NHK Kouhaku Red & White Competition Thread

Anime Dad wrote:

Better late than never... like in Australia :grumble:

I guess you're right. It airs in exactly an hour from now. Gotta go home and watch it because I'm not staying at my grandma's place till 10pm!

ralphm1999 wrote:

Of course I did. :woot:

It's nice to know there are still some traditions we can rely on. :bow: [/list:u]

It's up in 2 parts (divx) at d-addicts! :applaud:
http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/torrents.php?search=kouhaku

wintersweet wrote:It's up in 2 parts (divx) at d-addicts! :applaud:
http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/torrents.php?search=kouhaku

The last couple of years, for that matter. :)

Watching Kouhaku now. I'm making my family watch it for Jero.

ETA: Just saw one of my faves Mizutani Yutaka (of Aibou fame) perform. He's so awkwardly amusing. :inlove:

bmwracer wrote:
The last couple of years, for that matter. :)

Indeed :)

I'd been checking to see when it would be up, and now it is. Yay!

In Michael Jackson's shadow? Looks like Kimura Takuya had another round of plastic surgery. It was really noticeable in a close-up shot in the first half of the show. Anyone else noticed?

sadacori wrote:Watching Kouhaku now. I'm making my family watch it for Jero.

You know that Enka song he sung was written by Akimoto Yasushi (songwriter/producer of AKB48). That was sort of cool... a black guy (half Japanese) singing an Enka song written by Akimoto Yasushi. :headscratch:

shari wrote:In Michael Jackson's shadow? Looks like Kimura Takuya had another round of plastic surgery. It was really noticeable in a close-up shot in the first half of the show. Anyone else noticed?

Hey, shari is back!! :woot: [/list:u][image][/list:u] Somebody said you were studying calligraphy. How's it going? [/list:u]

Nice photo, gaijinmark. If you compare it with his recent ones, there's no question he had cosmetic surgery.

I too noticed the absence of the Morning Musume and AKB48 girls this year. After their appearance in large hordes last year, controversy rose about the artistic value of innocent-looking school girls wearing sexy outfits and singing off key. If NHK has to have anyone sing off key, they'd rather pick an aging enka singer. And since seniors outnumber girl-obsessed otakus and middle-aged pervs, NHK execs had to bend.

Calligraphy is nice. Everybody's favorite character seems to be "wind". Go figure. Maybe it's innocent, sexy, and blows off key.

I haven't kept up with all the new dramas last year. Strange to say, but when you live in Japan, Japanese dramas just don't seem to have the same charm.

shari wrote:I too noticed the absence of the Morning Musume and AKB48 girls this year. After their appearance in large hordes last year, controversy rose about the artistic value of innocent-looking school girls wearing sexy outfits and singing off key.

LOL. :rofl:

And welcome back... Missed those great caricatures in your sig. :victory:

Well, I suppose it's just as well since I'm planning to inflict the show on some Kouhaku-virgin friends when I get back to California. ;D (Don't worry, we'll be playing Apples to Apples and stuff, not just watching it, lest our brains dribble out of our ears.) I do hope there's some needlessly bizarre spectacle left in, though; otherwise it won't be any fun. I don't think anything can compare to the memory of seeing "Matsuken Samba" the first or second year I tuned into it. :rofl: I do admit to being grateful that there's no Leah Dizon this year. :bleh:

wintersweet wrote:I do admit to being grateful that there's no Leah Dizon this year. :bleh:

Well that's something. :beaten: :hehe:

saw it when it was aired, just bits of the second part, and yeah, it wasn't that good. was just a series of songs, nothing special.
except for ikimonogakari, jero, and SPEED.
yukie still looks great.
the white team won.

Shuchishin surpasses SMAP in Kohaku ratings
Tue, January 6, 2009 (1:30am EST)

The complete viewership numbers for the 59th Kohaku Uta Gassen were announced on Monday. This year, the highlight of the show was the "baka trio" Shuchishin, who drew in the largest audience of the night.

The group, which includes rising star Yusuke Kamiji, appeared on stage during the second half of Kohaku, accompanied by their corresponding female trio Pabo. Viewership was at 41.6% when they made their entrance, but it quickly rose and peaked at 47.8%.

The popular unit SMAP, who have had the highest ratings for the last three Kohaku competitions, had to settle for only 42.8% ratings this time. Meanwhile, Ayumi Hamasaki did well for an opening act with 31.8%, compared to previous years, such as Morning Musume in 2007 (26.2%).

Besides Shuchishin, four other artists exceeded 45% - Kobukuro, Akiko Wada, Kiyoshi Hikawa, and newcomer Jero.

The highest ratings of the night came twenty minutes before midnight, during the ending video segment that featured all of the artists. Ratings peaked at 50.0%, a mark that has not been reached since 2003.

tokyograph

With the absence for the second time of acknowledged super idol Kuraki Mai, the Kouhaku has lost much of it's glitz. :shakehead:
However, despite this loss, it was an interesting showcase this year, better than last year.

It seemed to drift more towards modern bands/singers with hardly any Enka (sp?) entertainers. One of the few remaining Enka singers, Auntie from Honma Mon whose name I can never recall as usual had the most amazing costume if you can call iit that, rather she wore the entire stage. She's always fun to watch. :applaud:

As I said before, it seems the white team always wins.... probably because there are more women watching and voting and they will never vote for another woman... :usuck: For my money the women far outshone the male representatives. Ayumi the lead off act, was good considering she had a sprained or something right hand....

I like SMAP... mostly because of KimuTaku for certain the best actor in Japan at this time. Although I could not understand him, I believe he gave a fine sounding eulogy for Ogata Ken. Ogata Ken recently gave that great performance as the adoptive father to Ruri in Ruri's Island.

I did like the girl that sang Sakura from the group Ikimono Gakari. Not a Mai-K but a decent enough replacement. :woot:

This years' teams:

Red Team
* aiko
* Junko Akimoto
* Ayaka
* Angela Aki
* Ikimono Gakari
* Sayuri Ishikawa
* AKB48
* Ai Otsuka
* GIRL NEXT DOOR
* Miyuki Kawanaka
* Kaela Kimura
* Kumi Koda
* Natsuko Godai
* Sachiko Kobayashi
* Fuyumi Sakamoto
* Yoshimi Tendo
* DREAMS COME TRUE
* Mika Nakashima
* Mitsuko Nakamura
* Ayumi Hamasaki
* Perfume
* Ayaka Hirahara
* Nana Mizuki
* Kaori Mizumori
* Akiko Wada


White Team
* Arashi
* ALICE
* Hiroshi Itsuki
* EXILE
* NYC boys
* Saburo Kitajima
* Takeshi Kitayama
* Kobukuro
* Jero
* SMAP
* TVXQ
* TOKIO
* Hideaki Tokunaga
* Kiyoshi Hikawa
* FUNKY MONKEY BABYS
* Masaharu Fukuyama
* Akira Fuse
* flumpool
* Takashi Hosokawa
* Porno Graffiti
* Kenichi Mikawa
* Shinichi Mori
* Yusuke Kamiji
* Yuzu
* Remioromen

Following my rule of "Always go with the team that has Akiko Wada", I'll be pulling for the Red Team this year. (Plus they got Dreams Come True and Mika Nakashima :victory: )

gaijinmark wrote:This years' teams:

Red Team
White Team
Following my rule of "Always go with the team that has Akiko Wada", I'll be pulling for the Red Team this year. (Plus they got Dreams Come True and Mika Nakashima :victory: )

Red also has AKB48, Ai Otsuka, GIRL NEXT DOOR, Kumi Koda, Perfume, and Kaori Mizumori :victory:

I'm going with RED!

Now, if I can only find a way to watch it....

-Dave

desert-raven wrote:Red also has AKB48, Ai Otsuka, GIRL NEXT DOOR, Kumi Koda, Perfume, and Kaori Mizumori :victory:

I'm going with RED!

Now, if I can only find a way to watch it....

-Dave

Hmm... I wouldn't be surprised if D-Addicts will have it available for download, but that'll be after the fact, I suppose... :sweat:

gaijinmark wrote:This years' teams:


Following my rule of "Always go with the team that has Akiko Wada", I'll be pulling for the Red Team this year. (Plus they got Dreams Come True and Mika Nakashima :victory: )

Red team never wins in the modern age. Too many fan gals voting for pretty boys. And worse, once again they bypassed Mai-K. Not even BoA. So what is left to watch? OK... Naksahima Mika is always worth watching.

Don't know if I'll be able to record it this year. With great sagacity, ch18 decided not to put 18.2 on the cable which has eliminated probably 90% of LA from being able to watch it. So I will do my darndest to record it via OTA in my signal blocking tall building sourroundings.

D/L from BT is not an option for me... too long for one thing and the quality is not up to my standards since the seeders will first degrade it by converting to AVI and then horrors decreasing the KBPS to a lousy loosy shmaltz filled with artifacts. :usuck: