KAT-TUN is releasing their new album, No More Pain, on June 16th. Their new single "Going!" is in the top 5 on Oricon right now. Recently they've been on a lot of TV programs to promote their latest single. On one program, Tanaka and Nakamaru talked about their love of online bidding sites like Yahoo! auction, which Kame didn't seem to know about ("That's amazing! How do you do it?" he asked). On a different program, the other members revealed that Taguchi's mother has a really sharp tongue.
KAT-TUN is starting on their Asia tour soon. It was scheduled to start with a concert in Bangkok on July 31st, but the recent political troubles there have forced them to cancel. The rest of the tour will go on as planned, with two shows in Seoul on August 6-7 and two shows in Taipei on August 27-28.
Kutsuna Shiori (who I know from her role as one of the students in Mei-chan no Shitsuji) is known as the "Pocky Princess" for being the genki girl in the Pocky commercials. In a recent interview she revealed: "The outfit for the commercials is quite revealing (laughs), but everyone just says that the color is really vibrant and leaves a huge impact. It's really nice that they are so popular. However, it looks like people think that I'm always in such high spirits and once at an interview the reporter was kinda surprised that I didn't enter the room while dancing around (laughs)."
She's currently in a mobile drama where she plays a college student and has to use a lot of difficult economic terms in her role. I didn't know this, but Kutsuna lived in Australia until a few years ago. She said: "I surprisingly was able to understand a lot after looking up all the terms, but before that I got flooded with kanji I've never seen before in my life and didn't know where to start at all (laughs). In my case I wasn't really able to get into the role due to the lack of vocabulary and knowledge (about Japanese society), so I started to study all the words until I completely understood them all and also watched a lot of programs talking about social problems."
Both Nino and MatsuJun of Arashi are rumored to be starring in upcoming dramas. It's being said that MatsuJun will be the lead in the summer drama in the popular 9pm Monday timeslot on Fuji TV. MatsuJun's last lead drama, Smile, did poorly in the ratings, though that's likely more due to the drama not being that great rather than his star power. Nino is said to be the lead in a drama on Fuji TV next fall.
The full trailer for Oguri Shun's directorial review, Surely Someday has been released. The movie opens in Japan on July 17th. Interestingly, two of the actors worked with Oguri Shun in Tokyo Dogs--Ryo Katsuji was his overeager kouhai and Ryohei Suzuki guest-starred as an old friend of Oguri Shun's partner. Here's the description:
Drawing influence from the street musicians of Miyagi, high school students Takumi (Keisuke Koide), Kyohei (Ryo Katsuji), Shuuto (Go Ayano), Kazuo (Ryohei Suzuki), and Yuuki (Tsuyoshi Muro) form a band and spend all their free time practicing for their school’s upcoming festival.
However, when the festival is abruptly canceled, they come up with a dimwitted strategy to fake a bomb threat to force the principal to change his mind. Surprisingly, their plan seems to work at first, but when a real bomb goes off, the group are forced to take responsibility for the explosion and are kicked out of school. Three years later, further details of the incident are revealed as Takumi and company attempt to put their lives back in order.
