Abandoned--for SMAP and Hugh Grant!

Last (unexpectedly long) weekend was decidedly domestic, but I can point to the exact moment it came to an end. The tsuma and I got both girls to sleep at a relatively decent hour on Monday night and were deep in my second-favorite kind of conversation when the clock struck 10 and she rushed to the tv to catch SMAP. I was going to watch with her, just to keep her company, until I found out Hugh Grant was to be one of their guests--so instead I just joined her for his segment and tried unsuccessfully to come up with a decent post idea in the interim. She predicted the clip would be up on teh YouTubes in less than a week. Well, it took 3 days. Here it is:

Make It Gackt in 2008

I was hearing some heavy metal-type music coming from the Full Metal Archivist's computer yesterday, which stood out from her usual SMAP, female balladeers, and Japanese talk show soundscape, so I asked her what she was watching. Gackt, she replied.

What?
Gackt.
What's a Gackt?
He's a visual artist.
What, like a painter?
No, he's a vocalist, but he wears makeup. We call him a visual artist.
Huh?
Come look.

What I saw was this:



The Full Metal Archivist was shocked that I could have lived a whole year in Japan and not heard of Gackt. Apparently he's so popular NHK just gave him full creative control over this recent appearance on the variety/talk show Motif, so he taped his performance and interspersed clips from the historical drama he's been starring in, rather than doing it live as usual. Must be seen to be believed. As must the reaction of Nakai-kun from SMAP at the very end of the clip. He babbles something like, "Thank you very much. I've seen the other side of Gackt-kun now," but it's his body language that tells the real story.

Of course Gackt is into anime and video games, so I guess he's a kind of an Okinawan otaku samurai metalhead. Cool. I'd love to see him open for Tool!

[Update 1/10/08: Catching up on the doings about Blogoramaville, I'm happy to report that the Full Metal Archivist mind-melded with Anime Genesis's 2007 Blogger of the Year on this, but sad to acknowledge that Patrick beat me to posting on it by about 9 hours. Next time, Macias, next time!]

The Full Metal Archivist Blogs!

In Japanese! Check out SMAP Watcher when you get a chance. Maybe someday she'll rethink her "no videos" position. Until then, you can review the Mostly Harmless SMAP archives and do that Google blog search you've always wanted to do but never took the time.... Or learn to read Japanese.

On a side note, the U2bes has lots of Inai Inai Ba, Pitagora Suichi, and Juppon Anime video up lately. If you like cute kids, Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions, or ten sticks doing funny things, they're for you. Here's one to whet your appetite:



This one's subbed, but it's just as fun w/o translation.

Postmodern Sunday: Bakki and Sloucho

Sloucho is still far too busy to start posting here, but he just wrote what would have been a great one over at his paying gig at Fantasy Football Today on postmodern sport. Clearly he's angling for the postmodernism beat here at Mostly Harmless.

Or maybe the tsuma is. Thanks to her, I was able to introduce you earlier to Kimutaku and the Disney version of the "para para" dance that was popular in Japan around the turn into this millennium. Here are a few more versions (non-Disney) based around this character he created for the Smap x Smap variety show he and his bandmates have made the most popular in Japan. So without further ado, I present to you Bakki ...

...at an elementary school:



...in the park:



...at a construction site:



...at a disco bar:

YouTubeocalypse: For the "Japan is..." Crowd

This one is for zuzu, who unfunnied an anemic post by d--far below their usual standards. It's also for everyone who hopped on the Japanese Self-Defense Forces' manga logo meme bandwagon and who participates in the burgeoning "Japan is weird" bloggy genre.

Commenters at Feministe veered between participation in and critique of zuzu's "Japan Is Slightly Terrifying" title for a promo shot of Hello Kitty Airline (a Taiwanese outfit, as was pointed out, part of a Taiwanese multinational consortium, as wasn't). Disney came up a bit, of course--it's not like America isn't brimming with cutesy and completely corporatized cartoon characters. In fact, Disney recently bought Studio Ghibli (that's why there was that Miyazaki marathon on A&E last year). Kind of a metaphor for or just plain old example of something--but what?

But I digress. I don't claim to be a big expert on Japan or anything. I didn't even hear of this band called SMAP, which is the biggest band in the history of Japan and the biggest boy band in the history of the world (despite no longer being close to even having been boys) until She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Mentioned-on-Blogs revealed to me the heights and depth of her fandom a few years ago. (Which is not at all about being an otaku, she emphasizes--otaku are so into things few others care about they'll only talk about their obsessions, not that she has anything against otaku, having married one, she hastened to add.) OK, so SMAP is bigger than the Beatles. They've taken over Japanese media of all kinds. Kimura Takuya, Kimutaku as his fans call him, is the undisputed heavyweight of the group (although SWWNBMOB has decided she's transferring her affections to some other guy in the group, not that I would ever admit to feeling jealous of a pop icon). Which is one way of setting up this little clip, Kimutaka's version of the "para para" dance thing that was popular seven or eight years ago in Japan.

Analyze Critique Mock Beat this!



Yup, Mostly Harmless is out to start a YouTubeocalypse. (Calling all Benzons....) [YouTube publishes the embedding code to the right of the video; you just have to copy it into your post, as I did above--BB] Laughter may now commence over my screwing up the code Adrian gave us for needing help making those cute windows show up (I used ' instead of ", for crying out loud!).

YouTubeocalypse II: Japanese Juxtapositions

In one corner, You Gotta Quintet doing The Village People:



In the other, SMAP with The Stylistics:



Ladies and Gentlemen, start your keyboards! (Click fast, because new SMAP material gets pulled from YouTube after a few weeks.)

HSBC Women's Champions Sunday: On Real and Moral Victories

Let the historians debate when Lorena Ochoa won the HSBC Women's Champions. Was it when she posted her 32 on the first 9? When she saved bogey on the 13th hole on Friday? Was it her birdie on the 9th on Saturday? Just in case anyone in the universe doubted Hound Dog when he called the tournament for Ochoa yesterday, she just went out in 33 and has a great chance of establishing a tournament record even she'll have trouble beating in the future. Looks like she wasn't kidding in yesterday's interview!

Q. But do you think there's less pressure with an eight point lead?

LORENA OCHOA: Yes, but you know, I'm going to try to win even by more. I think it's always important that you try hard. So tomorrow I'm going to try hard to make more birdies.

Apparently not even thunderstorm delays can affect her focus--although we'll have to see how long the current one lasts. This is as good a time as any to answer some of my questions from yesterday. I'll put them in the order of certainty--many are still wide open.

Who will finish as the top rookie? It's Na Yeon Choi! Even with a double bogey on the 18th, she still shot a 69, which so far is tied for the second-best round of the day. She may even steal a top 10 with her E finish for the tournament if the leaders on the course come back to her. By contrast, Momoko Ueda is having a horrible day (5 bogeys plus a triple on the 4th) even though she got to play with Ai Miyazato (who recently eagled the short par-4 16th). Both are waiting now to finish the 18th. Not a good result for the Rookie of the Year leader.

Ochoa vs. Ochoa: can she break 70 all 4 rounds of the tournament? I'll go out on a limb and say "yes." Lindsey Wright posted a 66 to jump into the top 10 and I suspect Ochoa will want to at least tie her.

Who will lose in the race to avoid being Hound Dog's Big Disappointment of the Week? With Se Ri Pak withdrawing, rumors that her shoulder is not fully healed will intensify, but, like Mi Hyun Kim the previous day, will also have taken herself out of this race. And with Jeong Jang firing off a bogey-free 69 today, she's guaranteed herself at least a top 30. So it comes down to Kerr (-2 on the day and +8 for the tournament with 5 holes to play; T50 so far) and Angela Park (73, +6, T39 so far). This one's still open-ended. My money's on Kerr.

Who will establish themselves as Ochoa's leading challenger in 2008, Creamer, Sorenstam, or Webb? Can any of them at least get the moral victory of making up ground on her tomorrow? I'll take "none of the above" and "no." It doesn't look to me like that much will change in the last 8 holes for Creamer (birdies on 8 and 9, bogeys on 1 and 10), Sorenstam (bogey on 10), and Webb (birdie on 9, bogeys on 5 and 6). Despite Creamer's determined optimism ("I'm ready to go low tomorrow. I know it's going to take a lot and I'm going to need a little help from Lorena, but anything is possible"), Sorenstam's resoluteness ("I have to take it step by and step. Of course I'd like the gap to be not as big but Lorena is playing great golf. There's nothing that I can do about that. I just need an incredible round tomorrow. I've done it before, and I'm hoping tomorrow will be another day like that"), and Webb's honesty ("I think it'll be a good contest for second place tomorrow") in yesterday's interviews, playing in the rain for 2nd hasn't turned out to be quite as motivating for Ochoa's closest competitors this week. Or if the problem isn't their motivation, it's their games. Maybe that'll change with the weather, but I doubt it.

Who will end up on top among those not eligible for the Solheim Cup? Even though Ji-Yai Shin isn't doing anything special, she's now only two behind Webb. It's doubtful either of them will fall back to -2, which is where Wright's 66 put her, but In-Kyung Kim, sandwiched between Wright and Shin, could go either way (or both, as she has all week!).

Who will finish first in the class of '06 this week? This one's very much in doubt. Morgan Pressel birdied the 9th to offset two earlier bogeys and sits just outside the top 10 right now at -1 through 13. Seon Hwa Lee birdied 2 of her first 5 holes to get back under par for the second time in the tournament, but with a bogey on the 8th and no birdies since the 5th, she's stuck at E through 14. Jee Young Lee has fallen back to E through 14, as well, thanks to bogeys on 2 of her last 4 holes, but she's certainly happier than her playing partner Karin Sjodin, who's bogeyed 3 of her last 5 holes to fall back to +6 on the tournament, 2 shots behind Meaghan Francella. Ai-chan has a chance to get back to E for the tournament if she can birdie the 18th, but if the weather remains spotty, the trio ahead of her could easily fall back over par.

Who will be the 2nd-best American of the week? Even with Creamer playing inconsistently today, her status as lead American seems assured. Stacy Prammanasudh and Laura Diaz are tied at -5 and not doing anything particularly special so far today. Christina Kim is making a run at them; at -3 through her first 14 holes, she's pulled within 3 shots of them and sits 1 shot ahead of Pressel and Angela Stanford.

Who will be the 2nd-best European of the week? Maria Hjorth has made up a 3-stroke deficit on Catriona Matthew with 2 holes left for the former and 5 left for the latter. At +1 on the tournament, they are 3 shots ahead of Janice Moodie (who closed with a nice 71) and Suzann Pettersen, who is playing with Hjorth and having a disappointing finish to a disappointing week. Sjodin and Mhairi McKay appear to be out of it, two shots back with holes running out for them. And Cavalleri is losing ground even to Linda Wessberg, who followed up her 81 with a 76 to finish the tournament a disappointing +8.

[Update 1 (4:49 am): The Day 4 Live Update page has just reported that Kerr WDed. I sure hope it's due to illness and not, say, frustration over a disaster hole that put her back over par on the day. Her scorecard has already been wiped, so we may never find out. Maybe Hound Dog should just hit all 3 big-name WDs with his Big Disappointment award.

In happier news, some of the leaders appear to have regrouped and are starting to make birdies again. Sorenstam just pulled even with Creamer at -8; Diaz has gotten to -6 and is 1 ahead of Prammanasudh and 3 of Christina Kim; Pressel birdied 15 for the 4th time in a row and followed it up with a birdie on 16 to offset Seon Hwa Lee's birdie there and take a -3 to -1 lead on her with 2 holes left to play (Lee is in the clubhouse at -1, T12, and Ai-chan is looking for her first LPGA top 20 in awhile after having posted a 71 that brought her back to +1); In-Kyung Kim is now tied with Webb at -5 and Shin remains a stroke back; and Matthew has opened up a big lead on Hjorth.]

[Update 2 (5:02 am): Speaking of moral victories, how about Juli Inkster's 69 today? Eking out what looks to be a top 25 finish despite playing as bad as she did for the first 3 rounds is pretty cool! In-Kyung Kim has now passed Webb and opened up a 2-shot lead on Shin, too. Go, Super Soph, go! You might even be able to catch Creamer, who just bogeyed the 15th]

[Update 3 (5:12 am): I haven't mentioned Na Zhang, but her closing 69 was another moral victory--good enough for a top-15 finish. I must have jinxed In-Kyung Kim, who just bogeyed the 17th to fall back into a tie with Webb (who like Shin failed to birdie the 15th or the 16th).]

[Update 4 (5:24 am): With 1 hole left to play, Laura Diaz has a decent chance to finish not only as the top American (she's 1 behind Creamer, who just failed to match Sorenstam's birdie on the 16th [her 4th on that hole in the tournament]) but also the only player in the field besides Ochoa to go under par on all 4 rounds. With their rounds complete, Morgan Pressel ends up beating Seon Hwa Lee by 2 shots for top '06er honors and Catriona Matthew takes 2nd Euro by 2 shots over Pettersen, Hjorth, and Moodie.]

[Update 5 (5:37 am): Well, Diaz, Prammanasudh, and Webb definitely made me regret putting them only as my alternates in the PakPicker this week. If I had picked them, I would have had a chance for a top 5. As it is, I'll be lucky to get a second consecutive top 10. And in the moral victories department, Young Kim and Brittany Lincicome went under par for the first time this week and Katherine Hull did them one (well, actually 2) better by breaking 70 today. Too bad for In-Kyung Kim, who had gone -4 between the 9th and 16th holes--she finished bogey-double to fall back into a tie for 8th with Christina Kim and Morgan Pressel. Still a very good result for someone who was about as inconsistent as Maria Hjorth this week. Now the top-non-Solheimer duel is back to Webb (-5) vs. Shin (-4) on the 18th hole....]

[Update 6 (5:46 am): Looks like Lindsey Wright's friends will be making her an "I Beat Lorena Ochoa at the HSBC!" t-shirt, as Ochoa needs an eagle on 18 to tie her. Diaz posted a 71 and Sorenstam just needs a par or better on her final hole to join her and Ochoa as the only 4-time-sub-par players this week, while Creamer need a birdie on the same hole to become the only other player to shoot par or better in all 4 rounds. Webb stayed ahead of Shin for the non-Solheim-eligible-group win, but her final round must have been infuriating, what with the dialogue with the distracting fan and the cap throwing and all.]

[Update 7 (5:51 am): It's official! Not only was Ochoa the only player to get double digits under par, she also got to -20 for the tournament. What an incredible win! Creamer couldn't get the mini-moral victory of a birdie on the 18th; losing by 5 to Ochoa and 2 to Sorenstam today is definitely a setback in her quest to be #1.]

[Update 8 (5:55 am): I just noticed that the PR push to get this tournament recognized as a "fifth major" has already begun. In my book, it's not even close until it goes full-field and adds a cut. Guaranteed money does not a major make.]

[Update 9 (6:12 am): Here's a suggestion to HSBC. If you don't want to go the route of imitating the British Open right away, rename this thing the HSBC Asian Masters and follow the Evian's lead of expanding the field to 90, instituting a cut, and raising the prize money. Or keep this one as is and bring the Match Play to Asia, right between the late-season Hawaii event and the Asian swing in October. Having an early- and late-season statement-making event will establish you as the top sponsor of women's golf in the world. (For the revised version of the last two updates, head on over to Waggle Room.)]

[Update 10 (8:31 am): Just read on Seoul Sisters that Se Ri Pak WDed because her grandmother passed away. My condolences to the Pak family. Even though Hound Dog wasn't aware of this, he gave the BDA to Kerr. I think he made the right call.]

[Update 11 (9:36 am): The Full Metal Archivist just showed me a clip from late last month on SMAPxSMAP in which Ai-chan was enjoying cheese fondue in their SMAP Bistro segment. I think there was a delayed SMAP effect this week. Hope her comeback continues! Whether it will be in Mexico in two weeks or whether she and Momo-chan will stay in Japan for some early-season JLPGA events and return for the Safeway International in Portland at the end of March, we'll have to wait and see. LPGA.com does not have final fields posted for their two March events. Not an auspicious way to keep the momentum of Sorenstam-Creamer-Ochoa wins going, is it?]

[Update 12 (9:45 am): Ueda is definitely playing in Okinawa next week, but Miyazato is not listed in the field. Kinda confirms the suspicion that the JLPGA still holds a grudge for her leaving to play in the States so soon, eh?]

[Update 13 (2:22 pm): Mulligan Stu and Ron Sirak do a good job putting Ochoa's win in perspective.]

[Update 14 (7:54 pm): And Gayle Moss (aka Golfgal) plays Tom Cruise to Lorena's Cuba Gooding Jr. and issues a rousing call to show them the money!]

Recommended Reading: In-Kyung Kim, Blogger; BoA, "Magician"

In-Kyung Kim is now a contributor to the ESPNW Blog!  Check out her 1st post from this Wednesday introducing her interests and those of some of her peers from South Korea.

It's pretty cute that she referred to BoA as a "magician," when she's actually a major international pop star and multilingual musician in Korean, Japanese, and English.

Here's a live version of the 1st BoA song I ever heard (thanks to the Full Metal Archivist):




I guess she is a bit of a magician, after all!

Anime fans may recognize this one as one of the ending songs from Inuyasha!




This one's for the FMA (BoA with SMAP):

 

Nice Day

The first day of spring is a national holiday here in Japan, so the tsuma, onechan, imoto, and I took the day off. Which meant that in between playing the bad monster in the various Pretty Cure fight scenarios onechan cooked up, trying to teach her baseball and golf when I couldn't take the role-playing (non-cosuplay so far!) any more, making sure imoto didn't kill herself during her increasingly-bold forays into akachan-sized crannies of the apartment, and fighting with the tsuma over computer access (on which more in a second), I was able to check in on the WAAGNFNP site every so often and nag Oaktown Girl, spyder, and christian h about it over email--and see that the bread crumbs I left heralding its advent at, among other places, Bitch Ph.D., Pandagon, Crooked Timber, and Pharyngula produced the best day in Mostly Harmless history, visit-wise (I'd say "take that, Claire," but she would sneer patiently smile and softly sigh at our only breaking the 100-visit line and then 150-visit line for the first time today). Apparently there's an audience for what we're about to start doing at the WAAGNFNP come closing time on the West Coast...nice to know!

What I also found out over the course of the day is that the tsuma had (ok, has) a huge crush on one of the heroes of Legend of the Galactic Heroes (which, from the brief conversations we had during the day while new YouTube pages were loading and the longer talk we just had after she maxed herself out this evening while the kids were asleep and I was reading paper, sounds to me like the most important sf anime tv series ever) that rivals her SMAP guy crush. Which lead to an interest in the show so intense that she [REDACTED]. (Great story, eh? Sorry, I answer to an even higher authority than the WAAGNFNP's MOJ.) Anyway, she had a great time today in AnimeLand, which is just as good a place to celebrate the coming of spring as any. And I have another incentive to learn Japanese! (BTW, we did go out for dinner to a Korean BBQ place and just missed experiencing the high temps in the low 60s, so we weren't total otaku, ok?)

So, thanks, everyone, for being interested enough in the WAAGNFNP to get to it for today through Mostly Harmless. Y'all come back again real soon, hear?

Jero on SMAPxSMAP!

You know Jero has made it big in Japan when he gets to play pool with SMAP on their show. The first part features him singing different styles of enka; the second a call to his sister Yumiko in North Carolina:



This one's for Jennifer at Mixed Race America. And no, it's no April Fool's Day joke.

Valentine's Day Showdown: Ueda and Moromizato VS Arashi

Momoko Ueda and Shinobo Moromizato appeared on the Japanese television show VS Arashi on Valentine's Day. Arashi's a boy band in the SMAP mode, just younger and less successful. They're branching out into other forms of entertainment, among them this game show/reality tv challenge type thing. You have to see it for yourself.



The Full Metal Archivist isn't that impressed. Me, I'm thinking that Ueda is hoping the Showdown in Singapore will be that much easier after facing off against Arashi the last two Saturdays.

[Update 1 (4:52 am): For more that hasn't made it to youtube yet, check ut this hilarious overview (in English, natch!).

A Quick Comment on Golfy Media

Peter's baseball posting is inspiring me to put something together on the way my parents met, my experience as a kid at Candlestick, my childhood love of Jim Mason and Bucky Dent, my failed dreams of getting beyond Little League as a shortstop and pitcher, and my work as a research assistant on Arnold Rampersad's bio of Jackie Robinson, not to mention my experiences taking the family to minor league ball in Western NY and here at the Fukuoka Dome to see the Softbank Hawks. Someday! Before that, I have an idea about surveying the strengths and weaknesses of the various ranking systems for golfers via Moneyball. Anybody got other ideas about bridging the golf-baseball divide at Mostly Harmless?

For now, let me just throw out a few links to the LPGA money list, Rolex Rankings, Golfweek/Sagarin LPGA Performance Index, the tournament site for the Moira Dunn-territory Corning Classic (which just happens to be off my least favorite road, Route 17/86--it's almost killed me a couple of times--but don't let that stop you from checking out the field and official preview, or noticing that it's still a strong field despite only 3 of the top 20 on the money list being in it), and Hound Dog's tournament preview--and tell you a little story about the Japanese media while you wait for the pre-tournament interviews to be loaded onto LPGA.com.

Ryo Ishikawa, the youngest winner ever of a Japanese professional tournament (and maybe in the world--has anyone in the U.S. media bothered to fact-check this claim from the Japanese media?) at age 15, is getting the full SMAP Japanese media treatment, with camera crews even going to his high school to track him down. He gets asked questions like, "What is your type of woman?" (and laughed at when he says, "Someone who will support me when times are tough," because the interviewer was really asking him to name a celebrity). He says he wants to compete with Tiger Woods someday, but lately he just wants his normal life back. Sakura Yokomine, meanwhile, who only broke Mi-Jeong Jeon's 3-tournament winning streak on the JLPGA, would enjoy a little recognition for her accomplishment. Not happening. Apparently even Sakura get upstaged.

TTLB Back in This, Our Hour of Need

Mostly Harmless has been "a insignificant microbe" in the TTLB Ecosystem from the start, mostly because TTLB has been "on sabbatical," so to speak, in 2007. Well, thanks to Astaroth, Gojira, and NZ Bear, it is no longer. I can only speculate that TTLB's return is carefully timed to bring a little joy to the outskirts of blogoramaville. To which I can only reply, in the immortal words of SMAP, "Arigato-ohhhhhh":



I'm sure we'll all rest a little easier tonight, knowing more accurately where we fall in the Great Chain of Bloggy Being. If anyone wants to nominate NZ Bear for sainthood, I can attest that my stomach has been feeling better today, miraculously.

Japanese TV Loves Miho Koga

Here she is with Momoko Ueda. Imagine anyone from the LPGA getting this much air time on an American news program!



Koga's also a regular on talk shows. Here's a short clip from a sports show:



A long one from an Iron Chef-esque cook-off:



A girl-talk lunch where she gets drunk fast:



Last but not least, a recent appearance on one of the big Christmas shows with Sanma and SMAP, in which Nakai-kun digs himself in deeper while trying to explain earlier comments on beauty and body image and Koga is at ground zero.

On Missing Japan

They do New Year's Eve right in Japan! NHK's "Kouhaku Utagassen" is not to be missed, particularly this year when Jero will be performing (along with dozens of others, including the little girl who sings the Ponyo theme song, and, of course, the Full Metal Archivist's faves, SMAP) in the traditional battle of the J-pop stars. That said, we're missing it for the 2nd year in a row. So sad! Hopefully we'll catch the highlights on youtube or veoh!

[Update 1 (6:10 am): Jero just won the Best New Artist award! Omedeto gozaimasu!]

[Update 2 (6:15 am): Turns out that one was his 2nd such award this year. Here's his 1st.]

[Update 3 (10:48 am): Of course, the nice thing about being here is that you get to catch snippets of the show on youtube and veoh before the evening. Here's Jero's performance...with his mom in the audience!


Watch JERO / Umiyuki (Kouhaku Utagassen) in Music Videos  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Wow!]

[Update 4 (4:28 pm): The Ponyo song was the climax of a tribute to the music of Miyazaki's films:



Wow!!]

Way to Go, Ryo!

16-year-old Ryo Ishikawa has been struggling a bit in his first season as a professional on the Japan Tour, but he just won the Kansai Open. Although it's not an official JGTO event, his victory there in late August gives him entry into the prestigious Japan Open that'll be taking place in Fukuoka right around my birthday this year.

The Full Metal Archivist informs me that SMAP's Kimutaku struck up a friendship with the "Shy Prince." And he may be getting hooked on golf as a result. She saw a clip on youtube where he confessed that the most pressure he's felt recently came on the golf course, when several groups of middle-aged men were watching him tee off. He said his heart was pounding worse than before any concert he's ever performed in. If that clip--or the one where he outdoes Ai Miyazato--ever gets subtitled in English, I'll post it here!

LET and JLPGA Take Center Stage During LPGA's Week Off

Thanks to the LET's World Ladies Championship in China and the JLPGA's Daikin Orchid Ladies in Okinawa, the LPGA's top golfers have the option of continuing their winter Asian swing for an extra week before heading out to RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup in Phoenix next week.  Inbee Park (-14), Suzann Pettersen (-12), Carlota Ciganda (-8), Dewi Claire Schreefel (-6), and Shanshan Feng (-5) are all in the top 10 in China (not to mention Moriya Jutanugarn's little sister Ariya, who should be the LET Rookie of the Year), with a Park-Pettersen-Soo Jin Yang showdown in the works for tomorrow, while the final round of the JLPGA's season opener will begin with Harukyo Nomura (-5), Mika Miyazato (-4), and Ayako Uehara (-3) well behind leaders Megumi Kido (-10) and Rikako Morita (-9), although well within reach of or already past former LPGAers Na-Ri Kim (-7), Soo-Yun Kang (-6), Onnarin Sattayabanphot (-5), Young Kim (-4), Shiho Oyama (-3), Teresa Lu (-2), and Shinobu Moromizato (-1), not to mention JLPGA heavy hitters Sakura Yokomine (-7), Ji-Hee Lee (-7), Mi-Jeong Jeon (-2), and Sun-Ju Ahn (-1).

Whoops, there's SMAP on Japan TV.  I'll let you know who prevails tomorrow!

J-Drama Update: Bara no nai Hanaya

As spring break ends, I thought I'd recommend another J-Drama that the Full Metal Archivist and I have gotten into on Veoh: Bara no nai Hanaya, or The Flower Shop Has No Roses. This one is not nearly as funny and self-consciously postmodern as Hottie Paradise (or rather, Hanazakari no Kimitachi e); no, it's much more Dickensian in the convolutions of its plot and Hawthornesque or even Morrisonesque in its exploration of the risks and costs of love and revenge. For a glimpse of the show's different strands, check out what its fans have been putting up on YouTube:





Trust me when I say go to Veoh as often as you can the next few nights and catch up on the first 10 episodes--the final episode's fansub should go up in the next few days. You can be the first kid on your block to experience in almost real-time what prime-time audiences in Japan did on Monday nights this season. And yes, there's a SMAP connection--how could there not be when it's a) super-popular in Japan, and b) something found by the Full Metal Archivist online?

Announcing TolkienWatch

Here at Mostly Harmless I've boldly staked out pop culture blogging claims to Star Wars, Disney, Japanese kids' tv, Pretty Cure, the LPGA, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, SMAP, Adult Swim, Beavis and Butthead, and Dick Cheney (not necessarily in that order). I now want to follow up on JP Stormcrow's tribute to Lord of the Rings by kindly asking you all to point your browsers to new blog Hug the Shoggoth and marvel at the use of Tolkien to advance the argument. Now that's blogging! Feel free to recommend other quality Tolkieniana out there in comments.

Gotta go check and see if Moira, Meaghan, and Se Ri are going to miss the cut at the Safeway International by one freaking shot (it would be the second year in a row this happened to Moira)--and if Lorena is going to use the last four holes to pull away from the field or not. Love those weather delays--second round should end just in time for bedtime....

Akazukin Chacha: Precursor to Precure (and Ojamajo Doremi)

Here's the theme song of a manga/anime that the Full Metal Archivist and her sister read/watched in the years before she came to the States!



Here's the opening of the first episode of Akazukin Chacha:



It's kind of Little Red Riding Hood morphing into Wonder Woman/Green Arrow, with all the humor you'd expect from such a henshin. Plus, Shingo Katori (of SMAP fame) was a voice actor on the show!