Restarting the Old Rusty Engine
(For the 2nd Time too)


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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

How come, how long... Drafts in the Queue

There have been some posts that I wished I have the time to write, but always I got distracted someway or another. Here are some:

- FNS and YTV charts; 30-11-2007 (No biggie, really)

- Of Leah Dizon, AKB48, Shokotan in Kouhaku 2008; 26-11-2007 (You all know this)

- Other variations of wotagei; 20-11-2007 (Yes there are others, darn cute too)

- Yaguchi Mari denying her alleged relationship; 12-11-2007 (For those who missed it, yeah she had one scoop but not big news either, since she is not in MM anymore)

- Hello Non Pro Hour Lost Months EP01-05; 31-11-2007 (Remember the time when I was missing for months, there were 5 episodes of blog contents that was in queue to catch up on old news while I was away. But time and wife got in the way.)

- Onna ni Sacchi Are translations; 02-07-2007 (Yes I am still doing translations, but now... now i am not so confident of squeezing the free time anymore)

- Bishoujo Club 31; 29-06-2007 (Found out about them while I was looking for info on Berryz Captain Saki-chan. A very interesting alternative to MM, NGP and AKB48)

- KiraPika; 11-06-2007 (Trying to detect a plagiarism act on LuckyStar manga ^_^)

- Relationship between Sky Corp and UFW; 25-05-2007 (The agencies from Sugiura's and Tsuji's agency. There is a connection....... i think. )

- Hello! Project Idol Life and Private Life Part 1 & 2; 09-05-2007, 10-05-2007 ( This series was actually 90% finished. But I forgot now why I did not publish it. Perhaps it was too spicy for anyone to read. This series talks about boyfriends of MM girls and discusses the meaning of Dekikon (shotgun marriage). Also included are my own conspiracy theory of what happened behind closed doors. Could potentially be a novelty piece. )

- Sukeban Curse; 30-04-2007 (I did not come up with this one. But this was too funny, XD)

- Morning Musume Alpha - Onyanko Club; 23-04-2007 (Yes, I did not lie... there is a follow-up piece to the Tokyo Performance Doll article. Yet this article went unfinished due to lack of research materials. )

- Sunday Girls; 07-04-2007 (Old Jpop lovers should know them. The fate of all Japanese act that invade Taiwan with little follow-up)

- Aibon - When did Fiction become fact 29-03-2007 (One of my many Aibon articles, which I am known for. This one talks about the many versions of eyewitnesses on what went behind the curtains of that "love onsen trip". The question is of course which one of them is true. Confession excerpts come from a Aibon fan-forum.)

- Morning Musume - Asahi Shinbun Interview 25-03-2007 (Translation from a newspaper interview)

- Psychology analysis on Morning Musume's body language; 22-03-2007 (Definitely pseudo-science. For fun only.)

- Another H!P curse - Newscasters curse 22-02-2007 (Ever noticed that one by one, every newscaster/reporter of H!P mock news segments like Hello Pro Wide and Hello Pro Channel are in some sort of trouble? ^_^)

- Are the girls in H!P happy? 21-02-2007 (Ever wonder if the girls in Hello! Project are happy what they turned out to be? Would they want to be an undying idol legend like Matsuda Seiko or a ero-kawaii and sexy Koda Kumi?)

- Michishige Sayumi - Unsung Talent 11-01-2007 (An entire article dedicated to Sayu, the true epitome and definition of a pure Japanese Aidoru/Idol)


- Berry Koubou - Healing Power 09-01-2007 (I was sick at that time, and listening to Berryz made me get well faster. I'm not kidding! Therefore i wanted to write a single by single review of all Berryz singles. But once again, no time.....)

There are more of these. Any of these of any interest to anyone?

I'm banging on the idea of plucking some of the old drafts to be published once and for all. But time... time is my biggest enemy. Real life catching on you is NOT something fun. I wish there are 36 hours in an Earth day. If not I'd settle for Earth to have the same length of day as Mars (24.7 hours), cos it sucks to have Venus' length of day (eq. 243 Earth days!).


(; -_-)b Voo!
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Sunday, January 20, 2008

LAUNCHED!! HNPH - Hello! Project News Blogzine

After many weeks of delays, I have soft-launched the new site. H!P Hello Non-Pro Hour will now continue in its new form - HNPH - Hello! Project News Blogzine.

http://jinryuichi.com/hnph

The format of this new site is a blog cum magazine, hence the name blogzine. It will feature more journalistic elements into it and hopefully everyone will accept.

H!P Hello Non-Pro Hour will remain as it is, and I do not plan to migrate the contents over to HNPH. You can still come back and revisit any blog posts over the year. As such, I am starting afresh with HNPH, and I ask for everyone's support and love as always. Hope that everyone will continue to join me in my journey of discovering and re-discovering the wonderful culture and music genre known as Jpop. See you there!

Love and Peace (^_^)v
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Saturday, January 19, 2008

Delay of launch.....

Sorry.

I didn't expect it to happen, but i was caught up with work, and has been chained to my workdesk and the customer's place for 2 days. For a moment i thought i was in hell.

For those expecting the launch, apologies again.

My time is up. See you tomorrow. Hopefully...
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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Launch Dates for New HNPH

Sorry for the 2 week silence. Been caught up with personal stuff. I have a plateful of responsibilities and commitments starting yesterday. It will take a miracle to be able to take on them all.... but I will have to make it happen by hook or by crook. ^_^

I plan to launch the new site this Friday on the 18th January and the forum on Sunday 20th January. Mostly, lots cosmetic works to be done. There are some new features not entirely ready at launch, but it will be added as we move along.
Here are the URLs, I blocked it for the moment, so that the web-crawlers don't index it just yet.

The new site
http://jinryuichi.com/hnph

The new forum
http://jinryuichi.com/forum

My new personal blog
http://jinryuichi.com/blog

For those who are interested in taking the posts of forum moderators at the new forum please send me an email.

Peace ^_^
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Friday, December 28, 2007

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

I cannot believe I am doing one these "Important Announcement" now. Usually when we see such titles in Hello! Project sites we would cringe with fear. ^_^

In any case, here's what I wanted to say...

For the past one year, (Yeah, i have totally missed out celebrating the one year anniversary of this blog, oh well...) this has been a wonderful blogging experience. I have had a run at running other blogs, but this one has been the most active of them all. Thinking back, it has been Aibon who had inspired me to start blogging about Hello! Project, though mostly about Morning Musume in particular. In other words, as much as we H!P fans hated the scandals, it was through a scandal that gave this blog its life. Kinda funny, come to think of it...

From blogging in Hello Non-Pro Hour, I have certainly learned a lot of things about writing, and have dedicated to producing the most quality of posts I can. I attribute this to my participation of certain forum (for those who know me, know which one I am talking about) that encourages forumers to post quality messages instead of one liners. As a result, my love for literature and expression through texts have really shown. Gradually, I find that I became interested in the world of journalism and a newfound respect for it. It has certainly changed the way I look at blogging and the age of digital news. Recently, the participation of fellow bloggers Anna and Gaki have really helped in providing a different feel of input and I enjoyed every minute of it. I learn a lot from them as well.

Most of all, I have nothing but thanks to all the readers that keep coming back to read all the rubbish that I have written all this while. In actuality, it is the comments left by all readers that keep motivating me to keep blogging regularly.

As the famous Oracle (The Matrix) says... "Everything that has beginning has an end". The time has come for Hello Non-Pro Hour to come to its end...











HOWEVER....


I am proud to announce that due to the steady growth of Hello Non-Pro Hour, and in part of my interest of giving it more journalistic elements, I will be migrating it to a brand new domain, and subsequently be renamed to HNPH. Fellow bloggers Gaki and Anna will be joining me in this endeavor. This new site will include new features and cool stuff that cannot be done by remaining as a blog only. Plus, a new forum will be introduced, to provide more room for discussions instead of doing it in the comments section.

Will let everyone know of the launch dates and the URL soon. I cordially invite all of you to come over and continue the fun with me. Stay tuned, peoples!



No charge for the fright. I learn this from Ray.....(^o^)/


Peace (^_^)v

jinryuichi
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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

This Week in Morning Musume

This Week in Morning Musume :Edition #3

The week of December 10 to 16th continued December’s theme of not a lot is going on editions of this week in Morning Musume. The main national appearance for the week was the Best Artist 2007 show. The 2007 Best Artist appearance was another of the 10th Anniversary special medley performances, which unlike the seemingly rushed FNS performance, was the perfect blend of performance and symbolism. With an opening pose featuring the two faces of the present and past, Takahashi Ai and Abe Natsumi, to the closing shot of the two leaders Takahashi and Nakazawa Yuko kneeling side by side. As HNPH columnist Anna earlier pointed out, the performance left little to find fault with as an audience representing 30 artists or groups showed their spirited support for one of the standout performances of the evening. Outside of their weekly schedule and a cable television special, only one other national television event occurred during the week as Takahashi Ai and Tanaka Reina appeared on the animal themed variety show 'Tensai! Shimura Doubutsuen' (Genius! Shimura Zoo), were they mostly watched videos about celebrities pets.

Other news for the week
Outside of their weekly scheduled radio shows Takahashi Ai was a guest on Dreams Come True`s weekly radio show .The group are fans of Morning Musume as our a number of groups and artists and Takahashi appeared as a special guest . Finally Michishige Sayumi`s new photo book titled Sou Sou was released on the 15th. With Morning Musume photo books currently a big seller nationwide, it is likely that Michishige`s Sou Sou could follow the same path as Kamei Eri`s Maple and reach #1.

Related Video
Best Artist 2007
Best Artist 2007

Genius! Shimura Zoo (Edited for Morning Musume`s total air time)
Genius! Shimura Zoo

Haromoni@
Haromoni@

Notice: with only two full group events scheduled for the rest of 2007, the fourth edition may skip a week, return in two weeks, and be a two-week end of the year special.
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Monday, December 10, 2007

This week in Morning Musume

This Week in Morning Musume for November 30- December 9 Edition.

This week in Morning Musume returns in it`s standard edition size. With the year coming to an end Morning Musume`s schedule is also slowing down ,in fact the entire month is scaled back compared to November .The only major news worthy appearances between the November 30 -December 9 time period was their tour ending shows in Tokyo and their FNS Kayou Matsuri 2007 appearance .

On the fifth Morning Musume and other H!P artists were part of the FNS Kayou Matsuri 2007. The FNS Kayou Matsuri is traditionally one of the most viewed ,single night year ending music programs in Japan ,with a line up selected by invitation only , an audience of around 27-30 million tune in each year to watch the nations top 28-38 music artists or groups perform . As with their upcoming, Kouhaku Uta Gassen appearance, these invitation only events signifies to everyone watching that you are regarded by the music industry as one of their elite performers.
With Morning Musume celebrating their Tenth Anniversary , this years FNS Kayou Matsuri performance was a medley with all current and active former Morning Musume members involved . Morning Musume`s Internet Program series for Yahoo Japan, Gyao and Biglobe also continued to air .

Kusumi Koharu who often appears on Oha Sta in support of her anime , made her most recent appearance on the 3rd. Kusumi`s anime is a major product producing industry all on it`s own, as her popularity with young girls who maybe a little young yet to understand Morning Musume as idols continues to rise . Anime has always been an important and lucrative revenue source for Japanese music artists and it is no surprise that Morning Musume, who are in a genre built on TV image and product sales over CD sales is becoming more active in that field .


Mobile Musume

December 1st Takahashi Ai released her journal entry. Takahashi reflected on the just completed tour as being the birth of a new Morning Musume .Takahashi admitted that the group had some uneasiness about making this first step in their future, but the staff and fan reaction quickly helped those feelings fly away.

For 2008, Takahashi says they plan to show everyone that they are not a newborn Morning Musume anymore, but the Morning Musume and that they are powerful. She also wants to continue bringing out their individual personalities and help everyone learn about them more.

Random News
Oricon`s special on Morning Musume`s trip to Korea and Taiwan was the 5th highest read article on Oricon for the month of November. Their Barks article series also ranked in the top five on their web site for the month. The Kindai Magazine featured Morning Musume on the cover and had features on all the current groups in H!P .H!P is a regular feature in Kindai Magazine. Finally, Morning Musume as part of their partnership with Nintendo released their likeness in Mii format for downloading.

Morning Musume Mii

This editions related videos
FNS Performance
FNS Performance

Oha Sta and the product business that is Kirarin Revolution
Oha Sta

December 9th Haromoni@
Haromoni@

Regular National Weekly Scheduled Programs
Morning Musume`s weekly scheduled programs are the same every week.
Television
Haromoni@ (Sunday Mornings)
Uta Doki (Airs nightly in a five-minute segment as a promotional ad)
Kirarin Revolution (Friday Evenings)
Robby & Kerobby (Sunday Mornings)
Radio
Young Town: Takahashi Ai & Michishige Sayumi (Saturday Nights)
FIVE STARS: Tanaka Reina (Wednesday Nights)
Say Hello Love: Mitsui Aika (Thursday Afternoon)
USA-chan Peace: Michishige Sayumi (Thursday Nights)
GAKI-KAMEI: Niigaki Risa & Kamei Eri (Saturday Nights)

Upcoming National Events
11th: Morning Musume will be on NTV 130 Million Choose Best Artist of 2007
15th: Takahashi Ai and Tanaka Reina will appear on a wild life educational variety show
21st: Morning Musume will make an appearance on Music Fighter
31st: Morning Musume will be on the most watched year ending show in Japan Kouhaku Uta Gassen
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