Author Archives: Lurkette

We are Juice=Juice #54 (2014.10.21)

By Lurkette | November 9, 2014

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“Socks”

Karin introduces the show with the word socks because she really likes 5-toed socks. However, she wore her own pairs a little too much and they got holes in them, and so she’s been wearing her other socks more and more so that her intact socks can stay that way. She originally wrote the opening word as “5-toed socks,” but since she hasn’t worn them in a while and isn’t wearing them today, she felt like she just had to say “socks” in general instead. This topic, however, has made her want to start wearing 5-toed socks again because she loves them so much. Yuka isn’t so sure about this because of the holes, but she has noticed that Karin seems a little more sure of herself when she wears them, so maybe she should go back to representing the 5-toed socks.

Toe socks give me the willies, actually.

As Autumn is coming into full swing, Karin has also taken a liking to looking up at the sky in the evening. She mentions that Orion has come into view at night now, and that if you look up at the stars every night you’ll start to notice a different in them, “Like, ah, that star was brighter last night than it was tonight.” She also really enjoys the feeling of looking up at something so much bigger than herself that makes her feel small and like a child, it’s very comforting. Yuka realizes that she hasn’t looked up at the night sky in a while, and even though she used to look at it on her way home or before she went inside, she usually just goes straight home and in the house now. She’ll make sure to look tonight, though. Yuka’s favorite thing about fall is that her favorite kinds of ice cream come out with fall flavors. One of her favorites is Haagen-Dazs’ new blueberry cheesecake flavor. Even just the name sounds tasty. Karin isn’t so sure, though, because it has “cheese” in it and she much prefers the taste of vanilla to the taste of cheese, so she usually ends up getting vanilla if she ever gets Haagen-Dazs.

Song: Juice=Juice – Date ja nai yo, uchi no jinsei wa

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SS1422 #93 (2014.10.26) (with special guests Nakanishi Kana and Tamura Meimi)

By Lurkette | October 27, 2014

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Special Guests

It’s Power-up Week for Radio Nippon, which means that this is a special show. It’s special in that hosts Takechan and Rinapuu have invited some special guests to join them in the recording booth today. Who are they? It’s a surprise. Rinapuu gives us a hint that they’re as cute as angels, which means the only answer could possibly Kananan and visual-center of S/mileage Tamura Meimi! Shocking! This leads to a lot of commotion considering Meimi’s opinion of herself on the last show, and so the top 3 beauties edge her out of the conversation. Kananan hopes that her cuteness will adequately be conveyed over the radio and Takechan and Rinapuu thank her for taking time out of her busy schedule to meet with them. Meimi does not get to talk anymore.

Song: S/mileage – Samui, ne.

A Thorough Debate

In this special corner, the members will discuss and debate each other on a given topic, namely, what should S/mileage do to prepare for the coming year. Rinapuu assures us that despite the long into from Takechan for this corner, it’s basically just them talking about whatever they want. Kananan says that now that they have 9 members, an odd number, she can finally take her place as a true center. The other members start to scream over her, especially Takechan, who says that it will definitely be her. Kananan continues to say that it’s strange thinking of themselves as 9 members because she has only ever talked to AiAi at the last Hello!Con but no one else has spoken to any of them. Meimi says it’s weird interacting with the Kenshuusei in general because she never knows who might be in the same group as her later on. It’s a puzzle. The fans probably enjoy it, though. Kananan asks who she thinks will make friends with the new members the fastest. Everyone is pretty sure it will be Kananan, but Kananan thinks that it will probably be Rinapuu. Rinapuu is the type to be the last to actually speak to the new members but will probably make friends with them the fastest. Rinapuu says it’s because she doesn’t know how to talk to new people so she just sits back and watches how other people interact with them, then uses that information to make friends with them. Continue reading →

SS1422 #92 (2014.10.19)

By Lurkette | October 27, 2014

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Power-up Week

Radio Nippon’s October Power-up week is coming up, so Meimi asks Takechan was she would like to do for it. Before Takechan can answer, Meimi interrupts with her idea. She wants to bring someone involved in omiai brought into the studio to talk about their job and how it works and if they could put the S/mileage members into the rotation to see what people’s reactions would be. Takechan says she’ll pass. Some of you are probably familiar with the concept of omiai, but in case you aren’t, I’ll explain. Typically when someone in Japan gets married, it’s because of one of two things, renai (恋愛) or miai (見合い). If you can read those characters you might guess what the difference is, but renai is romantic love, so you meet someone and date them and eventually fall in love and get married and theoretically live happily ever after. Miai is when you’re reaching an age where you want to get married (or in many cases when your family thinks you should be getting married) but don’t have a boyfriend/girlfriend and have no realistic prospects, so you meet with a miai specialist, a matchmaker, essentially, or sometimes a grandmother or other relative with connections to find you someone who you might not love romantically, but could see as a lifelong partner and parent to your children and can support your household. Once it’s established that you don’t hate each other in person, you get married. Nakazawa Yuko got married this way; it’s a fairly common practice still, there’s your Japanese culture lesson for the day. Anyway, what Meimi was asking for, then, was to be put into the pile of ladies for men to choose from and for the matchmaker to gauge how good of a candidate she’d be. Takechan is understandably weirded out.

Takechan’s idea is instead to go out somewhere and record the show. They’ve been talking a lot about going to an amusement park for their 100th show so they can’t go there, but she thinks it would be fun to go to a school or pre-school and talk to the students there for the radio show. However, Meimi questions the practicality of going out in public and talking to people, not because of technical difficulties but because none of the members would really feel comfortable just running up to people and asking them questions in the street. Meimi says she’d be fine doing it, but Takechan agrees that she would most likely be the only one. Meimi says, “I can just host that week by myself, it’s okay.” Meimi has no time for shyness.

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SS1422 #91 (2014.10.12) (with guest Fukumura Mizuki)

By Lurkette | October 22, 2014

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More 100th show plans

Continuing the topic brought up last week, Takechan asks Meimi if she wants to do anything special for the 100th show. Meimi, being the thespian that she is, wants to ask some actors onto the show or broadcast from a theater. She is very adamant about it; anybody is okay, even understudies. If she could ask someone in particular, she’d ask her favorite actors and actresses from Gekidanshiki (Japan’s version of Broadway) to come on. Even some fans wrote in to say they’d want them on the show. Takechan takes the opportunity to remind her that this is the 100th show for everyone, not just Meimi.

Meimi: But that’s okay, everyone can just invite whoever they want!
Takechan: They won’t fit in here!

Meimi asks Takechan who she would invite. “I won’t say,” she says, “because I want to go to a theme park.” She wants to do the show while riding on roller coasters, but she admits that even though she likes roller coasters, she’s never actually been on one that goes very high off the ground so she doesn’t know how she’d react on radio if she had to ride one. Still, she and Meimi both agree that they should go to FujiQ and have all four of them go into a haunted house and do a report from inside. It’s settled, it’s happening. If they can go at all, that is.

Third Generation Members

After Takechan finishes doing a promo for the play, during which Meimi is yelling “yay~” the whole time in the background, they talk about the 3rd generation members, Murota Mizuki, Sasaki Rikako, and Aikawa Maho. Meimi is really excited for Murotan joining because she remembers her from the 2nd gen auditions and how strange it must be for her to go through everything and still end up in the same group she originally auditioned for. They’re also very happy about AiAi saying she wanted to join S/mileage. They recognize that girls these days have a lot of idol groups to choose from, and they want to thank them for ~~flying with us today~~ voicing their love of S/mileage over groups like Morning Musume. Takechan mentions how strange it is for there to be so few people left in KSS from when she was in the program. For Meimi, it’s weird that those few people are technically more senior than she is by tenure, yet she calls Taguchi Tagucchi and Taguchi calls her Tamura-san. Takechan says she’s perfectly able to turn it around and call her Taguchi-san if she wants, but Meimi seems less than enthusiastic about it.

Cuties

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We are Juice=Juice #53 (2014.10.14)

By Lurkette | October 18, 2014

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It has color!

The Miya-Miya combo presents us with this opening phrase because today, on their 53rd show as We are Juice=Juice, Yuka has just noticed that the script has their colors on it! It made her feel like she was seeing something rare so it made her happy to see it for the first time.

Karin has very little to add to the opening statement, so Yuka moves on to ask if Karin has any clothing staples for fall. Karin explains that she doesn’t so much rely on staples but simply picks out the things that she likes at the time, and recently she has been interested in red check shirts. She bought some but has had tremendous difficulty trying to match them with things, which Yuka completely understands, though she thinks it would suit her (by the way, if you’re getting deja vu at this point, there’s a reason). Yuka recommends trying a cardigan, but Karin is stuck on what color of the check to try and match with. Yuka has been into long black skirts because they’re more mature and cover up plenty of things she might want to hide, so she bought one and actually wore it to the recording today. Karin admits that she has been interested in them but didn’t think she could pull it off when she tried one on, but it really suits Yuka and she looks very mature and stylish.

Fan Letters

The first letter comes from aMa no Jaku, who congratulates them on their new song release and says that they saw them perform as the opening act for Morning Musume at Budokan. Their performance made them feel like the 5 of them are going to move to bigger and bigger stages in the next year and hope to see them perform at Budokan soon. They think it would be amazing to do one big juice toast with all of the Juice=Juice family in Budokan. Another letter comes from Watada, who has been listening to their new songs since they got the CD and has been in love with Date ja nai yo since seeing them look so good performing it live in concert. This makes the two of them happy, especially the part about doing a toast in Budokan, which Yuka had thought of doing before. Karin makes a pun out of Budokan and says that they should all have grape (“budou”) juice. You didn’t hear that from her, though.

Song: Juice=Juice – Date ja nai yo, uchi no jinsei wa Continue reading →

We are Juice=Juice #52 (2014.10.07)

By Lurkette | October 18, 2014

1 comment

Lumpy

Karin brings us this opening word as she has come to the conclusion that she loves lumpy foods. She loves strawberries, as most everyone knows, and they’re sort of lumpy and pulpy but she finds that it isn’t just the taste she enjoys but the texture. Uemu asks if this goes for other things as well, like salmon roe, and Karin affirms that most of her favorite foods are on the lumpy side. She also prefers to have her drinks be thicker and pulpy, which Uemu says she also enjoys. Karin adds that she has noticed Uemu also shares this affinity for pulpy, lumpy things, since they both enjoy kiwi seeds and such in their juice whenever they get it, but she also remembers something that happened recently with Uemu and food. The Juice=Juice members all went out to eat and they asked Uemu if she wanted anything in particular and she said, “takenoko,” or bamboo shoots. However, when the plate got to their table, Uemu started freaking out and asked why these perfectly normal bamboo shoots were so wrong. It turns out she had meant to order “kazunoko,” or herring roe, instead. Uemu retorts. “But they look the same! They have the noko in common you know so it’s easy to confuse them!” Uemu said what surprised her was that there had been a picture of the kazunoko that she was ordering from and they came out looking so different.

Bamboo-shoots This is not herring roe, despite what the ‘noko’ might lead you to believe

Karin continues in the food discussion and asks if Uemu has any fall foods she’s looking forward to eating. She says that roasted sweet potato tops her list, although she enjoys miso soup this time of year as well. Karin enjoys sweet potato as well, although lately whenever she really wants one she cooks it in the microwave to get it quicker. She discovered this when she wanted one but there wasn’t anyone around selling them. She and Uemu both delve into their best sweet potato salesperson impressions as a result.

Song: Juice=Juice – Date ja nai yo, uchi no jinsei wa Continue reading →

SS1422 #90 (2014.10.05)

By Lurkette | October 10, 2014

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100th Show Plans

This show marks their 90th radio broadcast under S/mileage Station, which means that their 100th show is almost here. Rinapuu thinks it would be cool if they could broadcast the 100th show from a different location or doing something different. Kananan thinks it would be neat to go to a buffet and they wouldn’t talk while getting up to get food and then they’d all come back and eat while talking. Rinapuu says, “…ew.” Kananan then suggests going to Osaka to broadcast, like from Universal Studios Japan. Rinapuu wants to do that and open the show with the Harry Potter theme music while they record from the Harry Potter area. Disney Land would be good too, although they’d have to take breaks to take pictures with the characters. They’ll think about it.

They start talking about their play, Smile Fantasy, and how it has been much more difficult than their previous theatrical ventures. This play was actually written for S/mileage and to have them all as the leading actors, so they spend most of their time on the stage and they have way more lines than they’ve ever had before. Despite this, they think it will be delightful for the audience to watch. There is apparently some sort of surprising scene at the end involving Rinapuu that Kananan wasn’t sure she’d be able to pull off and Rinapuu admits she didn’t want to do, but they both think that the audience will really enjoy it. Of course, the opening day of the play is also when the 3rd gen members were announced. They record this show in advance so it’s kind of strange that at the time of the recording they don’t know who will be in the show but at the air date, everyone will know. In any case, Kananan hopes that they can all combine their strength to make an even better group with a new name.

Song: S/mileage – Sankyuu! Creme Brulee no Yuujou Continue reading →

SS1422 #89 (2014.09.28) with surprise guest Takahashi Ai

By Lurkette | October 5, 2014

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The show this week opens with a review of the announcement made this past week in Hello!Station. S/mileage will be adding a 3rd generation of members and their group name will be changing. S/mileage began as four members, 2nd gen joined, then the group continued as 6 members and managed to perform at Nippon Budokan. So that the group can continue to take on new challenges and grow and transform, these changes will be made. They will continue to work hard as the reborn S/mileage and hope that we will all continue to support them as such.

Good-bye, six member S/mileage

Since this is Radio Nippon’s Power-up Week, they are also going to do a drawing for a copy of their latest single signed by the 2nd gen members and Kanon. They draw a postcard from Yuu, who writes that they are in their last year of middle school and studying for exams and when the going gets tough, they listen to Yattaruchan and study more. Kana and Rina both praise them for being able to study so much to music, because both of them get distracted when they listen to music when they’re trying to work. They do another drawing and draw one from Bambi. Their message asks if it is easy for the S/mileage members to act in the upcoming musical because they are playing roles based off of real people. They both say that it’s actually a lot harder than one might think, because they have to base their performance off of the real person and would be afraid to offend them if they didn’t do it right. In Rina’s case in particular, there are a lot of words and phrases that she just won’t say because she finds them weird, so when they were rehearsing and writing the script they had to make sure that none of those words slipped into the performance. Both Yuu and Bambi will be getting their prizes soon in the mail.

Song: S/mileage – Chikyuu wa kyou mo ai wo hagukumu Continue reading →