Various bits and ramblings.

I thought about posting earlier today but decided to wait until after I finished watching Hidarime Tantei EYE before doing so.

Matchy will be releasing a new single on December 12th, as he comes up to his 30th anniversary since his debut. The single according to Johnny's net will have a commercial tie-in for H.I.S., a Japanese company IIRC, and the song will be titled Motto! Motto!. As it's still far from the release date there isn't much more confirmed information about the single out.

Snow Prince is set for world wide debut, and will do so in Hawaii, where it will be screened for the Hawaii International Film Festival. HIFF runs from October 15th through the 25th. If you check out the website for the festival you can see the full listing of all the films and you will probably notice that Morimoto Shintarou won't be the only Johnny's seen in a film there. The Gokusen movie is also listed so Kame, Takaki, B.A.D. and Tamamori will also be getting a little bit of international exposure. Though as someone who has seen the movie already, unless you've already seen all the drama seasons you'll probably find it hard to enjoy.

HIFF official website.

Today was the first day of the Kis-My-Ft2 national tour. They did two concerts in Oita today and from reports they're going Junior-less, so they're the only ones performing for their concerts. And from the setl list that is drifting around now very few of the songs they are being borrowed from their sempai, mainly solo songs so everyone has one. And of course they have a PLAYZONE corner, but I think most were expecting that. And there does seem to be a couple of new songs too for the concert, including a new solo for Tamamori.

The more I read about the tour the more excited I get for it. I can't believe I have to wait until December to see them perform. Though I wonder if Johnny's will give them some Juniors for Yokohama Arena, as I believe that will be the biggest venue they will be performing in. (And with any luck they might be taping in if we're getting a DVD for this.)

For Hidarime Tantei EYE, it was ok. I missed some of the first part but it really didn't take too long to figure out what was going on after knowing about the plot from all the promotion. Overall though I think they needed to focus more on developing characters. Yamada's though had good development, IMHO, but the rest for the most part stayed rather one dimensional, so it was hard to care about what happened to them.

I think I'm finally getting it in my head that Yamada Ryosuke isn't the cute little kid he was when he debuted two years ago. I mean even though I see him in the magazines I still think of him as if he was still 14, but after watching this drama it's finally getting through he has grown up quite a bit since then. Though he still looks like he still has growing left to do, but I think he's slowly fitting the cool image better, though he still looks the best when he's happy and smiley, IMHO. And for the Yamada fan girls, you do get to see him shirtless in the drama so you can look forward to that.

I rather liked that his character really isn't an elite genius type so much as all his previous roles have been. He's much more just a normal kid that has been thrust in a very abnormal situation. And I enjoyed all the scenes he had together with Yokoyama Yu. Even the more heartbreaking ones.

The female school nurse just felt like she was there only for comedic relief and to be a plot device when they needed to keep the plot moving. Her character annoyed me because she came off rather shallow with very little about her to sympathize with because of this, IMHO.

But the ending left everything wide open for it to be continued. In fact it felt like it was just begging for more of the story to be told for it. Or maybe it's just that I actually want to see what happens next. Even though I wasn't floored by the SP, I did enjoy it and kept feeling that if they had more time they could tell a more interesting story. I really hope it does become a weekly drama. And they can add to the cast a bit, like bring in another member of Hey! Say! 7 (or Daiki)to become friends with Yamada's character or something. And then maybe we can finally get a new cd release from Hey! Say! JUMP.