kamenashi's greatest hits

[soundczechfic]

HAPPY 24TH BIRTHDAY KAME!

In honour of our beloved Kamenashi's birthday, I have put together this collection of Kamenashi's Greatest Hits. This is in no way a comprehensive list, and I would love it if you would respond with your favourite Kame stuff - pics, vids, interviews, fics, etc. Let's all give our obsessive devotion some place to go on this most joyous of occasions~

when we were watching this, samenashi looked at her mother and said, “this is the essence of kamenashi kazuya”. then he slowly took off his mask.

this song will forever stand in for everything that is beautiful and pure in the world, or me. in emotional moments i always expect kizuna to start playing.

oh kame, why are you so deeply retarded and amazing.


Part 1 Part 2












These are Akame-centric for obvious reasons (ie, I am an insane Akame fan)... sorry, non-Akame fans.

Our Ring by verde_ivy : One of my all-time favourite fics. I read it when I'm feeling grumpy and it lifts my spirits.
The Sun and the Air by meiface : I think this might have been the first Akame fic I ever read. It was up there, at the very least. Reading it makes me feel wistful and nostalgic.
Available Light by shontos_garden : Known colloquially amongst my friends as 'acid burns fic', makes me want to sob and send Kame appreciative fanmail.
Thumbenashi by neurochip : TINY KAME!!!!!!!
There's No Place For Make Believe by sollasollew11 : Devastating MPREG. Never thought I'd have to type those words.
Perfect Moments by lilmatchgirl007 : I love any fic where Kame is an artist or a photographer.
Transfiguration for Dummies by sollasollew11 : JE vs HP. I love the sequel to this, PLEASE FINISH IT SOLLA.
Miscommunication by yamapea : Gen-ish Pikame, which is the best kind of Pikame.
The Lines We Travel by acchikocchi : Akame fic spanning almost a decade. I love angsty fic that includes chibis.


Please leave a comment with your own very favourite Kame things~

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAME-CHAN!!!!

Comments

[jo-lasalle.livejournal.com]

Aww, you already have the otters. That was like, a fandom defining moment spelling dooooom for me.

[soundczech.livejournal.com]

When he makes the food smaller with his teeth. This is why it makes me angry when people say he is fake: WHAT KIND OF PERSON EVEN THINKS OF THAT. You can't fake that kind of small kindness.

[jo-lasalle.livejournal.com]

This is why it makes me angry when people say he is fake: WHAT KIND OF PERSON EVEN THINKS OF THAT.

I'm vaguely wondering if you're talking about me now. :-) I certainly have theories about Kame and fake. And making the food smaller with his teeth was not a fandom-defining moment for me for nothing. (I have an otter icon to commemorate the occasion!) Because I agree, you can't fake that. But I'm hesitant now to go deeper into to it for fear of making you angry. That would be bad, on Kame's birthday! :-)

[soundczech.livejournal.com]

Sjzjsmaoxjan well I wasn't, but now I feel bad about making you uncomfortable with my big dumb mouth akjandokbs

it's not like I think Kame is 100% honest, anyway - I definitely think there is Kamenashi the idol and Kame the guy, but a lot of people think that when you strip back Kamenashi you would be left with this cold hard manipulative bitch, whereas I think when you strip back Kamenashi you probably just get a lot of Kame the awkward weirdo dork.

Go ahead skfma you won't make me angry, I'm only about 3/4 as psycho as I pretend.

[jo-lasalle.livejournal.com]

I'm only about 3/4 as psycho as I pretend

This is, like, the fandom motto. Aren't we all!

Please don't feel bad! I wasn't actually uncomfortable, I was just making sure. :-) Because of that brilliant way internet psychology works where you end up going 'OMG IS IT ME' and I figured I'd avoid drama in my head. :-)

And admittedly, I even get that with a lot of Kame hate floating around, someone saying 'I think he's fake a lot' without context can be read the wrong way. So anyway, I don't think he's totally genuine all the time, though I think there's a huuuuuge difference time-wise; I think these days he's being an idol and being professional on the outside, which is not a bad thing. But he has a phase, when you look at 2007 footage or roundabouts, where I would call him 'fake' in a lot of contexts. He strikes (struck) me as someone with a very strong need for external validation, and when he has a stressbunny phase, it comes out in more frantic audience-pleasing, IMO.

Which, honestly, if you already like him, is just a psychological gold mine and endlessly fascinating. (Though I find it very very soothing to see him on shows these days when he just seems so much more self-confident and assertive. Go Kame!) But when you're not already invested... That's why the otters made the fandom for me. I was actually almost out the door already; I'd watched some stuff and read some fic (there is a whole longer version of this where I totally blame Soft Skin Boys for pulling me in), but I wasn't sure yet if this was really my thing. I had watched a lot of footage in a row where he was just so high-strung and people-pleasing and OH LOOK AT ME LOOK HOW MUCH FUN I'M HAVING HA HA HA, and I just found it exhausting. I never thought he was a cold manipulative bitch underneath; I figured he must be pretty sad underneath. But I was kind of '...do I really want more of this?'

And then Kame bit off the food for the otters, after the otters had already nibbled on it, and my heart went THUMP and suddenly I WAS INVESTED. Because that was the single most spontaneous thing I'd ever seen him do thus far, and it was adorable and really nice. And you can actually still see the other stuff in the clip -- I don't think Kame is comfortable with that woman, he's essentially pouncing on the otters given half a chance, but he also doesn't manage to say no to stuff he'd clearly rather not be doing (not that I would expect him to be rude! but he's so... not confident about it and pushover-y).

So the otters were my first clear moment of really honest, spontaneous Kame. And it also put the 'fake stuff' into a different perspective for me, in a way that now made it interesting rather than exhausting. To make the Akame comparison, I think Jin is very uncomplicated to love; Kame is pricklier, but also more fascinating to poke at and try to make sense of, and complexity is good. (And when you start fretting over a guy's TV ratings, you know he's doing something to you.)

And like you said, I don't think you get cold hard manipulative bitch Kame when you look underneath, or even superidol Kame. Awkward weirdo dork is more like it, with a dose of angst and validation issues depending on taste and time period.

Sorry this turned into the Reader's Digest version of How I Got Into Sparkly Fandom, by Julia, Nearly 30

eeek

[jo-lasalle.livejournal.com]

Um, I knew it was long but didn't see how long until I'd hit post. Sorry! I am also only 3/4 as psycho as I pretend!

[soundczech.livejournal.com]

I love that you thought this would make me angry, I'm dying. I must seem like such a crazy person... I actually largely agree, it's just that our responses were different. I got into KAT-TUN in around 2006, not long after they debuted, after watching Nobuta. I'd seen Kame in a bit of Gokusen 2, but I didn't really know anything about him til my RL best friend and I started obsessively watching Shuuji to Akira clips on YouTube. Somehow, she got intensely into Pi and I got INTENSELY into Kame, and when she asked me why, my only response was that he seemed like he really needed people to love him... and I don't mean that in a pathetic way. Basically, at that time, he just seemed patently miserable. My heart hurt for him. And that lasted up until around the time that Signal was released, when it seemed like the tensions between KAT-TUN eased up and he could relax again.

I always thought that a lot of his OH LOOK AT ME I'M HAVING FUN stuff came from his inability/unwillingness to express how tense and unhappy he was. And basically from realism/pragmatism on his part; he could say no to people, but it wouldn't get him anywhere but out of work and out of favour, with no money, no high school diploma, no baseball...
I always got the impression that there was a LOT more pressure on Kame than the rest of KAT-TUN at that time; or at least, it seemed like he really had a grasp of how much they had riding on their first few singles and that he felt like he had to really haul the rest of them through it, no matter what. Now that they're fairly stable and entrenched in terms of their popularity, you can really see that he's eased up a lot and doesn't feel like he's got to be 'perfect' all the time. It's such a relief. He seems so much happier now than he did a few years ago.

[jo-lasalle.livejournal.com]

Not crazy! Well, relatively speaking given our fandom. *g* We just haven't interacted much, and internet psychology, it is a weird thing sometimes.

Basically, at that time, he just seemed patently miserable.

Yes, I totally agree. And about needing people to love him. Shuuji to Akira is really not a non-angsty way to get into the fandom either...

That's a good point about pressure and lack of alternatives for Kame. I do think that's also about interest, and to a degree he chose it that way (no diploma, but also no interest in a different career), because I think he loves the job more (when it's good) than the others, too, the whole idol thing. When it's not eating him up, it's what he really wants.

You think Kame has money issues? (Beyond a standard level of 'need job of some sort' that I would guess applies to most people.) I've gotten vibes like that from Pi, for various reasons, but never from Kame.

[soundczech.livejournal.com]

I don't think he has money issues exactly, but I think he was responsible enough at an early age to understand that as an adult he would need a way to support himself, etc. I don't get the impression that his family have a lot of money - he mentioned baseball being the only hobby his father was willing to spend money on, and collecting bottles as a kid so that he could buy candy. I doubt they were destitute, but four kids are EXPENSIVE. If you watch that ep of CTKT with the big family and the drag queen father, when they go shopping, Kame is aware of budget meals. There are other examples, but all in that vein. He seems aware of the cost of living, even if he is now prone to extravagance.

I agree that his lack of other options are by choice, but that doesn't mean that he is any less screwed if like, Real Face had flopped. He chose to go all in on KAT-TUN because he loves it, but I just think he was really aware that it was a really risky choice to make. And that management had made a significant investment in them and that it wasn't a game, that they'd be wanting to see returns. I've always felt that Kame probably frequently acts as a buffer between KAT-TUN and management - less so now, but definitely then. I can't remember exact sources, but I remember someone - I think it was Nakamaru? - saying "when Kame told me we were going to debut" etc. For whatever reason, Kame ended up in a leadership kind of position, and he took that really seriously. So I think his intensity is both because he loves his job and because he wants to protect the others. I believe him 100% when he says he was told that if Shuuji to Akira were successful it would mean great things for KAT-TUN, and that's part of why he just about killed himself making Shuuji to Akira happen, despite the fact that KAT-TUN were all pissed with him. I think he's essentially a team player. I mean sure, he wants to be MVP, but at the end of the day I think it means more to him when he's part of a team. Whenever I think about it I think about what Nakamaru said about Kame being the one that pulls them together and organises their opinions and stuff. He's been having to do that less and less as the others step up to the plate more. I basically just think he became responsible a little ahead of the others and had to wait around for them to catch up.

This answer got really incoherent, sorry :( I'm really tired.

[jo-lasalle.livejournal.com]

I've always felt that Kame probably frequently acts as a buffer between KAT-TUN and management

I agree with that. To me this ties in a bit with the senpai thread, actually; Kame gets on well with grown-ups, he's like a natural addressee for management. (Not that that's a role that would be always fun for him. Not that he'd delegate it anyway.)

And the team player observation -- yeah. For all the leader stuff and his ambition, he never gives me vibes that he would actually like being a solo artist. He likes the band stuff, the team stuff.

[soundczech.livejournal.com]

I think he's aware that if he went solo he would end up with stress induced exhaustion and malnutrition within months.

[solo.livejournal.com]

When he makes the food smaller with his teeth.

AFTER the otter has already nibbled at it. So... down to earth and pragmatic, and utterly unselfconscious with it. I love that moment.