This was originally going to be longer, but then I realized I can only be so ridiculous today.

[beckerbell]

» Journal hopping led me to: Dante's Internet and lolling so hard right now.

♫ - Shun releasing an All Night Nippon magazine and AHHH WHY AREN'T THERE BIGGER FANDOMS FOR NON-JE ACTORS because I would totally be interested in translations of that!

♫ - Boku no Miteiru Fuukei's first day sales set a new record for Arashi and I am delighted by this

Comments

[aegistheia]

The Dante's Internet is beautiful.

I AM SO EXCITED FOR THE UPCOMING MUSIC STATION YOU HAVE NO IDEA. SMAP AND TOKIO AND ARASHI?!?! *________* If they break viewership records that day I will not be surprised. I pine for more TOKIO and Arashi, there is next to none!

HnA088 - THIS EPISODE WAS SO FANATASTIC. I laughed so hard in some parts! Especially Sho channeling Aiba. I SNORTED LIKE OHNO DURING THE AnS PORN EPISODE. Sho, no one can mock you for being stupid! Just unoriginal.

Nino was on fire. All those little snippets of him fucking around with everyone - lingering around Jun, completely screwing with Aiba by bursting into his changeroom, looking into every article of his clothing and pulling out more for him to try and etc., and dicking around with Sho. That he put his outfit together in less than half an hour (possibly because he couldn't care less, or that he was genuinely surveying his selections through his wanderlust) and scored HIGHEST amongst the originals is even better. Sometimes I love you too much ;____;b

And Ohno getting distracted by the coolers and tents for an hour...and then buying the fish pin! "It looks like a heart if I wear it like this!" Copying a mannequin - oh my god, Ohno, you little bastard, I love you so much T___T

I don't know if it's just me, but I LOVED Aiba's outfit to death. The colour schemes of the double shirts appealed to me so much, and I wasn't as offended by the red shoes as I'd expected. He's just SMOKING HOT in this episode, no lie.

The funny thing about Matsumoto's outfit was, my friend loved it. "Very Korean," she said.

...I don't know, man, I think he deserved to lose .___. Too much plaid in too many pastel colours.

THE PHOTOSHOOT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME. Apparently the photographer H-san is known to dress according to his whims and feelings: in one of the Natsu Niji photoshoots Takeuchi Yuko walked in and stopped dead in the door because he was in this outlandish outfit I can't remember, and Jun had to reassure her that H-san did this all the time before she would relax XD;;

Zoom In - I only watched Sho's segment raw, so I really have no idea what's going on XD But I find that Jun talks about Aiba and Ohno as subjects quite consistently, with Nino as a rather close followup.

VSA102 - I AM SO GLAD YOU WATCHED IT OMG. Jun was a wonder to watch. They really need to pit Arashi members at each other and then watch them UTTERLY FAIL to properly compete against their squishie bandmates. Jun just wasn't competing so much as he was BEAMING LIKE A RETARD at his awesome bandmates.

And oh my god Aiba. I LOVE AIBA SO MUCH. He gave Jun AND Nino hell, Aiba-style! Telling Jun to bear all the responsibility shooting! Yelling at Nino to strip, strip! Truly Aiba is The Master At Escaping Death in Arashi, even more so than Ohno is. Never change, Aiba T____Tb

I also adored all the Jun/Nino in here; Jun attempting to protect Takeuchi Yuko-san's virtue from Nino's prying eyes will forever read as, "look at me!" to me, and I'm not even that type of fangirl. It is so beautiful.

[beckerbell]

SOMETIMES I LOVE THE INTERNET because it produces things like Dante's Internet. I guess it can stay for awhile longer.

Music Station: OMG I KNOW RIGHT? Like, those actually are the three bands I would probably choose to put together, as much as I love NEWS and Kanjani8, because I am most curious about their interaction with Arashi. W-well, maybe I would have put Kinki Kids in there because I want more interaction with them and TOKIO. >__> But! TOKIO AND SMAP AND ARASHI. ON MUSIC STATION. IT SHOULD BE AMAZING. (And Arashi is going to perform two songs?? Wow.)

HnA088: I love that Nino doesn't care about clothes and doesn't care that much about stupid contents (unless it's funny for him to care) but he can still pull off the best of the originals, despite that he spent the whole time fucking with his bandmates. Of course, they all had three hours, so there was plenty of time, even I could put together a decent outfit in half an hour, so it's not that big of a deal, but ~*tv magic*~ demands that it be exciting! all! the! time!, but still. Nino half-assing it in order to spend more time with his bandmates? Beautiful.

I actually really liked Aiba's outfit, too! I was surprised it didn't do better, but, well, I think maybe that's also part of Aiba's mysterious magic: He makes the clothes hot by wearing them, by themselves they don't have that much power! I think maybe that was why Nino's outfit did better, too, the pants didn't quite work for me on him (they seemed a little too big maybe?) but on a mannequin or pinned to a display, they might look better.

I can definitely see it being a popular Korean outfit! I just... *hands* I don't know what to do with Jun lately. I really do think he's been choosing off the wall outfits that don't work for the audience he has, but I'm not sure why he's not correcting it. Even if it's not what he would wear, you'd think he could pick out a decent outfit for his audience in his sleep!

Zoom In: But I find that Jun talks about Aiba and Ohno as subjects quite consistently, with Nino as a rather close followup.

I'm looking for it, of course, but I really do think he talks about Aiba about 50% of the time. (Or at least 40-45% of the time, with the others splitting up the rest of that.) Because I'm (sort of) an equal-opportunity shipper when it comes to Jun, so I like it when he talks about any of them. (Though, I think that does explain why my favorite ships are generally Aiba/Jun --> Ohno/Jun --> Nino/Jun --> Sho/Jun, in ratio with how much he talks about each of them.)

VSA102: I really miss when Arashi would compete against each other, because Shukudai-kun was great for that. There's nothing funnier than watching one member be an utter little bastard to the rest of his bandmates in order to win, I MISS THAT.

AND AHAHAHA YES. IT WAS JUN'S SPECIAL DAY, OKAY? PAY ATTENTION TO HIM, I DON'T CARE HOW LONG YOU'VE BEEN A FAN OF HERS! And I'm so glad to see Jun having days like this one, too, especially after watching him totally fail on Himitsu and knowing that kind of eats at him a little. There are good days, too, Junbug! ILU FOREVER OKAY?

[aegistheia]

Music Station: I love it when artists perform medleys. I fully expect most of Arashi's performance to be lipsynched, but talks with sempai? Gold.

HnA088: Sometimes I really want to give Nino props for what he does. Even though this isn't the job he'd chosen for himself he's just so good at doing it.

I have no idea what Jun is doing re: dressing himself. That was the first Mannequin 5 episode I'd ever watched in its entirety (and what a good introduction it was...) so I don't quite have a good idea how Jun does in this corner. I like to think that if/when Jun gets upset at the comments, the rest of them pile attention on his clothes for the next week or so and he gracefully ignores the fact that they're not as subtle as they think, but he still soaks it up anyway. ♥

You are completely right about Aiba's magic. He has the unique ability of making nearly anything look amazing when the concepts kind of fail on their own. Apparently he made Sho's hideous jester outfit in Dream-'A'-Live look utterly adorable. Because of this, there are frequent times that I think Aiba might be an even better model than Jun could be.

I had the same thoughts as you about Nino's outfit! I loved the scarf and the coordinated splash of colour in his outfit, but I could not condone the pants. They were definitely too big, and the slouchy impression it gave his bottom half is not what should be matched with his loose top half. But since the mannequins all have ideal figures, I'm pretty sure that the pants didn't look so bad. I bet he took this into consideration, too.

Zoom In: Aiba talks quite a bit about Jun too, actually, if my impressions are right. He talks bunches about Jun and Nino and Sho. It's Nino who splits his attention almost equally amongst the four of them.

VSA102: Arashi being bastards at each other is pretty much always amazing. .___.b

I swear it looked like Jun was like trying to distract Nino with himself, not just block his line of vision! Look at when they introduced Rolling Coin Tower. In the beginning it wasn't immediately clear what Jun was doing; all I could see of him was waving his arms and getting reeeeeally close to Nino, the latter whom eventually ducked his head to laugh.

I love a relaxed Jun ;___;

[beckerbell]

HnA088: I actually love that Nino doesn't always particularly like his job and has fun with messing with his fans, because it makes him such an interesting (and hilarious) person to watch and he's actually really, really good at holding a conversation with people, which they often use in their line of work. Nino is AMAZING at keeping a conversation from getting awkward, whether by playing the tsukkomi or by being genuinely interested in something--and that's not even including how Nino tells the best stories because he doesn't care if you think he's a dick. He walks this really amazing balance and he's so good at his job that sometimes I wish he enjoyed it more... but I can't lie and say I don't love that he often gets bored with it so he starts messing with people.

I am intrigued by your theories and wish to subscribe to your newsletter! I totally like to believe that Arashi spend the next week asking him for advice on what they should wear for whatever occasion and Jun is like I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING BUT YOU REALLY DO NEED HELP and so he feels a little better. ♥

I... I cannot disagree that Aiba would make the best model out of Arashi. I think a lot of Jun's appeal comes from when he wears more traditionally stylish clothes and because of his whole persona. For sheer looks, though? Yeah, Aiba is the one that makes clothes look hot.

I bet he took this into consideration, too.

CRACKING UP NOW BECAUSE I CAN EASILY BELIEVE YOU'RE RIGHT. Nino himself slouches (not to mention that he's rail thin) so he often doesn't look quite right in clothes, but you take them off and put them on a mannequin? I imagine they looked pretty good and Nino knows it.

Zoom In: It does seem like Aiba talks fairly evenly across those three, yeah. (I'd say Jun and Nino might be a little ahead of Sho these days. I swear, it never used to be this way, but there is A LOT of Aiba/Nino in the last couple of years and, really, who thinks that's a good idea? They're clearly Chaos Incarnate, you guys!)

VSA102: You know, as much as I love Nino/Jun dickery and bitching at each other (because it's so hilarious), I love that they're the two squishiest members of Arashi, who have all this RIDICULOUS LOVE for their bandmates, and I want more of them demanding each others' attention! Because I can totally believe that Jun would want to both mess with Nino's fanboy crush AND would want Nino's attention back on himself. (Despite that Jun is actually not as much of an attention whore as a lot of people would believe! It's just that he's a squishie, so he always wants to ~*be*~ with his bandmates and focus on them/have them focus on him.)

I love happy, smiling, beaming Jun so, so much, too. ;___;♥