Arashi grows up? Surely not!

[bitterbee]

Another picspam ostensibly for flange5, this one unsolicited and probably way too long (these things easily get out of control, don’t they?). But I thought it might be interesting to explore one of the older Arashi programs that no one seems to pay attention to. Maybe with good reason, but I found it enjoyable despite its limitations.

Comments

[flange5]

Oh god! That is hilarious!

Oooohh . . . you gave me Sakuraiba for the birthday&hearts . . . and my very own tag . . .

*is giddy*

What I like about the 'mature' concept is that for it to work, the show would have to stop . . .

I like your interpretation that being an adult doesn't require the sort of arbitrary end to fun. It always makes me sad when students seem to think that, like 'what kind of life do you see in front of you???'

The dubious look that Sho gives the udder just before he milks her made me crack up so hard--it's like he's totally sizing up an enemy or an obstacle. Also, he looks mildly skeeved out, which I unaccountably find hilarious. But maybe that's because I &hearts Sho in pretty much every incarnation.

Also, the look on his face when he grills that poor defenseless inoffensive shellfish >_< I agree wholeheartedly.

And thank god, poor Sho didn't have to bungee. While it's amusing to play off of their weaknesses for a laugh . . . He often looks really scared, and . . . D:

The studio setting sort of reminds me of an Olive Garden. Does that make me a horrible person?

And Arashi + cows = winning combination again \o/

Thank you for the nominal dedication ^_~

Posting is fun, isn't it? ^^ I should do some of that sometime . . .

umm . . . spiders? >____<

[bitterbee]

Glad you liked it! I really lucked out finding Sakuraiba in the first episode. And in school uniforms!

I must see whether the other episodes continue in this vein of 'learning to be mature', or whether they abandoned this idea the same way they abandoned the original 'documentary' focus of DnA. Clearly, as you point out, the concept is flawed -- but if all their guests are going to suggest stuff like this, maybe they wouldn't achieve some sort of typical 'maturity' anyway.

I agree with sadness for people who seem to think being grown up means not enjoying yourself anymore. I much prefer the 'ah, now I have an income, so I can get that Playstation/anime/trip-to-Graceland I never could have before' mentality. Even people who have kids should be able to keep having fun -- should keep having fun, since if they forget how to be kids, they will never be able to help theirs.

I wish I could have that apprehensive Sho face without the udder. It's amazing.

[flange5]

Yes, Sakuraiba in school uniforms is pretty much golden ^^

On the maturity theme for the show; true--It would be cool if the 'adults' kind went the 'being adult' means all kinds of things which don't necessarily mean being 'mature.' I could get behind that.

So you know how my car hasn't broken in the last 2 months? yeah. back window came off the tracks. So it's permanently open. And it looks like rain >_<

Oh well.

I refuse to spaz. See how adult I'm being?

*rolls eyes*

[bitterbee]

Your poor car! Is it an automatic window or a manual? I have heard that the manual ones can usually be fixed relatively easily (but maybe not if it's off its track). Of course, why on earth would you have the window open -- don't you know that you're supposed to live entirely on canned A/C air now that you live in the South?

Didn't get to finish replying to all your original comment, since Meg came to fetch me earlier than I expected. But...

Yes, I was very happy that Aiba was chosen over Sho, since I prefer that Sho suffer as little as possible. (Aiba was alternately giggling and screaming for help during his bungee, so I think he wasn't that scared -- not petrified like Sho usually is in these situations). But I think we overlook that Sho always does it, whatever it is -- which is either very brave of him to overcome his fears, or else very lemming-like of him to let the others push him into stuff. (In a V6 thing I saw recently, a couple of the guys simply would not jump off a cliff just because the other four did, televised or not -- is that brave, or chickenshit?)

Ah, maybe it's not SCP that the set reminds me of, but an Olive Garden -- one of those 'Tuscany' ones with the darker taupe stucco going on. Yes, I think you're right.

Maybe I should do a cow-themed picspam. Here, MMA, V6 special, cowprint costumes, KAT-TUN Viking helmet, MBMH... During this ep, the original recorder opted not to cut a bunch of the commercials because they featured Johnnys -- seriously, I think Johnny bought the entire hour time slot and then only went after sponsors who were using his boys in their campaigns. Anyway, one of them was for some kind of ice cream treat, and it ended with the guy (one of the Kinki Kids? I know I've seen him before...) eating his treat in his house while outside the window a cow was hanging up his laundry. Oh hell, here it is.




See? I hadn't noticed the cow portrait on the wall till now. Anyway, cows + idols again. I'm sure there will be more out there somewhere.

[flange5]

What in the hell is up with the cow fascination, Japan? I wonder if it's just Johnny's or if it's more a national obsession . . .

Sadly, automatic windows. I can see this being expensive as all hell. I'd even be happy if they could just get it up and then not ever roll it down again. I just want this car to last another year or so. I don't think that's too much to ask of a 8 year old car, really >_<

I think Sho has no real ability to say no to pressure.

He's a big weenie. And I totally love him ^^" But a weenie.

[bitterbee]

*sigh* I think automatic windows means taking apart the door, no matter how minor the problem might be. That sucks. Maybe you need to teach that extra Kaplan-type course after all, since you're not getting paid enough. ^_~

Well, the not saying no kind of makes him lovable, that he'll do these crazy things to make the boys happy (or the fans, or whoever). But it's hilarious that, in trying not to look like the only weenie, he always ends up looking like a weenie.

Did you see Nino's blog post about them all attending the wedding of one of their tv show producers? How sweet!

[flange5]

damn! I was ear-marking the SAT class money for Rosetta stone--and Christmas ^^"

So there is now a Wii ensconced in the living room--and I got Okami for it \o/ I'm curious to see if the picture quality gets even better ^^ I named it after Hakuryu because I am that dorky.

I have to make a Mii now.

and the car will totally need to have the door taken apart. I'm doing that fun calculation of 'how much am I willing to put into this vehicle before I should just chuck it since I walk to campus 4 days a week anyway?' >_<

Maybe I should order a smartcar now so when it comes in in a year I will be ready to get rid of this one . . .

Did you see Nino's blog post about them all attending the wedding of one of their tv show producers? How sweet!

No! that's adorable!! Where did you see it? I'm not really up on the Nino-centric sites ^^"

[bitterbee]

What's a Mii? presumably something to do with the Wii, but since I am without, I don't understand.

So, with the Wii version of Okami, does one draw with the wand thing? Is it easier or harder? I would think it's easier, and therefore cheating.

The blog post is from 6th_member, a relatively new community where someone is translating the members' blog posts -- only it's mostly Nino, since he's really the only one who does it regularly. I think it's a locked comm.

I think there's a skunk around somewhere, cuz I keep getting whiffs through the window.

So, I successfully burned a dvd, but the movie image disappears off the sides of the screen -- this means that the subtitles are only half-visible. Have you run into this and found a solution? All the help topics I'm reading only have things to say about changing the size of your menu image, but nothing about the movie itself. (though one of the forum topics seemed to be suggesting that this is a problem with any analog tv?)

[bitterbee]

Hmm, it seems I can manually change the video to letterbox on my dvd player, and that makes the subs fit, though they are smaller than before, and the left and right edges of the screen disappear. Though it seems like the subbers kept their lines pretty centered, so the subs don't actually disappear. Well, good enough.

[flange5]

by letterbox, do you mean widescreen? *is confused*

I don't think I've run into this problem before . . .

mmmm lemon cake ^_^

[bitterbee]

Well, a standard tv has 4:3 ratio, and a widescreen is 16:9. The iDVD settings let you do either of these settings, it seems, but it only affects the menu, as far as I can tell, not the video itself.

But if I go into the system menu on the dvd player, I can choose 4:3, 16:9 or 4:3 letterbox display. The 4:3 letterbox makes the bars on the bottom and top (and probably makes the image a bit wider, too), but doesn't distort the visual -- regular widescreen stretches everyone weirdly.

[flange5]

Hmm . . . I will have to see if our dvd player does the same . . . though I am in the market for a region free dvd player since I'm accumulating concert dvds ^^

I will have to try that.

I've started work on the next picwar, but don't know if it will go out tonight or tomorrow . . .

It's been a nice day so far, though. There is lemon cake cooling down on the counter \o/

I think I will eat it with some limeade ^^

[bitterbee]

Sounds very tart with both!

I suppose a region-free player and concert dvds are also on my list, but I may wait on those till there's a job in sight. Preferably one that allows me enough free time to fangirl without destroying myself (like I'm doing now).

I like the back-and-forth ANS 14 Ohno icons. It's like he's talking to himself. *.*

Looking forward to the picwar. I am assuming the ones you keep threatening are from All or Nothing? Since there was fur in Locky's last post... Seems like you could bring those out at any time, since you're no longer escalating, but thematizing.

[flange5]

nope! Fur later (don't give it away! I'm hoping she hasn't seen those yet ^_~), since they're pretty versatile. This one is actually from Iza. It's a more direct confrontation with the last. You'll see.

I like the back-and-forth ANS 14 Ohno icons. It's like he's talking to himself. *.*

I sort of had the same idea ^^

I've just barely begun the post though. Al the pictures are uploaded, but I have to decide which of the 80+ caps I'm going to use and more importantly what I'm going to say about them.

So it might not get done until tomorrow.

edit: it's done ^^" For I have no willpower. Now on to Okami!!

[flange5]

Oh, on Wii, you can construct little avatars to represent you--and with games with crowds, the little Miis are interspersed in the crowds. And the sports games use them as the avatars. They are lots of fun^^

Okami so fat is much harder. To do the horizontal slash, you have to be simultaneously hitting buttons on both controllers and then hit a third button while moving one of the controllers perfectly horizontally. You know that star-dot way you get the brush techniques? The first one, I had to try something like 30 times before it worked. I am not exaggerating.

However, I like to think of it as training ^^ soon I will rule over the Wii remote ^^

Hmm . . . I haven't had that problem with the subs--though sometimes, they're too close to the bottom of the screen and thus hard to read . . .

[bitterbee]

I was wondering about the precision necessary for Wii Okami. Well, it seems that one thing that game is good for (other than being awesome and pretty) is controller-dexterity practice. I get to buy it after I defend.

I don't understand why the iDVD program is set up so that its window is so much bigger than the "TV safe area" -- why not just set it up so that whatever shows on the screen while you're making it is also going to show up on the screen when you play it on your tv? If I don't change the player display, only the top half of the subtitle line is visible -- which makes it less easy to force the dorama on others...