....th-this was supposed to be short, I dunno what happened. .__.
1) SPOILERS for anything listed here! (Pretty much whatever was released in the last week or so.)
2) I am totally getting to comments! I am... slightly less behind than I was before!
( this was supposed to be short, but somehow it was 11+ pages in word before I posted it orz )
2) I am totally getting to comments! I am... slightly less behind than I was before!
( this was supposed to be short, but somehow it was 11+ pages in word before I posted it orz )
The VS Arashi guests have been getting advantages, but only when they're women, as far as I can tell. I think Arashi have just been having a streak of bad luck. It seems like being successful in the first and last games depends a lot on chance and the circumstances than on actual skill.
I-I seriously loved that the coin tower got so high this time that the little camera on the table couldn't film it anymore. Also, I was so amused by the MDA segment because, well, I've always thought that Aiba and Ohno are sort of the babies of the group. I mean, obviously Jun fills that role in one sense, but in another sense he helps Sho out with the band mommy bit, and he's so responsible and on top of things most of the time whereas Aiba and Ohno are prone to doing stupid shit and you can really see everyone else's love for them the most clearly, whether they're being coddled or picked on or talked about. So I figure... Well, I'd read spoilers beforehand for pretty much everything except for who the MDA was going to be, so I totally expected Ohno to drop. But when Arashi is given a chance to both baby Ohno and bully Aiba, of course they're going to go for it. I love them so much. ♥ ♥
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In all seriousness, I imagine it's mostly a combination of being just a coincidence and me noticing it more because I'm looking for it. (Aiba being mentioned in Jun's solo interviews more than the others.) It doesn't really mean anything. But sometimes I do have to pause for just a moment and go "...." a ltitle because it certainly seems to be a really consistent coincidence. (And OMG I WOULD FREAK OUT SO BADLY. Yet another reason why I should probably never meet Jun in person.)
AHAHAHAHA I HADN'T EVEN THOUGHT OF THAT. I'm assuming this was before Jun scratched Aiba's car, but still. (I love that everyone thinks that Aiba would probably be the horrible driver because he's so flaily and then, no, it's totally Matsujun who scratches his car.) And admittedly they were just going in a straight line and not very far but OH MY GOD, I cannot believe they let them get into HEAVY MACHINERY basically half-blind! Aiba really does kind of have a gift for some of these crazy experiments--sure, occasionally some of them are a bit dull or silly or obviously impossible, but they're often times stuff you genuinely kind of want to know about. (I like the Odoroki SPs, but nothing can quite replace the silly experiments from A no Arashi. Sure, weightlessness is cool, but there's something really intriguing about sticking a chunk of dry ice into a balloon to see what it'll do!)
I wish we got more behind the scenes stuff with Arashi because it usually comes out to be pretty damn hilarious. I am completely serious that I would watch a weekly show where they just play video games against each other for half an hour, partly because I'd love to know what games they play or are good at, partly because it would be SO HILARIOUS if someone totally owned Nino at any given game.
And I don't know if it's just that they bring out the awesome in already people or if they're just really, really good interviewers who can make anyone seem interesting/make these cracked out things look effortless. They've been doing this for a lot of years, so I suspect it's kind of the latter. Like, you watch some of these older D no Arashi episodes with guests on and you can see the beginnings of them being awesome, but they're not nearly as polished as they are now. I doubt it's just that they're getting better guests, I suspect it's that they're getting better as hosts/interviewers. (But they do attract some truly awesome people. Though, some people just can't be saved--that male host of GRA was such the non-entity.)
Tunnels no Minasan no Okage Deshita seems like the kind of show that would be really kind of boring, doesn't it? And it's not like I think the hosts are all that interesting, either. So I'm not sure what makes it so much fun, possibly just the change to talk about their bands or tell stories from their childhoods, rather than having to constantly be ON ON ON. (Like, I enjoy the Music Station or Heyx3 interviews, but you rarely get anything interesting out of them, at least not like this.) I feel the exact same way about prying into their families and stuff, but... it does seem like, what they've shared with people has been of their own free will, they could have kept quiet about them if they'd wanted. Jun almost never seems to talk much about his family, so when he does mention something, it's his choice and... well, I figure it's all right if I don't push and everyone lets them just say what they want. (I took it as that it was TOTALLY about the waste of money rather than the waste of food itself. I love Nino being a miser FOREVER.)
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I'm sort of wary of getting my hopes up over Himitsu no Arashi-chan, because it's still early and it seems like it must be a lot of work to do those segments every week. I don't want to go OMG HIMITSU IS TOTALLY AWESOME NOW and then have too high of an expectation for the next one and be disappointed. But. I'm cautiously optimistic. Because these were great episodes and Nino at SeaWorld was just. Yes. Of course they make the guys who hate it do the things they hate. I think that's one of the things that makes me believe in Arashi doing well in things--because they KNOW it's funny when you're forced into something you hate, even funnier than when you're doing something you love.
I love Aiba so much--try to bully him by embarrassing him that way (making him show his underpants) and he just goes YEAH OKAY THAT'S A GOOD IDEA and Sho looked so disappointed/quietly deflated over not being able to bully his stupid bandmate. Nino snapping the underwear and Aiba not even being phased by it was more pure awesome.
And it is interesting to think of who the "babies" of the group are! Ohno and Aiba do get indulged a lot, sometimes Sho will be treated like the little brother when they all gang up and bully/ignore him, sometimes Jun plays the baby of the group card, other times Sho and Jun are totally Arashi's Two Mommies. I love that their bullying is always the kind where it's clearly done out of love, if they didn't like you, you wouldn't be given a ton of shit. (Nor do they usually bully them about things they're sensitive over--the only time I've seen them do that is when they were giving Aiba shit on an episode of Shukudai-kun about how much he mangles the English language and it was around that time that he stopped speaking in random bits of English, I think? So, I don't think they realized.) They wouldn't have turned on Aiba if they didn't adore him ridiculously. (Or if Ohno hadn't been such a little shit and Aiba hadn't bragged about how great he was beforehand. XDDD)
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Mmmph, I miss A no Arashi. I feel like there isn't quite enough variety for me in the Odoroki SPs. Not that I don't manage to get a kick out of the boating parts every time, but still. Sometimes I think the scale is too large. Just because they've got the budget to do these things doesn't mean they should abandon all the stupid tiny experiments. Aiba putting eggs in weird shit to see how they'll taste was hilarious and probably cost almost nothing. I miss the stuff like that. ;_;
I-I'd watch Arashi playing video games too. Why are we such whores for this band?
Ooo, that is possible. I could see Arashi's natural atmosphere combined with the things they do and talk about on their shows being capable of bringing out the... um... best in people. If you can call it that, haha. But whether or not it's due to their influence, I'm still amazed at the number of apparently awesome Japanese women out there. I don't mean to sound sexist, but considering the admittedly little I know about the history of gender roles in Japan, it was pleasantly surprising. (...there was a male host of GRA? What. No seriously, I don't remember this at all. D: D: I am really glad Shukudai-kun has Ogu-san. I fangirl him so hard.)
*nods* I definitely agree. And this show feels very safe - like, open to whatever they feel like saying. I would hope that if they are ever forced to do or talk about something against their will, we'd be able to tell. But at the same time, every single one of these boys is very good at hiding things. This is part of why I really enjoy the Shounen Club Premium interviews - they're usually very intimate and interesting, but because Taichi is the one conducting them, I get the sense that he's got people's best interests in mind and no lines will be crossed.
OH HEY, speaking of Nino being a cheap bastard, did you see him whining about having to treat MAD to dinner? 62000 yen, lololol. KARMA.
That's exactly my concern too. Obviously the fans Ohno already has will love him even if he screws things up. But... alskjdlkas, I don't want to see people saying he shouldn't have gotten the role. ;_; I suppose there's no use worrying about it now, though.
So far, Himitsu is the show I've been least looking forward to every week, so it works out pretty well for me - I've been getting pleasantly surprised. And yes, Arashi know their fanbase and that sometimes humiliating themselves makes for the best TV. It reminds me of them talking about the Jimusho going "Seriously, wtf are you guys doing" about the stocking/nipple-shirt punishments, and Arashi ignoring them and carrying on with it because it's hilarious. I love them so much.
The fact that we can't really place any member into a specific role is part of what convinces me of their sincerity and their genuine bond as a group. I mean... I look at a band like NEWS, which pretty much everyone seems to agree has a very manufactured group dynamic with little reality to back it up, and you've got the youngest getting constantly spoiled and the oldest constantly mothering, and while it does seem that those are aspects of who they really are, it's also completely... expected. Whereas Arashi are never two dimensional. Wh-which I could write an essay on and was totally going to, except I just sat here for five minutes wondering where to start and deciding to give up on it. I'm sure you already know anyway. ♥
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I feel the same way about A no Arashi vs the Odoroki SPs! They're really great, I love the large-scale experiments they can do because of the bigger budgets. But, as much as I love you guys, the weightless plane isn't that interesting anymore. And if you don't get Matsumoto on a failboat, I'm going to get tired of that being the same thing over and over, too. (Or at least Nino on a failboat again!) I miss the simple stuff with dry ice or prickly sea urchins, the dumb stuff that you actually kinda want to know how it turns out. I miss them grinding up frozen tofu in an ice shaver and making Jun eat it. :<
We're whores for this band because they are healing everything that Japan has ever tried to hurt us with before. YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME ANYMORE, CLAMP. I HAVE FOUND SOMETHING BETTER. (I would also totally watch Arashi playing sports together. C'mon, Arashi, if you really loved me, you'd give Nino and Jun paintball guns and turn them loose on each other again!)
Ahahaha, the male GRA host was seriously a non-entity, he was the guy often explaining stuff or handing things over to Aiba and he just... pretty much stood there the entire time. They never tried to draw him into things much, so I'm guessing the chemistry wasn't right with him, I have no idea why they kept him around. (I... kind of agree. I know Japan has a lot of awesome women and it's not like I want to be sexist about it, either, but... it kind of surprises me how direct and forward some of these women are! It'd be interesting to see what they were like on other programs that weren't with Arashi.)
Well, if nothing else, as long as there are two Johnnys in the cast and they're even a little slashy with each other (which Ohno and Toma seem to be gearing up for), I think fandom will probably react pretty favorably. (Though, it will be interesting to see how Ohmiya fans react to Ohno being in something with someone besides Nino. Yamada Tarou was really, really slashy with Sho/Nino and yet hardly anything came of that, despite the ton of time they spent together. Will Ohno/Toma be the same way?)
That would be a really interesting essay-like thing to do sometime, the roles within Arashi and how they don't really stay stuck inside those boxes. Like, Jun has said that he's the one in Arashi who gets mad when things aren't done right (whether by themselves or by the staffs working with them) and that's because they let him take that role. Yet, anyone who knows Jun even a little knows that that's not the role he's limited to at all. He's supposed to be the cool one with an image to protect, yet he gets talked into dorky things all the time. Or Ohno being the spacey one who just sort of floats along, but he never sticks to just that role, because often times he's such a little shit on purpose or else he's really focused when singing/dancing. Sho's supposed to be the smart one, the one who actually works out and has decent muscles (for a skinny Japanese boy), yet he's so fail at sports, except when it comes to soccer. Etc. Yet, at any time, they can break out of these roles and no one blinks much of an eye really, because they're actual three-dimensional people.
(Not that other groups aren't! I just don't know them that well, not enough to talk about them. And NEWS is very manufactured, but I'm sure they're still very real people under that--Yamapi fascinates me because he's so hard to see through, yet if you watch carefully enough....)
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I-I want an A no Arashi revival in Himitsu no Arashi-chan. YOU NEVER KNOW, IT COULD HAPPEN.
Whatever happened to the Johnny's sports day? Do you know what year they stopped doing it? Because it would be lovely if they started that up again. With, um, maybe some less common sports. >_> *cough*PAINTBALLGODYES*cough* Japan really has been good to us, though, so I'm not too broken up about losing a few awesome things to make room for other brands of amazing.
I just realized that the GRA host (I think) has gone on to become the announcer for VS Arashi. WTF HOW DOES HE HAVE MORE PERSONALITY AS A DISEMBODIED VOICE THAN HE DID WHEN HE WAS ACTUALLY PRESENT IN THE STUDIO?
Huh, though it definitely registered with me that there would be slash potential with this drama (is it just me, or is there a bit of a Death Note vibe there?), I didn't actually think about it in terms of the effect it'll have on fandom. I wonder, comparing it with the Nino/Sho situation, whether Ohno and Toma not being in a group together will encourage or discourage people. Maybe Toma fans will be a bit more active because they haven't been subjected to the Ohmiya influence?
This is actually touching on one of the concerns I've had for a while (and I'm sure it's something you've noticed as well). I adore Ohmiya with all my heart, but I have very mixed feelings about their presence in fandom. I think... they obviously do have something special with each other, whatever the real nature of that is, and it's important for ficcers to acknowledge that, but it shouldn't be so limiting or all-encompassing. I actually prefer not to read Ohmiya-centric fics, so I'm glad they show up a lot in the background of ones focusing on other couples or general group dorkery, but at the same time, I'm afraid that there are people intimidated out of exploring other options with those two. There seem to be loads of Ohno/Jun fans around, for example, and that was one of the very first pairings I noticed, even if I didn't like it much at all in the beginning, but despite the apparently large support base for it, there's very little fic. I even get worried that the Ohmiya force is so overwhelming that it could intimidate people out of writing for other pairings that don't involve Nino and Ohno at all. It's okay if they're the fandom OTP, but I really wish it wouldn't hold anyone back from other pairings.
I love Arashi, I love them so much. They seem to spend a lot of time breaking the roles they've set up for themselves, but then suddenly you'll catch a moments where they fall right back into them very naturally. I think, occasional exceptions aside, it's quite obvious that these roles have been sculpted from existing traits but are in no way permanent or restrictive. Which makes them feel not much like roles at all.
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(Yes, I was definitely into NEWS long enough to see that all the members were no less real than everyone in Arashi. But there's this underlying sense of caution and obligation when they're together. I mean, Arashi's talked a lot about how they all have boundaries, and that they don't poke into each other's business when it's not appropriate, but you get the feeling that those are very much the kind of natural boundaries that you figure out over time with any group of friends, and that they've probably shifted quite a bit as the members grew closer together over the years. Whereas with certain other groups... there's the sense that they don't really know which lines are okay to cross, so they either stay in the roles they're supposed to have, or they fuck up and things get awkward. It's all very subtle, though. And I do feel bad for NEWS, considering the circumstances of their formation, the hiatus and loss of two members... they really haven't had the time or incentive to become an Arashi-tight group, so I wish them all the best in the future.)
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