Japan World Cup Soccer team beat Belgium

Japan tuned up for its final world cup qualifying matches with a 4-0 win over Belgium in Kirin Cup action. Japan also beat Chile by the same score earlier in the Week and will face Uzbekistan in their next match. Japan currently sits 2nd in their group with 3 games to play and are 4 points up on 3rd place Bahrain. Japan looks like a lock to qualify out of Asia for the 4th consecutive time.

Weekend Blastoff Episode #230!

I can't believe I've done this 230 times lol.

On this week's show we feature music from Mika Nakashima, Misia, and indie J-rock band Molice! Also the Oricon Top 10 Charts and a rundown of some of the latest releases in Japan this past week!

School Food Punishment - Futuristic Imagination

This is the ED for the Higashi no Eden (Eden of the East) anime series. This is the first time lots of people (including myself) have been introduced to the band. A lot of their songs are in a similar vein and its just nice to listen to. Hope to hear more from them soon!

Mika Nakashima

An interesting article on Mika Nakashima in the Japan Times... which coincided with her new release "Overload" on May 13th

Changes!

As you might have noticed, I changed the title and the layout of the blog. This is now the blog for my show on Japan-A-Radio. (something I should have made a long time ago lol.)

Hikaru Utada's newest english single!

http://www.myspace.com/thisisutada

also at http://www.islandrecords.com/site/promo/splash/utada/index.htm

Utada - Come Back To Me

I wish they'd use her full name. Also interesting to see what kinda promotion this gets.

NHK kohaku 2008 Uta Gassen list revealed

The 2008 NHK Kohaku new years eve performers list has been released. The usual people are there, like SMAP and Ken Hirai and Koda Kumi and Ayumi Hamasaki, and joining them will be Jero, the African-American enka singer. Looking forward to seeing how he performs live.

No Gospellers and no Hikaru Utada makes me sad though >.<

Hayao Miyazaki Worries about Children's Future

The man that brought us Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and many others worries about the future of children, especially in Japan, saying the virtual world is sapping the strength of children.

Agree? Disagree?

Video Games Live

A Video Games Live concert took place in vancouver at the orpheum theatre today.... it was long, it was superb, everything I expected and more....

..... except they didn't show any actual game footage from any of the square enix games...... like they didn't have permission or something.... cause that would have blown the roof off the place.

The orpheum was packed though.... which is good for VGL and good for the Vancouver symphony as well.

Phillies win World Series.... Finally

After a 2-day rain delay the Philadelphia Phillies finally put an end to it and win game 5 4-3 to take the series 4-1 over the Tampa Bay Rays.