAT-TUN talk about it, with mainly Kamenashi Kazuya and Akanishi Jin doing the talking. Kame brings up that it is test time in schools while Jin brings up Valentine's day.

For the Try medley only KAT-TUN sings the songs with the rest of the Juniors only back dancing for them. There is really no excuse for this and even though they do cover some songs I love I cannot find myself enjoying the medley much as this seems to be a clear early sign that this is going to be a KAT-TUN heavy episode.

We get introduced to the guests of this episode, NEWS, and this time they have the full eight member roster present for a change.

Koyama Keiichiro and Yamashita Tomohisa are taken to the side of the stage by Kame for a chat. Koyama of course naturally dominates the conversation but Yamapi is able to get in and talk a bit before the stage is ready for them to do their performance of the episode.

NEWS performs one of their album tracks, Say Hello, which is a fun jazzy number. Watching these older performances it is rather interesting to see that the members that have left the group have tended to be the ones that got the most spotlight during these early years.

There is a letter reading segment between Taguchi Junnosuke and Inoo Kei. It is another fun one with Junno being mainly sweet and Inoo's letter having a couple of moments that trolls Junno, who has some great reactions to those.

Ya-Ya-Yah get to sing their song Singin' For You. And if I have noticed anything they tend to switch off with J.J.Express with performances for episodes, so I expect not to see much of them for the second episode of the month because of this.

The VTR segment gives us the return of Ikuta Toma as he supports Inoo as he interviews Imai Tsubasa. Tsubasa definitely has a lot to talk about with being in Endless Shock, having his first solo concert as well as being in the drama Haru to Natsu.

We get to see some clips from Haru to Natsu which looks to be a drama I would love to see as it also has Nakama Yukie as well as the recently departed Mori Mitsuko.

KAT-TUN perform a very un-KAT-TUN-ish song, Oh-E-Oh! Taiyou no Salsa! I honestly think of Tackey & Tsubasa or early NEWS for this type of song, so it seems off that it has been given to KAT-TUN. Worst of all it ends up bring rather boring aside of the Junno-Koki dance battle in the middle of the song.

We are introduced to another set of guests for this episode, Sankyodai, which is made up of Kanjani8 members, Yokoyama Yu, Shibutani Subaru and Yasuda Shota. They get to do an ~ o abake segment, but they are set up for a prank from the start with Uchi Hiroki and Nishikido Ryo being brought on stage after they put the eye masks on. Of course there are plenty of fun moments to this, one being Yasu falling off of his chair for no apparent reason. This is definitely a big highlight to the entire episode.

As they ready the stage for the next performance Jimmy Mackey talks to the members of Question? I am rather surprised to see Question? put up and center like this as FiVe was always stuck in the back and barely recognized in comparison. It is a pity that Q? really could not capitalize on this as much as the other Junior groups and push their way to a debut.

Sankyodai perform the song Mikan, which is Subaru on main vocals, Yasu playing the guitar and backing vocals and Yoko gets to speak some lines in the middle of the song. Or they are playing to each of their own strengths.

Inoo Kei gets to read a letter all about doing your best. I rather like these as they give the younger Juniors a way to stand out a bit.

KAT-TUN then perform the song FEEL YOUR BREEZE which is a cover of a V6 song that was the theme song for Gokusen. It is actually rather fitting as this is the time period where Kame and Jin are in Gokusen 2 the sequel to the popular drama.

For the ending the guys get to play around a bit but still overall it is a snorefest. If anything I am glad that soon I will not have to listen to this song anymore.


With NEWS showing up more and more I hope we are moving closer to when Koyama and Nakamaru Yuichi become hosts of the program. Partly because it was that era of SC that I began watching the program and I am eager to revisit it. That and I know by then KAT-TUN will have debuted and I will no longer have to see one group dominate the show so much until the current SC era begins.

Thinking about changes to the show with the start of new seasons I am gathering hope that we see some of that with the current program. I may love Hey! Say! JUMP but I do not care to see them all over SC and since we have a group like Bakaleya6 that is proving to be a hit perhaps we can see HSJ with a reduced role to make room for them and other Juniors that are rising in popularity. I guess we shall see in April 2013 if this will come to be or not.