Zero News

We've got a big two days ahead of us in Buck-Tickistan, and brevity is the soul of wit, so we'll be brief: numerologically speaking, Buck-Tick have completed the cycle they finished with No. 9 and reset the clock to 0. On March 14th, known in Japan as White Day, the band will release their 21st full-length studio album, entitled No. 0. 

And if you think White Day is about white supremacy - go unfriend yourself from Facebook, you nitwit. White Day is a fake holiday invented by candy companies as a companion to Valentine's Day, because Japanese Valentine's Day revolves around the sexist custom of women giving chocolates to men to beg desperately (and probably in vain) for their approval while failing to appreciate the fact that most Japanese men prefer a gift of booze over chocolate any day of the week (also girls, if he doesn't give YOU chocolate, he's not worth crying over). Then on White Day, the men return the "favor" - by obligatorily giving chocolates to every girl who gave them chocolates on Valentine's Day, which means that nobody's feelings get hurt, and also, it means that these chocolates have no meaning, emotionally speaking, particularly given that they're supposed to be white chocolates, because apparently, in addition to being unable to smoke cigarettes or drink whiskey, beer, or coffee, women in Japan are expected to prefer white chocolate over milk or dark, because doncha know, every woman in Japan is a strawberry Lolita, or so I'm told.

(If you don't know what a strawberry Lolita is, click here to find out.)

Anyway, sorry, that wasn't a bit brief. Guess we're not witty anymore. But it's time someone told the truth about White Day already. Obligatory chocolate sucked enough already without it being white like the abominable snowman.

But! On to the news. As we announced in our last post, prior to the release of No. 0, Buck-Tick will be releasing a second single, entitled Moon Sayonara wo Oshiete, and the are now some more details about that. In addition to an adorable band photo which can be viewed on the splash page of the band's website, the band have announced that the B-side to this single will be a song called "Salome," with lyrics by Mr. Sakurai and music by (drumroll) Hoshino "Sexy Beast" Hidehiko, who hasn't been allowed to write a track for a Buck-Tick single since he made more money in royalties from "Dress" and "Jupiter" than Imai ever made in his whole life since "Love Parade" in 2013. Not only that, but the last single track Hide wrote that actually made it onto an album was "Yougetsu," the B-side of Kuchizuke, which was released in 2010. Not only that, but the last time Hide wrote the A-side for a Buck-Tick single was "Gensou no Hana," released in 2003, and kids, 2003 was a whole 14 years ago. So on that note, we were already betting that "Salome" was going to never appear on an album, possibly never be played live, and almost certainly be instantly forgotten by just about everyone (with the exception of yours truly) until some anniversary rolls around and they re-record it as the theme song for the BDSM action thriller Goth Bondage Jesus 2: Mistress May I Have Another (y'all remember "My Baby Japanese," it was the theme song to Goth Bondage Jesus: Crucify My Love, that terrible yet amazing film with starred Mr. Sakurai opposite a cross-dressing Yoshiki.

(God guys, how could you forget this movie so soon? It was way better than Longinus!)

However, it's all academic at this point to take bets on whether "Salome" will get the head of John the Baptist all up in its bits or if it will be, as we predicted, relegated to the B-side bin of history, because the track list for No. 0 has already been announced in the latest issue of FT, and "Salome" isn't on there.

Join me in playing a sad trombone for Mr. Hoshino... but play it with a bit of bounce, because, friends, this is a blessing in disguise. Hide has three of the songs on the new album, and if one of them were "Salome," that would mean a total of three Hide songs for the next two years, but none of them are "Salome," which means that we get FOUR Hide songs, which is at least one more Hide song than we got last time, so put on your striped t-shirts, pour ten packs of sugar in your coffee, point and wink at the girl nearest you, and dance like that shy-yet-sexy rhythm guitarist second fiddle in the streets/fiddler extraordinaire in the sheets you know you are... especially because every Hide song on this go-around has a sexylicious title and all save one are named for women, which more deeply pounds in the point (absolutely no sexual double entendre intended!!!) that when Messrs. Sakurai and Hoshino get together to write lyrics, there's clearly something sassy going on that isn't going on when Imai's involved, because more often than not they end up writing about sex on the beach, white froth and incoherent moaning, stripper pussy, mystical mandala LSD pussy, death goddess pussy... well, you get the picture (bonus points for whoever can match each description above to the Hide song it describes. Leave your answers in the comments.)

But without further ado, here's the track list for No. 0.

01. Reishiki 13-Gata "Ai" (Type-Zero Model 13 "Love") - Sakurai/Imai
02. Bishuu Love (Love the Beautiful and the Ugly) - Sakurai/Imai
03. Babel - Sakurai/Imai
04. Nostalgia-Wita Mechanichalis - Imai/Imai
05. Ophelia - Sakurai/Hoshino
06. Femme fatale - Sakurai/Hoshion
07. Barairo Juujidan -Rosen Kreuzer- - Sakurai/Hoshino
08. Gustave - Sakurai/Imai
09. Moon Sayonara wo Oshiete (Tell Me Goodbye) - Sakurai/Imai
10. Hikari no Teikoku (Empire of Light) - Imai/Imai
11. Igniter - Imai/Imai
12. Guernica no Yoru (The Night of Guernica) - Sakurai/Imai
13. Tainai Kaiki (Return to the Womb) - Sakurai/Imai

Sakurai has already declared that it's one of the best albums they've ever made, and there's clearly a lot in here, but we don't want to speculate too much without having had a chance to look at the lyrics. Still, there are a few things we can comment on. 

The title of the first track is written in such a way as to imply that "Love" is a make and model of weapon, such as a gun, missile, or bomber. 

Ophelia is the lead female character in Shakespeare's "Hamlet." Ophelia is basically Hamlet's girlfriend, but Hamlet plays hot and cold with her and in general treats her pretty badly. He has his reasons, but it's not enough for her. She has a mental breakdown which culminates in one of the most beautiful suicides in the history of literature, immortalized in a famous painting by John Everett Millais, beloved of both goths and emo teens alike.

A femme fatale is a beautiful woman who lures men into trouble, often to their deaths. Salome was one of the original femme fatales, but we'll go into that more once the Moon single is released.

Rosen Kreuzer is the German version of Rosicrucian, which was an esoteric society that gained popularity in the 1600s in Europe. Whether or not the secret order actually existed, the idea of such an order had a tremendous impact at the time. The theosophists who searched for Shambhala-Argarttha around the turn of the 20th century were a later wave of similar hermetic occultists. We're sure we'll have loads more to write about this when the album comes out.

Gustave is probably a reference to the engraver Gustave Dore, whose engraving of Babel we shared in our article a little while back. When we hear the song we'll be sure, but he wouldn't be the first artist for Sakurai to write a tribute song to or name in a song - the award for the former goes to Van Gogh in "Asylum Garden," and the award for the latter goes to Chagall in "Lullaby III."

Edit: In the latest issue of FT, Sakurai stated that "Gustave" was Imai's working title for the song, which he took from the name of artist Higuchi Yuuko's brand Gustave, which includes a lot of whimsical illustrations of cats. Y'all may remember that Higuchi Yuuko's illustration book Babel is one of works which inspired Buck-Tick's song Babel. Anyway, according to Sakurai, Imai showed Sakurai some of the Gustave cat illustrations, and Sakurai felt inspired to write a song about a cat named Gustave, and therefore he kept Imai's working title as the final title of the song. But as for where Higcuhi Yuuko took the name Gustave from... the answer is, she took it from a crocodile! This crocodile, to be exact. Read about it here. (Special thanks to Blog-Ticker Mawb for helping us with researching this while we were off partying at the DIQ).

Guernica is a famous painting by Picasso depicting the bombing of the Basque town of Gernika by the Nazi Luftwaffe at the start of World War II. All hail rock albums about art history.

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In any case, if all this news has you feeling weak in the knees, or if you're a crotchety old granny who likes to enjoy your rock-n-roll through opera glasses while sitting on your plum duff in a red plush seat at the back of a Respectable Adult Theater far away from the speakers, rather than dancing your feet off while plastered to a speaker in a clump of sweaty fangirls at some Disrespectable Non-Adult Live House, then boy do I have some good news for you: Buck-Tick are going to be putting on another seated tour this spring to support their album, and it's going to last approximately four years and take them to approximately every city in Japan with a population greater than ten. Don't believe me? Here's the tour schedule:

3-31 (Sat.) Kanagawa - Yokosuka Arts Theater
4-1 (Sun.) Tokyo - Olympus Hall Hachioji
4-7 (Sat.) Hyogo - Kobe International Hall
4-8 (Sun.) Nara - Nara Centennial Hall
4-14 (Sat.) Tochigi - Utsunomiya General Cutural Center
4-15 (Sun.) Gunma - Gunma Music Center
4-21 (Sat.) Ishikawa -  Kanazawa Honda no Mori Hall
4-22 (Sun.) Nagano - Nagano City Arts Center
5-12 (Sat.) Kagawa - Sunport Hall Takamatsu
5-13 (Sun.) Kochi - Kochi City Culture Plaza Carport wtf?
5-19 (Sat.) Okayama - Kurashiki Citizens' Hall
5-20 (Sun.) Kyoto - Rohm Theater
5-26 (Sat.) Hokkaido - Sapporo WakuWaku Holiday Hall
6-1 (Fri.) Fukushima - Kooriyama Citizens' Culture Center
6-3 (Sun.) Chiba - Ichikawa City Culture Hall
6-9 (Sat.) Osaka - Orix Theater
6-10 (Sun) Osaka - Orix Theater
6-14 (Thu.) Niigata - Niigata Citizens' Arts and Culture Center
6-23 (Sat.) Hiroshima - Hiroshima JMS Astair Plaza
6-24 (Sun.) Fukuoka - Fukuoka Citizens' Hall
6-30 (Sat.) Miyagi - Sendai Izumity 21
7-1 (Sun.) Aomori - Aomori Citizen's Hall
7-6 (Fri.) Saitama - Kawaguchi Lilia
7-7 (Sat.) Kanagawa - Kanagawa Citizens' Hall Yokohama 
7-14 (Sat.) Shizuoka - Shizuoka Citizens' Culture Hall
7-15 (Sun.) Aichi - Nagoya Blah Blah Forest Hall
7-18 (Wed.) Tokyo - NHK "Shittiest Sound in Tokyo" Hall
7-19 (Thu.) Tokyo - NHK "Shittiest Sound in Tokyo" Hall

Tickets are now 8000 yen each plus as 720 fee, because they just keep jacking up the price of sitting in a red plush seat so far from the band members that you can't see them without opera glasses, breathing in the farts of the fat lady who's standing next to you refusing to dance, while intermittently screaming "ACCCCHIIIII" in your ear in a baby voice whenever things get too quiet. The Fish Tank presale (i.e. the only time you have a minimal fighting chance of getting a seat close enough to the stage to see the band with the naked eye) is on between January 13th and January 23rd, to ensure that people will buy the maximum number of tickets despite not knowing what the fuck they'll be doing in JULY because it's half a year away for fuck's sake, and therefore some of those people will definitely end up not being able to go see B-T, which means that they'll resell their tickets on Ticket Camp or similar, and Buck-Tick's management will get angry about resales and maybe ban some people from Fish Tank, only god dammit, they brought this on themselves.

If any of y'all want our help with tickets, we are ready and willing to help, but ask us as soon as possible. General sales open on March 10th, but before that there will be lots of Ticket Pia presale lotteries and other similar presale options, so don't miss them.

Also, if you enjoyed watching the Fish Tanker's Only 2017 DVD, please write to Buck-Tick's management and tearfully request moar fun standing shows like that, because the opera glasses industrial complex already has enough of our money, and listening to a live show in NHK Hall is kind of like listening to a live show through the water in an indoor swimming pool.

And... that's it for now. Tomorrow is the Day in Question. The day after tomorrow is also the Day in Question. Cross your fingers with us and hope that they've swapped out "Dokudanjou Beauty" and "Muma the Nightmare" for some old songs they haven't played in a while. We known it won't work, but if there's one thing Buck-Tick taught us, it's never to give up on our dreams.

Tickets, Goods, and Spotify

Hey, folks. How's the winter treating you? Were sorry we haven't been more post-happy lately. It's been a weird month, but we hope to get some live reports done in the near future.

However, first things first: the new news from Buck-Tickistan!

First, we would like to announce that due to some Blog-Tickers overestimating their ability to fill seats at B-T shows, we have several tickets available for sale for Buck-Tick's shows at Takasaki Arena on December 23rd and the Nippon Budoukan on December 28th and 29th. If any of y'all are interested in any of these tickets, please contact us right away. We will be selling each of them for the original price plus fees. Two of the sets of Budoukan tickets are contiguous pairs, so if you want to go as a pair and sit together, you can do that! Just let us know right away.

Second, as some of you may have noticed, there are new DIQ 2017 tour goods available in addition to the ones we've already profiled earlier this year. These goods happen to include the ugliest t-shirt ever made, which comes with an attached fake plaid shirt tied around the waist. Kids, let us remind you: plaid shirts are only cool if you are a lumberjack or an out lesbian. Otherwise, they are cultural appropriation, hipster cosplay, or you haven't come out of the closet yet but we encourage you to come out because enough of this heteronormative world already. But there's a caveat to that - plaid shirts are never, we repeat, never cool if you tie them around your waist. This shirts-tied-around-waist thing is really a trend in Japan this year, which we find very surprising as it basically indicates that this year in Japan, looking as uncool as possible has become cool. #makeitstop. In any case, if any of y'all want to place any further tour goods orders with us, just shoot us an email. For only 6000 yen each, one of these fabulous tees could be yours. Don't worry - if you pay us, we won't judge you.

Good God, there are two of them!?

Third, and much more importantly, Buck-Tick have announced that on February 21st, they will be releasing a second single in advance of their forthcoming new album. Entitled Moon Sayonara wo Oshiete, this single will contain the original version of "Moon Sayonara wo Oshiete," which appeared in remix form as the b-side to Babel, plus an additional song. It will be available in three versions - two limited editions, plus a regular edition. Limited Edition A will contain a bonus BluRay disc, while Limited Edition B will contain a bonus DVD. Both visual discs will contain the music video for "Moon Sayonara wo Oshiete." The pricing is listed below. If you'd like to reserve this single through Cayce, just shoot us an email. We will make sure you get your Tower Records bonus goodies.

Moon Sayonara wo Oshiete Limited Edition A - 2570 (incl. tax)

Moon Sayonara wo Oshiete Limited Edition B - 2030 (incl. tax)

Moon Sayonara wo Oshiete Regular Edition - 1080 (incl. tax)

Also, we invite all of you to take guesses as to what English lyrics Mr. Sakurai is singing in the chorus to this song. Is it "Under the moonlight/You bring me down every time"? Is it "Plunder the moonlight/You go to town every night"? Is it something else? You decide! Let the mondegreens abound!

Fourth, Buck-Tick's most recent single "Babel" will be featured as the ending theme of the series Unforgettable, which will air weekly on Tuesday nights at 1:34 AM on Nihon Terebi Kanto Local starting on December 19th. However, the first broadcast only will air at 2:34 AM instead of 1:34. Note that when they say Tuesday night, they mean the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, not the night between Monday and Tuesday.

In addition, "Babel" and some other selected popular B-T songs will soon be available on the music streaming service Spotify, in addition to Apple Music, LINE Music, and Google Play. It's unclear whether these songs will also be available on the international versions of these streaming services, so overseas fans, please let us know - because if these songs do indeed become available overseas, it means that the B-T management actually took our advice! Fingers crossed.

Fifth, the usually-truant Fish Tank newsletter is scheduled to be sent out spot on time on December 25th, the day otherwise known as Christmas. Why are they bothering to get it out on time this month, after failing to do so for the past year? We really hope it's because they're doing a standing tour and they need to announce the ticket sales in a timely fashion. We really hope it's because they're doing a standing tour and they need to announce the ticket sales in a timely fashion. We really hope it's because they're doing a standing tour and they need to announce the ticket sales in a timely fashion. We really hope it's because they're doing a standing tour and they need to announce the ticket sales in a timely fashion. We really hope it's because they're doing a standing tour and they need to announce the ticket sales in a timely fashion. We really hope it's because they're doing a standing tour and they need to announce the ticket sales in a timely fashion... (say it with us ad infinitum...)

Anyway, that's all our news for now. Pray with us that we can lose this cold so we can write live reports.

Babble of Babel

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Ticket to Utsunomiya

Babel is released tomorrow, but for now, we're just here for a quick announcement - a friend of ours has become unable to attend Buck-Tick's The Day in Question 2017 show in Utsunomiya this Saturday (that's November 18th, folks), and is offering her ticket to any Blog-Ticker who wants to go to the show in her place. It's a balcony seat, but the venue's not that big, and Utsunomiya is also famous for its gyoza, so whoever goes should be sure to catch a delicious dinner before or after the show! For those of you who don't know, Utsunomiya is a 50 minute bullet train ride from Tokyo (tickets are about 4500 yen one way), or if you go by local train on the Utsunomiya Line, it's about one hour and 40 minutes from Shinjuku (local train tickets are about 2000 yen one way). Anyway, for those of you currently in Tokyo or surrounding areas, this is your chance to enjoy Just One More B-T. The price of the ticket is the original list price, plus fees and shipping. Whoever asks for it first gets it. It you're interested, email us for details.

Gravity's Cavity

Gravity is a word with a lot of, well... gravity. Just consider all the associations this single word instantly calls to mind!

Most of you who have ever tried Douglas Adams' recipe for flying ("the ability to hurl oneself at the ground and miss") have come into contact with the original gravity that all the hipsters loved before it was cool. On earth, this fundamental force causes everything, everywhere to accelerate at -9.8m/s^2 toward the center of the planet... and yet despite it being the thing that made that apple fall on Newton's head and Mr. Sakurai fall on his ass on the first day of the Memento Mori tour, physicists still can't quite explain why gravity exists. It doesn't fit into the Standard Model of physics. Maybe, if we were able to prove the existence of little massless hoodoo particles known as "gravitons" that scientists hope and believe are out there causing all the gravity around us right now, we'd end up with a simple-ish mathematical explanation for why the world is round and why our feet stick to it. But as yet, gravitons are nothing but an unproven hypothesis, and the weak yet inexorable pull of gravity remains one of the greatest mysteries in science. Despite the number of other things which have stolen gravity's name over the years, Original Gravity(tm) is probably still the coolest thing to ever bear gravity branding.

But still... there's so much more gravity than just gravity. After all, how about that wildly confusing, award-winning and suspiciously psychedelic-sounding novel about sexual rockets?

Or how about that time that Sandra Bullock went cartwheeling off into space not attached to anything in what may be the most terrifying (yet awesome) space movie of all time?

Or how about the ending theme to Wolf's Rain, an anime which we're pretty sure was written by a Buck-Tick fan based on the lyrics to "Rakuen" and "Kimi e"? (If you haven't watched this one yet, by all means watch it! But make sure you have a box of tissues ready to sob into, and make sure you continue to the very, very end... it's all in the twist!)

Oh yeah, and now that you mention anime, what about the most atrocious j-rock yaoi ever made (if you think that with the words "j-rock" and "yaoi" in the same sentence, it can't be bad, you obviously haven't watched it! So what are you waiting for, we've linked the first episode below.)

Then again, those of you who are theater nerds probably prefer this type of gravity instead (and bless these girls).

But still. Though we'd love to be able to try ignoring gravity, as some of you may have already heard, Gravity is Big in Buck-Tickistan right now, and it won't let itself be ignored!!!

Yes, folks. We're talking about the newly-launched luxury brand Gravity Jewelry, designed by Buck-Tick's former web designer, Kouzu Nakaba. After a long, illustrious career on various design projects, Mr. Nakaba has now reached the stage of life when he's free (read: wealthy enough) to pursue lavish, glossy vanity projects that may or may not make money, but will definitely lock down his spot in the Pretentious Hall of Fame forevermore. Mr. Nakaba's Gravity line transcends thousands of years in a vague-yet-epic science fiction universe somewhere between The Never-Ending Story, Interstellar, King Lear, and Stephen Universe (the giant lesbian gemstone was two lesbian gemstones in a trenchcoat all along!!!) Somewhere along the line in this loopy, hole-riddled chronology appears a Great King who has three daughters, and he gives each of them a planet full of preposterously expensive made-to-order jewelry. No word as yet on whether the king goes insane, or whether anyone's eyeballs get put out with the line "out, vile jelly!" (one of our most favorite ever Shakespeare quotes)... but we can always hope. Thankfully, the entire story is already written in English, sparing us the time and effort of translating it, so if you're curious, go read it here.

But what does all this have to do with Buck-Tickistan, you ask?

Don't play dumb, kids. You already know. This has to do with Buck-Tickistan, because Kouzu Nakaba, like every other straight male who's ever laid eyes on Mr. Sakurai, fell instantly in purely platonic and definitely not gay love with Mr. Sakurai the moment he met him, and therefore when Mr. Nakaba was coming up with a story about a King, his thoughts leapt instantly to Mr. Sakurai, King of his heart, whereupon he felt pulled as if by gravity, knowing for sure (even though it was three in the morning at the time) that he NEEDED Mr. Sakurai to be the Lord King of the Rings for him, and he therefore had to call Mr. Sakurai right that minute and beg him, "Please, please, please, let me use your vital, vigorous, veiny, virile hands for my ads to advertise my fuck fantasies fancy as fuck jewelry in a purely platonic and definitely not gay way. Pleeeeeeaze." Lucky for Mr. Nakaba, Mr. Sakurai was wide awake at the time, drinking shochu and lint-rolling cat hairs off his fifteen identical Alexander McQueen t-shirts. "Sure," said Mr. Sakurai, then added, "These rings - do they make good cat toys?"

That message on the Gravity Jewelry website, about the 100th anniversary of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and astronaut Naoko Yamazaki's thoughts on gravity, the force, and Gravity (2013 film starring Sandra Bullock), that's all just a convenient cover-up for the real meaning of this brand name: the ineffable power by which Mr. Sakurai sucks up straight men (and lesbians!) like a vacuum cleaner into a definitely not sexual whole new world (get it?) that they never knew existed.

Anyway, for those of you too lazy to visit the Gravity website, the rings look like this.

"Planet Clarines"

Cool...? To us, this doesn't pack anywhere near as much visual punch as much of Big Black Maria's work, but perhaps our tastes are simply too low-brow and our eyes are still closed to the true beauty of modern art. But how about...

"Planet Sirocos"

Hmm... matte texture, presumably to evoke frost and ice. Cool idea, but in person, matte jewelry tends to make you look like you're about to attend Rich Person Con 2017, and frankly, we'd rather not. The Pretentious Hall of Fame welcomes you, Mr. Nakaba. But wait, there's still...

"Planet Illumina"

Now we're cooking with gas! White gold coated in black rhodium, for that gothical finish, plus a gravity's rainbow of colored stones. It's all most there. All it needs is a few more curls, and maybe a rose in the center... oh wait.

Friends, if you weren't already aware, the above is the ring that was designed by Mr. Sakurai himself for the Tenshi no Revolver tour and produced by Big Black Maria. This ring may be made of plain ol' plebeian sterling silver and garnet, rather than white gold and rubies, but we'll choose this one over the kings and queens any day of the week, because in our opinions, it's better looking than the ones above... and it was certainly less expensive!

For those of you who were wondering, Gravity jewelry is all made to order out of real gold and diamonds. The Queen ring costs 298,000 yen, while the King ring costs 682,000 yen. Affordable, right? But if you're a female fan with small hands (or, in fact, a male fan with small hands) but you think the King ring is definitely cooler than the Queen ring (the King ring is definitely cooler!) and would prefer the King ring (we would prefer the King ring!) then Mr. Nakaba has the following very special message for you: "Fuck you, small-fingered person! You do not deserve my King ring. Small-handed people have no reason to live! My King ring starts at a whopping size 16 and only gets bigger from there! Maybe it will fit around your itty-bitty little big toe! Now get out of my web-store, poor person very lacking in gold coins!!! *blows raspberry*"*

*This is a 100% real, true, fact-checked quote straight from Mr. Nakaba's lips. (And everything you read on the internet is true.)

But!!! If you, unlike us, are absolutely in love with these rings and determined to have them, or you're simply so obsessed with Acchan-chan that you'll buy anything he endorses, no matter what it is, don't despair! Replicas of these rings are currently available for order through the Buck-Tick Web Shop and if you want our help ordering them, we'll be happy to help you, just shoot us an email. The replica rings are made of sterling silver and black Swarovskis. Queen sells for 37800 yen, while King sells for 59400 yen, which is less than our rent, so looking good there, because one of those Big Black Maria rings back in the day was definitely more than our rent and that was definitely too much. However, if you were hoping that these King rings would be made in smaller sizes... dream on, kiddo! They only go down to size 15. All you small-handed people out there, you might as well just cut your hands off right now, to save yourselves the shame. Never have fat fangirls with fat fingers felt so smug and superior! 

If you want the replica rings, don't delay - they're only available till November 24th! It says on the web site that they'll be delivered by December 23rd, just in time for Christmas, so you'd better get on the phone to your rich husband's credit card right now.

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But what about Mr. Sakurai, eh? Whatever came of that invitation he received from Mr. Nakaba?

Well, folks, it was only the next day when Mr. Sakurai sobered up that he realized that taking on this job would involve him being uploaded into a computer, Tron-style, digitized as a Final Yaoi Final Fantasy character, then spit back out into the real world. And while he was inside that computer... who can say what happened to him?

Chekkitout, guys, Noctis has a ring, too!!!1 And a beard! Is this a Future Song for Acchan-chan? We can only wait and hope.

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P.S. Yes, we are still accepting orders for tour goods. And yes, they played "Babel" on the tour and it was even more exciting live than in the video (of course). We've had a very busy few weeks but things have eased up a bit now, so we promise we'll bring you more articles soon.