sonofgodzilla: shiny cat's pact (yuki)
[personal profile] sonofgodzilla
Let’s take a moment away from me talking about overseas members I am not so familiar with! I’m kind of obsessed with Shoot Sign right now, both as a song and in terms of the drama it represents. I’ll save you my thoughts regarding my watching the 1986 TBS drama, Tenshi no Uppercut about a girl who takes up boxing to defend herself against school bullies, and I’ll also save you my thoughts on 2022’s Doronjo, the plot of which still resonates for me, and whilst we’ve already spoken about Kojima Haruna and Miyawaki Sakura, both of whom are at the heart of this MV, I realise we have yet to mention Team 4 member, Iriyama Anna!

Annin!


Born in ‘strawberry country,’ Chiba in 1995, Annin passed auditions for AKB in 2010 and debuted as a member of the kenkyuusei that year in March. Just over a year later, in July, she was announced as a new member of Oba Mina’s Team 4 at the Seibu Dome concert, appearing later in the revival of Boku no Taiyo in the theatre. Both Annin and Team 4 quickly won over the audience! You can see her in the most fondly remembered line up of the team in the Hashire! Penguin MV, and whilst she was transferred to Team A in the 2012 Tokyo Dome Shuffle, at the behest of fellow former Team 4 member and fresh lemon, Ichikawa Miori, and the original team was disbanded in October, Annin continued to win hearts, appearing in the media senbatsu for 2012’s summer single, Manatsu no Sounds Good!, a single I remember excitedly pre-ordering and then feeling very embarrassed about because of the cover.

Annin remained in Team A for ten years, almost her entire career in the group, which I am quietly amazed by. In April, she was one of the members selected to perform in Washington D.C., and this, dear friends, is the reason Annin is such a significant figure in my memory of the group at the time. Though I never got to go to the Paris, New York, or Washington concerts, the names of members who were marginally popular but not significant heavy hitters at the time became ingrained on my heart because they were our AKB; Iriyama Anna and Team 4 became the AKB we felt we had most in common with because we felt included in the celebration. A cursory glance at the remaining videos still present on youtube reveals the enthusiasm with which overseas fans and Japanese students studying abroad committed hard.

Upon her return, Annin was selected as a member of AnRiRe, joining Sashihara for her second solo single, Ikuji Nashi Masquerade. The year after, in 2013, she appeared in the media senbatsu for Sayonara Crawl, the beginning of what became a pattern of her on-off inclusion in the senbatsu for singles continuing until Jabaja in 2018. Both Iriyama and AKB48 were at the height of their popularity during these moments.

In 2014, during a handshake event in Iwate Prefecture, a 24-year-old man, Umeta Satoru, smuggled in a foldable handsaw modified by attaching boxcutter knife blades to the side, and, driven by what he described as envy during the trial later, attempted to stab both Annin and Kawaei Rina, succeeding in wounding both girls and a member of staff who attempted to intervene. The event left everyone stunned and horrified, and, as with the attack on shoppers in Akihabara in 2008, I remember feeling a sense of dull disbelief, a feeling that I had been an idiot for papering over the cracks with feelings for idols, that the world was a dangerous place, and, for a moment, I had turned away and forgotten this. In all the excitement, I sobered suddenly. For a while after, I stopped listening to idol music.

I don’t know if this was the right thing to do, there was a lot going on at that point for me. Maybe Kawaei Rina felt the same as she announced her graduation shortly afterwards, saying that she understandably could no longer attend handshake events after what had happened. We were all left in a kind of stupor, and it felt like AKB, which had grown so big up until that point, began to diminish itself slightly, to recoil, as if fearful of what more attention might bring. It made all of us question what we were doing. Yet if Annin ever felt like that, she never seemed to express it in public, remaining in the group, pushing ever forward with her dreams until her graduation in 2022

Annin is still active, you guys! She has a popular youtube channel in which she blogs about life in Japan and Mexico, one of her videos from 2023 is even about lucha libre, and she continues to appear in TV and movies! I buried the lede with this one, I feel, as she hardly appears in the Shoot Sign video, but I’d been wanting to talk about Annin for a long time

Annin!


Every time I write one of these entries, I get closer to the point where I only have new members left to talk about, and that feels a little daunting. Next week: back to the anniversary single hype!

FIC: AKB48 - Fresh Salt

Jul. 15th, 2025 07:14 pm
sonofgodzilla: gamer (kashiwagi yuki)
[personal profile] sonofgodzilla
Title: Fresh Salt
Universe: AKB48
Prompt: not wanting the group to end because then heterosexuality kicks in
Character(s): Kashiwagi Yuki, Yokoyama Yui
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Summary: It was hard to think of Yokoyama as being in her 30s, because to do so was to accept her own age, to accept the decisions she had made, the relationships that had never happened, the stages she had danced, danced, danced her heart out on. If there had been two of her, if she had been twins, one to embrace being an idol, one to enter womanhood, wouldn’t that have been kinder?
Length: 951 words
Author's Notes: Merry Christmas in July! #8. HAPPY BIRTHDAY YUKIRIN-SAMA!! 🎉 🍰 🎂 🎁 💖 🎊 Written for Teacher Teacher Fes and also bleak idol bingo. also: external link.

yukiyui

Fresh Salt )
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
- "Terrorism": having difficulty comprehending that I live in a time when Labour leader Keir Starmer and his starmtroopers have decided to crimialise peaceful protest as "terrorism", including 100 or so people from across the UK arrested and facing 14 years in prison each as "terrorists" because they held up marker-pen-on-cardboard signs reading "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action."

People holding handwritten cardboard signs reading, "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action."

- Decided to celebrate something I love everyday.
9: The clouds I saw from a peak hour traffic jam were fabulously fluffy cumulus sky-sheep.
10: Wizo the Fleming. His name. And his son Walter fitzWizo. Both C12th. That is all. P.S. Pembrokeshire Council have wisely decreed the creation of a Wizo Trail for cyclists.
11: 7.30am tuneful recorder playing in an otherwise silent neighbourhood (no cars). I'm imagining an enchanting Good Neighbour of the faerie folk, but around here it was probably a bearded old hippie, lol.
11: a female Large (Cabbage) White butterfly, Pieris brassicae, flew across in front of my face then perched on the hedge next to my head so I could observe it about a hand length away, and note its wing patterns and antennae colours in detail.
11 bonus: my front lawn was suddenly full of happy, laughing, shrieking, playing people (mostly young). Get ON my lawn! Curtains were closed so I didn't twitch them to find out if anyone was in dress-up but there are usually one or two.
12: brief visitation in my home by a large patterned brown moth that was one of those "why aren't day-flying moths called butterflies?" beauties.
13: just laying in bed very early this morning, half-awake, and knowing I didn't have to get up. Mmm.

- Birb log: whenever I see the new taxonomy for Jackdaws I think about that redditor who people mocked for years for saying Jackdaws weren't crows / Corvus or whatever it was they said.

Birb log  )

Small life update + film notes

Jul. 13th, 2025 09:15 pm
caramarie: Icon of a magpie perched against a backdrop of the stars. (Default)
[personal profile] caramarie
I started back at university part-time last week! It was very confusing for the poor IT systems, which didn’t cope very well with someone being a returning student after 16 years (or ‘a very long time ago’, as the IT person who made me repeat my date of birth several times called it).

I am only doing one course at a time, so at the moment it is Japanese. In honour of which, I am posting the notes from a film I watched back in March. I have been telling people I’ve gone back to uni because I’m sick of my work, but maybe I should have been blaming it on Kurosawa :p

Ikiru (1952)

As a public servant, I felt attacked by this film.

Watanabe has worked in public relations for the city council for years and years, leading a dull life, until he learns (despite the doctor’s refusal to admit it) that he has stomach cancer.

After which ... )
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
The real Salt Path (link to The Observer): how a blockbuster book and film were spun from lies, deceit and desperation.

The Salt Path-ological liar, The Wild Lies, and Landlies )

Most importantly, to me, disabled people suffer collateral damage from both aspects of her fraud: firstly by being told they could do x or y if only they had as much willpower as Walker's fictional character with CBS/CBD, then secondly from the assumption that many disabled people are frauds like Walker. I'm betting she'll continue to profit from her crimes while her victims, intended and indirect, suffer for her choices. (I also feel sympathy for the Walker children and hope they avoid being dragged into this.)

ETA 13 July 2025: Observer article about a further Walker scam I've quoted salient extracts in a comment below.
sonofgodzilla: (Acchan Christmas ~ !)
[personal profile] sonofgodzilla
Title: From Frederica to You
Universe: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Mahou Sensei Negima!
Prompt: '—where no dreams reach; that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity'
Character(s): Konoe Konoka, Sakurazaki Setsuna, Frederica Bernkastel
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Summary: “No one attends to this shrine anymore,” the woman announced, jumping gracefully down from the wall. “The deity here is sleeping.”
Length: 580 words
Author's Notes: Merry Christmas in July! #7. also: external link.

cat

From Frederica to You )
caramarie: Lady at a dinner party. (dinner party)
[personal profile] caramarie
Title: If It’s All I Got
Fandom: A Bittersweet Life
Music: The Working, by Grayson Gilmour
Length: 4:20 min
Prompt: 00s music, for [community profile] vid_bingo
Download: If It’s All I Got (mp4, 131 MB)
Elsewhere: on AO3
Content notes: graphic violence, blood and injury, torture, gun violence, plus he gets buried alive
Summary: ‘I had a sweet dream.’

Streaming )
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
I've been trawling historical documents and caught some very fishy bait. Partly because I was asked about connections between the Greyfriars aka the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor and Greyfriars house aka no.9 Friar Street, Worcester. This tale of devilry, from 1535 in the reign of Henry VIII, is from two surviving fragments of correspondence that were brought to the personal attention of Thomas Cromwell - his handwriting is on the back.

A connection beyond probably being neighbours is that a witness claimed one of the Friars Minor, 'Dr' Hanedon, confessed to the attempted murder of his neighbour living at no.9, Thomas Twesell. The confession, possibly while drunk, was in front of innkeeper Nicholas Mokoke of the Cardinal's Hat inn / tavern in Worcester. Hanedon was being investigated by Cromwell's auditors for 'vicious living', and being 'to the evil example of all Christian people', when he attempted to murder wealthy local civic dignitary (and Cromwell's auditor?) Thomas Twesell by gathering a gang of fellow friars to accost Twesell in the street and stab him with a 'dagger' on the feast of the Conversion of St Paul (25 Jan). The friars reputedly cried off because Twesell was accompanied by his servant (i.e. an armed man and potential witness).

Anne Mokoke (Moorcock?), the daughter of the Cardinal's Hat innkeeper, testified that Hanedon ~neither feared God nor the shame of the world~, and there are two separately witnessed accounts of him trying to seduce unwilling women, including the partially successful abduction of a married woman to a brothel! The Friary itself is referred to by the letter's author as 'more like a house of vicious and incontinent living than a religious place.'

Note that all this evidence gathering was to a particular purpose as the Dissolution of the Monasteries happened 1536-41, however even the 'marshal' of the prior of Worcester seems to have been willing to testify (£?) against Hanedon for the abduction. All very suspect: trust nobody!!1!! Except goodwife Anne who was correct that the whole business is extremely unedifying from beginning to end.

/dispatches from C16th
muladhara: (Default)
[personal profile] muladhara
Bullet points because I don't do coherent segues!

# I am not going to talk about how many hours I am working this week, suffice to say it's ridiculous. One shift was my own fault for taking it on, but the rest were not.

Maybe I'll whine about it next week.

# I was supposed to have counselling today, but I got a text from my counsellor very early on saying she was sorry, but she had to postpone our session because she wasn't feeling well. Which is fair! And also I'm relieved, because I didn't have anything specific to talk about, apart from telling her how my new meds are going. I'm hoping next time I speak to her, I will have a bigger update for her/something else to talk about, hopefully.

# I'm changing my mind about what I want to do with (some of) the walls in my house - I was originally going to wallpaper upstairs and paint downstairs, but now I think I might just paint the lot? Especially because I think the colour I picked for the hallway has been discontinued??? I have one can of it, but that won't be enough for all the walls that will need doing.

But it's annoying, because they've literally made this colour FOR YEARS, and now I choose it as the one I want, I can't get it anywhere!

(There is a similar colour by the same company, which hopefully is still in production, so I can get that, but I am currently very >:( at it all).

I don't know what I will do with the wallpaper I haven't used, though. (I did think about partially papering the front bedroom, but idk right now).

# Wyrdwood season 2 starts on Friday! I am very excite!! I won't get to watch it till at least Sunday evening, but I am excite all the same!
sonofgodzilla: (Default)
[personal profile] sonofgodzilla
I am unprepared for this era in a way that is surprisingly exciting when it comes to my reading about members such as Patalee Prasertteerachai and groups such as BNK48, but it is maybe not as exciting for you, the reader, who maybe are expecting me to have some authority on the matter! Alas! I have none.

Hoop


I have known about Bangkok’s BNK48 for a while now but it wasn’t until this year, during lonely lunchbreaks at my current job, craving some kind of connexion with the things I love as part of my daily routine, that I found myself watching a handful of BNK videos. Their 2021 cover of NMB48’s Warota People is probably my favourite, as it makes less sense than the original in an especially charming way, and the now sadly graduated Chayanan Jedpeenongruamjai, a CGM48 trainee, is probably my favourite member in that video. I don’t want to wish to mischaracterise Thailand’s culture with my lack of understanding, but I find the manner and style of the presentation of BNK48 to be very affirming. I’m writing this entry just at the end of June and the beginning of July, so I’m sure you can join the dots.

Patalee, nicknamed ‘Hoop’ by friends and/or management, I’m unsure which, had been with BNK for roughly a year when Warota People, the lead promotional video of the group’s third album of the same name was released. Already a potential candidate for the reality TV show, Idol Paradise, she didn’t follow through with it having applied for BNK at the same time, and, fortunately for us, passing the auditions. From early spring a year later, she began to appear more regularly in the group’s line-up, making it to the ‘front member’ selection of eleventh single, Sayonara Crawl, a cover of the AKB original, and finding herself promoted to Team BIII and with a concurrent position in Team NV a few months after, a position she held until 2023.

Patalee rose to prominence pretty quickly, you guys! With a number of B sides in which she featured as centre and a W centre with CGM48’s Vithita Srasreesom for a version of Kibouteki Refrain, she has more often than not, appeared primarily on the group’s covers, those releases I imagine that, due to familiarity, have the most crossover appeal for international audiences. A mere handful of months after gaining her official membership of BIII, she was made the group’s captain, becoming the overall captain of BNK48 just a few months later, in March 2024. Although this is a role she has now relinquished, it feels like there has been a definite push to keep Patalee prominent in BNK, so it should come as no real surprise that she was selected for the senbatsu of AKB’s upcoming sixty-sixth single—that attempt at crossover appeal was clearly the first step in what is happening now!

Friends, throughout these past few months, I have developed a soft spot for BNK. I don’t think I will follow them too closely, but they do inspire in me a sense of camaraderie in that, despite the appeal to fans of Japanese pop culture, they feel like they are striving hard to become their own thing also. I’m really excited to see what part Patalee will play in AKB’s new single!
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
- Quote: "When lions have historians, then hunters will cease to be heroes." - Zeinab Badawi's version of an African proverb first made famous in Europe by Chinua Achebe.

- My favourite Glasto quote was from Seun Kuti: "I know you want to free Palestine, free Congo, free Sudan, free Iran. It’s a new one every week. Free Europe. Free Europe from right-wing extremism, from fascism, from racism. Free Europe from imperialism."

- Hearing: earlier this week there was either a school sports day in the field out the back of my house or a fantastical battle between children and dogs. The next day there was either another sporting event further along the valley or an epic battle between cows and sheep. Or my hearing is going, or the valley has rly weird acoustics when the rocks are hot and the earth is dry.

- Secondhand bookmarker: a handwritten note, on an individually dyed sheet of paper, fell out of a used book I bought. It was from Grandma N to Dear Farly to thank the "very kind boy" for sharing his "special eggs" from his own chickens and "they must be very happy to be living in your garden now after their sad life before".

Birb, Health, blah blah )

June 2020

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