violetchain

"You invited all my friends - good thinking!" God, how did I miss that gem the first time I watched this movie.

We did 20 a week in my class, plus 1-5 combinations for each character. The quizzes were all on the combinations. Like if we learned 生 that week, during the quiz he would say "isshou" and we would have to write 一生 and the meaning. My professor was constantly saying how little 20 was, which was true in hindsight, but it felt like a ridiculous amount at the time.

Kyo in sweatpants with an erection

I studied Japanese as an elective in university for 3 years, and it's helped a lot with understanding lyrics, anime, blogs, etc. and I made a lot of friends, so I think it was money well spent. I certainly use it a lot more than the French I learned in high school. I can't speak or write very well in Japanese though, so I really need to put more effort into improving in those areas. Unfortunately, I'm super shy in person and I get especially self-conscious speaking another language, so it's hard to motivate myself to practice speaking. I've used Lang-8 a bit to work on my writing, and it helped a lot, so I want to try and get back into doing that. No desire to live in Japan, though. I think I'm really lucky to live where I do.

Late 1990s-early 2000s for me. L'Arc and GLAY hitting their peak as pop-rock bands, Kuroyume moving into their punk phase, Malice Mizer, Psycho le Cemu, Dir en Grey before The Marrow of a Bone ruined them for me... Almost all of my favourite VK and former VK bands were active and doing well during that time period.

Suck a Stew Dry. Finally got around to listening to their new album, and Katakana Talk is so catchy.

Eh, I thought Eric Martin did a good job on "Honey". Or he did the best he could with those cheesy translated lyrics, at least.

Hitomi Yaida covered Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car". Bonus points because she actually translated the lyrics into Japanese. Original: immi covered The Cure's "Lovesong" Takeshi Hosomi does a lot of live acoustic covers on his radio show. I liked the one he did of Weezer's "No One Else" the best, even though he botched the lyrics pretty bad. Jimmy Eat World's "May Angels Lead You In" from a different day: Kazuhiro Momo from MO'SOME TONEBENDER did a cute version of Johnny Thunders' "Sad Vacation" on his first solo album http://www.mediafire.com/listen/fe25ehobv7e1d97/sv.mp3 Balzac covered The Damned's "Smash It Up" for a tribute album

Yeah, that video is so sweet. The scene with Daishi and seek almost made me tear up. I hope there's going to be a DVD of one of the shows. PLC is one of the few VK bands I've never stopped loving.

Really? I always thought it was a great band name. Seemed like a great conversation starter. "Oh yeah, I love Dirty Old Men. I just bought one of their shirts.".

The lyrics to the new RIZE song are amazingly bad, but it still looks like it would be so much fun live.

Shingo Kanehiro from Good Morning America Chiba Yusuke

Not really crazy about the new Backdrop Cinderella song, but the lyrics made me laugh.

I love both, but Kuroyume for sure. I generally find that with SADS Kiyoharu's voice gets grating faster and the songs can drag a bit. If I compare my favourite Kuroyume song (Beams) to my favourite SADS song (Strawberry), I enjoy listening to the Kuroyume track much more. Plus, Kuroyume's music has so much more variety. There's something I can listen to each day. I find I have to really be in the right mood to listen to SADS. There's also a charming goofiness and innocence to Kuroyume at times that you don't get much of in SADS. For example: http://www.jpopsuki.tv/video/Kuroyume---BEAMS/90e5503f7815ec3a8dce1e5100939583 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5w6up_kuroyume-merry-x-mas-i-love-you_music http://jame-world.com/_pic/gal/1340a.jpg http://jame-world.com/_pic/gal/1340j.jpg

Wow, the new concept looks incredibly stupid.

Their costumes still look great, but those special effects...it doesn't help that they're accompanied by loud, obviously fake sound effects that make it look even more like a bad kids show. I've also never understood why Daishi has to climb down from the cloud twice. Did they just do two takes of that and not know which one to choose?

On a side note, the singer just became a dad. http://natalie.mu/music/news/127168 http://the-novembers.com/weblog/2014/7238/ https://twitter.com/THE_NOVEMBERS/status/515846206170206209

Shingo Kuga from LIPHLICH is one of the most intense Kiyoharu fanboys I've ever seen. His reaction after seeing the comment Kiyoharu recorded for LIPHLICH for the SADS tribute album just about says it all: http://youtu.be/kl5riHW6ERo?t=26m47s The interviewer and Wataru are both like "Are you okay? Your legs keep shaking. Are you a girl?" They bring up how he freaked out when he got to meet Kiyoharu and take a picture for the first time in another interview as well. Also, when Wataru was asked what his first impression of Kuga was he just said "Kiyoharu".

Macabre for sure, although I only listened to half of UROBOROS and none of DUM SPIRO SPERO, so those two aren't really in the running for me.

To overflow evidence - portrait Although it's probably going to be about 3 months before it gets here, since I just got an email from CDJapan saying that it's been delayed 3-4 weeks for some reason and I'm too cheap to pay for fast shipping. Oh well, I'm not exactly in a rush to hear it.

Coming Century

Morita Go's snaggleteeth are so cute.

L'Arc~en~Ciel - Blurry Eyes GLAY - Manatsu no Tobira BUCK-TICK - Baby, I Want You KUROYUME - Beams THE BACK HORN - Yume no Hana Thee Michelle Gun Elephant - Revolver Junkies Mr.Children - Surrender These have all stood the test of time for me. First heard most of them in 2006/7, and I still sing along every time they come on.