Cell phone drama!

Call the drama llama, Japan is bringing the drama directly to your ketai. Fuji TV's 2008 drama "Loss Time Life" is returning in the form of a ketai "mini-drama." This "mini-drama" will be about 5 minutes long and is being produced by mobile operator KDDI and media company ROBOT Communications. This is the first any mobile phone company has produced a drama.

The original "Loss Time Life" is about a mysterious referee that appears in front of dying individuals and lets them know when their time is up. They must then decide how they want to spend the remainder of their days. It's a really heart-wrenching drama-- the best kind of drama, IMHO.

You can download the episode in April. Provided you live in Japan, of course.

Namie Amuro is a fan of the Doctor, too

Namie Amuro's new single, which will be released in Japan March 18th, 2009, is all about the Doctor.

Okay, it's not directly related to the BBC's hit sci-fi series Doctor Who. The name of the song is "Dr" and it's about a man named Dr. Chronos who travels through time and space with his companion. Yeah... Try and tell me that's not Tom Baker material. It's also going to be Namie's first ever fully animated PV. In on the fun are some of Japan's hottest animators from movies, CMs and even video games. In on the fun are people who have worked on "Dragon Quest," "AKIRA," "Steamboy," and "Pokemon." Another fun fact is Shuichi Sato, known for many Japanese Vidal Sassoon CMs, is the project leader.

The PV is set on Earth in the year 3000 A.D. The planet was left in ruins due to weapons of mass destruction and enviromental devastation. Namie's character is awoken from stasis by Dr. Chronos. She then travels through time to deliver the message to the people in the past. She travels to 2500 A.D, 2200 A.D. and finally 2000 A.D where she finally delivers the message to a young girl. Check out some screen shots right here at barks.jp.



And, of course, since it's a Namie joint she's laid down some phat beats. I for one am totally stoked for this one. Above is a fan mash-up of previous Namie PVs to the song "Dr."

I'm getting it on March 18th, sho nuff.

[via Tokyograph]

Arashi sells half a million in a WEEK. WOW!

Johnny's Entertainment super group Arashi shot to the top of the Oricon charts this past week selling over 502,000 records. Their single "Believe / Kumori Nochi, Kaisei" is so far the best selling single in 2009. I can see why, it's a great track.



This single is a really great track. It's catchy and upbeat, and of course the video features super cute boys, so how could I possibly resist? Not just me, but apparently over half a million Japanese people, too.



Now Satoshi Ohno's song "Kumori Nochi, Kaisei" is a super cute song. It makes me want to skip through a meadow filled with flowers. No joke. It's just such a great feeling song. As usual, it's a very well produced track.

Johnny Kitagawa must be swimming in a pool of money Scrouge McDuck-style.

[via Tokyograph]

I love you Marvel

I love you because you're bringing over Spiderman, the Japanese live action tokusatsu. When my buddy King Ranger over at Tokuraws sent me the link, I quite literally shat bricks. I mean... I never EVER thought I'd see the day when I'd see a legit subbed version of the Spiderman toku. This toku is usually what my friends and I lol about when we talk about infamous Toku.

I can't tell you how excited I am about this. Although, be warned -- this version of Spiderman is completely independant of Marvel's comic book adaptation. Our Japanese Spidey's name is Takuya Yamashiro, like many older henshin heroes, he rides a motorcylce, he's given the power to henshin (transform) and also controls the awesome spaceship Marveller that tranforms into a giant robot named Leopardon in order to fight against the Iron Cross Army. This show is very much in the vein of old school Kamen Rider, so be warned -- lots of cheesy poses and explosions.

You can catch the original Japanese Spiderman subtitled every Thursday at the official Marvel website.

Memory Lane: Old School Morning Musume CMs

While randomly surfing through the Tube of You, I came across a blast from the past: Old Morning Musume CMs. For those you don't know who Morning Musume are, they are one of Japan's most popular girl groups and even after 10 years and a revolving door style of members, they still sell an assload of records. It goes without saying that any girl involved with this group or any group managed by Hello! Project has endorsed a significant amount of products in her time as a member of H!P.

So as I was saying, the Daughters of the Morning CMs made me reminisce on the good ol' days when Mari Yaguchi brightened up the set of Hello! Morning with her smile and attitude, when Maki Goto was just nothing but cute and also before the two sweetest cupcakes, Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji, left H!P because Kago was caught smoking underage and Tsuji got married and had Ultraman's baby. These are all tru verifiable fax.

So, without further ado, here are some Pocky CMs to kick off my first post here.







One of my favorite CMs only because I am addicted to Mousse Pocky.

God... I miss Morning Musume pre-2006. *emo tear*