I’m planning to do a top… 5? 10? ranking of my favourite songs. When I first read MB’s post, I thought, oh this will be sorta easy – just list my top 5 songs (since I’ve been working those out in my head already for my future post). However, as I started thinking about it, while Truth is my favourite Arashi single, it definitely isn’t my favourite Arashi PV. It’s quite interesting how the PV ranking and song rankings differ. ^_^

So without further ado, here are my top 5 Arashi singles. I apologize for the briefness of my explanations, but I really left this to the last minute, and I had a super long day today. XD

5. Believe

I love the set of this PV. The tree in the midst of this futuristic/grey/metallic room looks awesome. One of the buildings at my university had this whole forest vibe going on, and during long breaks during my fourth year biochemistry lab, my friends and I would lounge in the “forest” and take in the greenery. This set doesn’t look anything like that area, but the general concept makes me think of those lab days. The reports were killer, but doing the lab work was fun.

4. One Love

I love the effect of the guys as a watercolour painting. The one thing I really don’t like about this PV is Nino’s capri shorts… XD I’ve never been a fan of capri shorts, particularly on guys… Maybe that’s part of the reason why I’ve never really been able to get behind Nadal in tennis (and his facial expressions kind of bother me XD).

3. Troublemaker

The stopmotion effects makes this PV so interesting to watch. Their facial expressions as they watch the juice, the fruit, etc. go up and down, up and down, are so adorable, and they’re just so silly throughout the PV. However, there is one thing that put a damper on my enjoying of this PV to the fullest extent – Sho’s suit… I just REALLY don’t like it. XD

2. WISH

Sorry, I couldn’t find a non-subbed PV on youtube. I’ll try to upload the PV at some point.

The puppets/dolls are just soooooo adorable!!! Who wouldn’t like this PV? Also, at the start of the PV, Sho looks ready to bust out the moves. It seems the “dance” (ie. the non-dance) just isn’t lively enough for Sho. It’s such an uplifting sounding song, it seems like Sho can’t keep his emotions bottled up by just standing still.

1. Love So Sweet

This PV is just so adorably quirky that I can’t help but love it. The first time I saw this PV, I immediately fell in love with it. I had already enjoyed the song from my listen through of the All Singles CDs, but the guys looks awesome in this PV. I love the outfits and I love their reactions/interactions with the people outside of the display.

Check it out. My top 2 PVs are Hana Yori Dango theme songs.

Special mention:
Truth

It’s my favourite Arashi a-side, and I absolutely love the army of violinists in the background. ^_^

And there you go! My top 5 Arashi PVs (plus one special mention). Did any of these make you think “WTF is maiZe on?!?!” XD … Also, as I was tagging this post, I realized that my top 5 plus special mention are all English titles. That’s a funny coincidence. XD

As I’ve already mentioned, the first drama I saw with an Arashi member was The Quiz Show 2. That got me noticing Sho-kun and that’s what made me give the group a chance in the first place.

Since getting pulled in after watching their Kohaku performance, I have watched a total of 4 TV dramas (plus an extra one that didn’t have any Arashi members), 2 SP dramas and a final movie for a TV drama (can you guess which? XD).

What I’m finding as I watch through these is that Japanese dramas have the strange ability to make me cry. I am not usually a crier when I watch tv shows or movies. Back when Titanic first came out and everyone was going “OMG!!! I cried so much during Titanic”, when I went to go see it, my eyes didn’t even water. However, each of these dramas have somehow made me cry.

First up: Yamada Tarou Monogatari
This drama was recommended to me by MorningBerryz. I decided to watch this one first because my two favourite members are main characters – Sho and Nino.

I absolutely adored this drama and it’s quirky sense of humour. Tarou (Nino’s character) is just so genuine and sincere in everything he does that it’s impossible not to fall in love with him (as depicted by practically everyone basically fainting at a mere smile from him – girls and boys [with guest appearing Leader not being exempt] alike).

Seeing as this series is a quirky comedy, you may wonder what in the world made me cry… If you’ve watched the series, I think the most obvious guess would be the final episode, where Tarou’s siblings express how much their An-chan means to them. However, what got me all choked up was from the first episode – when his little sister gave him the croquettes to eat because the last time he brought them home, he gave his share to his siblings. Call me a softie, but touchy moments like that tend to get me crying rather than the super sad tearjerking moments.

The second drama: Ryuusei no Kizuna
This drama was recommended to me by MorningBerryz and Murr. It stars my #2 (Nino) once again, thus the recommendation.

This drama is an interesting mix of funny and serious. Obviously a drama focused on 3 siblings looking for the murderer of their parents would have some serious undertones, but the things they do on the side, and sometimes as part of their murder investigation, are quite amusing.

For this series, I cried at the end… When everything unraveled and was revealed. I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t watched it yet… But. T___T Also, I simply have to say that Togami Yukinari (played by Kaname Jun) is an absolute sweetheart in this. <3

Look at the tears in his eyes…. *hugs*

There are 2 more series that I’ve watched which have tugged at my heartstrings: Maou and Hana Yori Dango. I’ll hopefully get another post up within the week with the moments from those which really got to me. In the meantime, for those of you who have watched these two dramas, were there any points that got you crying, or am I the lone weirdo over here? XD

So without further ado, here are my initial Arashi rankings!

5. Matsumoto Jun (sorry MB XD)

This low ranking is based on a few things. Firstly, while by my understanding many fans are absolutely smitten by his looks, upon really LOOKING at the guys in Arashi, I found Matsujun to be a little bit too pretty. I tend to be attracted to guys who are a little bit rugged, or cute/ adorable. Matsujun is not the slightest bit rugged from the few PVs I’ve watched. Pretty boys don’t tend to be my thing.

Secondly, as I went through their 10 year singles collection, I noticed there was a voice I wasn’t particularly fond of. After checking the time that the voice was singing in a song, I loaded up the PV for the song and found out it was Matsujun singing. I am not a fan of nasally voices, and that’s what Matsujun has. Though, according to MB, he sometimes sings deeper… I’ll definitely be looking for that as I go through more of their PVs.

4. Aiba Masaki

MB tells me that Aiba is the group’s sweetheart. However, at this point I’ve only seen him in PVs and a bit of the AAA concert thus far and what I’ve taken from the PVs so far is that I’m not a huge fan of his voice, and he isn’t as cute as the others.

3. Ohno Satoshi

Like Aiba and Matsujun, my exposure to him has been limited, but unlike the previous two, I quite enjoy Ohno’s voice. And he’s so adorable. I was reading his profile in the Arashidex, and wow… 3 days of high school. XD I don’t think you’d be allowed to drop out of high school after 3 days over here. I’m not sure what the minium age limit is in my province to drop out of school, but I’m pretty sure you need to finished at least 1 year, if not 2 over here before you can drop out.

2. … Ninomiya Kazunari

The #2 spot was hard to choose… However, for now we’ll say Nino is my #2. I just watched Letters From Iwo Jima the other day, and I loved Nino’s character. His cynical character in that movie is so completely opposite of the happy-go-lucky character he plays in Yamada Tarou Monogatari, which I have nearly finished watching. For anyone who hasn’t watched that drama, I highly recommend it (it was recommended to me by MB). I mean, you have Nino and my #1 in it! What more could I ask for? XD

Outside of dramas, I quite like Nino’s voice from what I’ve heard so far. MB tells me he accompanies himself on piano and guitar (obviously not simultaneously) in concerts. I must see that soon. I went out to the store where I buy Hello! Project releases when I don’t really feel the need to buy the Japanese version, and I picked up Arashi’s 2008 and 2007 concert DVDs. I hope there’s some Nino on piano and/or guitar on those DVDs.

And finally, we get to my top member!

1. Sakurai Sho

Well, I think it’s fitting to have him as my initial #1 seeing as it was his drama, The Quiz Show 2 that opened my mind to the possibility of listening to Arashi.

After watching him in almost 2 full dramas, I just have to say that his smile/smirk is freakin’ hot! I don’t know what it is about his smile, but it’s got this mix of mischievousness, cuteness and a load if sexiness that just make me want to melt. XD *dies*

I also love his rapping. Sakurap is hawt. Super duper hawt. And knowing he writes his own rap lyrics is hotter. And knowing he’s graduated from university is hawt. And knowing (well, reading more like) that he’s dorky is hot. And reading that he tends to stumble over his words made me laugh and think of the leader of Morning Musume, who just so happened to be my favourite member in that group too. Maybe I just have a thing for people who trip over their words and get flustered. XD

So, that’s my intial ranking of the members of Arashi. We’ll see how/if they change as I see more and more of the guys. ^_^ Maybe in a few months time, I’ll be smacking myself for having had Matsujun at the bottom of my ranking. Maybe after watching a Matsujun drama, he’ll be just the right amount of pretty. XD Only time will tell!

For those of you who read my main blog, fields of maiZe in the morning, you know that I’m a huge Hello! Project fan. I’ve been following Hello! Project for 8 and a half years, and listening random Joop here and there for even longer. And yet somehow, through all of that, I never sat down and gave Arashi (or any Johnny’s group, really) a listen.

Well, near the end of last year, after a bit of procrastination, I finally got around to watching the J-drama The Quiz Show 2. My reason for watching The Quiz Show 2: Matsuura Aya, of course. However, as I got further into the episodes, I found myself liking Sakurai Sho more and more. The Kanjani guy kind of creeped me out through the entire thing.

After watching The Quiz Show 2, I didn’t immediately looking up anything and everything to do with Arashi. I kept on with my H!P fandom as per usual… That was until my evil friend MorningBerryz (kidding… I <3 you MB!) posted about the 2009 Kohaku… and in the midst of the few segments she shared on her blog, there was Arashi. Since I now knew who one of the members was, I thought I’d give it a watch, and was that ever a mistake!

Since then ( it’s been a little over a week now) it’s been all Arashi, all the time for me. I mean, I started a new blog for them, didn’t I?

So this blog will chronicle my thoughts as I develop my Arashi fandom. Maybe more Johnny’s acts will come into the mix eventually, but for the moment I’m already pretty overwhelmed by the 10 year history that Arashi has that I know next to nothing about.

I have their 1999-2009 single collection which I’ve already listened to about 4 times, and I’m in the process of watching their PV collection and Arashi Around Asia 2008 concert DVD. Once I get through those, I figure I’ll have a lot to blog about.

Hope you guys enjoy following along as I embark on this new journey!