I BOUGHT 17 MORE PRINCE OF TENNIS MANGA!
So yeah, it cost a lot, but it's my Christmas AND birthday presents added together.
I'm still missing 9 books, but I'm happy enough right now.
Anyway, my days are pretty boring. I mean, what can you do at home during the holidays except sleep, use the computer, eat, use the computer again, read, use the computer, bathe, sleep etc.?
So yeah.
Recently I picked up watching drama online, the latest series being 'Gokusen'. You might know that if you've read my previous post.
It all started on Tuesday (the day after I bought the 17 tankouban) when I decided to do my homework on 'Prince of Tennis' and find out more about the series. I came across this bit in Wikipedia that informed me that there was something called 'The Prince After School', so I went to check it out on Google.
I found Rycolaa, a scanlation site where I downloaded 'The Prince After School' and also browsed for some interesting things to download, and I came across 'Godhand Teru'. I could only find the later chapters on Rycolaa so I went to search Google for the rest.
The results I got were disappointing, to say the least, but then I came across a link to a drama called 'Godhand Teru'. Being the naturally inquisitive (...alright, nosy) person I am, I clicked on the link.
It led to the website www.animecrazy.net where it hosted the drama. I watched the first quarter of the first episode, then the second quarter, the third quarter, the last quarter, the next episode...and you can guess how it ended.
HOWEVER (bet you didn't see that coming).
There was an error in episode 2 so I searched Google to find an alternative website that hosted episode 2, and guess what I found? www.dramacrazy.net! From there I looked into the length of Japanese drama and found 'Boss', a fantastic detective drama that focused on an odd group of police men and women struggling for recognition (in a sense). I can't believe I forgot to recommend this! ARGH.
Also from this website I found Gokusen, and here I am, quite mad about the series. You can say I quite like Sawada Shin's personality. It kinda screams: "I MAY LOOK LIKE A TOTAL ASS BUT I CARE FOR MY FRIENDS, CAN FIGHT, AND ACTUALLY DO WELL IN EXAMS" or something. I've always had a thing for this kind of contradicting personalities...
That aside, I found out the Sawada Shin's actor was Matsumoto Jun, a member of the boy band Arashi that Fish (HuiXian) and Nikki (I think) (and perhaps many more) were nuts about. I went to check out the band on YouTube to see if Matsumoto was as cool as Sawada was and perhaps as cool a singer as he looks, but guess what I found?
Arashi is...pretty bad, I should say. Perhaps I just found the wrong videos to watch, but their voices were flat. Ma, I was expecting so much better from Sawada's actor. Matsumoto didn't even look cool! Okay, so maybe it's wrong of me to expect an actor to be EXACTLY identical to his character, but it just looked so odd...
I mean, if you first watched Gokusen THEN watched the music videos (or whatnot), it's a bit...weird, I guess. The band gets boring after a few watches, though the music video of 'Love So Sweet' is just hilarious! Well, I think it's hilarious anyway... I was just browsing the more popular songs so I get a rough idea of what Arashi is all about, but I'll see to it that I'll never become their fan. They're fairly static.
I'm guessing the band is targeting the teenage female audience? Because frankly, I think they're the kind who are picked because they have a pretty face and, uh, talent to dance hip hop. The dance steps are so similar from music video to music video, and dancing as a group of boys is just plain...gay.
...I'm using the word gay a lot lately. Must break the habit...(I'm being reprimanded on my tagbox for using 'gay' and such derogatory terms on Mr. Toh...yikes...)
I think I've spent enough time evaluating the band, but just one piece of advice to people in bands: Please, PLEASE try to make some variation in voice qualities. All of Arashi's songs have pretty straight voices, no thick or thin, loud or soft, harsh or tender. It sounds like all the band members are either yelling or singing with the mike at 10 meters away...so strained...
