let's go where this dawn ends

Hilarious, and way better than the New Year SP (which tried too hard).
It felt... honest?
Like Arashi weren't just making comments for the sake of making them/hamming it up for the camera.
(I think they really enjoy the older brother/mentor sort of role?)
And great food ofc and it doesn't hurt that Tanaka Rie and Haruma are absolutely adorbs. *O*

AND I'M JUST IN TIME FOR SHO'S BIRTHDAY!
HAPPY 32NDDDD 

Just watched the remaining Fuku Arashi clips
and guh OHMIYA = OTP4EVA I KID YOU NOT


Tumblr annoyances:
1. 'Stahp'. Or variations thereof. *grindgrind*
2. Photos of pretty food with bites already taken out of said food. 
(THE SALIVA. THE MENTAL IMAGES.) 

SAKANACTION'S KOUHAKU DEBUT ugh I'm so happy for them?! ;;


Oh-chan - 
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my favourite idol 
and the awesomest leader (or not quite, lol) one could wish for. :'D
...I often think that I'd be a much happier person if I were more like you.
May you have many more years of doing what you want to do. <3 

Just watched the 2013.02.07 VSA ep
and it is easily the best one I've seen in ages???
AKIRA is an adorable man guh (and actually sorta resembles his Tumbling character irl, aww)
and Takahashi Katsumi was hugely entertaining.
If I picked dramas to watch based on variety promo appearances 
I'd be jumping on Biblia without a second thought.


キツツキと雨:
H's taste, on-point as always.
So... warm? And heartfelt - and genuinely, genuinely lovely (much like the shooting locale, haha).
Loved Koichi's shedding of his superstitions (says so much with so little)
and the adorably hilarious-awkward bath scenes.
Also the massively endearing characters 
and the winsome (who would have thought I'd ever get to use that word, lol) soundtrack.
Ended too soon tbh. 

IT'S BEEN OUT FOR A WEEK /CRIES
(Lmao a crowd of spinning ballerinas.
You know some storyboard guy somewhere
is congratulating himself on inventing this (super)fresh! way
of making a PV look like it has a larger budget/more artistic merit than it really does.)


O.O THE WHITE VERSION OF THE 24HR TEE IS AWFULLY PRETTY
(AND REFLECTIVE OF BOTH KUSAMA YAYOI'S AND OHNO'S STYLES) DDD:
Very, very tempted. Is it worth $36 (or £18, in a bid to make myself feel better)?


空中庭園:
The flashier - for better or for worse - cousin of Tokyo Sonata.
(Was pleasantly surprised by how different from Aoi Haru it was, actually?)
Visually gorgeous in a languid kind of way (notwithstanding the excessive use of spinning camera),
tinged with dark humour in unexpected corners
and (O.O) subject to a constant undercurrent of creepy even at its most mundane.

Ughhh was practically holding my breath throughout the birthday party scene -
first during the tension/those vicious retaliatory stabs,
then during the palpable grief and regret in the SacchanXEriko conversation. ;;

Okay, the ending confused me. ><
- The way I read it, Eriko rewrote the bitter truth in the blood-rain
(and I'm certain this could be phrased less cheesily, but oh well),
which would be a cool parallel to Sacchan's admission
that her memories became more pleasant the more she dreamed them.
But this wouldn't explain the fact that Sacchan seemed to think herself a better mother
than Eriko remembered her to be.
- Alternatively (as I read in one or two online reviews after the fact),
Eriko was reverting to the truth in the blood-rain
(i.e. her memories had up till this point been lies, just like the rest of her life was a farce).
But the point of said farce was to compensate for the reality compassed by those memories,
so this wouldn't really make sense, would it? :3

Idk, maybe I favour the former interpretation
because this would then raise the further question of whether lies are justified
should they /truly/ make one happier
(and when Eriko smiles genuinely for the first time in the film's closing minutes,
it really does feel as if everything would be worth it, just to get to that point) -
which would extend the film's exploration of the collapse of lies covering up a LACK OF happiness.
(In this case, the discrepancies between Sacchan's and Eriko's perceptions of their relationship
would merely be that - differing perceptions.)
Whereas the latter would mean the conclusion was unequivocally optimistic.

...I wonder if the ambiguity was intended, or if I'm just being dense. L-lol.

 <b>Soratobu Kouhoushitsu, ep6:</b>