After disbanding in 2005 and each band member doing their own solo projects, Japanese pop band Do As Infinity has reunited! This is so great. They were one of the first Japanese artists I ever listened to (after Ayu and ELT).
They will start by giving free concerts at the end of September and are planning a new release in the spring.
Source: official site and HeartlessCloud@ahn
This is completely random, but I ran into this photo of Ai Otsuka yesterday. At first I just thought “ooh, a nice Ai picture I haven’t seen before”. Then I looked at her sweater. It looks like it says “Gustavus Adolphus”, which is the Latin name of a Swedish king (Gustav II Adolf the Great). He was the founder of the Swedish Empire.
I just love the song that Park Hye-kyung (박혜경/Park Hye-gyeong) sings in the end titles of the Korean movie Too Beautiful to Lie. She has a wonderful voice. I’d love to get one of her albums, but I don’t know which one to get. She has released a load of them. As it seems, the songs she made for the Too Beautiful to Lie and Jenny, Juno soundtracks are not available on her albums. I have listened to some very low quality previews of her fifth album, but I believe I thought the album wasn’t good enough over all.
Does anyone have any recommendations? I’ve been looking at her latest album, which is a cover album. I found some samples and it sounds pretty nice. I love the happy pop-jazzy 그녀를 믿지 마세요 from the Too Beautiful to Lie OST.
YA Entertainment has now released the first 3 volumes (of 4) of the Korean drama Be Strong , Geum-soon with English subtitles. The first volume was released in June and consists of the first 41(!) episodes. I don’t know much about the drama, but it stars Han Hye-jin, whom I just love. I’ve been eyeing this drama before, but there was no release with English subtitles. I think I’m going to order the first box and see how it is. I hope it’s good, but at the same time, if it is, it will cost me a small fortune to buy all the boxes 
However, these boxes only appear on YesAsia’s US pages, not on the global ones, which is why I missed that they’d come out. I’m not sure why, I’ll ask them.
update: Argh!! It’s only sold within North America! I guess they’re strict about the copyright since it’s their own brand, but almost all items I buy from YesAsia are only licenced for sale in Asia (not Europe) and that’s not a problem.
Here’s the reply I got: […] there’s more! »
Ai cut her hair again! Her latest song KURAGE, nagareboshi (クラゲ、流れ星) is a nice ballad. The title means something like “jellyfish, shooting star”, so perhaps it has some connection to Kingyo hanabi (goldfish fireworks)?
Ai Otsuka ~ KURAGE, nagareboshi for PSP
17MB 4:43 H.264/AVC 480×272
Credit: source video from doobie@jpopsuki via justlisa@ahn
Here I’ve collected all full resolution PSP versions I’ve made of HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR’s PVs.
HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR PVs
279MB H.264/AVC 480×272
These have all been posted before, but a torrent is convenient if you want to download all of them. […] there’s more! »
Here’s HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR’s song Mushroom (マッシュルーム) 
HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR ~ Mushroom for PSP
10MB 1:31 H.264/AVC 480×272
The PV is from 10 Color Singles.
To give you your bi-daily fix of HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR, here’s Tadoritsuku Basho (辿り着く場所).
HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR ~ Tadoritsuku Basho for PSP
21MB 5:21 H.264/AVC 480×272
The PV is from 10 Color Singles.
This is kind of old news, but I had totally missed this. Apparently Maki is leaving HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR by the end of the year. This was announced in their official blog July 2nd. This supposedly has something to do with Maki getting married to Masato Nakamura (who is 29 years older by the way).
What can I say but: NOOOOOOooooooooooooo!!
I wish Maki all the best, but I’m sad to see her leave the band 
Source: official blog (jap)
Some comfort pictures:
Here’s HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR’s song Tokyo NIGHT (東京ナイト) from Rock Pit as requested by valentina.
