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?