MUCC HEADLINES U.S. DATES Coming soon!!

12/7 (Sun) Irving Plaza/ NY

12/10 (Wed) House of Blues/ LA

Tickets information: www.ticketmaster.com

New album SHION in stores and itunes on 11/25.

More info: www.myspace.com/muccofficial

Hailing from Ibaraki, Japan, world renowned JROCK band, MUCC announces the release of their latest album “Shion” in November and their first headlining U.S. shows for NY and LA this December.
In 1997, Miya (Guitar) formed MUCC with Satochi and Tatsuro (Vocal), while they were high school students. YUKKE (Bass) joined the band in 1999 and at that moment MUCC formed the perfect lineup.

MUCC debuted in Europe back in 2006, and the following year performed at Otakon anime convention in Baltimore. They continued to tour Europe and performed at the JROCK Revolution festival in Los Angeles in 2007. ROCK/PUNK guru Kevin Lyman brought them into the Rockstar Taste of Chaos tour in 2008, sharing the same stage as Bullet for my Valentine and Avenged Sevenfold. In October 2008, MUCC was once again invited back to the Rockstar Taste of Chaos International and toured overseas in Europe and Asia, with friends, Atreyu, As I Lay Dying and Story of the Year.

Japanese pop star Kumi Koda (26) added another award to her career and this time its for the title of “2008 Nail Queen”.   In the past, singer Ayumi Hamasaki (30) and talent Becky (24) has held the title.

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Image courtesy of Sankei Sports

JapanToday.com reported:

Popular model Yuri Ebihara, 29, will be in the upcoming commercials for Subaru’s new DEX compact car. And she’s looking for someone to take her on a romantic drive.

Wearing a black jacket and mini-skirt, Ebi-chan said she got her license about three years ago. “I like going to faraway places. Where have I been recently? I went to Toyosu.”

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JapanToday.com’s Chris Betros recently interviewed actress Yoshino Kimura in regards to her film “Blindness”.  Here is an excerpt from that interview:

Yoshino Kimura has done workshops for the theater before but never for a film, and certainly nothing like she was required to do to prepare for her role as a blind person in “Blindness.”

Based on the 1995 book by Portuguese author Jose Saramago and directed by Brazilian Fernando Meirelles, “Blindness” is an allegorical film set in an unnamed city about the breakdown of society after an epidemic of blindness hits the population. The international cast includes Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, as well as Kimura and Yusuke Iseya (whose character is the first one to be hit with the affliction). As more people suffer blindness (none of the characters have names), they are quarantined in a makeshift prison where all pretense of civility and humanity break down. Moore plays the only sighted person who decides to stay with her husband in the facility.

“When I read the book, I was shocked,” says Kimura, 32, during an interview at Tokyo Midtown. “I could never imagine blind people stealing, raping and killing each other.” Her big challenge was learning to act as a blind person. Meirelles didn’t want his cast walking like zombies with arms out in front, so he sent them to a two-week “blind workshop” in Ontario. Kimura and the others had to wear blindfolds for 4-5 hours each day and did various exercises such as chasing each other or simply eating.

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Shizuka Kudo for the first time has an interview with the foreign press regarding her latest single produced by Miyuki Nakajima and her marriage to Takuya Kimura.  Here is an excerpt from Metropolis Magazine/JapanToday.com written by Robert Poole:

“I don’t want to look back,” Shizuka Kudo says as we chat in a secluded area of an Ebisu café. “The past is the past and I don’t want to hang around!”

One of the most popular idols of the 1980s and ’90s, Kudo has enjoyed a phenomenally successful career, with 11 No. 1 hits, including eight in a row from 1988-1990. Where other idols simply drift into obscurity, she’s maintained a high profile, and today, at 38, she’s as high-spirited and talkative as ever.

In a rare interview with a foreign journalist, she opens up in surprisingly fluent British English. “A British accent is much easier, because you don’t have the ‘r’ sound like the Americans,” she explains. Her excitement and celebrated desire to succeed are evident throughout our discussion as she scribbles down new vocabulary and rattles through the questions in no time at all, eager for the next one.

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JapanToday.com reported:

Celebrity Suzanne, 22, has been named “Breakfast Ambassador” to raise public awareness of the importance of eating breakfast for one’s health.

Suzanne, who appeared with her original healthy Rocomoco rice bowl (cheese between two slices of pork), said, “Being named ambassador, I feel like I’m a king. I will force people to eat breakfast.”

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In a recent column of Televiews by Wm. Penn for the Daily Yomiuri, Penn recently wrote about the various comedians on variety shows celebrating Barack Obama’s win for the US presidency.  Here is an excerpt from Wm. Penn’s article:

What effect will a Barack Obama presidency have on Japan? Puzzled TV pundits and commentators have been tossing that question about all week, but there is one comedian out there who understands exactly what is about to happen.

The Obama win could be the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for struggling comic Nocchi (Nozomu Sato), Japan’s leading Obama impersonator. There is really no resemblance, but then again, Nocchi certainly looks more like him than his real-life distant cousin Dick Cheney does. Sato is a member of the comedy duo known as Dangerous. His sidekick, Kazuhiro Yasuda, sometimes dresses up as a Secret Service agent in dark sunglasses.

The new Wednesday night variety show Contract with the Devil (7:56 p.m., TBS) offered Nocchi a trip to the United States to meet Obama. The basic premise of the program is simple: Sign on the dotted line and the show will offer its full support for your project. But if you fail to achieve results, there will be a penalty. On the latest show, for example, the challenger needed to catch a shoplifter or fork over 600,000 yen for a surveillance camera.

In Nocchi’s case, he was supposed to accomplish his daunting task by using the old “aponashi” (no appointment, just make yourself a nuisance) style made famous by Kunihiro Matsumura of the variety show classic Denpa Shonen. Matsumaru’s greatest accomplishment was shaking the hand of former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Last week, as the world greeted the election of a new U.S. president, Contract with the Devil celebrated Obama’s election with the tale of Nocchi’s amazing U.S. adventure. There he was, charging into Chicago, running amok on city streets yelling “Obama” without any honorific attached. No “san,” no Mr., no Senator. My first response was to search for the nearest remote control escape route. But, when Nocchi finally calmed down and unpacked a few basic honorifics from his suitcase, he was almost affable.

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Here is a recent interview in Daily Yomiuri by Manabu Sakurai with Porno Graffiti:

J-pop duo Pornograffitti has released two best-of collections–Ace and Joker–to mark its 10th anniversary.

The albums, which include hits from the duo harking back to 2004, are currently climbing high on the Oricon album charts.

The group released two other collections four years ago, selling about 2 million copies. This year, the duo released four single CDs, making it difficult for them to sit down and record a full-length album.

“In this fast-pace era, we need to keep pushing ourselves further, despite the fact we’ve been around for a decade now,” vocalist Akihito Okano said. “Each single must have the trademark sound of Pornograffitti, and we have to keep releasing these CDs.”

Guitarist Haruichi Shindo said: “Looking at all our singles, I can tell that we’re still desperately searching for our place in society. I feel we’re always trying to move forward and are very optimistic.”

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Shoko Nakagawa aka “Shokotan” (23) will be releasing her new photo book “Shoko ala Mode” on the 14th.  Photos will feature Shoko in wedding dress, as a rockstar and more.

A sales commemoration event for the photo book will take place on the 24th in Ginza.

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Image courtesy of Sankei Sports

Tetsuya Komuro’s wife (and globe lead vocalist) KEIKO (36) made her first appearance at the area where her parents live.  KEIKO has been staying at her parents home since the arrest of her husband last week.  Komuro was arrested for frauding a business client of Y500,000,000.

The singer was accompanied by family members and did not talk to the media.

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Image courtesy of Sankei Sports