Peter's Japan blog

Finally, the title and track list of Perfume newest single is known. It will be called "One-Room Disco" and have a Spring-like danceable sound to it. No covers yet though.

One-Room Disco (CD+DVD)
Catalog: TKCA-73430

1. One-room Disco
2. 23:30
3. One-room Disco -Original Instrumental-
4. 23:30 -Original Instrumental-

One-Room Disco (CD)
Catalog: TKCA-73435

1. One-room Disco
2. 23:30
3. One-room Disco -Original Instrumental-
4. 23:30 -Original Instrumental-

Source: Official Site

In this part, I'll talk a bit about more places I'll (most likely) visit on my next trip to Japan this year.
Like I said in the previous part, I said that I wanted to stay in Kyoto this time in the south as opposed to Osaka the last 2 times. But because of the tight schedule, I won't have much time left to explore many new places in Kyoto itself, except for the first day I arrive in Kyoto. I'll be arriving at noon in Kyoto, so I still have the whole afternoon free. After looking around a bit of things to do in Kyoto (and there are still plenty of things to see), I decided to walk the Path of Philosophy from Nanzen-ji to Ginkakuji (the silver pavillion), which has a few shrines along the way. This should have many good spots for taking pictures. I might also try to do Sanjusangendo on the way.

After Kyoto will probably come Kanazawa and Takayama, and then I'll go to Koyasan (Mount Koya), which has many buddhist temples. These temples have special accomodations for tourists to stay one night in a temple. Sounds interesting and I will try to do that. The next morning I will go straight to my next location, Kumano, which is not far away, but requires quite some travel time. As transportation is not very fast in this area and there are quite a few nice places to visit there, I unfortunatly have to make a choice of just one location before I return to Kyoto. I've chosen Nachi Taisha in Kumano, which is a shrine temple located near a large water fall. I will not be doing the other popular shrine in Kumano: Hongu Taisha, due to time constraints.

More planning, next week!

A member of AHS found some information in the official press kit from Avex, that there are plans to release a new album in March 2009, as of yet untitled.

This might explain why Ayu is spending so much time in Hawaii and LA recording. Although it has not been officially announced on Ayu's website (well, officially from Avex there will be an album, but the timing might be a little different).

Still very excited though, album no 11, here we go! :D

Source: AHS

In my search for more interesting places I haven't been to before in Japan, I have found a few close together. The two places are: and Kanazawa and Takayama. At first I was thinking of doing another place right inbetween them: Shirakawa-go, which has some lovely farm houses you can stay at. But when looking at the travel time between them and having to change hotels every 1 or 2 days, I made the decision to drop Shirakawa-go. Still I had to change hotels too much to be able to really spend time visiting these cities.

Was looking for another large city nearby, and found Nagano, which is not too far from Tokyo, so that was good. But since it quite mountainous there, travel time to Takayama was still a lot. So I decided to take a totally different approach, why not just stay in Kyoto and go by train from and to Kanazawa and Takayama in one day. As Nagano was quite close to Tokyo, I could go there while remaining in a hotel in Tokyo. And the travel time between Kyoto and Kanazawa or Takayama was still within acceptable limits to go to and from in one day. This would make traveling much easier, as I didn't have to check-in and check-out every day and hurl a rather large suitcase every time. Also I wanted to have a hotel in Kyoto this time, and not have to fall back to Osaka (which had cheap hotels but the connection to the station where the Shinkansen stops is terrible).

The schedule is started to shape up nicely, but is still not finalised. Will talk more about other stuff I will be visiting later this week.

Much anticipation for nothing, the alleged second season that was supposed to start in April, will just be a rerun of the first season. Fans are outraged (of course), and all hopes seems lost that a second season will ever take place and that we can believe any info will be real from now on, until the day that the first episode of the second season will actually air.
Just a very small chance might be that they will rerun the first season in April, and start the second season directly after it in the summer. But that will probably just remain wishful thinking... Sorry for the false hope...

Source: Sankaku Complex & ANN

A little bit more details about the exact contents of what will be revealed in the March issue of New Type (which will shop on February 10th).
Apparently, the issue will include an interview the the episode director Yasuhiro Takemoto. From what can be seen on a tv commercial of New Type, the cover reveals that the second season will start in the next anime season, being April 2009.

This really seems so sudden, that it's almost too good to be true. More details about the story and on what part of the light novels that this season is based upon will be revealed in the interview. So we'll have to wait a little longer to know the facts!
This is exciting as I'll be in Japan when it's airing! ;p

Source: AnimeNewsNetwork

The (possible but very likely) cover of RULE/Sparkle was released on Sanspo. It is not known for which version this is the cover for. But it just looks awesome and fits the song RULE very well. And as a great extra bonus, the picture on the CDs will be a drawing of Ayumi made by Akira Toriyama himself!

And also, the official french language trailer of Dragon Ball Evolution, now has RULE playing in the background!!!
I'm soooo going to freak out when I will see the english-language trailer in the movie theatre here with RULE playing in the background :D

Official French trailer: http://www.foxfrance.com/cinema/dragon_ball-14906/14906/

Source: AHS & AHS