Before we begin, a special thought needs to go out to Kaori Iida and her husband. The news was made public today that the MoMusu O.G.’s son died of chronic renal failure back in late July. Iida laid her son’s ashes to rest at a memorial service in September, and statements were released by both Johnson and H!P today. The news broke at Hello! Online’s board at their Iida thread here; I’m writing this late Friday night (11.28.08), but there’s no doubt that H!O’s news page will have translations of everything related to this sad news before 11.29.08 comes to a close.

Hello! Online have apparently been busy little beavers, because they’ve unveiled a new feature of their own: A translation of Reina’s latest Five Stars episode! In part of the episode/transcript, Reina talks about taking a bubble bath… and I’d write something about how certain sectors of Reina’s fans might want to get their minds out of the butter at the image of Her Royal Hotness wearing nothing but soapsuds and a smile, but according to Reina’s comments, JunJun may have to do the same thing as the rest of the Tanakawotas out there.

The episode itself isn’t without its musical moments, of course – Reina plays another cut from COVER YOU (check the mothership for a review, of course), but also gives some airtime to the new C-ute single and commemorates her birthday (funny how she’s mentioning it two weeks afterward – I presume that Reina is cutting her talking segments to some of these episodes in advance) by playing her own “Kira Kira Fuyu no Shiny G” and a song by, appropriately, the band 19. As always, H!O’s tracker is your hookup (registration required).

Reina in Hawaii? No, I don’t mean her Alo! Hello photobook and DVD. According to her short-but-sweet answer to this week’s Pocket Weekly question, Her Royal Hotness wants to live there someday. Judging from some of the pics in the photobook, she definitely seemed to enjoy being in the 50th State (and around the time of her 17th birthday, too.).

At Wotaku Now!, Shirow reports that amongst the strange search terms that end up leading websurfers to his blog (including a couple that are horrible toward’s Reina’s fellow Aa! Airi Suzuki) is “Reina Tanaka has skinny legs”. I’m reminded of the days when I was running now-former ECW valet Francine Fournier’s official homepage and discovered that a lot of marks were landing there hoping to find nude and XXX pics of her. Hmmm, I should check the search log for SHSSF and TGML…

At his/her H!O blog, Sadako_Sasaki has apparently found some creative inspiration in Her Royal Hotness, using her as the inspiration for a story she’s writing. I can definitely identify with that!

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