{"id":6720,"date":"2013-01-01T16:41:36","date_gmt":"2013-01-02T02:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.studionewmedia.com\/blog\/?p=6720"},"modified":"2014-01-01T22:17:41","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T08:17:41","slug":"2013-63rd-annual-nhk-kohaku-uta-gassen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/01\/01\/2013-63rd-annual-nhk-kohaku-uta-gassen\/","title":{"rendered":"2013 63rd Annual NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here we go for another music extravaganza from Japan.\u00c2\u00a0 With the declining economy, the presentation has been getting progressively sparser, but hopefully the talent will shine and carry the day.\u00c2\u00a0 We&#8217;re doing this live, so bear with the typos and frequent updates!\u00c2\u00a0 <em>Ikimassho<\/em>!<!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00c2\u00a0Hamasaki Ayumi &#8211; Okay, the first note out of her mouth was off-key.\u00c2\u00a0 Her voice was trembling &#8211; forced &#8211; not with skilled tremolo or vibrato, but instead the inability to hold a note.\u00c2\u00a0 Lots of &#8220;Dreams Come True&#8221; shouting-to-the-audience when she knew she couldn&#8217;t sing the pitch.\u00c2\u00a0 Again with the horrid outfits, but as she is becoming dumpy and frumpy in her old age, she is starting to look like a haggared\u00c2\u00a0Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke.\u00c2\u00a0 Her outfits were obviously trying to hide her expanding midriff.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: my ears&#8230;. How is that she keeps getting to open the Kohaku?)<\/li>\n<li>NYC &#8211; I don&#8217;t really like their stuff, but once again, if they are actually doing this live and not lip-synching, these guys are totally talented.\u00c2\u00a0 Not one off note!\u00c2\u00a0 Their choreography is spot on, and one dude can do some pretty impressive back flips!\u00c2\u00a0 (root: my eyes! The live projection background freaked me out, attack of the clones!)<\/li>\n<li>SKE48 &#8211; Akimoto Yasushi&#8217;s Sakae, Nagoya &#8220;48&#8221; idol stage group pulls off the same magic as their Akihabara cousins.\u00c2\u00a0 Energetic, cute, and well rehearsed, their choreography is only surpassed by their on-key performance.\u00c2\u00a0 Really, if they are doing this live and not just dancing to a recording, then they are impressively talented.\u00c2\u00a0 (mmmm, crosseyed&#8230;. Don&#8217;t care for the skirts, dissappointed that those didn&#8217;t go away mid song)<\/li>\n<li>Golden Bomber &#8211; A visual-kei air band?\u00c2\u00a0 WTF?\u00c2\u00a0 You&#8217;d figure if they weren&#8217;t actually playing the instruments, they&#8217;d at least get some singing lessons.\u00c2\u00a0 The music was not terrible though, but more in the disco-rock genre.\u00c2\u00a0 I could imagine this song as a theme song for some terrible primary-colored kids anime with pokey hair.\u00c2\u00a0 I don&#8217;t know how these guys managed to get invited when more established groups (even some of questionable talent like DCT) didn&#8217;t make the short list.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: WTF is right! I&#8217;ve seen fan groups do a better shtick! Heck, the K-On voice actress concert was more convincing!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(root: Introducing the celebrity panel &#8211; woah, the olympic\u00c2\u00a0women&#8217;s wrestling medalist was as manly as the mens relayist was girly! That&#8217;s what Yoko Kanno looks like, somehow that&#8217;s not what I expected, she looks like someone&#8217;s mom!)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>AAA (&#8220;Triple A&#8221;) -\u00c2\u00a0Still not really on-key, they are getting progressively better.\u00c2\u00a0 Heck, considering the fanbase DCT still has after hearing their terrible flat live performances, these guys are ace!\u00c2\u00a0 Their material is really weak though, like\u00c2\u00a0if the original\u00c2\u00a0was the Black Biscuits\/Pocket Biscuits generation of pop, current K-pop girl bands are the dull reflection of the original, and Triple A is the thin shadow of the copy.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: that was weak, maybe not ear cringing, but super ordinary. The floral camo outfits also I don&#8217;t think worked very well. Like camo it was shape hiding and confusing)<\/li>\n<li>Nakashima Mika &#8211; The low notes on this song were too low for her.\u00c2\u00a0 Fail.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: oh lord, my ears are cringing here! I don&#8217;t know if I can sit through this, I&#8217;m about ready to scan forward&#8230; the sparkly lights can hold my attention only so long&#8230; oh good, it over!)<\/li>\n<li>Nidaime J Soul Brothers &#8211; This Hiro from EXILE produced group surpasses their forefathers in actually being somewhat on-key.\u00c2\u00a0 Their dancing and serious facial expressions are still laughable.\u00c2\u00a0 At least there are only 4 out of 7 who are just background garnish.\u00c2\u00a0 These guys are apparently the second of three &#8220;generations&#8221; of J Soul Brothers groups.\u00c2\u00a0 Eh.\u00c2\u00a0 Whatever.\u00c2\u00a0 I just don&#8217;t care.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: what do these guys have stuck up their butts?)<\/li>\n<li>Mizuki Nana &#8211; Solidly on-key in her giant gosurori dress.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The song is in her typical anime theme song genre, but it is actually vocally challenging with a\u00c2\u00a0wide pitch range.\u00c2\u00a0 She is so definitely meter-sticks above hacks like Hamasaki on the talent scale!\u00c2\u00a0 Again, I hope that this goes to reinforce the concept that something can come from the anime arena and still be legitimate.\u00c2\u00a0 Talent that comes from that direction is generally dismissed by the industry, even like in mainstream music stores.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: yup, solid performance. She even manages to move a bit and look natural in that dress, as opposed to Ham-asaki&#8217;s flailing about.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Oh no!\u00c2\u00a0 The first intermezzo has a Disney theme!\u00c2\u00a0 Don&#8217;t y&#8217;all know Uncle Walt hated non-whites?\u00c2\u00a0 Arashi does the Mickey Mouse theme song.\u00c2\u00a0 OK, seeing AKB 48 doing &#8220;Supercalifragilistic&#8221; wasn&#8217;t too bad with the volume turned down.\u00c2\u00a0 OK, who were those Johnny&#8217;s guys?\u00c2\u00a0 Kanjani 8?\u00c2\u00a0 Did they do anything other then slide out on stage in yellow outfits?\u00c2\u00a0 Perfume without autotune was not terrible.\u00c2\u00a0 Scary, yet hot.\u00c2\u00a0 Mickey is evil.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s weird how a public broadcaster is teaming with\u00c2\u00a0a giant corporation for what is a thinly-veiled commercial tie-in.\u00c2\u00a0 I guess in Japan the public&#8217;s fondness or attachment to a franchise trancends corporate concerns?\u00c2\u00a0 (root: got to hand it to those character suit actors being able to perform like that- OH! excuse me must watch now, frilly&#8230; fuzzy&#8230; boots! Nice to see Perfume seems to be moving away from the robot thing. Hey hey dude, are you copping a Mickey feel?!)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>FUNKY MONKEY BABYS\u00c2\u00a0&#8211; Spin, scratch, sing!\u00c2\u00a0 Do something, mister DJ!\u00c2\u00a0 They were pretty good this year.\u00c2\u00a0 I guess part of that was being bombarded with this song on 97.1 FM.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: maybe if goofy guy actually did something other than be goofy, they wouldn&#8217;t have to be saying goodbye? Just WTF does he do?!)<\/li>\n<li>Fuji\u00c2\u00a0Ayako &#8211; Female contemporary vocal from\u00c2\u00a0some uplifting, inspirational anime about a little dog?\u00c2\u00a0 Must be some NHK program I haven&#8217;t seen.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: nothing to fault in performance, well done but nothing really memorable or powerful. Little Charo?)<\/li>\n<li>HY &#8211; Contemporary vocal duet with a folksy bent.\u00c2\u00a0 Female vocal is on it throughout the range, but male vocal has issues up high.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: the Denny hair is unfortunate. The dude might be ok, but the chick has such power she totally overwhelms him. Looks like she could physically too, but no arguements regardless, she can sing!)<\/li>\n<li>Mizumori Kaori &#8211; Solid enka performance in spite of being elevated to the skies on the giant telescoping dress of doom!\u00c2\u00a0 I guess she is taking over for\u00c2\u00a0Kobayashi Sachiko\u00c2\u00a0for the techno-dress spot?\u00c2\u00a0 (root: Hey! It&#8217;s Roy with long hair and a hat! Except I don&#8217;t think Roy has the super emo aura of this dude. I was expecting there to be a galactic reaction having him with super exuberant Mizuki Nana. I bet Hamasaki was all jelly, how come my dress isn&#8217;t that big? Because you can&#8217;t even dream to sing like this!)<\/li>\n<li>Naoto Inti Raymi &#8211; Nakamura Naoto uses this stage name from the incan word for\u00c2\u00a0&#8220;the festival of the sun&#8221;.\u00c2\u00a0 Average male pop vocal with the occasional lapse into autotune.\u00c2\u00a0 Whee.\u00c2\u00a0 Forgettable.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: again, I don&#8217;t know who was more manly, this dude or the women&#8217;s soccer star)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(root: ooh, a women&#8217;s olympian that&#8217;s cute! we like ping pong! Sorry, table tennis?)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kouda Kumi &#8211; It&#8217;s unfortunate that I&#8217;ll forever associate this song with the terrible anime that it is a theme song from, since it is really not a bad song.\u00c2\u00a0 It is not particularly vocally challenging, and it is rather repetitious.\u00c2\u00a0 She is doing this live though, as she came in late at one point and the recorded backing vocals could be heard\u00c2\u00a0before her.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: thank you! Please stick with the rump bopping, booty shaking skankyness, no ballads please! Although this isn&#8217;t one of her better ones, I&#8217;ll take it over any of her ballads! And yes, I actually watched that horrible anime all the way through, dunno why?!)<\/li>\n<li>Hosokawa Takashi &#8211; OK, I&#8217;ve been looking forward to this enka performance.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s even better with Momoiro Clover Z doing the back dancing!\u00c2\u00a0 Let me go enjoy this without typing&#8230;\u00c2\u00a0 Whoa <em>Momoclo<\/em>, those were some rather rude poses for an enka song!\u00c2\u00a0 (root: ok, that was rather fun! Were they always Z? Ah no, that was a change in the last two years. Wonder if the old lady in the panel was cracking up over Momoclo&#8217;s antics. One of those amusing juxtaposing of the yosakoish dancing that was pretty fitting for the song, but with idol girls in idoling outfits doing it! Worth a rewatch, be back in a few!)<\/li>\n<li>Kouzai Kaori &#8211; Full-range female enka performance.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m glad that there is a young guard picking up the torches handed to them by the outgoing generation.\u00c2\u00a0 Enka will live on!\u00c2\u00a0 (root: nothing to fault in this straighforward enka performance. No backing dancers here.)<\/li>\n<li>Porno Graffitti &#8211; Wow, these guys are looking like some oyaji band now!\u00c2\u00a0 A pretty on-key acoustic ballad this year for them.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: not bad, didn&#8217;t want to fast forward, but I also did something else while it played in a backgound window)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(root: hm, judo girl cleans up ok, still a bit scary. Not as severely manly as some of those other olypians)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nishino Kana &#8211; High-pitched and tiny.\u00c2\u00a0 Very good performance.\u00c2\u00a0 It would be good if she doesn&#8217;t continue down the Hamasaki-dress road that she seems to have started down.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: enjoyable poppy performance, although it almost had me move away from the window. The BG animated character kind of bothered me)<\/li>\n<li>Tachi Hiroshi &#8211; Big band tribute to the late Ishihara Yuujiro (brother of controversial (okay, bourgeoisie ass) Tokyo mayor Ishihara Shintaro), actor in films like <em>Taiyou no Kisetsu<\/em> and <em>Kurutta Kajitsu<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Kodai Natsuko &#8211; The enka vibrato queen is back again this year with a melancholy yet resolutely strong piece.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: the backing AKB48 dancing here wasn&#8217;t the greatest, it looks like they didn&#8217;t have a whole lot of rehersal time, and it&#8217;s a style they&#8217;re not familiar with)<\/li>\n<li>Mori Shinichi &#8211; One of Japan&#8217;s greatest tenors returns looking noticably older this year.\u00c2\u00a0 His voice runs from almost breathless lows to resounding highs.\u00c2\u00a0 Well done.\u00c2\u00a0 Emphatic.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: sounds like he missed a couple notes, but what do i know of enka.)<\/li>\n<li>Ayaka &#8211; Contemporary female pop vocal.\u00c2\u00a0 Somewhat melodramatic, but she keeps it on key, even though she is only working within one octave and an occasional falsetto.\u00c2\u00a0 Meh.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: where&#8217;s that folksy gaijin looking chick? Wasn&#8217;t really my thing, but couldn&#8217;t deny that she was pretty good. Ayaka is really quite meh in comparison)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Uh-oh, the second intermezzo.\u00c2\u00a0 Drat!\u00c2\u00a0 Too many names&#8230; Hey, there&#8217;s Nishida Toshiyuki!\u00c2\u00a0 It appears to\u00c2\u00a0be a Tohoku earthquake recovery inspirational song.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: the old futs socked it to the young uns there, those other three sucked royally!)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kanjani 8 &#8211; Oh, darn it!\u00c2\u00a0 I went to the kitchen to get some dinner and I missed it.\u00c2\u00a0 Okay, I&#8217;m not sad I missed it at all!\u00c2\u00a0 From the little I saw, they don&#8217;t suck as bad as SMAP.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: started out good enough with the taiko and matsurish stuff but degenerated into typical boy group stuff)<\/li>\n<li>Momoiro Clover Z &#8211; Okay, they&#8217;re rather annoying in interview. They&#8217;re not particularly cute, so it is hard to forgive them for singing off-key.\u00c2\u00a0 They are fine for the parts where they are essentially talking and not singing, or yelling, but the melodic parts give them problems.\u00c2\u00a0 They also suffer from the typical girl-ensemble issue of not harmonizing, but singing the exact same part instead.\u00c2\u00a0 They can&#8217;t hold a talent candle to any of the 48 groups.\u00c2\u00a0 (root:\u00c2\u00a0now I know why I never really payed much attention to them, they aren&#8217;t that great. The glowing eye thing was pretty weird though)<\/li>\n<li>TOKIO &#8211; Wow, that&#8217;s the most pitch-perfect performance I&#8217;ve heard from them!\u00c2\u00a0 They were even harmonizing!\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m impressed!\u00c2\u00a0 Are they getting better with age?\u00c2\u00a0 (root: are we watching the same kohaku? The start really hurt, the got ok once everyone was singing. Nice 5 string!)<\/li>\n<li>Perfume &#8211; If you want to know where all the lame K-pop girl groups stole their dance moves from, look no further than Perfume.\u00c2\u00a0 The vocals are sounding a lot less synthetic&#8230; and whoa!\u00c2\u00a0 LED dresses!\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8230; I&#8217;m speechless!\u00c2\u00a0 They&#8217;re still a little scary&#8230; yet fascinating at the same time.\u00c2\u00a0 Aaah!\u00c2\u00a0 Still the SAME shoes!\u00c2\u00a0 WTF!\u00c2\u00a0 (root: nice that they&#8217;re moving away from the robo dancing and singing. Wah! Same reaction here, LED! I&#8217;m&#8230; captivated!)<\/li>\n<li>Kobukuro &#8211; Wow, they&#8217;re sounding good live this year.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe again it&#8217;s from hearing this repeatedly on 97.1 for the past several months.\u00c2\u00a0 Ooh, guitar guy bobbled a little there.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: pretty good, hmm, some dissonance there at the end Mr. Sulu. Oh, gotta stop writing, look who&#8217;s next!)<\/li>\n<li>AKB48 &#8211; Sounds like they borrowed Perfume&#8217;s autotune machine&#8230; I can&#8217;t dislike this&#8230; in any way whatsoever.\u00c2\u00a0 I guess\u00c2\u00a0I need some of their CD&#8217;s at some point&#8230;\u00c2\u00a0 (root: Fiah! Thank you for losing the serious faces quickly! More is better? Yes!)<\/li>\n<li>Gou Hiromi &#8211; The little guy looks like he&#8217;s had some cosmetic surgery done.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn&#8217;t look as old as he did last year.\u00c2\u00a0 He&#8217;s got some talent, but that&#8217;s sort of suffused with a good amount of camp.\u00c2\u00a0 At least it doesn&#8217;t seem like he takes himself too seriously, or maybe that&#8217;s part of the packaging?\u00c2\u00a0 (root: it&#8217;s hard to dislike him, the stuffs catchy. Cosmetic surgery! Come on, he&#8217;s asian, no need!)<\/li>\n<li>aiko &#8211; Flat!\u00c2\u00a0 Singing, not figure! ..okay, maybe both.\u00c2\u00a0 Her off-key-ness is only outshined by her terrible pacing.\u00c2\u00a0 Her dancing is almost as awkward as Mochida Kaori.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: I think that&#8217;s her shtick)<\/li>\n<li>Itsuki Hiroshi &#8211; Woo hoo!\u00c2\u00a0 I guess I&#8217;m &#8220;turning oyaji&#8221; if this is one of the high points of the show for me!\u00c2\u00a0 Heck, when his songs come on on KZOO 1210 AM (they don&#8217;t play enka on 97.1 FM), I can identify him by voice!\u00c2\u00a0 The song has &#8220;blues&#8221; in the title, but it is more &#8220;samba&#8221;.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: He&#8217;s the man! How can he not be the man when surrounded by AKB48 &amp; knee-high boots!)<\/li>\n<li>Kyary Pamyu Pamyu &#8211; Also known as Caroline Charonplop Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, is the stage name of techno-pop idol girl Takemura Kiriko.\u00c2\u00a0 If this isn&#8217;t lip-synched, she is really good, even though the songs aren&#8217;t complicated.\u00c2\u00a0 Disturbing costumes.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: aah! She&#8217;s made it to the kohaku! Still trying to figure out if I like her stuff or not, the videos got weird psychedlic imagery going on, but can only take so much of the music)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The third intermezzo features Arashi and their song &#8220;Furusato&#8221;.\u00c2\u00a0 Hey, it&#8217;s Kusama Yayoi!\u00c2\u00a0 Their singing was not off on this live performance, but it is totally melodically derivitive of their previous portfolio, so it&#8217;s like singing the same old song with different lyrics.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Of course that&#8217;s Arashi&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tokunaga Hideaki &#8211; A vocally rich rendition of Ue o Muite Arukou.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: nicely done. A good singer doing a classic song, can&#8217;t go wrong)<\/li>\n<li>Yuki Saori &#8211; Performing in Portland with Pink Martini with her flawless voice.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: what can you say when the opening notes does that brings goosebumps to skin feeling. You&#8217;d imagine that birds would stop and perch in the trees, the bunnies would come bounding out of their hutches, the world within ear range would stop for the brief minutes of wonderment)<\/li>\n<li>Saitou Kazuyoshi &#8211; Exceptional performance if his 70&#8217;s retro &#8220;Yasashiku Naritai&#8221; in his Kohaku debut.\u00c2\u00a0 The song has a pretty frenetic, breathless pace with no significant vocal pauses.\u00c2\u00a0 I should look for this on CD too.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: pretty cool, hear this on radio all the time, every time I hear it I keep wondering if I&#8217;ve heard it somewhere before)<\/li>\n<li>Tendou Yoshimi &#8211; The Kansai enka queen is\u00c2\u00a0 is back again this year with a flaming &#8220;Souran Matsuribushi&#8221;.\u00c2\u00a0 Okay, that just doesn&#8217;t sound good.\u00c2\u00a0 She never fails to deliver with her powerful voice.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: who doesn&#8217;t dig a soranbushi done with flawless power!)<\/li>\n<li>YUI &#8211; Solo vocal with acoustic guitar.\u00c2\u00a0 Somewhat generic folksy repetitious melody.\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently it charted and got her a debut on the show though.\u00c2\u00a0 Meh.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: kinda painfull, and she keeps looking like she&#8217;s trying to squeeze one out)<\/li>\n<li>Hikawa Kiyoshi &#8211; The next Kitajima Saburou is taking to his role in the enka world well.\u00c2\u00a0 I kind of missed seeing\u00c2\u00a0Jero\u00c2\u00a0this year.\u00c2\u00a0 I don&#8217;t know who is the better enka singer.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: Kiyoshi&#8217;s losing the boyish look, he&#8217;s actually looking downright old. Better than last year though, he looked kind of haggard then!)<\/li>\n<li>Sakamoto Fuyumi &#8211; a contemporary rendition of the classic &#8220;Yozakura Oshiki&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Arashi &#8211; On-key, but this is a medly of all their previous hit singles, so they darned well better have it down by now.\u00c2\u00a0 There are a lot of vocal effects and autotune, so I really wonder if it is live vocals though.<\/li>\n<li>Miwa Akihiro &#8211; an unusual narrative song with a traditional folksong melody.\u00c2\u00a0 Another debut.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: weird, it felt almost like a poetry reading sometimes. )<\/li>\n<li>Wada Akiko &#8211; Still forceful as ever, she seems to be struggling less this year with staying on-key than last year.\u00c2\u00a0 Might be time for the earpiece, as she has issues at low-volume parts where she might not be able to hear her own voice above the instruments.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m glad she did well this year.\u00c2\u00a0 I was half-expecting a train wreck, and was\u00c2\u00a0relieved that didn&#8217;t happen.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: some pretty rough spots, but who&#8217;s to argue with Wada-san! Plus its an emotional tribute)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The fourth intermezzo.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s two parts.<\/p>\n<p>Great.\u00c2\u00a0 MISIA live from the desert in Namibia.\u00c2\u00a0 Considering all the wind noise with the SAME MIC there was during the interview portion, there is no way this is live singing!\u00c2\u00a0 I feel ripped off!\u00c2\u00a0 I don&#8217;t think this is live mic in the desert with in-line reverb added.\u00c2\u00a0 Okay, maybe.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: I want to see the booms they used!)<\/p>\n<p>Yazawa Eikichi!\u00c2\u00a0 Growling, old-school blues-based rock and roll!\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s always\u00c2\u00a0good to hear him perform.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: did he have a concert here in recent memory? I bet he gets all the chicks, granny in the panel was rockin out!)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>EXILE &#8211; It&#8217;s the same old song they performed last year, but at least last year it offset that nationalistic song by Tohoshinki.\u00c2\u00a0 This year it was just an old song.\u00c2\u00a0 There are way too many garnish members.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: got better when they got the backup backup dancers)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(root: WTF?! The hell&#8217;s that purple jellyfish dress?!)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>YUKI &#8211; I guess she was on the Kohaku before as a part of Judy and Mary, but this is her solo debut.\u00c2\u00a0 It is weird that she is performing &#8220;Prism&#8221; from her first album in 2012 (six albums ago!).\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn&#8217;t the &#8220;album version&#8221;, and she slipped in pitch a couple of times, but it was a memorable performance &#8230;even without her jamming her hand down her pants.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: I wonder if anyone&#8217;s ever inhaled the confetti, looks like she could fit an entire one of those gold stars in her mouth!)<\/li>\n<li>Fukuyama Masaharu &#8211; I can just hear Tarepanda-san squealing like Panda-imoutou looking at her Handa-san photo while watching this!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, great &#8211; flying kabuki men!\u00c2\u00a0 WTF!\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m going to have nightmares about that now.\u00c2\u00a0 He&#8217;s not terrible.\u00c2\u00a0 He has good singing technique.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I just don&#8217;t really like his material.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: yeah, his singing&#8217;s pretty good, but the song itself ordinary. I didn&#8217;t have quite the same reaction to the floaty kabuki men, the way you were carrying on I was expecting a whole squadron of them to be flying all over the place!)<\/li>\n<li>Princess Princess &#8211; Whoa &#8211; what&#8217;s wrong with her skirt!\u00c2\u00a0 They still can do it.\u00c2\u00a0 Plus, they really all play their instruments!\u00c2\u00a0 Man, am I going to have to bust out my collection of Ribbon and CoCo CD&#8217;s for tomorrow&#8217;s drive to work?\u00c2\u00a0 I remember seeing Kishimoto on some TV show panel a lot before the reunion&#8230; can&#8217;t remember what.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: that was like some anime moment. I can just see it, the high school cultural festival, the girl&#8217;s band club members accidentaly get locked in the equipment storage shed, it&#8217;s time for the performance, the stage is empty, the audience gets restless, people start getting up to leave, the mom&#8217;s of all the girls who were actually former alumni and members of the band take the stage and fill in to stun the audience!)<\/li>\n<li>Ishihara Sayuri &#8211; Like an enka punch to the gut, Ishihara&#8217;s voice penetrates to your core with it&#8217;s dynamic energy and range.\u00c2\u00a0 From coyly sweet to rippingly rough, she will not be ignored.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: some pretty intenese visuals too!)<\/li>\n<li>Kitajima Saburo &#8211; YES!\u00c2\u00a0 The God of Enka sings his &#8220;Fuusetsu nagaretabi&#8221;, digging down into his memories of the hard postwar life in his hometown, Shiriuchi, Hokkaido.\u00c2\u00a0 You can feel the biting cold!\u00c2\u00a0 (root: nothing to say, it&#8217;s Kitajima Saburo!)<\/li>\n<li>Ikimonogatari &#8211; The ELT of the 10&#8217;s, they sing their eponymous song &#8220;Kaze ga fuiteiru&#8221; used as the JDM theme song for the NHK London Olympic broadcast.\u00c2\u00a0 They are either improving a lot\u00c2\u00a0live, or that entire performance was lip-synched.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I lean toward the latter, as it sounded no different than the studio recording that gets overplayed.<\/li>\n<li>SMAP &#8211; Well, they&#8217;re not getting worse, if anything.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course Nakai is their key liability, followed closely by Kimura.\u00c2\u00a0 (root: well, I don&#8217;t think they&#8217;re getting any better)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>NHK did a really good job of getting their mileage out of the one set background.\u00c2\u00a0 Their design and technical staff definitely should be commended for creating such a versatile background.\u00c2\u00a0 I am thankful for the absence of K-pop bands this year!!!\u00c2\u00a0 I hope y&#8217;all enjoyed watching it this year as much as I did!\u00c2\u00a0 (root: yeah good job on the staging. Seeing that the entire stage was a video screen, pretty neat!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here we go for another music extravaganza from Japan.\u00c2\u00a0 With the declining economy, the presentation has been getting progressively sparser, but hopefully the talent will shine and carry the day.\u00c2\u00a0 We&#8217;re doing this live, so bear with the typos and frequent updates!\u00c2\u00a0 Ikimassho!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[7,10,12,13],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paJYlx-1Ko","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6720"}],"version-history":[{"count":78,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8245,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720\/revisions\/8245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}