I’m still a little bit blinded (positively!) by G-Dragon’s debut performance at Inkigayo yesterday. (Oooh, the stage design ♥ And *cringe* at the tomato pants.)

And now that Big Bang are back in Korea and busy with musicals/promoting or recording solo albums/recovering from car accidents, their summer activities in Japan are crowned with a nice new sales record for overseas artists in Japan. I guess all the hard work and slight awkwardness during Japanese TV shows paid off really quickly:

Big Bang’s first Japanese major album “BIGBANG” debuted at #3 in the weekly Oricon album charts dated August 31, 2009. This makes Big Bang the first overseas artists ever to enter the Japanese Top 5 with their first three consecutive releases, i.e. their debut album, their first single (”MY HEAVEN”) and their second single (”GARA GARA GO!!”).

Meanwhile, their best of album “ASIA BEST 2006-2009″ which was released on the same day as their first major album debuted at #20 in the weekly album charts. At the same time, it ranks 4th in the weekly overseas album charts.

Their live DVD “2009 Big Bang Live Concert ‘Big Show’” is at #1 in the Oricon music DVD charts and at #5 in the rental DVD charts.

In a thank you message to the fans posted on Aug 27 at the official Japanese blog their Japanese staff described Big Bang as a band who is – just two months after their major debut – continuing to make the transition from artists representing Korea to a band representing Japan and even all of Asia. They thanked the fans for all of their support which made it possible to achieve such a great success in Japan. Together with Big Bang themselves they want to work just as hard so the band can continue to be just as successful with their future Japanese activities and releases.

Well look, another summer’s almost over and I’ve still not fully recovered from my bad case of blogging fatigue caused by writing too much in other places. But today I come here with something slightly more substantial than nothing, something which doesn’t even require that many words.
Of course I can’t stray too far from the area that has pretty much taken over my real life – literature. Hence this post shall be a TV pop culture meets literature sort of collection:

1. American Writers on Gossip Girl: A Deadly Adventure?

Last September, Gossip Girl came back with its second season in which Dan Humphrey landed himself an internship with a famous writer played by none other than Jay McInerney. How fitting for all parties involved!

But then a few months later, I started to have doubts about what exactly fate might have in store for writers who appear on that show, even just indirectly. Because in “You’ve Got Yale!”, episode 16 of season 2, our budding writer Dan Humphrey could be spooted reading an old paperback of John Updike’s Rabbit Redux in a trendy coffee house.

Now, in any other case I would have said ‘Congratulations, great product placement!’ or rolled my eyes and thought ‘OK, Humphrey’s the quiet, intellectual guy of the show, I get it (only he’s not)!’. But this whole thing seemed completely bizarre because this very episode was aired on January 19, 2009 and only a little more than a week later, on January 27, John Updike died…! When I heard the news of Updike’s death, that image of Humphrey holding Updike’s novel in his hands flashed up in my mind and I couldn’t help but wonder if it’s really safe for a writer to be featured on Gossip Girl… (Insert thoughtful silence here.)

2. Murakami, Murakami everywhere

Look who was scheduled for an operation at Seattle Grace in episode 18 of season 5 of Grey’s Anatomy (airing date March 19, 2009):

Richard Powers? And Murakami Haruki? Seems like the set designers were getting a little too carried away with their love for certain writers… Or maybe there is no such thing? Anyway, I sincerely hope the operation was a success and they sewed up Haruki properly again!

Speaking of my favourite portrayer of the Sheep Man:
I saw the anime movie Kumo no mukou, yakusoku no basho (The Place Promised in our Early Days) the other day and while I was watching it I couldn’t help but notice certain similarities to Murakami Haruki’s works – the atmosphere, the parallel reality issue, the tower, the way the protagonist expressed himself in the monologues etc. Afterwards I saw the interview with the director Shinkai Makoto that was included on the DVD, which was shot in a place that looked like his work office. There were two screens in the background which showed important scenes and background designs for the film and then yes, I noticed in stack of two books drawn for the film one book I actually own:

The blue book at the bottom is the Japanese hardcover edition of the first volume of Murakami Haruki’s Umibe no Kafuka/Kafka on the Shore complete with its obi and everything. I’m not sure if the image of the two books was used directly in the movie itself at some point because I’ve watched it only once so far and saw the interview afterwards, but expressing your love for literature and your favourite authors in every possible way, across all media, is simply admirable and obviously a pleasure for everyone involved ;)