NEWS news (Dec 2019)

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• KEIICHIRO (Dec 3)
  
  • He wrote an entry about “NEWS ni Koishite” and shared how he was playing with the cut outs of the illustrations of their characters while recording new voices for the game recently. He posted two photos of the cut outs at the end
• NEWSRING (Dec 4)
  
  • It was Koyama’s turn to update
  • To continue with the shiritori, he picked “namae wa keiichiro” (the name’s keiichiro), but gave a few more words/phrases starting with “na” and writing a short passage for each.
    Nata de coco - he wondered if the younger generation knew about this
    Nagekiss (blowing kisses) - he can do this during concerts
    Narcissist - he is not
    Nakanaka no hindo (quite frequently) - he’s been meeting Jesse (SixTONES) quite a lot these days for food
    Nakamura-kun - how has he been?
    Namahousou (live telecast) - talked about FNS that night and said he’s going off for it!
• SixTONES no Blog (Dec 7)
  • Kyomoto posted a photo of himself and Tegoshi in his jweb entry, though there was no mention of Tegoshi in the text…
• NEWSRING (Dec 11)
  
  • It was Shige’s turn to update
  • He said that they finished filming “Akuma no Temari Uta”, and that he was really happy to have been able to play Kindaichi Kousuke twice now and that it was tough but motivating. He’s looking forward to seeing the finished product.
    He also mentioned his appearance on “VS Arashi”, saying that he had a lot of fun.
    He talked about the new year and wanting to do his best to have no regrets.
• Toramaru (Dec 14)
  • Kawashima Noel (Travis Japan) mentioned Shige in his entry, saying he had lots to tell Shige so he mustered up his courage to look for him. The first time he went, Shige looked really busy with his writing but his manager said it’s okay and encouraged him to go, so he went a second time, and Shige was reaaaaaaaaalllly nice (cries). He was there for about 10 mins and shook Shige’s hand and they even took a photo together before he left. He hopes to meet Shige again and promoted Kindaichi for Shige.
• NEWSRING (Dec 18)
  
  • It was Massu’s turn to update
  • He said it’s been cold and wondered if everyone’s been okay. He said he’s been great and is happy to be appearing in lots of year end music programmes.
    Before continuing the shiritori, he congratulated Shige on his drama and started talking about how he’s got the image of being strong against the cold but he isn’t really. He’s bad with both the cold and hot though he’s worse with summer. He started explaining he doesn’t wear too many layers if he knows he’s going to be indoors mostly and everyone would see him and say he’s wearing so little and this conversation repeats all the time and he tells this story all the time too and finally revealed his word choice for the shiritori to be “zu~~~tto” (all the time).
• Shigeaki no Cloud (Dec 19)
  
  • Shige wrote about his new serialization, “Alternate”, which he said he was working on from Spring until Autumn so it’s almost finished. He said that the manuscript is quite large and included a picture of it on his desk. He also talked about his final essay for Shosetsu Tripper and “Akuma no Temari Uta”, and “Typewriters”.
    He apologized that the entry is mostly just him promoting things and said that there’s other stuff he wants to promote but that’s all for today. At the end of the entry, in the spirit of Kindaichi, he hinted that there’s a mystery hidden in the entry you should try to find. [mod note: the hidden section ended at 12pm JST on Dec 26]
• Masuda Takahisa no Marumaru (Dec 19)
  
  • Masuda Takahisa’s Towel
  • He mentioned about jweb being down and apologised if people looking forward to the updates were disappointed. So he’s updating!
    He talked about buying towels in between the shoot for “Sore Dame” and got some black ones, and also how much he likes towels. The shop assistant told him the black will run the first few times and he used it for the first time after washing it a few times, but still ended up black all over.
    He also said it’d be the 4th anniversary of Marumaru soon so there’ll be a new logo. No mentions of when it’ll be launched, but it’ll be very different and he asked everyone to look forward to it.
• KEIICHIRO (Dec 22)
  
  • He wrote about getting to appear on “Sunday Japon” with Shige and showed a photo the staff prepared of KoyaShige wearing Christmas hats. He also promoted NEWS’ appearance on “CDtV Christmas Ongakusai” the following day, as well as his turn on magazine Biteki, saying the idea of this issue was his.
• NEWSRING (Dec 25)
  
  • It was Tegoshi’s turn to update
  • Tegoshi wished everyone a Merry Christmas. He said that he was filming ItteQ right around Christmas time and they were talking about how they all spend Christmas, and those with kids said that they spent it with them and their family which he said he was envious of. Since he’s living on his own and away from family, he didn’t have anyone to spend it with and it was lonely. Since he has a busy work schedule around the end of the year Emma was also staying with his mom. But he was glad to have lots of work rather than be on his own.
    For shiritori, he picked “training” and he said that in the rare time that he felt down, he asked his friend and professional soccer player, Uchida Atsuto, what he does when he’s feeling down and he told him that he works out.
    Tegoshi said that he’s been going to the gym since he was around 20. He said that he thinks when you exercise your body, you’re also exercising your mind.
    He used to go about twice a week, but nowadays he’s going 4~5 times a week in order to get in shape for concerts and he’s in pretty good shape.
    Despite that, his mother recently told him when she was staying over at his house that she heard that people are saying that he got fatter, and since she knows how hard he’s working out, it was frustrating for her to hear. Tegoshi said that he replied that he knows his own body the best, and so the opinions of  people who don’t know what work he puts into it don’t matter. Once they see him perform, they won’t be able to complain.
    He said that since he’s training more his neck has gotten thicker, so it might not come off as well on TV, but he can’t stop training. He asked everyone to look forward to seeing him perform.
• Masuda Takahisa no Marumaru (Dec 25)
  
  • Masuda Takahisa’s Merry Christmas
  • He wondered if it’d have been more romantic to wish everyone Merry Christmas on the eve instead.
    He talked a bit about “STORY”, saying things like he’s been reading the messages everyone sent in for the project, and ended the entry by saying he’ll do his best for the remaining bit of 2019
• KEIICHIRO (Dec 30)
  
  • He talked about how it’s been cold and that makes him sleepy. He said another year’s starting soon and wondered if he’s been able to make everyone happy in 2019. He asked everyone to watch Johnny’s Countdown, and ended with a photo of his eyes closed and saying he’s sleepy
• Masuda Takahisa no Marumaru (Jan 1)
  
  • Masuda Takahisa’s Greetings
  • He wished everyone a Happy New Year and talked about how the CDTV staff didn’t notice he changed the lyrics for the start of his rap in “Top Gun” and asked, “But all of you noticed… right?” He ended by saying he’ll do his best for 2020.
• NEWSRING (Jan 1)
  
  • It was Koyama’s turn to update
  • Koyama talked about the new year and said that the biggest thing that changed for him in 2019 was that he became much more mentally strong. He said he’s built up the mental strength to be true to himself. He promised to make everyone even happier in 2020.
• KEIICHIRO (Jan 2)
  
  • Koyama wished everyone a Happy New Year and promoted the “NEWS na Futari SP” special airing that night. He made fun of the mistake he made in the video posted on the official twitter account, saying “specially” instead of “special”.
    He also talked about the STORY tour, saying he was bursting to announce it during (Johnny’s) Countdown. He ended the entry with a photo of himself wearing the mouse ears from JCD, saying the cat (Milk) and the mouse gets along well at his house.
• Snow Nichijou (Jan 6)
  • Massu was mentioned in Fukazawa’s entry when he talked about the sempais he tried to interact with during Johnny’s Countdown. He found Massu first and said Massu was wearing a super cool looking outerwear
• NEWSRING (Jan 8)
  
  • It was Shige’s turn to update
  • Shige wished everyone a happy new year and said that he had a writing deadline so he’s been spending the new year mostly at home, except one day he went fishing because he heard that it’s possible to catch big tuna right now even though it’s off season. Since he was finally able to catch a tuna last year, his new goal is a tuna that is as many or more kilos as his age and he had heard that the tuna people were catching were 40 to 70 kilo.
    But when he went there were no tuna, and the captain said, “That’s weird, there were a lot of tuna here just yesterday” Shige lamented missing out on the tuna but said it was still a good day off and hoped for summer to come quickly.

• DJ Matsunaga talked about his collaboration with NEWS on FNS on his radio programme. He said he was nervous about how NEWS fans would react to the collab since it was a song that was complete with just NEWS’ singing from a fan’s POV, but he received a lot of warm replies on Twitter after the performance.
  He also praised their singing, especially Tegoshi’s. They were also really good with the cameras and he learnt a lot. He went on to say something nice about each of them - Tegoshi’s singing, Massu’s rap, Shige for having introduced “CREEPY NUTS” on Shigebu before anyone even knew about them, but he was too nervous to say thanks in person. And finally Koyama for suggesting to include “CREEPY NUTS” in the shoutout during the song. He’s really grateful for the additional exposure for the group. ( Source)
• Billboard Japan announced their top 100 songs for 2019 and “Love Story/Top Gun” came in 90th. (Source)
• It was announced on Dec 16 that Shige will be getting his first regular serial novel in monthly magazine, “Shosetsu Shincho”. Titled “Alternet” (TL note: probably a word play on “Alternate”), the story will be on a social media platform limited to just high school students. The first instalment will be published in the Jan issue that goes on sale from Dec 21, along with a 8-page interview with Shige. (Source)
  • On Dec 24, they announced a reprint of the issue due to the high demand for it ( Source)
• The jacket cover designs for the DVD/Bluray of “EPCOTIA ENCORE” were revealed on Dec 16th. JEHP also posted visuals the special packaging for the limited edition version, where we are given a preview of how the alien keychains will look
• New Year messages from NEWS are now up on Johnny’s net. Log into your FC account to view the full video message, or watch the short preview as well as read their handwritten messages here.
• It was announced on Jan 10 that “NEWS ni Koishite” will end on Mar 26 15:00 JST. ( Source)
• To keep up to date on NEWS’ activities don’t forget to check out the NEWS Schedule at the top of the sidebar!

• Sorashige Book (Oct 20)
  • Listener Letter - What is Shige up to recently?
    Shige said that he’s writing, about four different things. He’s hoping it’ll all be able to be released next year. He’s also filming for Kindaichi, and watching “Game of Thrones”.
  • ♪ Love Story ♪
  • ♪ Eill - One Last Time ♪
  • King of Conte - He couldn’t watch in real time so he avoided spoilers and watched it later. He thought it was interesting.
  • Listeners wrote in for writing advice and what to do when you get writers block
  • ♪ Ribon  ♪
• Kchan NEWS (Oct 23)
  • The guest this week was Tegoshi
  • Koyama commented how Tegoshi’s perfume was really strong and he smelled good, and Tegoshi said that he always does one spray before leaving the house.
  • They also talked about the typhoon, and how they’re worried for everyone. Tegoshi said that by his mom’s house, a tree fell over and she sent him a picture. Koyama said that his mom’s house too also got an evacuation notice. They said that they wanted to help in whatever way they could.
  • ♪ Kingdom ♪
  • Listener Letter - They commented on how NEWS’ dressing room seems really noisy but fun, they were glad to be able to hear it some in the last Kchan NEWS. They talked about the last episode and how the sound of Tegoshi playing video games and Massu playing “Dolls” made it on air.
  • Listener Letter - Oceans Tegoshi - They talked about the episode and how the one coordinator said on air “I’ll kill him” when one of the organizers they were working with flaked out on them.
    He said that he’s close with the staff, so the dinner conversation they filmed is how it usually is.
  • Listener Letter - A middle schooler wrote in asking how to get the boys in her class to seriously practice for their chorus competition.
    Tegoshi said she should shout out to them like “Hey you-tachi!”, mimicking how Johnny’s way of speaking.
  • ♪ 36° ♪
  • At the end, they did PR for Shige’s Kindaichi drama, with Tegoshi joking that it was an announcement that Shige changed his first name to katakana.
• Tegomass no Radio (Oct 23)
  • At the opening, they talked about how “Taiiku no Hi” was going to be renamed “Sports Day” next year and a bit on sports days in schools
  • Request this week: ♪ SPIRIT ♪
  • If there’s any food they’re really into recently - Tegoshi: (ready-to-eat) salad chicken and chicken breasts from the convenience stores. They went off tangent for a while with Sakura and Tegoshi talking about the “Spicy as Hell and Tasty as Well” spicy food fair they both went to. (M: You sure you both didn’t got together…?)
    M: Well even if you really did go together, at least ask if I’m interested.
    Sakura: Even when you can’t eat spicy food?
    T: Who’s the one who said he’s been getting more averse to them?
    They went off tangent again talking about Massu’s appearance on the food challenge segment of “Ariyoshizemi” and people who eat a lot
  • Tips for how to sing rock songs well and how there’s a certain way to sing for achieving high scores at the karaoke - being good at singing and singing well is different. Massu tried to make Tegoshi sing “Ribbon” in a rock style but Tegoshi threw the request back at him and Massu sang weirdly
    To answer the listener - it’s all about the feelings
  • At the ending, Massu had to say a dajare (something like puns) based on the word Tegoshi gave him
• Masuda Takahisa no Master Hits (Oct 25)
  • At the opening, he shared how he went for food with some staff he’s known since he’s 20 and he played with their kid they brought along. He did some shopping and went for more food after, so it was a day he spent eating
  • If he prefers fresh cream or custard - he prefers custard
  • ♪ Baby! Be My Baby! ♪
  • The second listener said the episode with comedian duo Indians was really fun and hopes for more of this. Massu said there’re many other similar mails for Indians and said he’ll convey the response to them the next time they met
  • The third listener referred to the collaboration radio episode Massu did with Kamiyama and Shigeoka from Johnny’s WEST where he mentioned he’s closest to Kotaki out of the group. He gave a slight background to this story and said he forgot Hamada so he wanted to take this chance to apologise. He might probably be closer to Hamada over Kotaki. A story with Kotaki - Kotaki has been working out too and they felt each other’s chest muscles. He said he should try inviting them/do more collaborations again
  • On what Massu wears now (when the seasons are changing and it’s hard to decide what to wear) - what he usually wears in summer + a hoodie. He also shared he doesn’t own many brown items and would recommend an all beige get-up
  • If Massu prefers females to wear short or long boots. He’s never found knee-high boots very appealing, and said the 8-eyes from Dr Martens are cute (he wears 10-eye ones though)
  • If he prefers pandas or koalas - pandas
  • If he could read a bedtime story to the listeners (M: ...when I don’t read? Will picture books do?). He said he’d like the listener to read it once to him first. Maybe someday.
  • ♪ Nagisa no Oneesama ♪
  • For Brainmaster this week, the question was - which country is ketchup said to have been started from? He made a whole bunch of wrong guesses before getting it - China
  • ♪ Silent Love ♪
  • At the ending, he revealed the theme for the song selection as “Baby” and how even though the Master Hits staff found this idea of selecting songs around a theme brilliant, they haven’t been receiving any mails on it so maybe this boom will blow over soon
• Sorashige Book (Oct 27)
  • Rugby - Shige was surprised that he got so into it, and found it motivating
  • ♪ Byakuya ♪
  • ♪ Mitamura Chiharu - Ginga Tetsudo no Yoru ♪
  • Game of Thrones - Shige prefers to watch foreign movies and tv with subtitles not the dubbed version. Shige’s up to season 8. Shige talked about how Koyama doesn’t watch many of the movies or tv shows that Shige recommends. At the point when Shige had watched up to season 6, he asked Koyama about it and he hadn’t even finished the first episode yet, saying that it was difficult, which Shige said that he understood since there are a lot of characters and at first you don’t know who to watch. So Koyama found a character chart and shared it with Shige claiming that it made the show a lot easier to follow, but when Shige asked him how far he was he was still only on the second episode.
  • ♪ Mysteria ♪
• Kchan NEWS (Oct 30)
  • The guest this week was Tegoshi
  • Halloween - They talked about how Tegoshi’s passion for Halloween has been fading. He said that he’s done all the costumes he’s wanted to do, and everyone just uses it as an excuse to cosplay, when really if they wanted to they should just get together with their friends and have a cosplay party it doesn’t have to be on Halloween.
  • Selfies - Tegoshi said that he doesn’t do social media so he doesn’t really take selfies. He takes pictures of Emma instead. Koyama said he takes them for Jweb, and told Tegoshi he should do one, he could just upload pics of Emma but Tegoshi started whining saying he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the deadlines. Koyama told him he could go at his own pace, but Tegoshi insisted that he couldn’t do it. He said that if Johnny’s were allowed to do social media he still wouldn’t do it. Like with Twitter, you can see when someone replies to you something negative, and he’s the type to reply. Johnny’s Web is better since there’s no replies, and only their fans who care enough to pay can see it. Koyama told him again that he should have a Jweb then, and Tegoshi whined more that he couldn’t.
  • ♪ Love Story ♪
  • Listener Letter - The listener was proposed to recently, but they don’t have much experience with weddings, so they don’t know what to do. Since NEWS does things like concerts etc, they want advice.
    They said that though the groom’s opinion matters it’s more up to the bride. Tegoshi said that for his wedding he doesn’t want a huge affair just the staff he’s close with, the members, family and close friends. Koyama said that he could see Tegoshi singing a song for his wife at his ceremony and his mother crying, and Tegoshi said he’d like to do something like that, he’d like an artist or sempai he admires sing and then after that sing to his wife.
    Tegoshi mentioned how he’d only have his mom at his wedding, and Koyama said that he walked his older sister down the aisle for her wedding.
    Tegoshi told a story about how his friend asked him to sing “Koi wo Shiranai Kimi e” at his wedding, and Tegoshi warned him that it’s a breakup song, but the friend insisted because his wife loved the song. But in the end they got divorced soon after. Tegoshi said that out of Tegomass’ songs, “Hanamuke” is a good one for a wedding. Out of NEWS’ songs, Koyama said that his friend entered to “Cherish”.
    Koyama said that any song, even a break up song, is fine if it’s special to the couple. Tegoshi said that they should use, “I’m Coming” and they had fun discussing that for awhile.
  • ♪ Hi wa Mata Noboru ♪
  • At the end they did PR for Massu’s drama, and as usual Koyama made Tegoshi guess what kind of drama it was and Tegoshi made it up as he went, basically repeating the plot of a drama Koyama did quite a few years ago and they had fun reminiscing about that.
• Tegomass no Radio (Oct 30)
  • It’s the 8th anniversary of Tegomass no Radio. Sakura joined them in May 2014 so she’s been around for about two-thirds of the time (they proceeded to say Aracchi left a stronger impression). Tegoshi started asking Sakura who she’s going to get married to (since there’s the image of announcers getting married to baseball players) and she announced “a politician”
  • Request this week: ♪ LIVE ♪
  • Where they went for excursions when they were kids - Massu got particular about whether the story was for excursion or for social studies class, and Tegoshi messed up rabbit shaped apples with octopus shaped sausages and said he had rabbit shaped sausages in his bento. (M: That’s gross!)
    Both Massu and Sakura went to outdoor adventure parks where they had to clear obstacle courses
  • For “Quiz! Tegomass ni Oshiete” this week, the first question was, “In a cage at the zoo, there is the figure ‘8.9’ written. What animal’s inside?” Massu got it right - peacock. (because peacock = “kujaku” in Japanese, which sounds similar to “kyuu jaku”, slightly less than 9)
  • Second question: What’s this? “Ma mi mu ne mo”. Tegoshi got it right instantly - spectacles. Because in this “ma” line of hiragana, “me” became “ne”, so “me ga ne” (spectacles)
  • Third question: Where should this go? “Ha shi hu he ho” (M: From the same person?? Sakura: No, different)
    Massu got it right - East (higashi). By the same logic. (M to T: WHY COULDN’T YOU GET THIS? T: [in English] I don’t know)
  • Fourth question: someone who’s drunk, someone who caught the cold, someone with a stomach ache. Of these, who won’t be able to enter the cinema because it’s full? Tegoshi got it right, the person with the cold, as “seki komu” = meaning both “coughing non stop” and “crowded seats”
  • Final question: Someone from Hyogo, Nara and Osaka. Who’s the one who always looks sleepy? They took quite a while with this before Massu finally got it - Osaka. Because Osaka is an urban prefecture (Osaka-fu) so the people are referred to as “fu-min”府民, which sounds similar to “can’t sleep”不眠
  • At the ending, Tegoshi was supposed to follow Massu and do a rap but he was terrible (T: I recorded all the rap parts for NEWS’ songs last time but I never got them.) They also revealed that Tegoshi got Sho (Arashi) to write the lyrics for his part in “ VIBRATION” when the rest all wrote their own parts. Sho even went to the recording and did an example for Tegoshi to follow
• Masuda Takahisa no Master Hits (Nov 1)
  • At the opening, he talked about how there were only 2 months left to the year and it felt like the year was ending so soon. He also promoted his upcoming appearances on “VS Arashi”
  • If he prefers strawberries or blueberries or raspberries - strawberries (M: I wrote such good lyrics!)
  • ♪ Love So Sweet ♪ (Arashi)
  • If Massu uses wireless earphones, because the listener prefers wired earphones. Massu said he could understand that, and the audio from wired earphones must definitely better, since it’s the same for microphones. He went on to talk about the constantly updated technology and times changing before saying he uses a mix of both wired and wireless ones, though he uses bluetooth earphones more recently
  • A listener who sang “EMMA” at the karaoke recently and imitates Massu when he sings “sayonara made 2cm” in the music video. He shared how he recently sang a lot of NEWS songs when he went to the karaoke with Jrs (Nozawa and Shindo). Shindo put a lot of NEWS songs with Massu’s rap sections in and he had to sing all of them. He also was happy to see quite a number of songs were using their actual PVs (as opposed to generic footage)
  • On how Massu mentioned he’s good at the UFO catchers in “Sore Dame” - what has he gotten before? He said small plushies mostly and shared how he once went to do it with the Jrs on the way home from a barbecue and they got quite a lot. Like, ones as big as the size of a head, and he gave all of them away because while he wants to get them, he doesn’t want plushies this size sitting in his house. Yet. (Story again of how he brought 8 Babo-chans home when NEWS were supporters for volleyball and really regretted it)
  • How he decides which clothes to put on hangers and which to fold - he’d really like to hang all of them but he owns too many items. So he hangs items made from material that shouldn’t be folded, like coats. He folds many others, like tshirts, hoodies, even shirts. His ideal is to hang everything up on the same hangers though. Someday!
  • A listener drank a “Sweet Martini” for the first time recently. To be honest, he hasn’t drank that before as he doesn’t drink such cocktails very much but that song is a stylish song like the cocktail. He talked for a bit about how he doesn’t like drinks whose alcoholic content isn’t proportionate to the volume. He concluded he probably wouldn’t like sweet martinis
  • ♪ Love Story ♪
  • For “Brain Master” this week, the question was - the last runner in a relay is called the “anchor”, but which was the sporting event that this term originated for? Hint: it’s a standard sporting event but not included in the Olympic Games. He made a few wrong guesses before getting it right: tug-of-war. He also said he was always the anchor for relays, from elementary school through high school, though he got taken over over the years
  • ♪ Ai no naka de ♪
  • At the ending, he revealed the theme for song selection this week week to be “Love”. He added that while he doesn’t like sweet martini, he likes gin and tonic quite a bit