Peter's Japan blog

After half a year of waiting, and 1 month delay, my Suzumiya Haruhi 1/8 scale figure has finally arrived! I've taken some quick pictures for now, but I will be doing a photo shoot tomorrow or so :-)
I really like the expression on the face a lot, and the whole gesture perfectly shows Haruhis character. Love it ;p
Have a look:

Read more »

It has been confirmed that Ayumi Hamasaki will release her 42nd single on September 19th 2007. This is only 2 months after the previous release of glitter/fated on July 18th.
The song will be used/previewed in a new upcoming Panasonic Lumix CM. It will be a rock-themed song!

There is also a rumor of a new album to be released November 29th, but this has not yet been officially confirmed. The 29/11 album rumor is false, as it was about 2006, which was "Secret"...

Still very excited about the single though! More news to come! :-)

Here will come the planning, schedule and report of our trip to America in 2008. Last time in May 2006 we undertook a 3 week journey through the South-West from Los Angeles, Las Vegas, the National Parks to San Francisco. This time we will be doing the East coast.

A rough schedule of cities we will be staying are: (Toronto? Niagara Falls), New York, (Baltimore), Philadelphia, Washington D.C., (Columbus/Cincinnati), Nashville, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa & Miami. This is still a rough route which will need to be adjusted to what we can do for sight-seeing in these areas.

Me and my friends who are going with me to the GazettE concert in Cologne, Germany, have decided that we will go in style ;p. Which means, we will be dressed in Visual Kei style ;p.
Since my favorite guy from Gazette is Reita, I will go as Reita. Which means blond hair in front of one eye, a nose bandana, and appropriate clothes. This way we won't stick out too much in the crowd ;p. It was a good thing I had been growing my hair since the end of last year or it would not have been long enough (always had very short hair). I wanted to have a more japanese haircut anyway :).

Now I need to find some clothes, and make a nose bandana :).

You see them all over Japan, in streets, in buildings, in temples and train stations. Boxes against the wall that have this round red light on them that is always on. I have wondered what it was for a long time (as I couldn't read what was written on it). First I thought it was some kind of security system for detecting stuff, but I couldn't figure out what it was detecting. I couldn't think of anything that would be in all of these places.

But now I know: 消火栓 means fire hydrant ;p
So these things are just fire hydrants, and it all suddenly makes a lot of sense.
It's the red light that made them look a bit ominous ;p But it's actually easy to spot them with this light.

While going through one of my old hard drives, I found some of my old drawings, and also one that I colored in CorelDraw. The one I'm showing in this post is a drawing of Sakuraba Aoi from Ai Yori Aoshi. Ai Yori Aoshi was a kind of harem anime, but different because of the chemistry and devotion between the 2 main characters: Sakuraba Aoi & Hanabishi Kaoru.

This drawing is from the opening video of the first series.

Read more »

Just got my ticket today for the GazettE in Cologne, Germany! I'm so excited! It's on October 21st in the Live Music Hall.
the GazettE is a popular Visual Kei J-Rock group. Have a look on their MySpace: The GazettE Official MySpace

Title: glitter / fated
Release dates:
July 18th 2007: Japan

Info: She sang glitter at the final concert of the Asia Tour 2007. (also both songs have already leaked as of June 12th, if you like it, buy the cd and support Ayu!)

Versions + Tracklisting

CD version (Preorder from YesAsia (Global))
1. glitter
2. fated
3. Secret (single version)
4. gitter (instrumental)
5. fated (instrumental)

CD+DVD version (Preorder from YesAsia (Global))
1. glitter
2. fated
3. Secret (single version)
4. gitter (instrumental)
5. fated (instrumental)

dvd: short film "Distance Love" (18 minutes) featuring glitter & fated

Weekly ranking
Week 1: 110165 copies at #1
Week 2: 23826 copies at #4
Week 3: 13311 copies at #15
Week 4: 7133 copies at #28
Week 5: 4844 copies at #25
Week 6: 2494 copies (outside ranking)
Total: 161773 copies

PV Info
- To be shot in the streets of Hong Kong on June 1st. Will be a short movie featuring a HK rising star Shawn Lee (notable roles: Infernal Affairs movies, Initial-D live action movie (the anime is much better though). Infernal Affairs is better known to European & American people as the original to the American remake: The Departed by Martin Scorsese)
- The PV will be 18 (not 15) minutes long, another mini-movie like the Voyage PV.

Tie-ups
glitter: song for new Zespri Gold Kiwifruit CM (streaming video)
fated: ghost story movie? (unconfirmed)

Updates:
May 30th 2007: PV Info
June 12th 2007: PV Info
June 29th 2007: Covers & tracklisting
July 3rd 2007: Title of short film & length
July 25th 2007: Sales of week 1
August 9th 2007: Sales of week 2 & 3
September 3rd 2007: Sales of week 4-6