Welcome to this Baka's blog on his fave Japanese Pop Culture interests.
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Hajimemashite minna san....welcome to my site on my fave Japanese Pop Culture likes such as dramas, movies, magazine scans, promo events etc. Mainly concentrate on my faves...Risa Watanabe... Kyoko Saito... Yui Kobayashi....Miyuki Watanabe.... Nene Shida....if you're a fan at all of any of them then you've come to the rightplace(!) but many others are featured here besides them. Do mainly quick reviews on things I've watched, try to make the reviews brief, quick to read through with not too many spoilers, just whether they're good or bad and why I thought so plus whether you may find them enjoyable. Many, many screenshots are included from everything I've watched plus any video trailers if they're available. Hope you find something that interests you, don't hesitate to comment, arigato gozaimasu!
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Saturday, November 25, 2023
Hinatazaka46: A little of this and that for 2023 #15....
Will confess I wouldn't mind seeing a second photobook from Hina, many others probably do too as the post for it has the second highest total of views for any '46' book over the last three years. The title says post #15 but it's closer to 25 as there have been many for the 'Uni's on Air' game and that may be the feature of the next group post. Didn't want to go a second day in a row with just one post so this ended up being a bit of a 'spur of the moment' post though it should end up being a decent one and much larger than expected.
Have a little bit of many things and will begin off with these four new IG pics from Kyoko. Seldom include her things in these group posts but these photos are just so darn terrific had to have these, WHEW!!!! Her next post will be for this year's faves list and haven't decided yet which position she'll be in, either third of fourth. But will also soon be recapping her current drama "Nukarumi no Shokutaku" and its sixth episode just aired. Am also undecided on what to do with this series, start posting about it in about two weeks or wait until all ten episodes have aired?
Hina's third album, second since the name change, has only been out for seventeen days so will wait a bit longer to reveal the sales numbers to make any comparisons meaningful. Except for one recent solo magazine spread the group captain Kumi hasn't been mentioned that often the last few months in these posts. Will do something for her in January as on the 22nd of that month she will be celebrating her 28th birthday and I would really like to see her remain until she hits the age of thirty. She has been a model for the Ray magazine, there were no new modeling pics at their site for a while but do have some new ones here along with a few from a couple of months back and that first one gets the 'Nao Seal of Approval'!
Have a pair of fourth generation members who I don't think have ever had any solo pics in these posts. First up is Mitsuki Hiraoka who is the oldest 4G member and will be hitting the age of 22 in April. None of the 4G gals have an IG page so all post pics at the Hina group blog, these are all recent and look super to me and many will like the bottom two. Mikuni is in the first pic and brought her name up for hopefully in a week or so will have her first ever solo post.
More Mitsuki and these are some Hina group cards from a few months back. She hails from the prefecture of Fukui and is the only member ever to come from there, it's in the SW of Japan and looks to be directly north of Osaka. Do have one more new member's cards and they're for Haruka who is the second oldest of the new gals.
Haruka comes from Aichi and so doesn't this year's #1 fave though don't think it means anything! She has the only new solo spread for today which is from the December issue of EX-Taishu. You can see that the cover girl is Shiho and on Monday will be having her next solo post.... it may happen tomorrow if I can't find anything else to post about....
As mentioned the next group post may be for December's 'Uni's on Air' game pics. You would think that Christmas would be the theme however at their site were these new promo pics for the game. They're a collaboration with the Lawson convenience store chain and wonder if these will be the member's pics for December? At the site were these three third generation members who are Hinano, Marie and Haruyo, will save Mikuni's for her solo post. The fourth generation has been getting such a big push since they entered Hina but I've noticed we've been seeing so, so many more pics featuring the 3G members the last few months. That's okay as they were semi ignored for a while, Hinano has been getting most of the attention as she had a photobook and was the center for the last single.
There's been so few events the last three years outside of those huge fashion shows, actually Kyoko has appeared at three regular events the last few months. But three days ago this six pack of members appeared at the 'MTV VMAJ 2023 pre-show' event held at the Pia Arena MM in Kanagawa. The group won the 'Best Cinematography' award for their "Am I Ready?" single which is fine but would have preferred a musical award but their 2023 singles weren't quite as good as previous years. However the members did look terrific to me and just for once it would be nice to see them and other '46' groups appear at an event wearing something besides their uniforms. Not too many solo pics and also at the event was Keya, now their new uniforms are so fabulous to me.
Will end off once again with a mini recap for the group's 'Aimashou' variety show. Had been warned this wasn't the best of episodes and that warning was correct but had posted the first half of this two episode challenge so why not do the second? This episode aired on October 29th and was show #234, TeamHinatasubs have been doing this show for years. May be good to view the previous group post which has most of the details for this challenge which was of the members creating an idea and storyboard for a CM, the product could be real or fictional. A total of eight members had the time to show their proposals, if the co-host Kasuga liked the presentation it could be acted out. He always get a lot of screen time, often more than the members and think in this episode he set a new record for screen time! When the last show ended Mikuni had pitched an idea for Idols to appear in a shampoo CM and that was a bright thought as I don't think that's ever happened. There wasn't enough time in the previous episode to finish the presentation so that's where this show picked up from and the best idea will become a CM in a future show.
I would have picked Mikuni's idea as the best but don't think it was even close! She picked three members to be the models for her CM, all did well but Suzuka did give Kasuga a run for his money with how corny she was! At the bottom are the screenshots from this episode, you can just view them to get a better understanding of the story as they do go in order of the action. Mirei had the next CM presentation which was called 'Shine Muscat Heist' which was a story of four sisters stealing some Muscat from a restaurant. There was no live segment of this as she didn't prepare a script, the idea was just so-so but in a live setting may have turned out better. Miku's presentation also had a lot of potential and at first thought this could end up being the best. It was called 'Duel in the West', not a gunfight at the OK Corral but a duel at who could pick out Sushi with Wasabi in it! It ended up just being so-so segment but I still like Miku so much and she just may end up being my #2 fave of the year! Last up was Hiyori and her idea was another one of the 'could have been better' segments. "Cupid" was the title of her CM where at a train station she dropped(on purpose) her package of Mentaiko aka Pollock. A male attendant would pick it up and a romance may begin because of that. The problem with these so-so segments was that Kasuga was featured in every one and a member easily could have played that male attendant which would have made it so much more entertaining. In the end Kasuga chose Mirei's pitch as the best and it will be made in to a future video, in part one Nao and Shiho also had solid ideas which could have been number one. After rhe screenshots is a new video that was uploaded to Hina''s newish YT channel a few days ago, it features the fourth generation members practicing for their solo concert that will take place on November 30th. Some older members were also there viewing it and giving the members some needed advice.
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