Koda Kumi - Dejavu Live Tour 2011

The third post in a row on yet another fabulous release from a Japanese artiste - Koda Kumi! This time, we'll be looking at her Dejavu Live Tour 2011 which ran Japan-wide last year despite the unfortunate 3/11 disaster that crippled the country.

Received this DVD along with ayumi hamasaki's 13th studio album - Party Queen. The Dejavu Live Tour may be one of her smaller scale tours considering that this time round, she performed in small theater halls instead of the grand arenas - probably due to the disaster. But nevertheless, boy did she deliver a fierce show!

"Why won't you come with me to my Dejavu~"

I know that sentence (taken from the introduction to the album) will make English teachers cringe but... Let's go!

Got myself the Hong Kong press version of the DVD from YesAsia and of course, it didn't cost an arm and a leg as compared to the Japanese press of the exact same thing. The quality is exactly and same and it still looks stunning. From the looks of it, she definitely kept her theme consistent with her studio album (unboxed/reviewed here) and I ain't complaining because it looks gorgeous!

A close up on the round sticker which explains that this box comes with 2 DVDs - one featuring the actual concert and the second one featuring over 70 minutes of "making of"s as well as the special videos played during the actual concert itself. Think they included those so that you can hold your own concert as well if you project those as a backdrop on a huge screen - if you can find one. 

The first press of the tour DVD comes in a cardboard slipcase sleeve and here's a clearer view of it minus the ugly plastic wrapper jailing our Pop Diva away. Loving the whole classic Kumi-sultry look and her hair is so cool! They could have done a better job with the title though - love the embossing effect but the colors are a little questionable.

The back of the cardboard slipcase sleeve with yet another photo of Miss Photogenic. I hope she can maintain her figure even after her pregnancy so she will continue to deliver stunning photos after stunning photos. Like most of her DVDs, the track list runs on the left of the packaging neatly. Well, unlike Party Queen, yellow works well here, no?

Details on the spine. Hmmm... On solid black, the effect actually looks pretty good. Perhaps it didn't work as well on the front cover because there were too many distractions and we don't need more distracting colors to rob our attention away from Koda Kumi.

Ta da~ Instead of just simply recycling the exact photo used on the slipcase, they took another one for the DVD casing beneath the cardboard case. This time, we see more of her face and for some weird reason, she looks like a teacher in that photo. Probably because of her hair. Who would mind having a teacher as beautiful as her, yes? :P I would make her sing in class instead of teach. :P

"You don't know~ You don't know~ How beautiful you are~~~" Again, the bad color choices of the font came back to haunt us. I think they could do away with just a solid color to make the whole look more classy and sleek as opposed to using these cheap gradients.

The track list is reinforced on the insides as well for the convenience of people who watch DVDs like me - slipcase at one end of the room and the DVD case on the other. I'm not the neatest person, okay~ I think the plastic DVD case is good enough to stand alone on the shelves of any CD store even without the slipcase. But the slipcase is definitely a bonus, don't you think?

When you open up the DVD case, you are greeted with 2 DVDs (duh) and a photo booklet. The DVDs come in Gold (the concert itself) and Silver (the making of). Nothing too special about it considering that the design is simple. Actually, there are not many physical CD designs that really WOW me these days. There used to be some in the past... Maybe when I'm too free or something, I shall go review those since they are sitting on my shelf collecting dust anyway...

Hello Lion! Phantom of the Gradient strikes back again! Not that I'm against gradients but I don't think it's appropriate here, yes? Anyway, here's the photo booklet for the Dejavu concert DVD. No lyrics... I wonder why...

The track list on the first page of the booklet. Well, since they didn't put lyrics inside, I don't see why they want to repeat the obvious again in the lyric booklet. Probably just to fill up that empty space? I don't know... What do y'all think?

I must say, the costumes of this tour are all extremely gorgeous! She opened the show wearing something like a blue oversized cape looking dress with red visors, almost Gaga-inspired and suddenly, she transformed herself into this modern Mad Hatter character in this striped look. Even though the stage is small, she still managed to blow my socks off with her performance.

I think girls will kill for this dress! I think it's one of the nicest costumes in the entire show! Loving how the skirt is done~ Well, even though this time round, I would say that her concert is a little disjointed because parts do not flow as well as they should and unlike her UNIVERSE or FANTASIA concerts, this one did not really flow a storyline so it was a little confusing for me but still, her singing rocks.

The cutesy-cutesy part of her concert. Lovely energy and definitely adorable look.

To end of this post, I shall take a photo of the DVD concert along with the album itself. See the ties in the theme? And notice that they used a solid silver color for the title on the album but chose to do the cheap gradient thing on the DVD jacket? They should have just stuck to the solid silver for that elegant look. Nevertheless, the album and the concert are still amazing~ Now, I just hope that she would do a JAPONESQUE tour after she's done giving birth and recovering because that album is packed with awesome songs and I can't wait to see her perform those in an arena (no small theaters please~).

And in case y'all want to know what I got for my Mini Japan toy from YesAsia, I got a bread keychain that's so soft and smells like coffee! I hung it on my shelf so I can smell it and squish it every now and then because it's so adorable! 

In case you don't know, if you buy 2 eligible Japanese CD or DVD from YesAsia, you get to pick a free Mini Japan toy. Even though they are randomly picked for you (i.e. you do not get to choose exactly what you want but you get to pick which machine your toy comes from), it's always surprising to open up your shipment to see what freebie you got. Really cool~

Well, that's the end of this entry. I hope you enjoy the photos, yes? I'm still waiting for my next shipment to arrive and it consists of 2 more DVD concerts from ayumi hamasaki and Namie Amuro. So excited! Not only do I get things to photograph and write about, I get concerts to watch. :D

Till next time y'all!!

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那些年，我們一起追的女孩 (You Are the Apple of My Eye) Limited Edition DVD

Well before Vera starts to complain that I've forgotten about the awesome birthday present, I shall blog about it!

My beloved sister had no clue what to get for my birthday (as usual). Well, if it were her birthday, I wouldn't know what to get for her too! Every year, we will end up at this "awkward" situation where we have to ask each other what we want for our special day. This year, I told her I wanted this...

The limited edition of the DVD to the highly acclaimed Taiwanese movie - 那些年，我們一起追的女孩! The English title, for those of y'all who don't understand Chinese is "You Are the Apple of My Eye" but the direct translation of the title is "Those years, the girl that we wooed". The limited edition of the DVD comes in this gorgeous steel case, as seen above, as well as a cardboard slipcase featuring the young cast of the movie.

Here's a close up of the fabulous cast. The movie is rated NC16 (or thou shalt not watch this movie with scenes of the human's butt and coarse language if you ain't 16 and above) and thank goodness they did not decide to cut away the interesting parts - well, if you consider the lead actor walking around the house naked interesting. One trivia for y'all - do you know that the team who made this movie (director, actors, camera crew, etc) mostly have no experience whatsoever in making films but yet, they made this amazing movie? Talk about passion, yes?

A close up of the embossed title on the steel case. If you want a better quality of this movie and don't mind missing out on the loads of cool stuff that came along with this limited edition version, I would highly recommend the Blu-ray version. It also comes with the cardboard slipcase but isn't as pretty as this steel case. In fact, the first time I watched this film was at my friend's house with the Blu-ray copy of the movie. Got the DVD one from my sister (or more like I've requested for it) because it's more photogenic. :P

And here are the goodies that came along with this version of the movie! The steel case houses three main components - the 2 DVDs (actual movie and the making of), a photo booklet of the screen grabs of the movie and a whole stretch of post cards featuring the cast. Interesting eh~ Oh yes... According to my friend, he said that there are only 2,000 copies of this version in Singapore. Wonder how true that is because the last time I went to hmv, there were loads in stock. Probably because they just released it? Well anyway, let's look at each individual items closer, yes?

I have never ever seen CDs or DVDs packaged in this manner before. When I opened the steel case, I was expecting to see the DVDs kept in some paper envelope, like how some of the cheapo labels pack their discs, but I was wrong and boy was I glad! The DVDs are kept in this thick piece of cardboard wrapped in this gorgeous translucent envelope. 

The back of this ingenious packaging that's not only sleek, beautiful but also functional. Opening the envelope reveals these...

A simplistic designed DVD mounted inside the space on the cardboard. Interesting, no? To make this cardboard packaging even more functional, they even laid a piece of smooth plastic at surface where the shiny surface of the disc comes into contact with the DVD to ensure that the disc is not scratched. Really thoughtful design.

This box set, like I've mentioned again and again, comes with 2 DVDs and the second DVD contains over an hour and a half of exclusive making of. Watched it the other night and it was actually quite interesting. A pity that they didn't provide English subtitles though but thank goodness I understand what they are saying. If you have the time, you should definitely watch it - very funny~

Now let's move over to the photo book. The photo book looks almost like a diary - like those leather bound ones just that this one is made of cardboard. If it was made of leather, I think the whole box set would not cost S$32.90. 

Upon opening the cover, you see this small strip of foreign looking thing stuck inside a small pocket of the cover. When I pulled it out...

This box set is filled with surprises, no? The photo book included a small strip of film with 3 frames of the movie. I wonder if the other boxes of the same movie would contain different frames from different parts of the movie but this is so cool, no? These are not exactly negatives, by the way, because you see, the colors are actually accurate so it wouldn't make sense to call them negatives. If you bought this box set too, did you take a photo of your film as well? Show me show me!!

Here's a random page from the photo book and by random, I meant the page in the middle because I was too lazy to pick a proper page. Anyway, I have not really spent time flipping through the photo book because other than stills from the movie, there's nothing else in this booklet.

Another page from the photo book. You know, I actually thought that the lead actor was so-so looking when I first watched the first few minutes of the film but somehow, his character and looks seem to grow on you as you progress through the movie. Must be due to his fabulous acting. And furthermore, according to the making of, this is the first movie this actor is acting in and I must say, he is amazing! On top of that, as a novice actor, he is thrown into all sorts of difficult scenes - kissing, nudity, crying, etc and he managed to ace each scene! Amazing amazing~~

The third component of this box set are these post cards chained together like some pamphlet. Each post card has a character (or the director himself) featured on it and on the other side are some scribbles in Chinese that I will take forever to translate even to myself.

This is what I mean - wall of Chinese characters which will take me forever to read. Oh well~ Maybe when I'm too free or something, I shall attempt to go figure out what they are writing or scribbling on these post cards...

"You Are the Apple of My Eye" is an excellent movie and they also managed to produce a wonderful box set for collectors and fans in the form of this limited edition steel case packaging. For S$32.90, this whole collection of items as well as the fabulous love story of a gang of teenagers can be yours and I say it's definitely worth the money! Wonderful movie with a wonderful cast with a wonderful packaged DVD box set - what more can you ask for? :)

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Koda Kumi 10th Anniversary FANTASIA in TOKYO DOME

Well I know this is definitely a late purchase because I can't find this DVD anywhere on the shelves of any Singapore CD stores! And I didn't want to just get this one alone from YesAsia because the shipping fees cost an arm and a leg. But anyway, I've finally gotten my hands on Koda Kumi 10th Anniversary FANTASIA in TOKYO DOME!

This concert is to commemorate Kumi's 10th anniversary and was performed at Tokyo Dome. Well according to the sources (considering that I've only watched like a couple of Koda Kumi concerts on DVD), the stage in FANTASIA is bigger and better than her previous concerts. Talk about celebrating with a bang, yes? In addition, this concert was not a tour so she only did it once. So exclusive, no?

As usual, even before I actually watched my DVDs, I take pictures of them and rant about their packagings and anything else I deem worthy/unworthy. Well, let's get the ball rollin' for this one!!

This spread caused me tons of wasted time, no thanks to Photoshop for being so anal about colors. Some settings messed up the colors during saving and I spent hours trying to remedy it just so that y'all get nice looking things to look at. So dedicated and shameless of me, no?

Back to Koda Kumi's 10th anniversary concert DVD. Here's the cover and you'll have to agree that this is probably SIMPLEST and sleek looking cover ever! I love how she photographs here because she is so relaxed even with mind in her face. The fonts on the cover are embedded gold and it keeps the whole look really simple but royal.

I wonder when will they realize that DVD region code is nothing but a huge pain in the puwet. As usual, in order for me to enjoy my DVDs without having to fumble with region locked devices, for instance my laptop and PS3, I have to get the Hong Kong press. But even if I have region free devices, the Hong Kong press is the way to go considering that it's so much cheaper than the Japanese counterparts. Here's the sticker on the Hong Kong press DVD and it roughly translates to... something to do with 46 songs of Kumi and it also includes the making of the concert.

The back of the casing is not that attractive though. Here we have the track list of the concert - and it doesn't suggest anything about 46 songs though. Maybe I read the Chinese character wrongly but anyway... I like how the fonts are clear and easy to read but her face is... I don't really understand her face. It looks gentle but you can tell that she seem to be struggling to keep her eyes open. Probably from all the wind. Not liking the photo.

In case y'all want a clearer view of the track list. Weeee~~ She started the concert with the very first song that got me listening to her songs - Butterfly! Before I listened to Koda Kumi, I used to think that she's slutty because of the image she portrays but after listening to Butterfly, I kinda fell in love with her raw voice. Then, I went on to get her KINGDOM album and fell in love with the way she does ballads! Really amazing singer she is!

Let's look at the insides now. This concert comes in 2 DVDs with the first disc being the main concert while the second being the encore plus the extra bonus stuff. It also comes with a booklet of photos. Yes - there are no lyrics this time round. Saving on paper perhaps?

A close up of the simplistic design of the disc.

Here's the booklet included inside this set. Reminds me of KINGDOM somehow - the brown tone and the very royal feel.

Well personally, I think there's nothing much to be fascinated about with this booklet because it basically just contain screen grabs of the concert to show off the really gorgeous looks of Kumi and her wardrobe but other than that, there's nothing more to it. It's not like there are that many photos inside as well - only a couple of pages.

Another one of the many looks in this 10th anniversary concert. Looking through the booklet, I realized that her hair changed again and again. I wonder how many wigs she has and which look is actually her real hair. Nowadays, fake hair look so real it's so hard to tell apart and it's really confusing to me. But so long as the artistes sing wonderfully, I don't really care if they have hair or not. :)

Well, that's all I have for FANTASIA. Can't wait to actually have time to watch it because judging from the photos and track list, the concert sure looks promising. Anyway, stay tuned tomorrow for yet another Koda Kumi release - her latest album "JAPONESQUE" gets reviewed right here on wordshutter!! :) 

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A CLIP BOX 1998 - 2011 ayumi hamasaki (Regular edition)

After over a month of hiatus from blogging about CDs / DVDs, I'm finally back with my new arrival which arrived last week (not that new anymore, is it?) - A CLIP BOX 1998 - 2011 ayumi hamasaki, which was originally released in Japan on January 1, 2012. What a way to start a new year in Japan, no?

Unfortunately though, due to my shallow pocket and constantly depleting fund, I could only afford the Hong Kong press of this DVD box set containing EVERY SINGLE PV that ayumi hamasaki had ever shot since her debut from 1998. That's means this box set contains 12 years worth of her work! And on top of that, it also includes her commercials for her albums, singles as well as other random items.

Sigh~ The deluxe version is so much better, you know? Here's how the deluxe version looks like...

Source: ayumi hamasaki Official Japanese Website

First of all, it comes with this black furry bag with this really adorable pom-pom key chain which, as a guy, I would obviously not use. The consoling thing for not ordering the deluxe version is probably so that I can save my money away. I mean, why would I need a furry bag as a guy?

Other than that, instead of 3 DVD cases that the Hong Kong press came with, it comes with 6 DVD boxes that when you piece them together, you get ayu's "A". Cool, no?

Sigh~ Maybe I should start begging for sponsorship to run this blog. :P Idea!!


Anyway, back to the regular edition one... SIGH!!

At least I took all the pictures on this blog myself as far as possible, yes? Like I've previously mentioned, this box basically contains everything that ayu had every released before in her albums. So if you had been purchasing her CD-only albums, this box set is a must have to have a complete collection of all her promotional videos since "poker face" all to way to her latest mini-album "FIVE". Love the hot pink curtain but I don't really love the font. The "P" in "Clip" is a little hard to read.

The Chinese promotional sticker on the plastic cover of the box set. It basically translate to whatever I've said earlier.

The Hong Kong press normally comes with an obi over the actual boxes of albums that I've bought. But that obi is written in Chinese so that people in Hong Kong (or where ever else) who can't read English or Japanese can understand what the heck the box is trying to tell them. Here, I've removed the obi and threw it away because it's pure ugly anyway to reveal the English text behind - which is basically the LOOOOONNNNGGG track list of this box set.

The spine of the box set and a clearly "P" in "Clip". I believe the Japanese limited edition version is slightly thicker as it houses each individual DVD in their own casings as opposed to how the Hong Kong press is all compacted into 3 casings. Oh well~ That's for not being them rich people...

The DVDs housed instead the rather sturdy cardboard box. Did I mention that along with the DVDs, a pretty thick lyric booklet is included inside as well? The lyric booklet features the lyrics of all the songs that are presented in this gorgeously pink box set as well as 3 spreads of the screen grabs of all her promotional videos which I will show off later on.

The DVDs placed side by side. I don't understand why the Hong Kong version doesn't want to adopt the 6 DVD casing like what the Japanese press did because honestly, I don't think it's that expensive to include a few more plastic boxes right? Having just these three rather warm colors make the whole palette of the box set slightly unbalanced, in my opinion, and therefore, I'm honestly not really loving the design of what's inside the gorgeous cardboard sleeve.

On top of that, that font is really hurting my eye, especially the P!! It's so difficult to read~! Other than that, I think they could have did a better job with the design as opposed to just printing the names after names of the videos featured in this box set all over the box and just conveniently making different colors for different casings. Sorry, I'm just being damn critical here. :S How about using the screen grabs instead? Good idea right? At least there's more to feast your eyes on.

Nothing really special about the DVD. 2 DVDs in a single casing with a pretty basic design. Considering that there are 6 DVDs in total, I don't think it would be fair to fault them for making the design so simple so I'll pass.

And here's the lyric booklet - probably the thickest one I've ever seen in my life. It contains over 100 lyrics of each of the songs featured in this box set. The cover is the same as what you see on the cardboard sleeve. Nothing much to complain about. Must add that the print quality of the booklet is top notch though~ Good job!!

First page of the booklet displays the long track list of the entire box set as well as the commercials. They did not name each and every commercial out for the simple reason that it would spill over to the next page if they did as you know, ayu probably did as many commercials as she did music videos. But having the commercials also featured in this box set is a fantastic selling point of this album as the only other place you can probably catch the commercials is on Youtube.

The lyrics in the booklet are laid out cleanly and differentiate via color codes to tell the reader which song belongs to which DVD. Nothing really special. Love that blue though~ Would really love to have one of the DVD casings in this blue as opposed to just pink, yellow and orange.

The only pictures that you can find in the extremely "Wall-Of-Text" lyric booklet are these screen grabs of ayumi in her music videos. Honestly, if it wasn't for these spreads, I would have forgotten how some of the music videos looked like because I've probably only watched some of them once or twice only. One thing to note though - the DVD is not listed in chronologically order for some weird reason but I think we can all live with that, no?

Another spread - this time with yellow lines. Pardon my hands in these photos because it's really hard to get the booklet spread out without causing too much damage to the spine. It's also a challenge to put it flat on the surface for me to photograph.

Blue lines - very Tron, no?

And finally on the last page, ayu thanks her staff and fans in English for supporting her. I wonder if she did this in the Japanese version or not but who cares~ At least she's thankful for the support that everyone had given her.

I think overall, the box set is definitely worth the money because it collects every single videos ever made by ayumi into a single product that everyone can enjoy and on top of that, what really attracted me to get this set are all the commercials that she did. We all know that ayu had did many witty and funny ones and I can't wait to have the time to watch them all. Design wise though, I think the box set could have done more to make itself look so much better but oh well~ Maybe it's just the Hong Kong press one...



And to close this entry, I would like to thank y'all readers who managed to stumble onto this blog to read and share the unboxing of the many albums together and for reading my rants on what I dislike and for agreeing with what I like in terms of the packaging of these albums. I hope you enjoy the photos as well as the words and as much as possible, I will bring you more of such reviews to keep this blog alive!!

Thanks y'all!! :D

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