The Bonkurasu Brigade

Perfume will be broadcasting “One room Disco” on their Perfume LOCKS radio show. Details taken from Perfume LOCKS site and translated by a member on the PerfumeCity forums.

3/5 (木)のPerfume LOCKS!は…
遂に「ワンルーム・ディスコ」宇宙初オンエア!!!! 夜10時からのSCHOOL OF LOCK! の中のどこかで初オンエアします!
It says that they gonna drop the new single on their Radio show, Thursday on the 5th, at 10pm JST.

CD jacket covers of “One room Disco” has just been revealed, and boy, do they look sweet.

Limited Edition (CD+DVD)

Normal Edition (CD)

For those who are still clueless, here’s the song list:
1.　ワンルーム･ディスコ
2.　23:30
3.　ワンルーム･ディスコ -Original Instrumental-
4.　23:30 -Original Instrumental-

Honestly, this is the first time I like both covers very much. I might just get both in the end.

Now I can’t wait for March 25th. XDDD

A few hours ago, I received an e-mail regarding the May’n☆Act DVD. Apparently, there will be a commemorative launch event to be held for it, and it most probably will be a handshake/sign session.

Finally, the Japanese counterparts get their chance. And that made me want to fly over for it too.

May’n LIVE DVD発売記念イベント開催！
May’n LiveDVD「May’n☆Act」発売記念イベント開催決定☆

日時：3月29日（日）　14:00～
場所：ラゾーナ川崎プラザ 2F ルーファ広場グランドステージ

※詳細は後日発表します！！
Further details will be announced at a later date!!

When I first came to know about this girl band, I didn’t think any good will come out from it. The song didn’t fit the opening scene of the clip in the anime of Gundam 00, while the song itself was so-so, following the roots of normal Jpop music.

Just today, I came across a music video of them in HD, performing “Namida no Mukou”. I want to know how they fare singing on a live performance, so I watched it.

Firstly, a bit of background for StereoPony; the group, which consists of a drummer/background vocals, bassist and guitarist/singer, are from Okinawa, and are currently high schoolers. The trio have hit 2nd in Oricon charts for their new single, “Namida no Mukou”.

Now, back to topic. I wasn’t disappointed with their performance, to be honest. In fact, I thought they’d suck, since I generally don’t have a good impression of girl bands. For a new band breaking into the Jpop scene, performing this well “live” will surely propel them all the way. They practically sound the same as their CD recordings, and their instruments are well played. They deserved hitting 2nd for weekly oricon charts because of that, despite being new to the Jpop scene, although singing for an opening theme song for Gundam 00 would almost surely get any artiste hitting into the oricon charts.

Below are some of the videos of various music shows that they have performed.

Music Japan

Music Station

(HD version available)

CDTV

After viewing their “live” performances, I’d say they are akin to L’arc~en~ciel, since there are many similarities that I find in terms of style. Main vocalist sings and plays the guitar like Hyde; bassist plays more like Ken than Tetsu; the drummer had a bit of yukihiro’s drumming style. I wonder if they are following Laruku’s (short for L’arc~en~ciel) footsteps. Not a bad route, I’d say. They’ve already given me the impression of a ‘female renderation of laruku’ from the videos.

The band also sung an opening theme song for Bleach, too. (Un)fortunately, I have no interest in Bleach.

May’n is releasing a DVD of its ‘Live’ performance in Tokyo Akikan Blitz. Most May’n fans should have known this by now; sorry for not updating it sooner.

On the other hand, the above picture could be the DVD cover for “May’n☆Act”. It’s the same outfit as the one she wore for her May’n☆Street mini-album, but in another pose. For all anison and macross series lovers, Fukuyama Yoshiki duet with May’n for Totsugeki Love Heart would be the icing on the cake, since the audience at Animelo 2008 was expecting something like that to happen.

And it finally did, on May’n☆Act. REJOICEEEE.

(Maybe that explains why Fukuyama was there in her blog.)

Here’s some updates taken from famitsu :

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shia informed me about the conference earlier this morning. Unfortunately I was about 15 minutes late for the conference that was broadcasted ‘live’ on nico. Here are some highlights that the conference touched on:

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I’ve never been a fan of lolis, because their 3D counterparts are way too irritating, and I’ve taken care too many of such lolis because my mom likes kids, and used to do part-time childcare. Sure, with real-life lolis being dojikkos (clumsy balls of meat). Occasionally, and that’s when I find them amusing and bearable.

For anime, it is irritating with their high pitched voice and overdoing actions of dojikko-ness. Almost 99.9999% of anime does that. Either that, or they’re going overboard with the Moe-factor.

Not for Clannad : After Story. It made me actually LIKE a loli character.

And it’s none other than Ushio. Below are some pictures to prove it.

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Yes, you simply just can’t imagine how delighted I’d be when I heard this piece of news.

Here’s some information excerpted from Mainichi:

Upcoming Neon Genesis Evangelion movie is now set for June 27th release in japan’s cinemas. Part 2 is titled ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版:破 / Evangelion Shingekijoban: Ha, otherwise known as Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance.

Its first movie has grossed over 2 billion yen and sold an impressive 600,000 DVDs since it was released September 2007 and March 2008 respectively.

Part 2 will bring about the long awaited return of Eva pilot Sohryu Asuka Langley , not to mention revealing the identity of the new heroine at long last, as shown in the poster above.

Additional releases of the TV series’ latest digital remaster for DVD and Blu-ray will begin on May 27, starting with episodes 1~6.

Yes, my birthday’s on the 27th of June. Why’d I say “how delighted I’d be” in my first sentence?

Well, it’s because I won’t/couldn’t be in Japan at that very day, unless I’ve been given a free return trip ticket for it. Hmmmmmm…….

Well, one can only hope that the movie will be launched locally in Singapore the same time as the Japan counterparts. So that I can celebrate my birthday without flying past several nations.

Some of you might have noticed that I haven’t been translating for May’n’s blog for quite some time. Or even updating much here in any case.

Besides the periodic work occupying my time, there are various activities that currently take up my time more so than updating Bonkurasu; namely:
- Playing Persona 4;
- building some of my backlog kits;
- doing other various translation projects (Harorangers);
- social life

So whatever happened to the rest of the Bonkurasu crew?

Ume’s laptop went kaput, and left it for servicing, so she ends up playing Persona 4 during weekdays too, since it’s her school holidays now at her tertiary institution.

Iron2000 is busy with school work in university, and besides, this is considered his secondary blog.

Same goes for Shia, but he’s in a bit of a rough patch now, not really good to elaborate on it.

And yellow’s supposed to be a lucky color for me this year, according to various Chinese fortune-readings based on predictions for this year’s lunar year. Looks like Persona 4 fit this theme very well.

There will still be updates here on Bonkurasu, but probably about once every 2-3 days. Minimum twice per week. Hopefully.

Perfume’s official site has just updated an hour ago, with the CD Jacket of the upcoming single, “One-room Disco”. The above is the cover promotional picture.

Another news that came along is the release date of their “BUDOUKaaaaaaaaaaN!!!!!” DVD.

It is slated to release on April 22nd, and retailing for 5,250 yen (tax inclusive). No official title of the DVD is released, or any mention of a Blu-Ray version. I assumed there could be one, since their broadcast of their ‘Live’ was in HD format.

More details at the release/news page. Or you can read the Japanese details of it below:

Perfume ライブDVDリリース決定!!

2008/11/6･7に日本武道館で行われたワンマンライブ｢BUDOUKaaaaaaaaaaN!!!!!｣の模様を収録､そして､ライブまでのメンバーの軌跡や､ライブの舞台裏等の未発表映像を満載した豪華DVD2枚組を予定しています｡

EDIT:
Someone from PerfumeCity forums did a rough translation out of it.

DVD will feature their performance of ” BUDOUKaaaaaaaaaaN!!!!! ”
at Nippon Budoukan on November 6th and 7th, 2008.
It is going to be a double disc with documentary, behind the scenes and unreleased footage.