I should be mighty pissed right now because I am without both NHK and highspeed intrntz and I desperately need to see SCP because I've been informed of Ueda donning toit leather pants but today - May 19, 2008 - is my one-year-into-the-JE-fandom anniversary so I can't afford to be sulky! 8D

Despite how whiny and shallow I just made myself sound, I'm actually an extremely sentimental person and I make it a point to note down and remember things that may seem trivial and insignificant to everyone else. I carry a tiny calendar with me everywhere with all occasions - birthdays and appointments, the firsts and even the lasts - marked, and getting into the JE fandom is no exception. In celebration, I've decided to make a little JE timeline of sorts. I know you lot probably don't care but I'm doing this anyway because 1) I swear there's gold in here somewhere and; 2) I don't ever want to forget. :D



I. How It Happened

Last year's May 19 was Mangaholix Mania (an annual convention held here in the Philippines) and I went with purebloodqueen (Ira - for future reference) who pretty much started everything for me. It was vague, and will probably bore y'all to death if put in detail, but the key ~*initiation points*~ were 1) a truckload of KoyaShige fics Ira brought along incase we got bored and; 2) receiving a data disc from spurnd (full of KAT-TUN faggotry material, as I later found out).

The event was actually not boring so faggotry material #1 was stripped off of its original purpose but towards the end of the day, while we were waiting for Ira's dad to come pick us up, they finally got to be of some use. She had printed out so many fics and I wish I could put a name on each of them but I'm afraid the only thing I remember was KoyaShige being all touchy-feely on the lawn in Koyama's backyard or sthn. It had been such a task understanding and visualizing the fics since I had no idea who the hell the characters were. D:

And that, people, was when my JE 101 classes with Ira-sensei began. It had been our summer vacation then so she gave me lessons over our messengers. The online learning experience was a colorful blur of links to pimp posts and 'HOW THE FUCK DO YOU TELL THEM APART!?'s and weekly name-that-JE-guy tests. It was tough, but slowly, I found that I was actually capable of learning! *O*

Later into the month, we found out that we were going to be in the same class for the upcoming school year and then and there we decided that we were going to abuse the opportunity to further prep me up for the wonderful world of JE! *O* And so, we resumed our classes, this time with a whole lot more visuals which included character charts, learn-your-Kanji tables and... more fanfiction (I needed some sort of break and fanfiction was a perfect excuse).



K8 + NEWS name-face charts. 8D



Song lyrics and translations!



Yorokobi no Uta lyrics. And Ueda scribbles. It's a subconscious thing I do. Like when I space out I end up scribbling his name on whatever paper I could grab. (I space out quite a lot, obviously.)



Uh. Go figure.


I was able to graduate JE 101 with flying colors and, soon enough, I was able to stand completely on my own. The learning experience was not easy, especially for someone who never thought in a billion years she'd ever get into a Japanese boy bands fandom. But the splitting headaches were totally worth it. I love this fandom wank or without wank. :D ♥




II. Triviaaaa

My first ever JE-related entry in LJ looked a little something like this.

First JE person I ever got to know by name: Yamapi. All I had to do was associate him with 'manboobs'. Peace of cake! :|

First random clip I ever saw: Kame's french maid cosplay in Merengue no Kimochi dated 2005.12.24 (from faggotry material #2 I mentioned earlier).


I can't believe I actually called Kame 'extremely pretty'. D: AND HAHA KAME AS IRA'S (EX)OTL? I'm still laughing at you, bb. :P ♥

First DVD rip: Making of SIGNAL. In which Ueda Tatsuya ripped my heart out of my chest and pummeled it with the fairy hammer of ultimate love and glee. I had no idea what his name was and in the mean time referred to him as 'that pretty man who I bet owns a vagina'. IDEK IT WAS ~*LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT*~ OKAI. Which, I'm often told, is weird. Apparently, no one has ever seen/heard of anyone who got Ueda-baited into fandom before. LOL!

Proof of my utter ignorance screencapped fresh out of my ancient Yahoo Messenger archive! (They're dated May 21 because I had review classes for entrance exams and didn't get to watch the clips straight away. ^^x)



Oh god, I was hopeless.



Yes, my filename for the Ueda screencap had 'mangina' in it.



(edited the Tagalog parts and translated them to English
Bamboo is a bald local music artist who kind of resembled Koki)



One year after and I still have my doubts (stronger than ever, in fact). :|

(Note: akiko_chan09 is dedz. If you want to add me up, it's theionne on YM and strawberrysuit@hotmail.com on MSN. :D)

First KAT-TUN people I was able to fully distinguish: Ueda (duh) and Koki (only because he was tough gangster shit and bald).

Last KAT-TUN people I wes able to fully distignuish: Jin and Junno. I found it so hard to tell them apart, believe it or not. O_O I was only able to tell through time because I'd always associate Junno with Ueda and he eventually became 'Ueda's manslave' in my eyes, and Jin was just kind of... there. IDEK. I didn't like Jin very much.

First in NEWS: Ryo (and only because I knew him as 'the evil guy who used to always pick on Ueda').

Last in NEWS: Tegoshi and Massu. I remember (about one month after I was introduced to NEWS) watching that MS episode wherein they were guests and Ira was like OMG TEGOMASS and I was like ...WHO? O_O

First in Kanjani 8: Ryo and Uchi. Because I already knew who Ryo was and in 99.9% of his pictures, Uchi had been attached to his arm. Yeah, he was pretty hard to miss.

Last in Kanjani 8: I... don't really know. I just woke up one day and knew who they were. O_O

Ira and I call each other 'Kame' and 'Tat-chan' in real life (her being Kame, I being Tat-chan) and I am totally not kidding. It started off as a joke but it grew on us and we haven't been able to stop. We don't really call each other by our real names anymore. *slightly troubled*

I'm not really big on the sempai/junior groups, sry2say. D: I mean I know some of them but I only update myself on the three abovementioned units.

The first time I ever actually decided to watch Shounen Club, Ueda happened to be the guest (Uedamania episode asdfghjkl ♥). It's called luv, people.

There was this thing in our highschool called 'Speak for a Star'. It's a weekly thing and the objective is to speak only in English during lessons. You do it as a class and if one fucks up, you don't get a star. It's pretty big because you get certificates and extra points in exams depending on the number of certificates you collect. ANYWAAAAY. It was the last day of the week and our class was doing pretty damn well until I slipped during Physics class and said something in Tagalog and I was leik OHNOES then the teacher was leik 'if you dance for us, I'll give your class a star' and I was leik OKAY BRING IT then I dragged Ira to the front and we danced and sang to Chirarizumu AND Zukkoke Otokomichi. THE SHAAAAMMMMEEE. D: D: D: But we got our star in the end so yay. FOR THE TEAM.

I guess that was when the involvement of JE in our class's entries in competitions started. Our biggest and most memorable break was at our first ever competition.



It was nutrition month and our class had to do a skit promoting nutrition and shit. We altered the lyrics of Zukkoke Otokomichi to suit the theme and danced to it in fruit/veggies costumes. WE EMERGED AS CHAMPIONS, FCK YEA. ON OUR VERY FIRST TIME! *O*



Next up was science&math week and we had to play out a scientist's life. We chose Galileo so we could do the solar system. We danced to Sukiyanen, Osaka and instead of the cartoon sun as props, we had cartoon planets. We won first runner-up. 8D


Last we ever used was the intro of Naniwa Iroha Bushi as the BGM for a tribal catwalk. Won 3rd runner-up, baby. But I've got no pictures to prove it. 8D


(Note: Our classmates had/have no idea what the fuck K8/JE is. Ira and I gave them the songs and taught them the moves and all they did was follow. LMFAO. I feel kind of sorry for them, now that I think about it. D:)

We made a presentation on the life of St. Rose of Lima and I managed to squeeze Ohkura Tadayoshi's face in it. How? Find out for yourself.

Ira and I used to bring cake to school to celebrate the boys' birthdays. Most epic cake experience was when we baked three of them at my place for a two-person party for Uchi, Yassu and Nakamaru.


Yes, that's me and her as as Akira to Shuuji! :D

This is what the announcement board in our classroom looked like:

I am madly and hopelessly in love with KAT-TUN. D: Apparently, they're only there to take your JE virginity then you're supposed to move on and develop better taste but I haven't quite reached that stage yet and I don't think I'm about to anytime soon. I love them so much. D: 'Awkward, delicate, eternally dazzling energy' in Kyosuke Himuro's words.




III. Accomplishments

FANSPAZZ
Ranting is my speciality. I love to stir up discussions and blab about the most random things. Of course it would take me forever if I gave you the link to every single JE spazz I ever made (and if you wanted rants on a daily basis, you could always just friend me /pimp :|) so I'm just going to give out the ones I actually put effort in. LOL!

• Nishikido Ryo/Ueda Tatsuya Fanfiction Pimp Post
  
• Barely-coherent Commentary: KAT-TUN in Okinawa
  
• Barely-coherent Commentary: Making of Keep the Faith
  
• Ueda Tatsuya and Girls?
  
• Ueda Tatsuya's Whore Circle
  
• Barely-coherent Commentary: Making of LIPS
  
• Future Plans for the JE Boys
  
• Barely-coherent Song Review: DON'T U EVER STOP

CO-ORGANIZED FANMEETS
It is through these meet-ups that I met the most awesome crunky buddies one could ever have. You guys know who you are and I miss you all cho beri much. :(



June 16, 2007



April 5, 2008



FANFICTION

Akanishi Jin/Kamenashi Kazuya

• Are Belong to Jin
  
• Pitter Patter

Akanishi Jin/Ueda Tatsuya

• No, Not Really

Kamenashi Kazuya/Ueda Tatsuya

• All Too Familiar

Koyama Keiichiro/Kato Shigeaki<

• Eskimo Kisses

Nishikido Ryo/Uchi Hiroki

• Out of Line

Nishikido Ryo/Ueda Tatsuya

• Seasons
  
• Panda Talk

Taguchi Junnosuke/Ueda Tatsuya

• Hotel Room
  
• More Like Sunshine
  
• We Don't Need to Whisper (Drabble Collection)
  
• Cinnamon

Various/Ueda Tatsuya

• Remembering Sunday

GRAPHICS


Yes-No KAT-TUN Icons


IV. Fin

Long post is long. I wanted to end this by unleashing mush about how happy I am because I met some of the most awesome people I know now through JE like Ginny and Ali and Abby and Maki and Mira and the rest of you, and about how JE makes me happy in general, but idek, I've decided not to b-because. I need to act cool. D: Anyway, If you've reached this far, give yourself a pat on the back. You're my new hero. :D ♥

Tags: je: general