So intense!

Some of the latest stirrings in the Berryz world have come by the way of the second Alo-Hello!, due for release this Wednesday. The DVD hopefully promises to be as awesome as the first one, but with the added bikinis that were unfortunately missed out. With the way the 2011 calanders turned out, most notably the bikini-clad July/August page of the Berryz one, things looked pretty hopeful for a sexy AH2.

Then they released the covers for the PB and the DVD which only served to confirm the belief.

I must admit, I haven't yet decided which cover I prefer. The DVD has a much more eye-catching colourset, but I do find the poses and the deep blue look of the sky and ocean to be very appealing too.

Anyway, cue the entry of popular rag FRIDAY, courtesy of whom we are treated to a whole Smörgåsbord of delicious preview pics to choose from.

Of course, arguably the most important piece of news to come from this is in the form of Captain who we finally find in a bikini, putting all of the nay-sayers speculating that her parents wouldn't let her do a bikini photobook, or that she herself didn't want to, to shame.

But, of course, this is the Church of Maasa. So, in spite of L'Entente Cordiale, I'm going to leave it there and talk about Maasa.

And one thing I notice about Maasa's pic is that once again she can be seen wearing one of those skirt-type bikinis. I have no idea what the technical name for these is. I guess my teachers in school never imagined it would come up. But, and maybe it's just me, but I've noticed that Maasa seems to favour these. One simply has to look at her solo PB to note that most of the times she wore bikinis, it tended to be the same style.

Curiously, and maybe it's just because of how much time I've spent these last couple of months familiarising myself with it, the picture of herself on her own reminds me an awful lot of the character Yabusame Tsurugi from Light Novel no Tanoshii Kakikata - the same character which Maasa herself plays. There was a certain cover to one of the volumes of the light novel featuring Tsurugi at the beach in a swimsuit and, while Maasa isn't as well-endowed, shall we say, as her character's original light novel counterpart, the long black hair and dark bikini, everything, it all makes me flash back to that same image. I guess over the last couple of months especially I've found it increasingly easy to imagine Maasa in this role.

Anyway, I've got my pre-orders in. Have you?

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The word of Maa

Some of the biggest news to sweep the world recently is the revelation of the Berryz Koubou temporary blogs. Slated to only be around for the duration of the upcoming concert tour, these Serend blogs have been propelled to great following in just a few short days. Of course, the C-ute blogs were started much the same way, and have gone on past the originally intended activity period to become shining beacons for the fans involved. So it's wholly possible that such longevity might also be enjoyed by these Berryz blogs.

The first person to utilize this great tool of communication (not counting a few entries equating to little more than "testing 1-2-3") was the holy mother herself. A glorious step forward by our great pioneering holy one in the face of progress, allowing for never-before-seen level of communication, not just with or honourable brothers and sisters of the Church in God's own country, Japan, but also for the equally-honourable brothers and sisters abroad.

Maasa's new blog, as well as those pertaining to the other Berryz members, can all be found here.

I know, I know. Not all of us are capable of reading Japanese. It's a terrible state to be in when one can't even understand one's own god, but we all, in our own humble way, try our best to make sense of what we can and happily feast upon the interpretation of others. And, though my own skills in the holy leid are slight and my vocabulary limited by the small capacity of the various dictionaries I keep on hand at all times, I work hard to bring you as delicious a feast as I can muster. Applying the same skills I have used in translating the official Light Novel no Tanoshii Kakikata movie blog, I will endeavour to provide translations of the much more difficult (due to their slightly more colloquial nature) word of Maa.

I probably shan't post them here on the Church of Maasa proper, and for now they are all located in the Hello!Online Maasa thread, which I shall link at the end of this entry. Perhaps I shall find a more conveniant place to put them (where I won't be limited by the number of images allowed in a single post and Maasa's apparentl love for those same emoticons) but for now, they shall be located in that thread.

And thus she spake.

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