SHARK 2 Ep 03 Review

SHARK 2 is heating up as Saku (Shigeoka Daiki) decided to do the ballad version of his song instead of the pop-suited version arranged by Matsuyuki (Toyohara Kosuke).

Of course, Matsuyuki isn’t the one upset about this – Aruto (Abe Aran) is the one enraged because the ballad version isn’t as popular, it’s not what they agreed to do, and he was the only one left out of the loop. I have to admit, if I was in a band and I was the only one who wasn’t consulted about doing a different version of a song, I’d be pissed, too. However, I think the viewer might have trouble sympathizing with Aruto considering his own lack of empathy for the way Saku and Kota (Yasui Kentaro) feel.

On the bright side, Aruto didn’t shout at Kai (Hamada Takahiro) this time, though Kai seems disappointed by this.

Regardless of Aruto’s reaction, Saku resolves to go with the ballad version of the song and to stick to his guns in the future. That’s good – I’m looking forward to him becoming a more assertive character.

Gamushara 2014.05.18 Review

This time on Gamushara (ガムシャラ), it’s finally time to see how the pole dancing challenge will go.

No, Nakajima Kento-kun is not one of the participants in the challenge, though it looks like Sexy Zone will get to try it out for laughs, which is a step in the right direction if they’re going to keep having SZ on. I think letting them try challenges out to see how hard it is would be a good role – they should have had them try to make spray art, too.

No, the challenge features Matsumura Hokuto-kun, Morimoto Shintaro-kun, and Nagata Jiei-kun, and it’s time for them to take what they learned to the stage.

Weekly Oricon Rankings (Ending 05-25)

The top single for the past week was, of course, AKB48’s “Labrador Retriever”, which sold 1,662,265 copies. That’s roughly the standard number for an AKB single containing election voting tickets.

At a very, very distant #2, Nishino Kana-san’s “We Don’t Stop” sold 20,779 copies.

TOKIO’s “LOVE, HOLIDAY” took #4, selling 17,074.

Taking #7 in its second week, “King & Queen & Joker” from Sexy Zone sold 10,854 to boost its total to 161,440. That’s a bit on the weak side compared to first week sales, but not bad considering their other recent singles.

At #9, Arashi’s “GUTS!” saw 9,909 copies sold this week to bring its four-week total to 569,077.

Johnny’s WEST’s “Ee ja nai ka” actually gained a few spots in its sixth week, ending up right behind Arashi at #10, selling 9,596 to get its total to 300,542 after five weeks.

That wasn’t the most spectacular rise, though. Nakayama Yuma-kun must have had something going on, because his “High Five” went from #150 to #17 in its eighth week, tacking on 6,234 to its total to finally cross the 50k mark. Its total is now 52,372.

“Mirai to wa?” from SKE48 had a similar rise – giong from #121 to #20 by selling 5,516 so that it could finally cross 500k – it now boasts a ten week total of 502,202 copies sold.

Rounding out the singles, week three of sales for Momoiro Clover Z’s “Naite mo Iin da yo” took it to #30 with 3,707 copies sold and a total of 79,637.

Arashi ni Shiyagare 2014.05.10 Review

This episode of Arashi ni Shiyagare (嵐にしやがれ) began with the survey segment – in which approximately thirty members of the public who have something in common answer questions about that commonality. First, though, the Arashis had to try and guess what the topic of similarity was, and this time there’s more of a clue.

At least, I think the fact that they’re all wearing suits is somewhat of a clue. It sure narrows things down, at least. Matsumoto-kun correctly guesses that they all have the same profession, and it turns out that they’re all high school teachers who roughly the same age as Arashi! Well, they sure dress more formally than the high school teachers around where I live (jeans are not uncommon), so I wouldn’t have guessed they were teachers.

Sakurai-san checks on the range of ages – the youngest was 24 and the eldest were in their thirties.

Ninomiya-kun asked the youngest guy why he decided to become a teacher – the natural question – and Sakurai-san asked what was most worthwhile (satisfying?) about teaching. I wonder how much like a job interview this survey is going to be.

Yowakutemo Katemasu Ep 03 Review

Since this episode of Yowakutemo Katemasu (弱くても勝てます) begins with a flashback of Aoshi (Ninomiya Kazunari) playing catch with the younger Tarumi (Arimura Kasumi), my guess is that the centerpiece of this episode will be about Tarumi. However, the writers of this series have made a good effort to have multiple plot lines going at the same time in each episode, so I’ll be looking to see what else they throw in.

In the present, it’s the anniversary of the death of Tarumi’s father – Kaede (Yakushimaru Hiroko)’s husband. He died shortly after watching the baseball game that has haunted Aoshi’s memories for so long, so Kaede tells Aoshi that even if the Joutoku team loses, they should play a game worth watching because it might be the last game someone sees.

Aoshi doesn’t take that contrived burden seriously, but it looks like the memory of her father is still a big weight on the younger Tarumi:

Meanwhile, practice is going how it always seems to go. Are they getting better? Maybe. At least they’re approaching the ball, even if they aren’t making contact.