Sound Ex - Back-on Official Street Team - Website relaunched!

We’ve been meaning to write up the news of the Sound EX website relaunch for weeks now, and so in the gap between (attempted) exam revision, we would like to congratulate Sound EX for their amazing redesign!

The redesign and coding has been the brainchild and work of Sesshy, and is inspired by the cover of Back-on’s latest single Sands of time. I really like this new design, as it looks very sleek and clean, and is extremely easy to navigate, so kudos to Sesshy for doing such a great job! I am very glad she decided to retain the grungy font from the original site as well :)

In addition to this makeover, a new intro flash to the website has also been released, featuring photos of Back-on from their latest photo shoot and Sands of time playing in the background. Unfortunately (as before) we haven’t been able to include screenshots of the flash animation on their front page, and so it is best enjoyed by visiting the Sound EX website yourself!

If you like the relaunch of Sound EX, why not write a comment on their guestbook and let Nao and Sesshy know? :)

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Listen to ‘Sands of time’ online!

This is but a quick update for fans and everyone wanting to listen to Sands of time online! Although we have actually uploaded the songs to the Radio player of the Music page (scroll down to the bottom of the page) with thanks to EJ for the reminder, anyone who can access Myspace is also in for a treat!

Meji, who provided us with the initial review of the new songs from the single - message for kidz and fifty/50, has setup a Myspace profile where you can listen to all the songs. The url is below:

http://www.myspace.com/backonsandsoftime (UPDATE 20/06/2008: Sadly this account is now off-line. With thanks to EJ for the news. You can still listen via the Radio on the Music page!)

So if you haven’t heard the new songs yet, head over to one or both places and listen in! For more opinions of the new single, you can read the reviews posted by Aoi and Sesshy on the BOO forums. At least one of the reviews, and other random ‘Back-on‘ keywords can all be found on the dedicated Back-on dictionary created by ichi!

Let us know what you think of Back-on’s latest musical experiment! :)

p/s: I received my copy of the new CD in the post a few days ago! :) Do I think it was worth the wait? Definitely!

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Watch the ‘Sands of Time’ PV in full on Youtube!

If you’ve been camping out on the BOO Forums for the past few days, you’ll definitely have heard of the breaking news (from Sesshy as well :D) of the release of a clip of the Sands of Time pv on Back-on’s Myspace!

It featured 0:58 minutes of Back-on goodness (splashing water, an hour-glass and slow-motion have never seemed so magical!) but ended so abruptly that the rabid dedicated fans were left wanting more. Our prayers were clearly heard by someone, and who else but the one-and-only gangangan03!

He has uploaded the full Sands of Time PV on to Youtube (thank you!!) and you can watch all 3:13 minutes of it at the link below! (or below the ‘cut’)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZEk3B-SF5c

If you fancy just looking at the screenshots instead, we’ve taken just over 100 stills from the mp4 version of the file. They are now all hosted on our brand new Flickr account! We’ve included some of the pictures below for your convenience, but it’s best to experience the entire ‘PV’ by viewing them all in one go (at the size ’small’ for optimal quality)

What do you think of the PV? I personally think it’s one of the best the band have done so far, and it’s very arty in some parts! :) I do love everyone’s outfits (although I wish Icchan had a more ‘complete’ look!) and can’t wait to see some official photos!

UPDATE: With thanks to gangangan03, it turns out that the director of this spectacular PV is none other than Hideaki Sunaga, who also directed the PV for Chain, and has worked with artists such as Dragon Ash, Ayumi Hamasaki and Koda Kumi!

Only 10 more days until the big day of the single release! ^^

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New affiliate and some site updates, including the Music page!

We have a brand new affiliate! :) With thanks to Sesshy (who most people will know as the designer of one of our cool new forum banners and provider of up-to-the-minute Back-on news) BOO are proud to be affiliated with UVERworld.org, which is what we believe to be the best fansite dedicated to the band UVERworld!

The band hardly needs any introduction, as they are one of the hottest and most famous bands to have come from Japan in recent years (Back-on aside of course!!! :p) and have composed OPs for a number of mainstream animes such as Bleach, D.Gray-man, Hataraki Man and also Blood+.

The fansite is run by Evelyn, Sie and Shinya and was launched in December 2006. Not only does it feature in-depth information on pretty much everything related to UVERworld, but the site also has an eye-watering array of multimedia content! Last but not least, it is frequently updated with news, and is also home to one of the most vibrant UVERworld fan communities online! ^^ You can find the link to UVERworld.org under Affiliates, so you can see for yourself how great it is! :)

You’re probably hopefully wondering what is happening with BOO itself, and I’m happy to be able to give you a quick list of the recent updates we’ve made to the site! :) These include:

• Discography - Added new details of Back-on’s upcoming single Sands of Time.
• Schedule - I hadn’t installed the new version of the plugin (Gigpress) correctly but this has now been fixed and updated.
• Q&A - Newly updated with some brand new questions from Kia Moini.
• Site Staff - Added ichi’s info (she’s one of our Forum Moderators!)
• Gallery - There are new photos there! We just don’t always highlight them.
• Music - We’re updating this at the moment with brand new downloads! Including an extremely rare mp3 of Back-on’s early work to celebrate our first birthday: Fighting Style from one of their demo cds! ^^ Please check back later if you see this post before we finish!

Of course we still have to tell you about all the things that happene for our birthday celebrations, so those news updates will come too! :)

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“Sands of Time” preview on Myspace (and titles of other tracks on the single posted too!)

With thanks to both Sesshy and the Back-on Facebook Group for the news, Back-on have posted a 50-second preview of Sands of Time on their official Myspace! The great thing about this preview is that it seems to be from the start of the song, where as Sesshy put it, Kenji03 sings with an electronic voice :)

We also get to hear the first verse+rap, and I have to say, I love the introduction to the song! If you haven’t heard it already, you really seriously must. I demand kindly request it. :p Incredibly catchy imho!

In addition to the preview, the band have also posted the titles of the other two tracks that will be released along with Sands of Time on May 21st 2008, so the final tracklisting for the single is as follows:

1. Sands of Time (ED for “Keitai Sousakan 7“)
2. message for kidz
3. fifty/50

And before I forget, for those who can’t access their Myspace, we have of course done the usual mp3 rip for you to download which you can find below. Enjoy! And let us know what you think of the preview too! :)

Sands of Time [Myspace Rip] (1.86 MB, Zipped)
Downloaded a total of 299 times

p/s: If you’re interested in a mash-up between the Myspace preview + TV Size version of Sands of Time, please take a look at the dedicated “Sands of Time” + Keitai Sousakan 7 discussion thread on the Forums! (Hint: post #102)

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New single “Sands of Time” cover design released!

The news was first announced a few days ago on Back-on’s official blog as part of a blog entry by the band’s drummer, Icchan, and you can see it for yourself below!

The design was actually quite different to what we had expected on the discussion thread on the forums, where members kindly (and enthusiastically) threw in their suggestions :) What do you think of it? The general consensus so far that people really like it!

Back-on then followed up this ’sneak-peak’ by officially announcing the release of their new single on their official website, where they confirmed the May 21st 2008 release date. They also posted that the single (in line with their other single releases to date) will have 3 tracks, but so far, the only known title is the title track Sands of Time.

In addition, the band have also changed their Myspace profile picture for the occasion, which features Teeda wearing a necktie! :) You can see the image itself after the ‘cut’ (click on Read more…) but it is unfortunately a little small, so we can’t see much detail as yet, which is a pity! Hopefully they’ll release some larger pictures soon!

p/s: The news release regarding the new cover design and Myspace picture (see below the cut) has come courtesy of Sesshy via the Sands of Time + Keitai Sousakan 7 discussion thread! Thank you! :D

p/s2: Don’t forget you can download the TV Size version mp3-rip of Sands of Time from BOO!

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Celebrating our very first birthday on April 6th 2008!

BOO and Back-on Online Forums will be turning one!

Lots of websites are started up every day, and just a little over a year ago, BOO was started and joined very shortly by BOO Forums. With the upcoming release of Back-on’s new song, Sands of Time, it seemed like a great opportunity for us to celebrate our very first birthday and also their new work at the same time!

After some discussion, we’ve opted for April 6th 2008 as our official birthday, and we’ve already started planning a number of things to mark the occasion! As BOO+Forums is fundamentally a fan community built for Back-on fans by fans, one of the major areas that we are focusing on is the:

Fanwork donation request!

This is where we would humbly like to ask everyone for their contribution! And what we are looking for, as ookami, one of our forum moderators (who came up with the idea) so excellently put it: (everyone’s) own little tidbits of Back-on goodness!

So, it can be art, writing, sketches, music, singing, covers, wallpapers, videos, literally just anything that you’ve made as a fan of Back-on. Please don’t hesitate to submit your work, as they will be appreciated, since you have spent time on it!

In addition to this, we are also going to do a:

Banner Rotation

To celebrate this event, and for the forseeable future, we will be randomly rotating the forum banner (the large image at the top!) using member-contributed work! The idea is with thanks to Sesshy, and I really hope everyone will be kind enough to submit their work!

The current banner featuring flower and Butterfly was kindly created for us by Sound-Ex/Nao, which I think is a fantastic example! Simple yet so very effective. So long as the banner is less than 850px in width and has a suitable height (minimum 150px) then please send them in! The minimum criteria (of course) is that it should say the forum name somewhere.

Another thing that we will be doing includes:

The New BACK-ON Dictionary in WIKI format

Originally a concept started by ichiban (forum moderator) as a forum thread where users contributed their definitions and collaborated to form the content. We’ve decided it’s time to make it ‘official’ and neat and tidy by making it like a WIKI! This will form part of the main site and will be editable only by forum members. The original forum thread will still remain though!

And as with every website, the time comes for a new fresh look, so we will be introducing:

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New Back-on song ‘Sands of Time’ is the ending theme for new J-drama series ‘Keitai Sousakan 7′!

This is probably one of the most exciting posts we’ve made in a long long time! Back-on have finally announced the title of their new song ‘Sands of Time‘, and as if that wasn’t enough for us fans, they’ve also said that it will be the ending theme for the upcoming 51-episode Jdrama ケータイ捜査官7 (Keitai Sousakan 7, Cellphone Investigation 7, Mobile Investigator 7)!

This breaking news was first spotted by Sesshy on Back-on’s official blog, and it was subsequently posted onto their official Myspace in English. They were both accompanied by a picture of the band with the cast and Hitomi Shimatani at the press conference that was held by the production team of Keitai Sousakan 7 to launch the show.

We will be covering the drama in more depth in another post. For a quick low-down of the facts (info courtesy of August Ragone, The Good, The Bad, and Godzilla 続・夕陽の呉爾羅):

The 51-episode series revolves around Kieta, a high school freshman who joins “Anchor” (the digital-crime-fighting organisation) and is given the transformer-phone, Phonebraver 7, to help thwart the plans of an internet-based crime organisation.

The main role is played by 19 year-old Masataka Kubota, and is supported by actors Mickey Curtis (Agitator), Yuko Ito (Bubble Fiction), Kanji Tsuda (Japan Sink), Natsuki Okamoto (Arch Angels), Satoshi Matsuda (Kamen Rider Ryuki), and Nao Nagasawa (Hurricanger).

From left: Takashi Miike, Nao Nagasawa, Yuko Ito, Masataka Kubota,
Kanji Tsuda, Satoshi Matsuda, Natsuki Okamoto (Source: Nippon Cinema)

Some big names are involved with the project, including:

• Takashi Miike (三池崇史), the supervising director for KS7 who is famous for directing Great Yokai War and the Alive or Dead series.
• Mamoru Oshii (押井守), the director behind Ghost in the Shell.
• Shusuke Kaneko (金子修介), a well known director who most recently worked on the live movie version of Death Note.

In addition to the ‘all-star’ director group, TV Tokyo also recruited Hitomi Shimatani to sing the opening theme song. Apparently the new song is called WAKE YOU UP. There are reports that the singer may even guest-star in the series as well. (Author’s note: Will Back-on guest-star too?)

Alas we can’t see very much of the band from the photo posted on their blogs, but with a big thanks to bebekjelek, we can share some really good closeups of the band from the press conference that you can see below:

As a super-special bonus, we’ve kindly been given permission to post even more photos from the event that were taken by David Michaud of LeJapon.fr, a freelance photographer who hails from France and is based in Japan. The full-sized versions of the thumbnails (and more photos) can all been seen in the BOO Gallery - KS7 Press Conference, and aside from the excellent group photos, there are also individual pictures (closeups!) of Kenji03 and Teeda! I would really encourage everyone to view the photos in full, since thumbnails really don’t do them enough justice!

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Desktop wallpaper: Colors (1024 x 768)

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Music page updated with new downloads and a new poll

I’ll admit, it’s been a LONG LONG time since we updated the Music section of BOO, but better late than never, ne? Our last update was in September 2007, when New World and Hikari Sasuhou were voted the most wanted downloads, and up till now, each song has been downloaded over 1100 times, a new record for the Music page and definitely not just because of the delay in updating this page!

This time, a day dreaming… and Kodou were the top favourites of our voters, and as usual, we have also put up two extra downloads for just one week only, including the much-requested Hikari Sasuhou (Survive ver.) as well as the runner up from the previous polls, forward.

Thanks to everyone who voted in the latest polls, and if possible, it would be great if you could vote again in the next one, where:

• Butterfly (Butterfly single)
• DRIVE (New World album)
• Believer (Chain single)
• Grab (Survive compliation album)
• Gaku-Ten (Baby Rock album)
• RAIN (New World album)

are all up for selection. It might be a bit more difficult to choose this time! :)

More updates will be forthcoming throughout the site, as well as more content from various contributors! And before I forget, we have updated the affiliate link with Sound EX from their Myspace to their official new website! The people behind the website are Nao and Sesshy, and I would encourage everyone to pay a visit, particularly as the graphics used for the site design really are fantastic! I’ve included a screenshot of the new site design below as a taster, but look out for the flash movie on the splash page - it’s worth the wait - and this is coming from someone who doesn’t usually take a second glance at splash pages.

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