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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Eternity

As mentioned before, during the time of the Church's Revolution, The Church of Maasa does not only support Maasa anymore, but also her fellow Hello! Project comrades and close friends. Also, one of our main goals is to spread the love for her and Hello! Project - which brings Eternity into it. Eternity is a Fangroup founded by ArielSoul and Risa/Misa on Hello! Online, with their main goal to spread the Hello! Project Love over the world. 

Now they have invented this wonderful website Eternity, to make information and news accessable for everyone. Like the members of the Church, they use their own spare time to make Eternity work, which is why they needed help. I, among others, have lately advanced from a member to a member off the Emergency Staff, meaning that I have access to the News section etc.

The fact that I am an Eternity member as well as a fellow Maaist, I thought of the possibility of the two organizations to work together, the main reason for this post. I ask everyone to pay Eternity a visit, and think of becoming a member (it's free). Our current Goals are to spread News and gain members, but we also want to make Hello! Project more known international. Certain projects to do that (e.g. handing out leaflets) are currently being planned.

At this point I want to apologize for the inactiveness of the Church and will present you with another picspam♥

Bestieeeeees!

July / August -2011 Calendar Bikini Picture ♥

Again from the Calendar, in different Seifuku

Calendar Yukata Outfit (not from the Original Calendar) sooo lovely. Although I would have prefered her with bangs, the color of the Yukata suits her, feminine as well as strong, cute hairstyle as well. Thank you, stylist. 

24th Single "Shining Power" Group Artist picture.  Why did they give the exact same hairstyle to our holy one as in Tomodachi wa Tomodachi nanda? O__O

Again the Calendar's Seifuku. Isn't she lovely?

May Maasa be with you.

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Maasa in Berryz' new set

This latest picture set of Berryz has caused a lot of picture comments, bumps and fascination on Hello! Online, which made me think of sharing it here, because I personally am also very fascinated by this beauty. So please enjoy this picture in two versions:

May Maasa be with you, bringing light into darkness. And I'd like to ask a question which can easily be answered in comments: Which of the two versions do you prefer? The first one, with a mild light added to it which makes it glow softly, or the second, natural one (which was probably photoshopped too).

Love, Keksi*Choc

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Berryz Koubou Summer Concert Tour 2010 ~Umi no Ie Otakebi House~ Ground Demo Rouka Demo Medatsu Kimi Performance

There it is!  Maasa's and Yurina's duet song, latest performance!

The costumes are... well. I think the designer didn't work very hard on that, they should've made better ones! But what do costumes matter when it comes to Maasa and Yurina? The plain outfits make themselves shine even more!

They do make a nice appearance on stage, clapping along with the crowd!

Look at Maasa's shining face at 0:17! She's having so much fun, its obvious. That's not a fake smile, guys!

I really like the "Background noises" Maasa and Yurina make while the other one is in center!

0:44 is definitely a nice scene, too! It looks like Maasa wants to poke Yurina? That would be a funny thing, right?

Now that Maasa has a lot of lines to sing, it's easy to hear that she improved again lately! She sounds very strong and more constant than before!

Love their smiling faces while doing the end-pose!! ♥♥♥

Also... here is something I made for JuuIchi!

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Regarding the Light Novel Translations

 

It was never my intention from the start to have those translations permanently hosted here alongside the rest of the Church of Maasa entries. It was far too messy, and just a temporary set up until I came up with a more efficient solution.

I have played around with various ideas over the last couple of weeks, most of which didn't work anywhere near as well as I'd hoped. 

I had, for example, toyed with the idea of hosting them on the Church blog like they have been, but to provide the option to either choose to only see Church entries, or only see Ranobe translations. Or failing that, the ability to at least toggle the visibility of the translations on and off. In an ideal world, that would probably be the feature I'd be unveiling to you right now, but unfortunately I couldn't come up with a design for it that worked the way I wanted it to.

In the end, I have decided to move over all of the entries to a new blog, loosely modeled after the official blog.

The new blog is still entirely affiliated with the Church (think of it as a subsidary company and the Church being a parent company), but by actually having two seperate blogs instead of the one, it seemed to me to be far tidier and far more efficient. 

To those who have been reading the translations and commenting on them, don't worry, as your comments have also been carried over to the new blog. In fact, I'm hoping that this will help reduce the number of spam comments recieved as well.

You can find the new translations at http://ranobeblog.blogspot.com/. I've also added a list of links at the top of the right sidebar here on the Church of the latest 5 entries on the blog.

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Light Novel no Tanoshii Mikata

Once again, big news on the movie front. We have both a movie trailer, and an official release date. All our previous information on the movie can be found in these posts. But this entry is about this great new footage we have. Interesting to note that we haven't actually had any footage whatsoever from the movie or the making process. So this is our first taste of the movie.

Maasa is looking very cool throughout the trailer. An awesome scene at the very start shows her making her way through a school hallway with all of the other students moving out of her way. Then followed by a clip of her beating someone up with (what would appear to be) a Kendo Bokutou. A very cool character. Contrasted by the way she appears in the other half of the trailer as she dates the classmate in order to gain inspiration for her book and, at times, looks quite awkward, but others you really see the Maasa we all know and love in her character.

Maasa of course looks great in all the costumes we see her in. Not to mention how well acted it seemed to be. I know some people had doubts as Maasa wasn't exactly known for extraordinary acting ability, but if we are just going off the trailer, I reckon that this will be a performance to remember.

The movie, featuring our own Maasa (as well as former H!P egg Noto Arisa) will release in theatres across Japan on the 4th of December. If you are in Japan for that week, I implore you to visit a nearby cinema and watch our Holy Mother on screen!

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