If you spend any time watching Japanese television, you’ll have seen this slinky songstress apearing in commercials advertising not just her latest single but also cars, makeup or a host of other products. Starting as a teen-fashion magazine model while still in school, hitomi (she dropped her family name, Furuya, and went all lower case - very hip!) has been around longer than Hamasaki Ayumi, who in many ways she resembles, but has only lately started to catch up in the popularity stakes.

She married a design company employee in November 2002 and went “into hiding” for a year and a half. In May 2004, she started her first tour in almost two years. She got publicity for the tour by playing an unannounced “secret live” in the departures lobby of Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.

One of the many artists discovered and raised by J-Pop super-producer Komuro Tetsuya, hitomi got her start in music with the avex trax label in 1993. She made her debut with Let’s Play Winter in 1994 and the next year sold 400,000 copies of Candy Girl, her third single. She released three chart-topping albums and had considerable success under the guidance of Komuro, who encouraged her to write her own songs. But she really hit the big time after she went her own way in 1999.

 Like Hamasaki, she is more independent than the closely-guarded “idols” and chooses her own look, which has made her one of the fashion leaders adulated by teenage girls across the country. Her skinny frame and come-hither expression have also ensured her a large male fan base. This broad-based popularity have enabled her to make the leap from recording artist to “image” girl, with all the lucrative comercial deals that brings.

hitomi is not afraid to use her sexuality, and indeed looks up to Madonna as one of her role models in this respect. Even when dressed, she tends to leave plenty of skin showing. She has appeared nude, with strategically placed long golden locks, on an album cover (right), released a single called Sexy, and her last release with Komuro was a greatest hits album simply called H. The double entendre is lost unless you know that the letter is pronounced “etchi” in Japanese, which is slang for sex.

She knows the right names to drop to establish her credibility, listing Beck, Bjork and Radiohead as her favorite western artists and Jane Birkin, Serge Gainsbourg and Vincent Gallo as her favorite actors.

VS

Uchiha Itachi:

The fighting style of Itachi is perhaps the most frightening of all those we have seen so far. He has mastered every aspect of the art of Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and Taijutsu. His fighting style mainly revolves around a combination of many illusionary techniques mixed with ultra-fast moves that even an experienced Jounin such as Hatake Kakashi could barely keep up with. Itachi’s Sharingan provides even more terrifying Genjutsu for him to use, and Uzumaki Naruto has experience it one too many times! But the most terrifying aspect of Itachi is his infamous Mangekyou Sharingan, the deadliest form of them all. The Mangekyou casts off a Genjutsu (Tsukiyomi) that is absolutely impossible to dispel, a technique that can completely submerge the victim in to a parallel world where time for he or she passes much slower for in an instant in the real world, 24 hours passes in this dimension, The World of the Grasping Moon, as Itachi calls it. What really makes this technique deadly however, is the fact that the user can do anything to his victim that he wants, from making him relive moments of his life, to torturing him for 72 hours at a time with the blink of an eye. The proof that this technique is so powerful lies in the fact that even Kakashi has fallen victim to it and remained broken, powerless and ill for days.

Jiraiya:

Jiraiya does not possess the title of Sannin for nothing, he is indeed one of the most powerful ninja ever. His fighting style is refined and original, while still being complete and powerful. We don’t see him use a lot of taijutsu he is still able to execute amazingly strong physical moves and is quite powerful in that domain. And when he needs to pack an extra punch, he can execute the Rasengan, leaving even the most powerful of his opponents on the ground drooling! This technique is one of Jiraiya’s strongest moves and it can easily destroy even a huge boulder. When Jiraiya doesn’t use this technique or taijutsu, Jiraiya relies on his summoning techniques. A number of years ago Jiraiya made a pact with toads, so that he could summon them whenever need be, even the most powerful toad of them all is at his command, Gamabunta. This frog is so powerful that it can even hold back the extremely deadly Shukaku’s attacks! While the toads can perform techniques on their own, Jiraiya can also execute special combination moves with them for an extra big punch. For example Jiraiya can do a Katon (fire) jutsu while Gama will shoot out oil, and you can imagine the result! In addition to this impressive arsenal of techniques, Jiraiya’s experience makes him quite difficult to fool or surprise, thus, making him an even more formidable opponent.

Country: Fire Country; Hidden Leaf Village
Age: 13 Height: 150.1 CM Weight: 35.9 KG
Birthday: March 28th
Bloodtype: O
First Seen: Chapter 003; Anime Episode 001

Sakura is what could be called the cute intellectual part of Team 7 that consists of Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and herself. This ninja knows every rule and every technical detail that would be required of a ninja to know. First in her class when it comes to knowledge, Sakura is a totally different person when she’s on the battlefield at the beginning of the series. During the battle she could hardly hold back her feelings and emotions and is often seen panicking or bursting into tears when the battle is not turning out in her teams favor, therefore giving her the reputation of being somewhat unreliable in her teachers eyes. But, even though she sometimes lacks the bravery to act as a real ninja during battle, Sakura progressively takes a more and more active role in her team as time passes by.

Loving Sasuke with all of her heart and finding Naruto to be an annoying brat she spends her free time trying to seduce Sasuke and taking care of her appearance while completely ignoring Naruto and ofen picking a fight with her “friend” and rival for the love of Sasuke, Yamanaka Ino. This only holds true until Sakura begins to understand her other comrade, realizing that he is indeed very special and abandoning the idea that he is a miserable failure, like most of the others think until the end of the Chuunin exams. She admits that she was wrong and has been acting selfishly as if she was always right. Aside from that Sakura is always helping out her teammates, especially Naruto, to understand some of the specific ninja maneuvers that only a veteran could understand, and by doing so helping her team devise a strategy to win against the enemy. She also incarnated the teams good conscience and often acts as a warning bell, or the person who puts her team back on the right track (and Naruto is often the victim of such “reminders”). Sakura is otherwise a very gentle person that never misses an opportunity to help others and find a good thing to do or say to those who aren’t as fortunate.

Through the series we learn that Sakura was not always as she is now. When she was younger she was generally rejected by the other girls, for no reason other than her being ashamed of her rather large forehead. When the other kids at the ninja academy saw that, they didn’t miss an opportunity to make fun of it! Sakura would spend her days all alone until one day a popular girl, Ino, saw her sitting alone on the bench crying and began talking to her. From then on, Ino gave Sakura a whole new attitude and boosted her self confidence as she began to make some more friends, and even fall in love. Until then Ino was always helping her when she got insulted or bulled around by other girls, acting as a mentor giving her advice on how to act and how to be a better student and person, physically and mentally. This lasted until Sakura fell in love with the boy that every other girl at the academy had their eye on: Uchiha Sasuke. From there her relationship with Ino became cold and formal, neither of the two ex-best friends would openly declare war upon the other, which resulted in a few quarrels, some serious and some absolutely ridiculous! Recently though Sakura’s relationship with Ino has become less tense and more friendly, but we have yet to see what happened to them during a three year time jump.

Sakura’s fighting style was very basic before the three year jump in the series, but that does not mean it was bad as she excelled at the “basic stuff”. Sakura, as Hatake Kakashi states, is the best of the original genins at controlling her chakra. Basically, she’s as good at that as a jounin would be: nearly perfect. She uses this near perfection over her chakra to execute all the basic ninjutsu that a ninja knows without a single flaw. These, mixed with some basic taijutsu makes Sakura tricky and sometimes very tough to deal with. It also seems that she is good at manipulating shuriken and kunai, making her even more dangerous at a long range. With all of these characteristics she is a ninja that should be taken seriously, unless you want to get beaten to a pulp! Being trained under Tsunade, Sakura acquired unbelievable physical strength, being able to easily split a large piece of land in two by just punching the soil. Adding to that, she is now a skilled medical ninja. Under the training of this new sensei there is no doubt that Sakura now possesses some significant knowledge of healing techniques, and some great talent that we have not seen all of… yet.

Michelle Duggar and Jim Bob have managed to make baby making into a media news item, having had so far 17 babies and being prominently featured in many well known news articles, including Discovery Health.

What most people don’t seem to know is that in India someone has 19 babies and that was in 1997 but they are Indians living in the slums of Bangalore! What is however astounding is that an American family with 17 gets press and notoriety vs. an Indian couple does not, is this once again an example of how life is valued higher in other parts of the world because of the priviledge they have?

 I repost the article here:

19 babies: Some moms do have ‘em

ASIA NEWS INTERNATIONAL

BANGALORE, May 4: Even as India grapples with its ever-increasing population, a few families in the Gauripalya slum in the metropolis of Bangalore are defying all laws of family planning. The news that Noorjahan Begum, one of the residents of the slum, is expecting her 19th child does not surprise anyone.

The concept of having large families is a tradition here and most families have an average of six to seven children. Married at the age of 19, Noorjahan, now 40, has nine sons and nine daughters. Two sons are already married, with children.

Noorjahan says she is scared of having a sterilisation operation. She adds that it goes against the teachings of her religion. “I din’t want to have a (sterilisation) operation. I was scared of undergoing it,” Noorjahan said. “Our religion forbids the concept, also, our priest was against the idea.” While her grown-up sons earn their living by driving autorickshaws, the younger ones have the responsibility of cleaning the vehicles. The average daily income of the entire family is about Rs 70.

Noorjahan, who frequently gets her children’s names confused, makes a living by making hand-made cigarettes and incense sticks. None of her children has been to a school.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.

Harry Potter Author Talks About Ending

The Associated Press
Thursday, July 26, 2007; 10:40 AM

NEW YORK — Less than a week after the release of the final Harry Potter book, author J.K. Rowling is giving hints about its conclusion.

Before publication, Rowling pleaded for secrecy about the ending of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." But in an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC’s "Today" show and in one published Thursday in USA Today, she discussed Harry’s fate.

THOSE WHO DO NOT WANT TO KNOW HOW IT ALL TURNS OUT FOR THE BOY WIZARD SHOULD STOP READING HERE.

"I’m very proud of the fact that as we went into this book, many, many readers believed it was a real possibility that Harry would die. That’s what I was aiming for," she said on NBC.

In the book, Voldemort meets his end and Harry lives. But Rowling said Harry’s survival was not always a certainty.

"In the early days, everything was up for grabs," she told USA Today. "But early on I knew I wanted Harry to believe he was walking toward his death, but would survive."

The last volume of Rowling’s fantasy series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," was released Saturday to international fanfare as millions read to find out whether Harry lived or died. More than 10 million copies sold over the weekend.

In a prerelease interview with The Associated Press, Rowling acknowledged that she had no control over discussions about the book once it went on sale. But she said that she hoped readers would finish the book to find out what happens, rather than to peek at the ending.

"It’s like someone coming to dinner, just opening the fridge and eating pudding, while you’re standing there still working on the starter. It’s not on," she said.

She also told the AP that after finishing the last book, she "felt terrible for a week."

"It was like a bereavement, even though I was pleased with the book. And then after a week that cloud lifted and I felt quite lighthearted, quite liberated," she said.

"It was this amazing cathartic moment _ the end of 17 years’ work," she told NBC.

When asked if she felt like she had to say goodbye to Harry, she said, "Yes and no. He’ll always be a presence in my life, really."

She acknowledged that the final Potter installment leaves some loose ends.

"It would have been humanly impossible to answer every single question that comes up," she told NBC. "Because, I’m dealing with a level of obsession in some of my fans that will not rest until they know the middle names of Harry’s great, great grandparents."

Rowling, whose seven Potter books have sold more than 335 million copies worldwide, said she plans to take time off to be with her family and will continue writing. She told USA Today she has two writing projects _ one for children and one for adults.

But whether she will write about her young wizard again, she said: "I think I’ve kind of done the wizarding world. … I have done my Harry Potter."

I came across this writeup on a recent case of censorship on the web over supposed nudity.

You can read the article to get more of the details, but what gets me is that a users entire account on flickr gets blocked because of one count of nudity (and it sort of looks artistic anyway), a poster in Hong Kong gets prosecuted. There is the question of where do you draw the line? What happens if someone posts something political, would it be ruled indecent on the count of violence and other type of subversive activity?

Hong Kong is becoming more and more like Singapore! As a matter of fact, Singapore is trying to loosen up in comparison to what I read here, there must be something else up or am I missing something? As Ying points out, the newspaper stands in Hong Kong are full of far more suggestive sexuality and nudity than this art picture, what is the big deal?

Or perhaps, the big deal is that the source actually posted the picture in protest against the posting of pornography links? Then that would even be worse, it would be going after protesters and is a case in point of practising censorship in the name of indecency.

Now…

and Then…

The boy is in the middle is Daniel aka Harry Potter in the Movies if you didn’t figure it out.

What amazes me is that Daniel Radcliffe is doing this at a time so pivotal in the Harry Potter series, almost like it’s some kind of existential crisis to make/prove a point. He’s a star, a role model, a hero to Geeks around the world.

Ok Harry (oops I mean Daniel) we get the point, you’re a MAN, a REAL MAN, I mean look at all that hair, and you’re not even 18 yet (although you will be in a few days).

The Daily has more details on this but to quote the Warner execs:

A sensation shared by executives from Warner Bros, who make the hugely successful film versions of J.K. Rowling’s books about the schoolboy wizard.

They are said to be ‘utterly dismayed’ by the steamy shots, as well as the discovery that the sixth-former will not only cavort naked for a full ten minutes during the production, but will also be seen, sources say, simulating sex while riding a ‘horse’ played by male ballet dancer Will Kemp.

They fear the scenes could damage their multi-million-dollar film franchise and could even lead, U.S. executives at the company told the Mail this week, to the actor being replaced as the clean- cut hero of Hogwarts School. One U.S. source revealed: ‘Warner Bros have been building up their publicity machine for Harry’s first - chaste - screen kiss when the next Potter film comes out in the summer.

‘Now our star is out there doing full-frontal sex. We’ve been blown completely out of the water by this.’

Let’s see what Miss Hermione Granger (oops I meant Emma Watson) has to say to all this, maybe she will feel the need to compete! Let’s hope she’ll consider her playboy entrance when she’s matured somewhat, you be your own judge!

What’s Harry Potter looking at there? (oh I forgot, it’s Daniel)

Happy July 4th Holiday!

Author unknown to me anyway, but it’s a nice hand drawn picture, does anyone know which series she represents? Outside of the usual attractions, this one I thought was quite beautifuly illustrastred.