Adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki anime returns to two Japanese cities, first performances to be held this summer.
Kanna Hashimoto
Couldn’t make it to the theater to see the adaptation of the Studio Ghibli anime masterpiece? Now you can watch it from home.
Chihiro, Haku, and No Face all take the stage as Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece comes to life.
Cast appear on stage for the first time to give us a sneak peek at the upcoming production.
Hayao Miyazaki gives blessing after meeting with Caird to project that’s been in development for four years.
Test your knowledge of Japanese slang from the ’70s onwards with these limited-edition cup noodles!
Kanna Hashimoto is called the “once in a millennium” idol, but her manager is one in a million too.
The special headset delivers a Japanese sweet into your mouth in real-time as this “once-in-a-millenium beauty” feeds it to you.
The last couple of years have been benchmark ones for Halloween in Japan. What was once a holiday marked mostly by the infrequent sighting of a handful of mildly embarrassed-looking, costumed foreigners on the Yamanote Line train has grown into a massive industry.
In fact, Halloween has become just as much a holiday about 20 and 30-somethings dressing up as sexy nurses, sexy zombies, sexy superheroes, and other sexy-choose-a-nouns as its American counterpart. But while those costumes were no doubt getting plenty of attention on Shibuya Crossing last night, the Japanese Internet had already decided the undisputed Queen of Halloween was this far more conservatively dressed “once-in-millenium beauty”.
Nearly two years ago, a single photograph of a young wannabe idol appeared online. It ignited a fire amongst idol otaku so large that it reached the mainstream press in Japan in the same day. The pictured girl, one Kanna Hashimoto, was soon after crowned “beyond angelic” and dubbed a “once in a millennium” idol for her natural looks and youthful energy.
Since then, there have been many challengers to Kanna’s title, like the “once in 4,000 years idol” whatserface, and the “once in 2000 years” idol…um you know, the one with the hair. They’re probably all nice girls and I wish them well in their careers, but seriously they had no place stepping up to Hashimoto’s star quality.
Having already appeared in commercials for SoftBank and Cup Noodle, Kanna is now hawking Lip Baby brand coloring lip balms. Although not as big a brand as the others, these commercials have woken up Japanese netizens and reminded them who the real once in a millennium idol is.
Remember Twintail Association Japan, the pro-cute organisation dedicated to all things adorable and pigtail-related? Last year they launched the idol group drop, a four-piece girl group who add “pigtail-wearing” to the usual idol skill-set trinity of singing, dancing, and smiling for the camera.
And one group member in particular has been attracting attention online for her doe-eyed smile and pigtail-wearing skills. Hikari Takiguchi has even been called a “once-in-2000-years idol”! (We’re going to assume that sounds a bit snappier in Japanese than it does in English).
Have you ever done something stupid then been surprised when it actually worked? Like tossing a screwed-up ball of paper over your shoulder and actually getting it into the trash can, or throwing your hat in the air and catching it perfectly on your head? Well there’s a word for that in Japanese: bakakkoii, a contraction of baka (stupid) and kakkoii (cool).
And it didn’t take long for someone to take bakakkoii to the next level. Kanna Hashimoto, member of the idol group Rev. From DVL, stars in a cup noodle commercial where she helps perform a bunch of bakakkoii tricks. Some of them are quite impressive, which they should be considering it took over 600 takes to actually get them done correctly.
Watch the video and feel oddly satisfied after the jump!
On 16 April, idol group, Rev. from DVL, released their first major single through entertainment giant Yoshimoto Kogyo, thanks largely to the break-out success of member Kanna Hashimoto.
However, what was intended to be a celebration of the Fukuoka-based unit’s new-found fame ended up generating sad and bitter complaints from idol fans. At the center of the controversy was the inclusion of tickets to a “high-five party” bundled in with their single LOVE-arigatou-.
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About a half a year ago, the charming face of a local idol from Fukuoka was plastered all over the internet. Kanna Hashimoto’s genuine charm and cuteness had won over the country literally overnight. Shortly afterwards, we were able to meet the up and coming star and buy a pair of glasses. There we found Hashimoto’s charm wasn’t just a fluke of the original photo that shot her into the spotlight.
Now we’re happy to see that her rise to fame hasn’t slowed down one bit with a recent appearance in the hugely popular SoftBank commercial series featuring the Shirato family. Not only that, she has also thrown the ceremonial first pitch at Opening Day of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks 2014 season.
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