Cartoon KAT-TUN, Rain, etc all in an incoherent essay!
So chikara21 has the latest Cartoon KAT-TUN subbed where the boys go to Okinawa, and as I watched it the feeling I got was sort of like hanging out with co-workers -- people you see and some you like but don't spend your weekends with. Which makes sense, since that's what they are.
(See: the boring car ride scene, how when Nakamaru puts his hand on Kame, Kame surreptitiously moves his hand behind it as if to flick it off, or that it looks like Koki really does kick Junno in their private lives too (someone screen-capped this).
I get good Nakamaru-Koki vibes, but that's about it-- I think they get along well enough, they have to for the camera, but they don't necessarily like each other. The ghost stories bit was cute, though, probably the only thing that gives off a good member-ai feeling.
And this is an example of why I think JE is interesting.
Why JE?
I will be the first person to say that almost 90% of JE music I hear I dislike on the spot. The music I usually like to listen to sounds like this or this or this. The most encouraging music that I've been listening to lately sound like this and this.
The dancing? If I want to watch dancing, it's gotta be someone like Rain or Michael Jackson in the old days. Hell, even korean boy bands seem to have better dancing as a cohesive unit.
Acting is a part of it. There are a lot of dramas with JE stars that are cliche and kinda stupid. But there are really good ones too. The one that caught my eye and brought my attention to JE itself would definitely be Nobuta wo Produce, my all time fav jdrama. But even after finding myself liking a grand total of one JE song, I can't get myself to finish others. So I dabble and leave, spared.
And then comes along My Pusher Friend. And it's not just the clips of JE boys acting stupid on youtube. What really sucks me in are JE fans willing to translate blogs and interviews. Because then I get to read things like this which is both hilarious and insightful on the life of a popstar.
And then it goes downhill from there. Because I like reading things, and blogs and translations are amusing and require no brain power to read. I find it fascinating when people have a completely different view of the world than I do, and let me tell you-- no one thinks about things more differently from me than successful japanese pop stars.
So then you get snippets of these stars-- who are the same age as me or my kid brother-- from talk shows to backstage lives to blogs. You see the drama in person when you notice how some groups don't interact/smile at each other on stage as well as others, and you can speculate thanks to the blog of so-and-so that you read or the interview when A said something mean about B. You read fanfics that offer different interpretations of events.
There is no end to it, and nothing is safe from critiquing. Serious Discussions ensue, all arguments are valid because obviously these are actually real people, and real people are much more complicated than any character ever created.
In short, for a psych major like me, it is LIKE THE BEST REALITY TV SHOW EVER that offers me fodder for all the analysis I want to do in the world.
...I am even willing to take bets on who will be the most successful in ten years.