Oh! Pai Homare (Nozomi Takeuchi) review

If you've been following Takeuchi Nozomi's DVD releases for the last couple of years, her new one, Oh! Pai Homare (and it's sister release, Oh! Pai Odori) might take you by surprise. Nozomi has been playing up the erotic-side of her releases (i.e. simulated fellatio, implied sex, bondage, etc) and it's generally worked quite well. However, with Oh! Pai Homare, she returns to a (slightly) more innocent time and provides her fans with a disc which, while undeniably sexy, is focused on the aspects of glamour and fun, like her earlier releases Mangetsu and Akatsuki No Megami. With a sly wink…

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Gallery updates

The galleries have been updated:

• Takizawa Nonami: 23 images added.

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Meromeron (Miyabi Isshiki) mini-review

Rating: Check it

The new Queen of Bakunyū, Isshiki Miyabi, is back with Meromeron, the follow-up to her astoundingly good debut, Boob! - one of the best idol DVDs in recent memory. After witnessing the wonder and splendour of Boob!, you may be tempted to rush out and purchase her follow up. There is no question that Meromeron has some more incredible scenes of the cute and astonishingly busty Miyabi-chan, but ultimately, it suffers from the sophomore slump, and does not meet the standards of its predecessor.

Miyabi herself looks as stunning as she did in her first DVD – she's just as adorable as ever, the curves on her just won't quit and the absolute biggest, softest breasts to come down the idol pike since Matsugane Yôko or Nemoto Harumi. The costuming was typical gravure idol faire, meaning lots of micro-sized bikinis. The actually worked against Miyabi in a few scenes, as she had to constantly adjust her tops to avoid spilling out of them – more than she already was, that is. Also, if you are breast fetishist, this DVD caters to you – Miyabi and the crew obviously know who their audience is, because there are scenes which just have Miyabi playing with her boobs or swinging her torso around to make them flop, jiggle and bounce. Given how top heavy she is, that couldn't have been too comfortable for her. Suffice it to say, this release literally overflowing with huge breast goodness.

The main problems with the DVD are pacing and scenery: throughout the DVD, every scene has the same methodical, slow pacing which really starts to wear after a while. Further, the majority of the time, Miyabi is really given nothing to do except pose and look pretty for the camera with minimal movement. There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but 60+ minutes of it gets a little monotonous, even with a goddless like Miyabi on screen. The other issue is that the director picked some really drab places to shoot. Granted, you're not really supposed to be noticing the background that much, but it does have a subtle effect on the viewing experience. The last four tracks seem to take place in the same Japanese-style house, which either says “lazy” or “we had a small budget”. Either way, a little more variety would have been nice.

Another thing which I found odd is that Miyabi herself does not speak at all during the DVD – there's not even the usual making-of track which is present in 99.9% of gravure releases. She didn't speak at all during Boob! either... I wonder if there's something wrong with her voice? Is she shy when it comes to speaking? She's obviously not shy about showing off her body.

Nevertheless, Miyabi fans, as well as fans of huge breasts, shouldn't have to think too hard about whether to get Meromeron – it's actually a no-brainer. Miyabi is a true stunner (and, as far as I'm concerned, a mircle of nature with that face combined with that body) and shouldn't be missed, but the DVD is probably better viewed couple of tracks at a time rather than everything at once – as hard as it is to believe, the pacing and scenery issues take their toll, even in the face of Miaybi and the twins.

Hitomi Kitamura sings... again!

Kitamura Hitomi has released yet another CD single, and while it's far from being what I would consider good music, I guess it's a step in the right direction. Hitomi Ni Dokkin contains four tracks on the CD, two with vocals and the accompanying karaoke versions, plus a DVD containing a video for the lead track plus a behind-the-scenes which showed the recording sessions and filming of the video. Much like her previous release, Hitomi No Dokkin contains at least one cover track: Mugon... Iroppoi was originally a pop song in the 80s by Kudō Shizuka (like the single Cat's Eye from Hito-P Trance). The second track, To Future I didn't recognize, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's a cover.

Although typically annoying dance/techno stuff, Mugon actually grew on me as I listened to it. To Future was actually kind of catchy in it's own way. Hitomi sounds like she has a solid, if unremarkable, singing voice, but with all the sound engineering, it's hard to tell. Musically, I enjoyed this more than her previous effort.

The video consisted of three costumes and two areas. Hitomi starts out as a waitress in a cafe wearing a cute little outfit (as seen on the cover insert) walking and dancing around the cafe, tray of undelivered glasses of water in hand. The second costume is not seen very much (a white tanktop and skirt), mostly because when she's wearing it the camera tended to be zoomed in on her face and/or cleavage. The other part of the video seemed really out of place.... it's a gravure scene in an outdoor garden with Hitomi in a black bikini. No lip-synching, just Hitomi slinking around and teasing the viewer. Yes, it was out of place, but when a woman looks as good as Hitomi, it just doesn't matter.

The behind-the-scenes track was pretty typical as far as these things go, but generally upbeat and enjoyable, running at about 10 minutes. There was a cute little shot where Hitomi was caught in a moment of narcissism: she was taking a picture of herself with her keitai, but when she realized the cameraman was there, immediately started giggling, turned away from the camera and said "Don't film me... it's embarressing!" Somewhat of an odd thing to say for a person who makes her living off showing off her body, but it was a nice little moment which showed some (I think) honest emotion.

More idol related music on the way, for those of yopu who keep track of these things: Takeuchi Nozomi and Takizawa Nonami both have CDs being release over the next two months. I suspect that Nonami will have more pop/dance cover tunes for us (along with a video) like Hitomi and her own previous release Nonami No Tenshi, but I'm curious as to what Nozomi has in store - her last CD, Dolce was actually quite listenable and her musical training really showed.

Nonami Takizawa event report for September 8th

Like clockwork, the release of new idol DVDs (in this case Rakuen and Tōbō) comes the promotional tour and being the pop-culture lemming that I am, I took it upon myself to see the angelic Takizawa Nonami again. Granted, I had already been to two of her events in January and July, but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to see her again. Yes, I'm like a school boy with crush. Shut up and leave me alone - I had fun.

Ahem... in any case, this took place at the same store as her previous event, Disc-Pier. I'm generally not a fan of this place for idol events... I find the lighting to be a little odd for snapping pics and it's first come, first serve for the seating - I was a few minutes late too because my camera's battery died, so I was stuck at the back of a crowd of about 70 people.

After some banter with the MC, there was a slightly uncomfortable pause at the beginning when the crowd was asked to ask Nonami some questions about sports or fitness (it came up during the conversation) and no one asked anything. I almost said something but then they quickly moved on. After some small talk about the DVDs, the second Q&A session went smoother as the crowd got into it.

After that, Nonami gave away four signed t-shirts by playing rock-paper-scissors with the crown. My lucky streak for January didn't hold as I went out really quickly - such is life in the cut-throat world of idol events. After that, the photo session took place. As usual, they brought people up in their rows to snap pics of a bikini-clad Nonami for one minute. I guess simply for expediency, Nonami only wore a huge over-sized, black t-shirt for most of the event, and obviously had her bikini underneath. Call me crazy, but this was almost as sexy as the bikini itself. Once everyone snapped their picture, they had the meet and greet portion.

If you bought one of the DVDs, you got an autographed cover when you met Nonami. Purchasing both also entitled you to have a polaroid taken with her. When I got up there, I must admit that you could have knocked my over with a feather when she said "Long time, no see" to me when I got up there... it was pretty cool that she actually remembered me. After our snap shot, we chatted a little and she was pretty amused that my keitai's wallpaper was the picture I took with her at her last event.

One thing that did amuse me is one of the guys brought up a bewildering array of stuff when he met her, including both DVDs, some huge 8x10s he had taken at previous events, and some kind of drawing - I guess it was meant to be Nonami from the pose, but it was a generic anime thing, and since 90% of anime is pretty much indistinguishable, it was hard to tell, Nonami looked a little dumbfounded when he got up there, until he explained he just wanted her to hold some of the stuff up when he got his picture taken with her.

All-in-all, I had a good time there - the only downside for me was that the polaroid of us didn't develop well and the colours are really faded, but no big deal. Nonami knew who I was, she looked absolutely stunning, was very charming and I got some pretty good photos of her.