Tsuyoshi crashes SmaStation!

At the end of this week’s SmaStation (September 12th), Tsuyoshi ran onto set to plug TV Asahi’s SMAP Variety Club 3-hour Special that airs next week.

The ‘Variety Club’ consisting of Nakai, Tsuyoshi and Shingo. Meaning Shingo could’ve easily promoted the show, but instead Tsuyoshi crashed under the guise of bringing soup for the guest and Shingo to try…. then quickly plug their SMAP special. I’ll assume the thermos he had was presented during the broadcast (haven’t watched the entire episode yet) or that’s even more random.

Not that random Tsuyoshi crashing SmaStation and a confused Shingo is a bad thing!

Official “Tsuyopon” Spelling? つよぽん？ツヨポン？つよポン？[UPDATE]

I don’t know how many people are really interested in knowing how to spell Tsuyopon, but we’ve been given an official answer in SMAP POWER SPLASH on March 8, 2015!

Two weeks ago on Sunday morning, I rolled over and saw Twitter was… atwitter with a bunch of “Tsuyopon” tweets. I was curious because I love Tsuyoshi and wanted to know what had happened. But it was also Sunday morning so I rolled back over and fell asleep without solving that mystery.

Well, it turns out – the big hoopla was that a listener wrote in asking how to spell Tsuyopon. Tsuyoshi provided the official spelling: つよポン. Mix of hiragana  (つよ) and katakana (ポン).

Shingo said he wrote “Tsuyopon” with whatever he felt like at the time when blogging, but I guess from now on it’ll need to be つよポン!

Yes! An official spelling! It means some of us have to go around and update any ‘misspellings’ we may have… 😉

Oh, and @tamako4024 tweets a lot about Tsuyoshi and has some really cute drawings… so follow!

[UPDATE]

Forget the official spelling. I can’t remember the exact episode, but in a later SMAP POWER SPLASH airing, Shingo complained that using つよポン didn’t seem natural. So the official spelling now? Whatever you want. Thanks Tsuyopon!

Kusanagi Tsuyoshi and Higashide Masahiro’s Friendship Date

Earlier this year on SMAPxSMAP, Kusanagi Tsuyoshi and Higashide Masahiro got paired up during the “Best Friend Feeling Couple” segment back on January 5, 2015.

SMAPxSMAP 2015-01-05, Higashide Masahiro surprised by his getting paired up with Tsuyoshi
Higashide Masahiro’s reaction
SMAPxSMAP 2015-01-05, Higashide Masahiro surprised by his getting paired up with Tsuyoshi
Tsuyoshi’s reaction to Higashide’s reaction

They agreed that they should hang out sometime, took a purikura picture and hugged. It’s TV, I didn’t expect it to go further.

But it did. And we got to see it on the March 2, 2015 episode of SMAPxSMAP.

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The JDrama Experiment – Spring 2013 – Kasuka na Kanojo #1

So, typical school drama but with a teacher who can see ghosts! Teacher is played by Shingo Katori of SMAP (yes, I will not accept someone in a group called Sexy Zone, but I’ll accept SMAP, so sue me.)

Initial Impression – Typical heartwarming school drama. (With ghosts.) I’ll watch again next week.

Continue reading “The JDrama Experiment – Spring 2013 – Kasuka na Kanojo #1”

The JDrama Experiment – Spring 2013 – Bad Boys J #1

Okay, I don’t know what possessed me to watch this. I can’t take any guy who is a member of a group called Sexy Zone seriously, especially if half (or most? or all?) the guys aren’t even legal, but in my defense it was only 20 minutes?

Initial Impression – Um. So. No. It isn’t as bad as you would possibly think, but it isn’t exactly good. No plans to keep watching it.

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The JDrama Experiment – Spring 2013 – Detarame Hero #1

So Spring drama season has begun! First one out of the gate: Detarame Hero! Airs Thursday’s on NTV.

Initial impression – Silly drama about freeter who ends up with candy that changes him into a superhero for 10 minutes! Will watch again – but I imagine it’ll get stupid quick.

Super quick summary: Continue reading “The JDrama Experiment – Spring 2013 – Detarame Hero #1”

The JDrama Experiment – Winter 2013 First Impressions

I’ve been trying to type up episode reviews for all the dramas I’m watching… It’s not happening. Too time consuming at this point… So I’ll just have to go with short first impressions for this season’s watch list.

  • Nobunaga no chef (Friday – TV Asahi)
  • nakuna, haru-chan (Saturday – NTV)
  • share house no koibito (Wednesday – NTV)

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Shinryouchuu -in the room- #1

Original Episode Air Date: 2013/01/13

Kids and their problems. Their counselor with his own problems. What exactly are the underlying issues? The first episode drops us right into everyone’s problems without a moment to waste. It’s only a 30 minute drama after all.

intheroom_01aintheroom_01_3a intheroom_01c

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The JDrama Experiment – Winter 2013 Hopefuls

Revisiting the JDrama Experiment – I’m hoping this year will be easier to keep up with since I can actually watch Japanese TV.

Since the drama season has already started, I’ve had the chance to form some initial opinions on some of the shows, but that will come later. We’ll start with all the dramas that look interesting this season.

So, which dramas will I be checking out from the Winter 2013 season!?

  • itsuka hi no ataru basho de (Tuesday – NHK)
  • share house no koibito (Wednesday – NTV)
  • saikou no rikon (Thursday – Fuji TV)
  • Nobunaga no chef (Friday – TV Asahi)
  • nakuna, haru-chan (Saturday – NTV)
  • Karamazov no kyodai (Saturday – Fuji TV)
  • shinryochu (Saturday – NTV)
  • Yae no Sakura (Sunday – NHK)
  • dinner (Sunday – Fuji TV)
  • tonbi (Sunday – TBS)

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Karaoke at home with karaoke@dam!

I’ve been listening to Japanese music for many years. Occasionally I’d pull up the lyrics in romaji and sing along. I used to run Japanese lyrics through dictionaries and make my own Japanese > Romaji lyrics. While that was actually very helpful for learning vocabulary, it’s not so useful for studying now.

So I figure another step would be singing Japanese karaoke using Japanese lyrics! Instead of reading the tiny lyrics on the song booklets that come with CDs, I figured a Japanese karaoke set might be nice. But those are expensive, so I figured I’d try an online subscription. The first (and only) place I found is karaoke@dam.

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