Whatever they say...

This band is too pretty...



Only four pages. Each scan links to the full size, so you can just right click, save as.

Or, download them - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PNTMH3BQ (15MB)

Do whatever you like with them. No credit is necessary. Just don't claim them as your own.

That photo of JON, GACKT and TAKUMI kills me asugfhdsgfsiudfgsjdgh. It is now my desktop wallpaper, haha.

I've been tweeting up a storm today with these, and it all got a little out of order, so here it all is in a sensible order.

These are the first week sales of GACKT's singles (plus YFC) since 2006 (the sales figures only go back to late 2005 - REDEMPTION is the first song of GACKT's to be included)

2006/01/25 - REDEMPTION – 76,826
2007/02/07 - 野に咲く花のように – 40,578
2007/06/02 - RETURNER~闇の終焉~ - 43,275
2008/12/03 - JESUS – 18,145
2009/01/28 - GHOST – 16.969
2009/03/25 - Journey Through the Decade – 51,666
2009/06/10 - 小悪魔ヘヴン – 16,338
2009/06/17 - Faraway~星の願いを~ – 12,901
2009/06/24 - LOST ANGELS – 14,548
2009/07/01 - FLOWER – 14,595
2009/08/11 - The Next Decade – 37,033
2009/12/09 - 雪月花~the end of silence~ - 24,742
2010/01/01 - Stay the Ride Alive – 29,421
2010/07/28 - EVER – 32,795
2011/07/13 - Episode.0 – 28,643
2011/09/14 - THE END OF THE DAY – 17,612
2011/11/30 - Graffiti – 15,953

Source - Oricon Weekly charts

So, over the last couple of years his best selling singles have been the Kamen Rider ones :-/

There was a big dip between the singles he released before his lengthy BUNRAKU shooting break, and the singles he released when he came back with RE:BORN.

EVER and Episode.0 bucked the trend and had better sales, but THE END OF THE DAY and Graffiti are back to summer 2009 levels.

Although, it must be pointed out that the four summer 2009 releases were the ones with the special DEARS covers and the gift if you purchased all four from the fanclub. I highly doubt fanclub sales are included here, so the figures for the singles from RETURNER~闇の終焉~ through to 雪月花~the end of silence~ will be higher.

Interesting?

I can see why GACKT has said that he doesn't care about sales or chart positions. It'd drive you crazy to try and figure these out.

GACKT was a guest on ON8, a show on the radio station bayfm.

I recorded (most of) it...

GACKT messages -
Part 1 - http://www.mediafire.com/?0pdp1uewx9pmfst
Part 2 - http://www.mediafire.com/?h87xr3c5a6kx9s6

Part 1, is mainly about Graffiti and the solo GACKT. I missed the first minute or two.

Part 2, is about YFC. While he's talking, ALL MY LOVE is being played in the background (from about 7:30 onwards. And listen to what he's talking about at 5:30...)

I was eating while this show was on, and after the second message I went to the kitchen. I came back, and they were actually playing ALL MY LOVE. I heard the last few moments of it and completely missed recording it *sad*

They followed it with YOU ARE THE REASON though XD

Part 3 - http://www.mediafire.com/?hkwqd3tgo9t3z4o

The first couple of seconds are missing from YOU ARE THE REASON (no acapella start on record, of course) but otherwise it's the full song that was played.

Yesterday, the Camui Gakuen phone game went live in Japan. Seito Kaicho finally updated his blog in order to publicise it (poor thing, his foreign studies must be keeping him very busy) and invited everyone to enrol in the “sexy” campus of Camui Gakuen.



Is it sexy?

Let’s see...

(Lots of photos ahead - click them for the large versions!)

( Camui Gakuen, yokoso! )

Tonight was the first of two days in Makuhari Messe for YFC. Tomorrow will be recorded for WOWOW, but tonight was just for fun.

Tonight was also one of the additional lives that were only announced a couple of months ago. Like most of these other new dates, it didn’t sell too well. Most of the stands were covered as the seats weren’t sold, and the standing areas had lots of space. Shame, because people missed a great show.

Tomorrow, is sold out though.

The sound in Makuhari was really good. The vocals were loud and strong and both GACKT and JON sounded great. LAST KISS is still muddled and hard to hear the vocals, but the other songs were all loud and clearer than normal. That’s a good sign for the recording tomorrow!

Makurhai Messe is an arena. It’s a small arena, probably just under half the size of Saitama Super Arena (the venue for the RRII Final), but it’s the largest venue YFC have headlined and had by far the largest stage. For the first few songs, SPEED MASTER especially, it seemed that the guitarists were struggling with the extra space! There were four little sections at the front of the stage made by the lights, and it was so that a guitarist (and bass player!) could take each section and cover the stage. It seemed that there were a few occasions where guitarists had to run at full speed to be at the right place at the right time! It was the band who covered the stage more so than GACKT and JON, leading to a more balanced full band experience.

I think that of all the guitarists, it was actually YOU who took advantage of this the most. He seemed to be everywhere and was pretty wild. After the group jump at the end of EVER, he was even on his knees, leaning back and playing guitar like a proper wild rockstar XD

The jets of air during SPEED MASTER are more timed and in sync with the music, and are also present during Episode.0. Instead of all shooting at once, they shoot individually or in pairs and it looks really well presented. We heard Episode.0 being sound checked twice before the show started, and I guess it was due to checking out the timings of these.

Now onto the fanservice…

No biting or licking this time. There were a lot of instances of GACKT grabbing JON’s crotch. He always does during VANILLA, but he lingered this time. When JON was singing a later part of VANILLA, he had his own hand on his crotch, GACKT walked behind him to go past, but instead stopped, reached between JON’s legs (from behind) and grabbed him too. During the audience participation part after VANILLA finished, JON was trying to work his half of the crowd by thrusting in GACKT’s direction, so GACKT tapped him between the legs with his microphone.

Poor JON. He really got abused (more later).

After VANILLA, they got into their usual position of JON thrusting into GACKT from behind. JON had his left hand (closest to the audience) on GACKT’s hip, and was fake slapping GACKT’s ass with his right to the beat of Shinya’s drum. As he was doing all of this, GACKT started leaning more and more forward… until he was bent right over and had to balance himself by putting his hand on the platform floor.

I never, ever expected to see GACKT being “fucked” from behind, doggy style by another man.

I never, ever expected to type that sentence either :-/

The hip thrusting and stripper moves from GACKT and JON get crazier and crazier every show. And funnier. I don't know if the intention is still sexy, or sexy and funny, but it's hilarious. Especially GACKT. For a musician who is a pretty good drummer, he has no natural rhythm at all, does he?

The front row was miles away from the stage, and it meant that neither GACKT nor JON managed to make the crowd with their ties, although they managed it with their shirts. YOU made a big show of throwing a pick to the crowd, he faked it out a few times, he wound up his throwing arm…. and then completely missed too. There were big gaps between the blocks as well, and two bottles (u:zo and GACKT) both fell into this gap and had to be rescued by staff. GACKT just laughed when he saw it fall there and the disappointment in the crowd’s faces.

For 又、ここに会いましょ, both GACKT and JON jumped down from the stage and climbed the barricades. They were pretty much standing ON the barricades, with several staff members behind them, both supporting them and stopping them from being dragged in. They were successful at keeping JON out, but GACKT seemed to disappear at one point. I was on JON’s half, not too far away, but in the wrong block to touch him. As he was stood on the barricade, I could see one hand, with a red sleeve, constantly petting and stroking his crotch. He didn’t even seem to notice! He was looking through the crowd and saw me again, smiled and then sang a line at me. ILU JON.

There were two little inlets into the main block in front of the crowd, so GACKT and JON were able to go right inside. There were little platforms too, so they could still be seen over the crowd. They finished the song there.

GACKT was very bouncy throughout the show, and seemed far stronger at the end than I’ve seen at any of the YFC lives. He wasn’t staggering after JESUS and he didn’t need help to get off the platform or anything. It was good to see. As I said earlier, he sounded great too, as did JON.

JON did have the “punk” Mohican hairstyle he showed in the blog yesterday. GACKT is, as he said in his blog yesterday, back to being blonde. His hair was slightly spikier too. The scratch on GACKT’s arm looks really nasty, his tattoo still looks great. It really is a brown colour, not black, and it suits his skin tone very well.

All in all, good show!

The Final is tomorrow. I can't believe it's all over (maybe XD)... I've been going to YFC lives since July and I'm not ready for them to finish yet!!!

I kinda bitched about this on Twitter earlier (and many, many times before) but I don't think 140 characters is enough to explain myself.

I think it's a real shame that Twitter has replaced so much of fandom. Some news happens and dozens of people post about it to Twitter, dozens more discuss it, and then that's it. Everyone thinks "discussion over". It's creating a two tier fandom. The tier who are on Twitter when it happens, and the tier that aren't. And that "aren't" tier isn't just people who don't have a Twitter, but it's people who do have a Twitter but aren't on at that time because they're working, or at school or even asleep.

By the time those people get online a few hours later, the news and discussion is finished and they miss out through no fault of their own unless they're willing to trawl back through hundreds of tweets in the hope of finding something interesting.

But if the news is posted to the communities, it's there as a permanent record for all to see. Everyone can see the news, everyone can see the comments and everyone can join in.

Now, I know that I post a lot of things via the OGYD Twitter and don't put them into the communities, but it's never actual news. It's U:ZO and his chipped nail polish, or YOU and TAKUMI camera whoring again. If people miss that all they miss is some pretty, no actual news. But stuff like a PV preview? Everyone should be able to see that easily, and not have to hunt through their Twitter timeline.

I don't know. There seems to be a small (and I mean, small) sub-section of the fandom who are eager to make a name for themselves by getting the news first and keeping it to themselves. I can't help but feel that this is tied into that, at least a little.

So, in short, fandom is for everyone.

(And this isn't just me saying "post everything to ohgacktyoudidnt" as I think dears suffers far more from this than OGYD does.)

Now, I'm going to get some milk because tea will turn me back into my usual oasis of calm. In fact, I'm blaming this on the lack of tea. Me English. Me no function without tea.

I went to the V-ROCK festival today. I had to get up stupidly early to get to Saitama before the doors opened at 9:30am, but YFC (and especially JON XD) made it worth the early rise.



More photos at the V-ROCK site

( Set list and info )

For several hours this afternoon, a few of us on Twitter were spamming and discussing some TV performances of GACKT's (okay, it was mainly me spamming, but I didn't see any complaints!) and a couple of videos posted were from GACKT's appearance on Yume Ongakukan, on 2005.02.24.

mind_cell asked for downloads, so I thought I may as well share with everyone.

All three are stunning performances, especially 君に逢いたくて.

( 12月のLove Song, 君に逢いたくて (acoustic) and Love Letter )