...Well I do.
Also, Sungmin. <3
Boys I will love forever.
This year’s FNS Kayousai was really a treat for those like me who were really getting into J-pop music in the mid-to-late nineties! With Performances by LINDBERG, KOHMI HIROSE and NOKKO (among others!), it really was a nostalgic night, but for me, the highlight just HAS to be the appearance of one of my all-time favorite j-pop artists Chisato Moritaka (whom I’ve gushed about before here, here, here, and here!) in a cool medley with awesome fellow j-artist alumnus Noriyuki Makihara and featuring a whole slew of artists in for the ride!
Starting things off with a bang with Arashi performing Makihara’s “Fuyu Ga Hajimaru yo”, an AWESOME tune that just gets everyone in a genki mood, the boys themselves look like they’re enjoying it to the fullest!
Soon they’re joined onstage by Makihara himself, and he simply jumps in~ keeping up with the cool and swinging vibe! Watching they perform together, it strikes me how similar their styles are~ it looks like Noriyuki’s up there with younger versions of himself!
Once the song is over, Arashi bows out stage left and are replaced by two pretty vocallists in the form of JUJU and Aoyama Thelma, and they get together with Makihara to perform a ballad with the backing help of the girls in SPEED and the Hexagon All-Stars!!
As they sing, the camera pans out into the audience, and over Noriyuki’s shoulders we see petite Chisato Moritaka enjoying the song, and no sooner has the song ended when they start up with a fave Chisato song, the fun WATASHI GA OBASAN NI NATEMO!
It really was a treat to see the gals in SPEED taking turns singing this song, but the funniest part of the performance has to be when Noriyuki harmonizes with Hiroko, and they sing to each other: “When I’m an Old Lady, You’ll be an old man, too!” Then he pats his stomach as he harmonizes with Eriko singing the line “You won’t be so cool…and You’ll have a pot-belly!!” AHAHA!
Then Noriyuki departs to let the girls take over, and SPEED leads the chorus of gals in a rousing rendition of “Junanasai” before the princess herself, Ms. “Lovely Legs” Chisato Moritaka herself comes onstage to close the medley with one of her very best songs “Watarase Bashi”!!! WOW!!! What a Set!!!
I stopped drawing anything for three months. I have to apply for a job in a fast food restaurant (Carvel, DQ, Dunkin' Donuts, Pizza Hut, etc.) I will buy the domain blog for myself this weekend. :)
What's [really] charming and cute are photos of a "girl who is happy in her father's old boots with untied laces". The boots that I bought 4 years ago have spider webs (ugh, yuck!) in them. I'll get new ones in January or later in the winter. I will make up a wish list for Christmas, then I read the bible. I wonder if one of my nieces wear my old boots because I have this drawing by natasa10 and this photograph by dohreme on Flickr stuck in my head now.
Solange Magnano died last week due to her "rear behind" issues. Kusumi Koharu graduated this month, I will [definitely] miss her. The GBA cover on my DS is missing, hope I get a DSi in the future (no, I don't play GBA games that much).
Edit - 2009/12/14 - I have made my list and the domain blog is ready to be purchased. I should start buying it from Go Daddy. I really don't want ads, just the WordPress blogging tool.
Back when I had just finished watching the awesome movie NANA, I found myself just smitten with actress Aoi Miyazaki, and after watching her adorable wide-eyed portrayal of Nana Komatsu, found myself going online to look up information about this wonderful actress and download pictures of her as well. It was a funny thing though, I found that while all the pictures of Miyazaki were nice and pretty, somehow, something about what I found so fascinating about her in NANA seemed to be missing in the actress’ real-life pics. I related this feeling to my friend who agreed, saying that when he saw pictures of Miyazaki in publicity shots, he realized “Some sort of Magical Makeup seemed to have been lifted”. It was only after stepping back did I realize the problem: I was in love with the character Miyazaki was playing, not the actress herself! Though I would come to love Miyazaki as one of my favorite actresses, at the time it wasn’t Miyazaki I was in love with, but Nana Komatsu!
Which brings us to my current crush of the day.
A few months ago I began watching the Toma Ikuta/ Ohno Satoshi drama “Maou”, the dark story of a devilish lawyer named Naruse Ryo (Ohno) who pushes and manipulates a cop named Serizawa Naoto (Ikuta) who had accidentally murdered Ryo’s brother back when they all were children. Naruse has been systematically threatening and killing off all the people who played a part in not only the actual murder, but all who have helped to get Serizawa off the hook with a “Self Defense” plea.
Amidst all this blood and turmoil, Naruse comes across a quiet and shy girl working in a nearby library who becomes friendly with him through pleasant small talk. He later finds she’s been gifted with a sort of second sight and has been working with Serizawa in the case, interpreting the mysterious tarot cards that he has been sending his victims. Despite this obvious conflict of interest, however, her sweetness and innocence strangely touches his heart.
Her name is Sakita Shiori, and she is a sheltered girl- a girl who attends church and works part-time at a library and lives above a friend’s coffee shoppe. Believing Naruse Ryo to be a straight arrow who can help with the case, she finds herself falling for Naruse, and it is her faith and purity that coaxes out his humanity that has been buried deep inside his heart since his brother was murdered all those years ago.
Well, the “sweet and innocent” image will never get old, and I found myself liking Shiori from the very first episode, and as they developed her character and you got to know her a little bit more, I found myself falling for her the same was that Naruse Ryo was! They always had her dressed in these very girly type of blouses, and I just loved how she looked in each scene she was in! As the story advanced and Shiori began actively pursuing Naruse (i.e. asking to be taken to the festival or stopping by with cookies), she started wearing even sunnier and prettier clothes, and MAN by the time Naruse fell for her, I knew EXACTLY what he was going through because I was there too!
The actress playing Shiori was an equally sweet looking girl by the name of Ryoko Kobayashi [小林涼子], and after watching about five episodes of her playing the shy, naïve psychometre on Maou, deemed her “a real cutie”. Ahahahaha! When relaying this declaration to fellow viewer Car, she agreed that Kobayashi was indeed cute, but added, ‘she sure has some big, guy-sized hands, though!” D’oh! Well, I personally didn’t think so, but big hands or not, she really had gotten to my heart, and I wanted to learn more about her!
So it was at this point that my earlier experience with “Nana” came around again, for, as I began going online looking for pictures of Kobayashi Ryoko, I found the same dilemma I did when looking for those pics of Miyazaki way back when… Something was missing in these pictures of Ryoko-chan!
Why, Kobayashi looked like…a normal girl!
It then hit me that history had happened once again, and I was in love not with Kobayashi Ryoko per se, but her character of Sakita Shiori! I DID find quite a few really nice pictures of Kobayashi, but it seems the girl I love can ONLY be found in the episodes of MAOU!
Ah well, I'm sure the more roles I get to see Ryoko Kobayashi in, the more my admiration will grow, and I’m looking forward to seeing more dramas with this adorable
actress to see what new characters she'll be offering up!
PS…Strangely enough, going online, I found most people referred to Kobayashi Ryoko as “That spooky looking actress with the weird/scary eyes”. Ehhh? A strange label that even Sakita Shiori couldn’t have predicted with all her tarot cards!
Besides discussing the latest drama, she found time to also discuss the allure of Hiroshi Abe, tomatoes, and, in a strange but fun twist on Arashi No Shukudaikun's "Food Tasting" segment, the merits of tuna with Mayonnaise!
Here's the 2009 recap. I was doing the coin toss. I flipped the coin. It was tails, so I will have no more teen years next year in February. There's a countdown for graduation for myself, which is on the Vox's widget sidebar. So, it's "goodbye, surfing the internet (Web 1.0)", and "hello, Web 2.0". Here's what I have been drawing:
The coryrobertsintokyo.net splash page, including the "ENTER" arrow, which takes you to the new blog (which is not ready yet):
I used colored pencils and softlead pencils to make the drawing. Also, this:
I bought my first Arashi album (read this here) from CDJapan, my father was thinking, "Why do you buy CDs from Japan?" The two CDs from that site costs about $60, then my father recommended me to buy the CDs during my Tokyo trip. The only thing to work for money before graduation is applying for a job. So, I will have to apply for a job. Need Arashi's 10 anniversary Vox banners? Here (part 1, part 2). Just remember to credit me ("Cory" or "coryrobertsintokyo" with the blog URL http://coryrobertsintokyo.vox.com).
I'm getting a new camera, it's a Nikon DSLR (it will be bought at Amazon.com, along the new Casio compass watch), they will bought in the future.
Back in the days when The New Mickey Mouse Club was consuming most of my life, I also had a mild passing interest in the Sunday night Crime-drama Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries, the show based on the best selling juvenile fiction novels and starring teenage heartthrobs Shaun Cassidy, Parker Stevenson and Pamela Sue Martin.
Pamela Sue Martin! Like most guys my age, most of the main reason to tune in to the show was to see the pretty sleuth go through the motions, and so when a friend of mine told me he’d picked up the Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries DVD Box Set of the first season, I couldn’t wait to borrow it and take a step back to those childhood crushes of yesteryear!
The show itself was about as much as I’d remembered (the stories themselves were your basic TV mystery drama yarns like Quincy and Charlie’s Angels) and Pamela Sue was as charismatic and pretty as I’d remembered…but there was one person I hadn’t recalled at all, and that was the character of Nancy’s tomboy friend George Fayne.
As all readers of the original Nancy Drew novels know, best friends George Fayne and Bess Marvin usually accompanied Nancy as she went about uncovering clues and solving mysteries, and though I don’t know what became of Bess, it was nice to see (along with “sort-of” boyfriend Ned) some of the other regular book characters making appearances in the show!
The show was paired up with the Hardy Boys show, and so maybe the producers wanted to give Nancy a “partner” in the TV series, and they surely found one in George Fayne! As played by pretty actress Jean Rasey, I found myself loving every scene that George was in, and I think it’s safe to say that (at least at THIS time in my life) she really MADE the show for me!
Jean Rasey! How in the world did I forget about her? This gal was so much fun, and I think she really brought the George character to life! I’d always thought having a girl named “George” was funny reading the books, but to see it attached to this beautiful, sunny girl just made it all the more ironic!
And the thing I loved most about Jean Rasey’s portrayal of George is that she managed to capture the character’s tomboyishness while still managing to look cute as heck! One of the great joys of re-watching the series after all these years is watching George’s stuttering “scaredy-cat” shtick that would give Shaggy a run for his money performed with such cute and spunky gusto!
I was so intrigued by my discovery of Jean Rasey, that I
went right to Wikipedia to find out more about this wonderful actress…only to
find no page exists for her! Man, that is really sad. IMDB still had a bit
about her, though it was disheartening to read that she’d only done a few more
television show appearances (all between 1975-79) and nary a show since! Sigh. Oh Well, I'll always have my Nancy Drew reruns to satisfy me!
BTW...While searching for information, I came across a "Facebook" page featuring a pretty lady named "Jean Rasey"... is this the Jean Rasey?! :)
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