VS Arashi 2013.11.07 Review

The guest team for this VS Arashi (VS 嵐) was the women athlete team and . . . well, that basically means it’s going to be great. Dressed in black and leopard print, the Arashi guys wasted no time on banter . . .

. . . and brought their formidable opponents out. The athlete team’s leader was the great Yoshida Saori-san, who has won three consecutive Olympic gold medals in freestyle wrestling and her list of accomplishments in that sport certainly warrant the term ‘epic’. I have a soft spot for her because she’s right around my age (and by extension around the same age as the Arashi members) and this is her fourth time on VS Arashi, so she knows how things go.

Her teammates were sprinter Fukushima Chisato-san, soccer striker Ogimi Yuki-san, baseball player Kataoka Ayumi-san, swimmer Nose Hitomi-san, and free climber Noguchi Akiyo-san. They’re all Olympic caliber or equivalent, all beautiful (if I can be free to say so), and Arashi should have no chance. Granted, there’s no swimming or baseball related game in VS Arashi, but I sure want to see Fukushima-san in Pinball Runner, Ogimi Yuki-san in Kicking Sniper, and Noguchi Akiyo-san in Cliff Climb. Oh, and if we don’t get Jumping Shooter, I’m going to be totally disappointed.

Disappointed – as in the way Arashi felt when, desperately needing help from some strong “plus one” guests added to their team . . .

VS Arashi 2013.05.30 Review

This is probably going to be the second VS Arashi (VS 嵐）in a row in which I find the plus one guests more interesting than the team opposing Arashi, but before we get to that, the members of Arashi take the opportunity to mention their new single, “Endless Game”.

Always good to do that. And once again, Sakurai-san addresses Aiba-kun in the opening talk. He did that last time, too, and it ended up being Aiba-kun’s main contribution to the show. I hope that isn’t the case this time, too.

The team opposing Arashi was led by veteran actor Watanabe Hiroyuki-san (渡辺裕之) and included soccer player Honda Yasuto-san (本田泰人), baseball player Kataoka Ayumi-san (片岡安祐美), fashion model Suzuki Nana-san (鈴木奈々), and comedians Ayabe Yuuji-san (綾部祐二) and Murakami Kenji-san (村上 健志).

What does such a motley crew of individuals have in common? They’re all Ibaraki-born, making them the Ibaraki team. With such a loose pretext for association, perhaps you can see why I wasn’t quite as interested in this team. There’s some strength here – the two athletes can certainly give Arashi a run for it – but I’m not too sure about the team spirit since they can’t have worked together much.