Four musicians start a band in a small town and struggle not to fall apart. For the first teaser, see this link. For the second teaser, see this link.

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Geisha vs Ninjas is the upcoming directorial debut of Go Ohara and, as its title explains pretty thoroughly, involves a geisha named Kotono (Minami Tsukui) who sets out to avenge her father’s murder at the hands of a band of ninja assassins. Personally I’m relieved to see she actually does modify her style a bit before she goes back for the second round of whoop-ass, but either way it seems to be an overtly silly Japanese action flick that isn’t exactly hiding its intentions. A press conference for the film’s completion was held back in July and it’s slated for release in Japan on September 27, 2008. Trailers below.

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Based on a manga by Akira Saso, Koji Hagiuda‘s Shindo is about a 13-year-old piano prodigy named Uta (Riko Narumi), which literally means “song”. Uta hasn’t been into her music since her father left home on a foreign concert tour and never returned. Her mother (Satomi Tezuka) grows increasingly concerned as her genius daughter strays further and further away from utilizing her natural gift. Uta eventually reconnects with piano through her friendship with a 19-year-old wannabe piano student named Wao (Kenichi Matsuyama) who is nowhere is as good as her, but is willing to take her advice. Throughout the film Uta struggles to cope with the fact that her father is actually dead, leading up to a cathartic piano performance.

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Here’s another one for the ever-growing “nobody cares but me” file. One of my favorite young actresses, Shihori Kanjiya (Survive Style 5+, Swing Girls), was recently a guest on the uber consumer-centric Japanese talk show “Meringue no Kimochi”. Among other things she talked about her love of manga and anime, especially Sailor Moon. So as a gift they got Kotono Mitsuishi, the seiyu who plays Usagi Tsukino as well as about a billion other things in the world of anime to record a special message for her on an alarm clock. Later she gets to try out a freaky tentacle-looking ergonomic pillow for no particular reason. Finally, co-host Masami Hisamoto tries out a creepy boyfriend pillow for the sake of a cheap laugh. Clip below:

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Not exactly timely since The Blue Light came out in 2003, but I really like the film and I really like Aya Matsuura so what the hell. During a recent interview with Hot Express, Matsuura talked about everything from her evolution as a pop idol to the legitimacy of her smiles. The conversation briefly touched on her first movie role alongside Arashi’s Kazunari Ninomiya and her interaction (or lack thereof) with veteran director Yukio Ninagawa. I find this bit particularly interesting because I thought she was pretty awful in the movie and almost managed to single-handedly drag down an amazing performance by her co-star. Relevant excerpt below:

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