animemiz’s scribblings..

All right.. mostly NYC has been cold.. and really cold.. dreary even, with the amount of snow and slush that has happen. So what to curl up with, in spite of my waiting for one more shipment of manga from RightStuf…. is listening and comparing different versions of Ayumi Hamasaki’s Days on youtube. A friend loves to sing this song at karoke, so I happen to fall back into listening to more of Ayumi’s songs. She also recently got married, so that was a surprise.

Days is a great song on a one sided love…. so of course I have my preference in watching the original, unfortunately that song is only half complete on Youtube….

Where as the acoustic orchestral version got the entire version of the music video up. It is okay, but it doesn’t leave me with the same feeling as the original. (sighs)

But never fear.. there’s the live concert version, which is a little off.. since Ayumi is crying in this one. It was quite interesting explaining this to an obvious non-J-pop friend of mine, who asked why the guy was half naked… and I explained to fan on the enthusiasm of the screaming fans.

One of the things I am always quite tickled by is how much appreciation or not aritsts can show for fans at their concerts.

Personal experience in my mind is of when Hikki said at her In the Flesh concert last year, on if she can’t remember the lyrics, then she can always have her fans remind her of songs she has composed..since a majority of audience were singing back the songs.. myself included.

Same for when Toshi was singing Endless Rain, at their new york concert. I was pretty choked up.. so you can only imagine what type of concert videos I appreciate a lot of.

1. The fans must know lyrics for the songs, the artists sing, otherwise it is grasping for air, as I did see in a set once.
2. Artists must show an acknowledgment..

Those two points make me sound really obnoxious, it probably does. I don’t really go to a lot of concerts, but, I do find utter pleasure to see artists pleased and enjoying themselves. So in the end if both parties enjoy themselves, then that translates to a good concert, in spite of how much venues of this nature can go up to.

These days I have been on a continual kick of listening to a lot of Cantonese pop… not the new ones.. but of the old ones.. got to say that I love Youtube for having videos and showing me these moments.

You don’t have to know the lyrics or the meanings for the songs… but first is Grasshoppers’s “Break up Garden”..what cemented this video in my memory is from 1:19.

Then another is Beyond’s “Under a Vast Sky”…. This is a encore, but the emotions of the fans and singer are riveting.

Lately I have been on such a Grasshopper listening binge.. if you see my tweets, and hear my sister complaining about how much links I throw on. But FYI, Grasshopper is a Cantonese pop trio, who sings a lot of sappy romance songs. I grew up with listening them when they were students of the late and great Anita Mui. But I digress..

What promoted this entry is just a need to show a slew of Youtube videos.. and raise questions on gender thoughts…

While you don’t need to understand the video, the song is basically on how easy it it is for woman to be emotional, while to be a man is something of strength, so Grasshoppers were singing of this desire to be born a woman, with men kissing fanservice thrown in. That I see a lot of when my friend Aya shows pictures of Japanese concert fanservice.  Fanservice for men and woman.. there’s also half naked woman in this clip. Brings to mind another video on DJ Ozma, and Kohaku several years ago.

Now take a look on the opposite side, with Hikki’s You Make Me Want to be a Man. Her inspiration for writing this though was, born of wanting to deal with her martial issues at the time. Leading to the issues of how gender issues between men and woman are different.

Lastly, there is Haruna Ai… I always find her to be a great Japanese celebrity example of crossing the barrier between gender reassignment, though I am not sure about her gaining a boyfriend. At times it boggles the mind of how confident she appears to be, she’s always wearing these outfits, and how she acts as a celebrity to earn money for her surgery.

This following video is when she went to the Philippines and visited the CPDRC prison there. The warden is saying what type of prisoners are there, a tour thru the facilities, then a look at the prisoners. Finally the video ends on 700 prisoners following after Haruna Ai in a dance.

So then gender thoughts…. it is a pretty interesting thought to think about, and you see either through song, or an example of what makes a desire of this either figuratively or literally.

I decided to reformat this link and wrote some new perspectives on some of them. This is similar to a previous post of favorite anime ED’s this is my list of favorite anime openings. Songs I enjoy on a consistent basics.. The layout will be similar to the anime ending one.. so see what you think?

Read more…

As I was reading through my Google Reader.. I was noticing other blogger and their topics.. I was inspired by A Day Without Me‘s posts on her favorite anime OP. While I like OP as much as anyone.. I noticed a trend of loving anime endings more, based on what I have on my iTunes. I’ll do another favorite anime opening another time.

I have a lot of favorite anime endings… I will be including Youtube links and a paragraph on my thoughts… some of the songs might have a PV link..so check it out and tell me what you think…! Read more…

Well I was speaking on AiM with a HS friend and he asked what my favorite Japanese song was…. given my preference for many, I decided to give him a sample of what I really like.. however he cannot seem to click any links on his cell or computer.. so I figure I’ll post it up here. Read more…

Well this is the music video for Galileo dorama, man was I surprised. Read more…

Well it’s been a month since I last really updated on WordPress.. there was the launch of the iPhone, which I really liked the movie sing along.