Here we are again. The next episode of AKBINGO! Diva-chan Kaiwaku! YAY! Let’s not waste much time and let’s just jump into action right away!

The first two contestants today are Iwasa Misaki ♥ and Ichikawa Miori. I recently started to like Iwasa Misaki alias Wasamin so much since her solo debut. I just love enka and she does it well. About Ichikawa I can’t say much since she is not that interesting. She was cute in the beginning but never showed us much. She is still that not-too-smart cute little girl and to be honest I’m starting to get tired of that. -_-

But let’s see what they brought to us today. Wasamin will sing Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyugeshiki by Ishikawa Sayuri. I haven’t heard that one before so I don’t know about that song but knowing Wasamin it would be awesome no matter the song. Ichikawa chose Anata no Kiss wo Kazoemashou from Koyanagi Yuki. I don’t know that song either so but we’ll see how it will turn out.

Then let’s begin de gozaimasu! Wasamin goes first. First impressions were: Oh yes, I’m listening to Wasamin’s singing so it can’t go wrong. No misses, just clear voice. Yep, just as I expected from her. It was an enka song after all. Wasamin+enka=instant win And on the top of that, she is really pretty.

Okay, Miorin’s turn! … Ah… why… It’s so… terrible. I am sorry but… this just won’t do… It’s painful to listen to… Like if she was crying inside… Even the camerawork was bad… I don’t know what to say about this. She got better in the end but still… My only guess is that she was too nervous. She even starts to cry in the end as she already knew how terrible she was. Poor soul…

The judges chose Wasamin for the winner. No surprise there. It was a clear win, Ichikawa didn’t stand a chance. Wait a sec! Misaki will face Yuka in the next round! NO‼ I was hoping for Yuttan-Wasamin finals. Darn!

Okay, it’s time to move on. The next two will be Oya Shizuka and Sato Amina. I know these two but never heard them singing for real. This would be fun!

Okay girls, what did you bring to us today? Shiichan will sing Satoukibi Batake from Moriyama Ryouko. I don’t know that song either so we’ll see. Asuka says that it is a quite long song and while Shizuka singing it in karaoke they used to talk about some other things with the other members. How rude.

Amina brought us Friends from Rebecca. Dear lord! I just love that song! What is with all the classics here anyway?! Something tells me I’m going to enjoy this one!

Time for the pleasure! Shiichan asked if she can sit down and sing like that. I was a bit strange but hey, whatever floats your boat, right? So she sat down and started to sing. It sounds nice at first and gets even better. Like an ending of a Studio Ghibli movie or something similar. It’s a nice calm song and Oya sings is very well. Nothing’s wrong with her performance. It was a bit shaky in the end but nothing to worry about. The judges even said that it was a good thing to sit down, got comfortable first and got into the mood.

Now it’s Amina’s turn. I have high expectations from her since she is going to sing one of my favorite classics. And why do I love this song so much? Well because of my favorite singer also sang this song before. Yep, Yoshioka Yui tried her luck with this one and won so much love from me with that!

Now Amina starts the song very well. Has a clear voice and didn’t shake for a second here. OMG! Amina you did it! I’m glad you sang this song! I usually don’t like her voice that much but it is clean like a crystal. It was good! The only bad thing I can bring up is that her body movements were sometimes off-rhythm. But other than that it was almost perfect.

Let’s see who will win!

It’s hard to choose. The judges seem to like Oya better because she showed some pro skills by singing the song in her own pace. I can’t choose. I like Oya better but I liked Amina’s song better. But if I have to choose I vote on Shiichan too because I like her voice better. Still this was more like a tie to me.

Okay the last pair will be Ishida Haruka and Takeuchi Miyu. Haruka looks better with sort hair. She even made an appearance in Bimyo in which she looked hot! Miyu on the other hand is not the type I’m interested in. Maybe because of her so young age of 16 that keeps me from getting into her or her character, I don’t know.

But let’s see what they got. Haruka will sing Sekai de Ichiban Atsui Natsu from PRINCESS PRINCESS. An another classic eh? Isn’t this total ownage? And what did you bring Miyu? Can you keep a secret? from Utada Hikaru? What the…?! Are you MAD girl?! That song is damn hard! Are you sure you can sing that? Okay…

Let’s start with Haruka. She has an interesting voice. She is a bit shaky but still within the bearable level. Her tone is too high for me to enjoy but her singing was not bad. She even got praised by one of the judges so she did just well.

Okay Miyu, show us what you’ve got! She starts with a soft voice. She even shows us that she can say some English words. It still needs some work though. She sings it solid. I’m glad that she didn’t want to copy Utada. She too got praised by the judges.

But let’s see who won this little battle.

The judges say it was Miyu and I agree with them. From these two she was the one whose performance was solid. Wasn’t anything spectacular but it was decent enough.

Okay, let’s move upwards. The next battle will be between Yamauchi Suzuran and Nakamura Mariko.

Now girls what did you bring this time? Suzuran will perform Sayonara no Mukougawa from Yamaguchi Momoe. What a surprise, another classic. Nakamura will sing Mikazuki from Ayaka. I don’t know if I heard that one before or not but we’ll see where this goes.

Suzuran starts it low and soft. It is not as good as her previous one. She sounded good and there were no false tones as I could hear. Nothing too spectacular here either though.

Now Mariko’s turn. She sings it well. Nice angelic voice she has. The main thing I want to point out is that her performance is getting a little emotional and that makes it much better.

Now the winner will be…

It is hard to choose again as these two were also close. The judges chose Nakamura Mariko and I agree with them. Mariko was a bit better but just a little bit.

I’m really interested in who will win this competition. One more episode to go! I’m cheering for Yuttan and Wasamin. Too bad one of them has to go right in the beginning. :’-( Anyway that’s all for now!

See you next time!

Kragorin

Sadness has filled the once bright classroom because of the news that Mayuyu left the AKB to be part of the new group Nogizaka46. There is no joy left in the Mayu fans’ heart as they feel like their idol just betrayed them.

The guys have some crazy ideas why Mayu did that. Maybe she is spying on Nogizaka46. Too bad Nogizaka is just a new group with a bunch of members nobody really cares about. Yeah, point taken.

Or maybe because Mayu could not take the center position in AKB so she moved to Nogizaka. Auch…

Oh yes, there’s no way Mayu would do that!

Right Shinpei? Wait what? Oh right, you are the one who’s favoring Miorin. Oh well…

Whatever… The next scene is… Wait, what the… *nosebleed*

Yes girls that was my reaction as well… or maybe not.

But there can be no episode without this person… Chikichita…

He’s a real lady killer. The poor little girls cannot hold themselves back as they are charmed by this fellow.

Then here he comes folks, the savior of the youth, the hope of the world the one and only… Chuck…khm…

Him… Not exactly a knight on the white horse but anyways. At least he does the job and protects the girls.

After the hero saves the day Utamaro grabs Mayu’s arm and tells her as he’s still waiting for the mail. How romantic… Or does he really care about Mayu?

Now let’s get back to the work. Looks like clear skies from now on, wait what?

“Trouble is in the air here.” The only one who got the chance to talk is Mayu and the other members don’t like it too much.

Is the meaning of “center” that you are all alone? Dark clouds are accumulating above the poor Mayuyu’s head.

Is that the way Mayu chose herself? It seems that her fans starting to lose their trust in her.

I liked this part when the teacher tried to say something but in the end she couldn’t. It was good but…

Being a Japanese dorama it must end with a funny mood breaker. In this case the teacher ends up in the dresser locked in. After the students left the classroom the teacher’s phone started to ring…

Yabaku ne? Alone in the dark LOL

Now let’s leave the teacher in there for a while and push the ‘fast forward’ button. I don’t want to spoil everything in this drama so let’s just move on to the next highlight scene. So far I like Mayu’s expressions. She is a natural talent. She is better than I expected her to be and this drama is light years away from HanaKimi 2011. Not to mention that only good thing in that drama was Atsuko, and she is not that big of a deal to me.

Now back to the drama a lot has happened since the dresser scene. Now we have fighting in the classroom. It seems that the Mayu fan’s a starting to lose their cool. It can’t be helped as they feel that their idol betrayed them.

Thankfully the crazy male teacher ends the fight but it doesn’t seem to “heal the wounds” inside one’s heart.

He’s about to tear the Mayu poster in half when our favorite literature teacher appears and stops him.

Looks like he is lost. He used to like Mayu, to look up on her but now… He is so confused and he doesn’t understand his own feelings anymore. He thinks that he is stupid for caring so much for an idol. But the teacher is not laughing at him for that because she is feeling the same way as him.

Looks like she still can’t say anything to him or…

She starts to talk about how she is feeling the same way as him. She doesn’t want to see others suffer because of her not being able to find the answers.

They finally reached the struggle point in the drama. They know I love these things so I think they’re doing it on purpose.

At least there’s no backbreaking part in this drama…

Mayu asks the members of Nigozaka46 not to treat her in different way. She wants to start from the bottom like any other member of the group.

Then it happens… The girls did not really like the fact that only Mayu got the chance to talk. They see her as a rival and they start to treat her just as such. They have no intentions to let Mayu take the center position.

What the…

And that is the end of it. What can I say about this drama? It’s a standard Japanese dorama with all the things that come with it. Nothing more nothing less. But Mayu seem to get a hang of it and she can keep the quality around the same level in every episode. She seems to act more natural in dramas than in real life. I’m curious to find out what kind of person is the real Mayu. I would love to know her better. I don’t know if I ever get the chance to do that though. There’s so much in between us, not just distance but the whole idol industry. There’s one thing I know so far. Mayu exists because of this industry. She is here because she is an idol. If she wasn’t then I had nothing to talk about right now. I don’t know where this drama goes but I will watch it till the end. I don’t think that Mayu will disappoint me though, but we’ll see.

Okay everyone this will be all for now. I’m terribly sorry that it took me so much time to put up something onto this blog. As I said before in the previous post I was not in the mood to put up anything. I was lazy but if I don’t get inspired by something I cannot write anything. I can’t do it with only my brain. I have to use my heart to write. This is my way.

See you next time!

Kragorin

Here we are. This is the second episode of this dorama. Lying in the bed dead tired trying to sleep over this hangover we have. Nope, our cute little idol was not acting non lady-like. She was doing her “homework” as usual as being an idol is not that easy job.

When she wakes up then we finally see her face, the face of the cute I-…dol? Not exactly what I had in mind. Nope. This is not the 17 years old Mayuyu but our 38 years old teacher. Seriously how long can she keep up with this? She is not young anymore.

In the school when she gave back everyone the tests they wrote earlier, most of the students simply just ignored her. Some of them gave her nickname as being too annoying. Then this guy was listening to Mayu’s radio show and he mentions that how different is the little cute Idol’s voice from the annoying teacher. She gets pissed up by this as it IS her voice after all.

Now here’s the guy I forgot to mention in the first episode. He is the ultimate playa the biggest pimp the one and only Utamaro who has a non-hidden crush on Mayu. But as being a playa you never know what are they really think about you. Mayu seems that she kind of likes him because of his charm and good looks but she also knows that he’s kind of dangerous because of his character. Also her manager told her not to get too close to him.

As soon as he sees his “chikichita” (That’s how he calls her anyway, but I’m not sure about its meaning. Something about beautiful girl, I’m not good at Spanish.) he suddenly gets “ill”. We already know it’s only an act to get close to his chikichita.

Man, he must be so sick he’s getting close to his death or…?

But our little cute idol is not that weak so she has something that can make this fellow better. An ultra-mega stinky medicine which is totally safe as she mentions that in her hometown even kids used to get these.

Looks like that medicine has quite a punch in it, as Utamaro got better just from the smell. But Mayu is not convinced by that so she makes the guy to east some of it, just to be sure.

But it looks like it was still worth it as he managed to get close to Mayu. Oh man, the manager won’t be happy about his.

Then here he is! Jumping into the action and ruins to mood. Should I say: Too bad? Or should I say: Thanks god?

But even I lose the track at this. WTF is he saying? And what’s with his hand? All I hear is the $catching$ effect in the background… -_-

I can totally understand you sir. But sh*t happens sometimes…

But at least this guy found someone else to annoy. This company president lady doesn’t seem to give a damn about it anyway…

Just when the manager says that he is going to tell Akimoto Sensei that throwing Mayu into Nogizaka46 (this is what this story is about) is not that great idea, he gets something good from the company president. But then the mood suddenly changes…

Let’s see… Mayu is doing some rehearsal with the young team.
     

It can be read from afar that she is a pro at this. She even cares about her mates’ health and gives them 5 minutes of break. How kind. The girls are amazed by Mayu’s aura. Yes, she is on a tottaly different level from them or…?

Finally I decided to watch the new drama called Saba Doll in which the main protagonist is impersonated by Watanabe Mayu. If I want to be honest I have high expectations from Mayuyu as she showed brilliant skills in Majisuka Gakuen 1 and 2. About the show I did not expect anything. I just hoped that this won’t suck that much as Atsuko’s HanaKimi 2011.

The first episode was kind of a mess as expected in humorous doramas so nothing new here. The first thing you might notice that they made a really good work making Mayu look ugly.

Story is about that there’s a 38 years old literature teacher who has this second life of being and idol Watanabe Mayu from AKB48. In the school where she teaches nobody knows about this but most of the guys have a crush on Mayuyu so all they are doing in school is just talking about Mayu, watching videos or just reading news about her on their smartphones. I’m somewhat getting a strong déjà vu feeling as this class is the most yankee class in the school. I’m not going deeply into the story because I did not watch the show with subtitles so I have to fully rely on my Japanese understanding which is not perfect; also in a drama like this there is not much going on anyways. ^_^’

Now when an event is happening where the idol Mayu is required there’s a changing where the ugly teacher becomes the super cute idol. Nothing new here either but it seems as this scene is somewhat nostalgic. Any ideas why?

Now here’s the post-transformation form which is quite shocking. From the non-aesthetic person becomes a charming idol. Quite a change huh?

But like in other crazy doramas there has to be a WTF scene. Now in this case here it is. One guy from the class has a crush on other than Mayu. He likes Ichikawa Miori better. He even did the whole “furesshu lemon ni naritai no” thing together with Miorin. Oh whatever…

Also there has to be a creepy manager too, so there he is. This time is not the guy with a big face like in SKE48’s Magical Radio but close enough.

Also what is the best way to stop this person being very annoying? Well showing your ‘khm…’ to him. This reminded me a movie, but I don’t really know which one.

Now I’m wondering what will happen in the future of this drama. I already decided to watch this till the end as I somehow managed to do with HanaKimi 2011. That was painful and I did not enjoy it at all. The only thing that kept me from leaving was… I don’t even know what. This time the situation is not that bad as this dorama looks a bit better. I will see what it has to offer but I have no high expectations from it. I’m mostly interested in Mayuyu’s skills right now, so I won’t write a complete critic about the drama itself.

Okay everyone this is all for now.

See you next time!

Kragorin