L'Arc-en-Ciel Starting May 15, songs from the L'Arc-en-Ciel tribute album will start playing on FM stations all across Japan. Some of the artists/songs that you can watch out for are
ZEBRAHEAD/READY STEADY GO (FM North Wave & FM Air-G), BOYZ II MEN/snow drop (TOKYO FM), and Orianthi /NEO UNIVERSE (J-WAVE). Keep your ears wide open!
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20120514-00000008-natalien-musi
ラルクトリビュート収録曲、全国FM局で続々解禁（ナタリー） - Y!ニュース
headlines.yahoo.co.jp

Source: http://m.facebook.com/pages/LArc-en-Ciel/139185632806476?id=139185632806476&refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpages%2FLArc-en-Ciel%2F139185632806476&_rdr

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Which celebrities are drawing the most attention and have the highest name value? The answers were revealed through the June issue of information magazine ‘Nikkei Entertainment!‘.

This ‘Talent Power Ranking’ is held every quarter by Nikkei Entertainment and was created by ARCHITECT Co., Ltd.. They take a survey and examine people’s “degree of recognition” and “degree of interest” out of 1,196’s talents. From the survey, they calculate each talent’s “talent power score” and a wide range of celebrities can be on this ranking including actor/actress, comedians, musicians, athletes, announcers and more.


( Read more... )


Check out the top 30 ranking below.

[Talent Power Ranking 2012]

Period for examination : February 15th – 29th of 2012

Ranking / (Previous Ranking) : Talent Name / Power score(pt.) / Degree of recognition (%)*1

01 / (06) : Arashi / 50.3 / 91.2%
02 / (02) : Southern All Stars / 49.3 / 88.4%
03 / (14) : Matsushima Nanako / 48.1 / 91.5%
04 / (09) : Kitano Takeshi / 47.5 / 94.3%
05 / (04) : Ayase Haruka / 47.3 / 88.6%
06 / (01) : Fukuyama Masaharu / 46.9 / 94.5%
07 / (13) : Abe Hiroshi / 45.7 / 90.4%
08 / (05) : Akashiya Sanma / 44.6 / 96.6%
09 / (11) : SMAP / 44.2 / 96.2%
10 / (03) : Ichiro Suzuki / 44.1 / 96.0%
11 / (29) : Taka and Toshi / 43.9 / 91.6%
12 / (22) : Asada Mao / 43.8 / 92.5%
13 / (18) : Mukai Osamu / 43.6 / 88.3%
14 / (17) : Cream Stew / 43.4 / 92.6%
15 / (07) : Sakurai Sho(Arashi) / 42.9 / 91.1%
16 / (19) : Amami Yuki / 42.5 / 84.9%
17 / (48) : Ueda Shinya / 41.6 / 91.8%
18 / (12) : Becky / 41.3 / 95.9%
19 / (94) : Darubisshu Yuu / 41.2 / 91.5%
19 / (29) : Okamura Takashi (NINETY-NINE) / 41.2 / 90.0%
19 / (22) : Bakusho Mondai /41.2 / 91.8%
22 / (16) : Down Town / 40.8 / 95.3%
22 / (26) : Tamori / 40.8 / 98.1%
24 / (20) : Tokoro George / 40.6 / 96.5%
25 / (24) : Matsumoto Hitoshi(Down Town) / 40.5 / 95.0%
26 / (21) : Kuwata Keisuke / 40.2 / 86.8%
27 / (32) : Ikegami Akira / 40.0 / 87.5%
28 / (10) : Aiba Masaki(Arashi) / 39.8 / 84.6%
29 / (34) : Nakama Yukie / 39.7 / 90.4%
30 / (08) : Ohno Satoshi(Arashi) / 39.5 / 86.8%

*1 Degree of recognition = People know both their name and how they look

  SOURCE: http://www.tokyohive.com/2012/05/arashi-tops-nikkeis-talent-power-ranking/

As previously reported, Kishi Yusuke’s novel “Aku no Kyoten” will be getting a live-action movie adaptation starring Ito Hideaki. Since the announcement, more cast members have been revealed.

“Aku no Kyoten” is a suspenseful novel that depicts cruel murder cases that happen at a school, committed by a high school teacher, “Hasumi Seiji” (played by Ito). It will be directed by Miike Takashi, and other added cast members include Yamada Takayuki, Nikaido Fumi, Sometani Shota, and Hayashi Kento.

Yamada will be playing “Shibahara Tetsuro”, Hasumi’s co-worker and a physical education teacher who sexually harasses his student. Yamada revealed the reason why he accepted the offer, saying, “I was attracted by the story and the role after reading the script, but I also wanted to be involved in Miike-san’s work.” “I would like to learn things I don’t know yet from Miike-san, Ito-san, and other seniors, and regain my fresh sense from Kento, Fumi-chan, and others,” he added.

Meanwhile, Nikaido, Sometani, and Hayashi will all be playing students who are targeted by Hasumi. Nikaido’s role is “Katagiri Reika”, who has good intuition and suspects Hasumi, while Sometani plays “Hayami Keisuke”, the mastermind of group cheating during exams who cares for Reika. Hayashi will play ”Maejima Masahiko”, a homosexual student who is in a close relationship with a teacher.

“Aku no Kyoten” will release on November 10th.

TOKYOHIVE

The Japanese Internet service provider BIGLOBE posted the results on Monday of a survey on the most popular spring anime series. This is not an official BIGLOBE survey, but a survey conducted by a user named "u67" under BIGLOBE's Anime Ranking Maker system.

Among the 11,698 self-selected responses from users of BIGLOBE's Anime One portal site, these were the top 36 choices:

Rank Title Votes
1 Hyouka 944
2 Fate/Zero 2 930
3 Accel World 873
4 Sankarea 855
5 Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos 840
6 Kids on the Slope (Sakamichi no Apollon) 803
7 Saki Achiga-hen episode of side-A 770
8 Space Brothers 643
9 Is This a Zombie? of the Dead 584
10 Kuroko no Basuke 422

( Read more... )


ANIME NEWS NETWORK

X Japan took home the award for Best International Band Wednesday
night at the Golden Gods Awards, becoming the first Asian band to ever be nominated
for a Golden Gods Award.

The band beat out internationally acclaimed Rammstein (Germany), Lacuna Coil (Italy),
Sepultura (Brazil), Behemoth (Poland), and Meshuggah (Sweden).

“Thank you Revolver. Thank you so much for recognizing us,” said Yoshiki, leader of X
Japan, who was present at the ceremony to accept the award.

“Some people might have heard of us, we're from Japan. Well, our band name is X Japan.

We toured North America in 2010, and did our first world tour last year. Now we are
finishing our first worldwide debut album. And we are planning on doing another world
tour soon. And to our beloved fans: Thank you so much for your support, we are going to
keep on rocking. And we fucking love you.”

Held at Club Nokia in downtown Los Angeles, the fourth annual Golden Gods awards
handed out 11 awards Wednesday night. Other winners included Avenged Sevenfold,
Slash, Korn, and Evanescence. The Black Carpet and Show was broadcasted on X Box
Live and will be aired again this year on VH1.

The show coincided with the opening of the Grammy Museum’s new exhibit, Golden
Gods: The History of Heavy Metal, which will run through February 2013.

http://nipponproject.com/en/new.php?id=973

A summary of the rather interesting interview. The questions were written by the kids from the show, but the interviewer was Degawa Tetsuro. Some of the questions may seem rather blunt, but only because they were written by kids.

Host: Where did "Wish!" come from?
DAIGO: When I greet my senpai's I usually say, "Wis!" It just naturally became, "Wish!"
Host: A pun?
DAIGO: Not really... it just became like that, naturally, like the way humans progress.

( Read more... )

Translation: ミ☆Calcifer (The Blue Hearth)

( Read more... )

Original Text in Spanish l Source l Yoshiki's Twitter

On Sunday, the final day of AKB48’s series of three concerts at Saitama Super Arena, member Maeda Atsuko (20) unexpectedly announced that she plans to graduate from the group. Although the date of her graduation has not been announced, it is expected that she will leave after AKB48′s first concert at Tokyo Dome (the date for that concert has also not been announced).

Maeda has been with the group since it formed in 2005, and to many she has been the “face” of the group for a long time. She was voted #1 by fans in AKB48′s “senbatsu” elections in 2009 and 2011, and she ranked 2nd behind Oshima Yuko in 2010.

( Read more... )
----

Maeda stated while crying, “I took the audition to enter AKB48 when I was 14 years old, which was a big decision in my life.  Now, please let me make my second big decision.  I am graduating from AKB48.”

source: TOKYOGRAPH, TOKYOHIVE(QUOTE)

Singer Jin Akanishi was supposed to make a grand return to Japan with seven arena shows following his five city North American tour, but those plans have all been canceled by his talent agency as punishment for his recent marriage/baby situation we previously reported on.

Remember this?

Akanishi and actress Meisa Kuroki (currently three months pregnant) handed in their marriage registration February 2nd. The pair did this without briefing their agencies, however, and Johnny and Associates (who also reps SMAP, Arashi, Sexy Zone, etc.) did not take kindly to this slight.

In fact, not only are the calling a full stop on his upcoming tour, but they are making him personally cover any related penalty fees. Tickets hadn't gone on sale yet for the April-May shows, but there is still the matter of the arena reservations, the cancellation fees of which could be pretty costly.

EDIT: more articles (somewhat same info)
http://www.tokyograph.com/news/johnnys-jimusho-to-make-akanishi-jin-responsible-for-costs-of-canceled-tour/
http://you-and-jin.livejournal.com/392553.html
http://www.tokyohive.com/2012/03/akanishi-jins-japan-tour-canceled-as-penalty-for-recent-marriage/

source: Crunchyroll

From last Monday's Tore. Since DAIGO is grandson to former PM Takeshita, he was given the challenge of naming 7 American presidents in 60 secs or less, or before he gets mummified. He was able to throw in a joke in the midst of panic, saying, "Wait, Miyazawa-san is Japanese, right?

Higher res here. Can't seem to embed it for some reason.

PS. Ultraman Saga starts showing tomorrow! If you're in Japan, you can watch the movie at these theaters.　Project D34 also closes on Sunday, so if you wanna greet DAIGO, "Happy Birthday," please join!

Tinypic