AOA 胸キュン Mune Kyun - Single Review (Sexy Version CD+DVD Type A)

Since the last music review was of the Cutie Version of AOA's single , it seemed only natural to post the review for the Sexy Version. Both are the Type A edition however there are just two different concepts. This sexy concept can be found on the Type B CD+PHOTOBOOK edition which I've reviewed previously. I won't be posting a long review as most aspects have been covered in the other reviews and it would just be repetitive. Let's take a look!

胸キュン Mune Kyun is AOA's 3rd Japanese single and it was released July 2015. The single was released in eleven editions: Limited Sexy Versions CD+DVD Type A and CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B, Limited Cutie Versions CD+DVD Type A and CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B, and seven member editions. I brought my copy of the Sexy Version CD+DVD Type A from Yahoo Auctions and it came with the following contents:

• CD - 6 track single
• DVD - Contains MV's & Making Of
• Jewel Case
• Lyrics Booklet
• OBI
• Flyer
• Photocard

The Sexy Version Type A has a similar cover to the Photobook Type B edition with the girls in a slightly different pose. Seolhyun's pose is just with her leg bent! Would've been exciting to see some variety but I guess they just took a bunch of photos and took the ones that turned out great. The back has the same design as the Cute Version with the track listing for both CD and DVD listed along with production credits and DVD region information.

AOA 胸キュン Mune Kyun - Single Review (Cutie Version CD+DVD Type A)

Ages ago I reviewed the Cutie Version Type B of AOA's Japanese single 胸キュン Mune Kyun and I thought why not post another edition of the single? I have two other editions of the release and this review will look at the CD+DVD Type A Edition which features the cutie concept! Isn't it crazy to think this single came out in 2015!?! Wow I feel like K-Pop and J-Pop have changed so much since then, feels like a billion years to me.

胸キュン Mune Kyun is AOA's 3rd Japanese single and it was released July 2015. The single was released in eleven editions: Limited Sexy Versions CD+DVD Type A and CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B, Limited Cutie Versions CD+DVD Type A and CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B, and seven member editions. I've reviewed the Photobook editions already if you would like to check those out as they will cover most information about the single. I brought my copy of the Cutie Version CD+DVD Type A from Yahoo Auctions and it came with the following contents:

• CD - 6 track single
• DVD - Contains MV's & Diary Footage
• Jewel Case
• Lyrics Booklet
• OBI
• Flyer
• Photocard

The concept for this single is sports and the Type A editions have the girls in a tennis inspired outfit. Originally 胸キュン Mune Kyun was released as a Korean title track and that mini album had a sporty concept as well. So the Japanese one follows on from that with different looks. The front has the girls posing in their cute outfits and it does look quite similar to the Type B edition. The members have just moved their arms or legs around really. The back cover is very simple with the group logo, track listing and production credit information.

AOA Like a Cat [Japanese Ver.] Single Review - Limited Edition Type B CD+PHOTOBOOK

Felt like posting another music review after my Orange Caramel one. I have quite a backlog to get through so it is worth posting another one! This one is about AOA's Japanese single Like a Cat which is one of my favourite songs from the group. I always love rewatching that episode of Slam Dunk where Kim Sook dances to the song. It always makes me laugh! Let's get to it then!

Like a Cat is AOA's second Japanese single and is the Japanese version of their hit Korean song 사뿐사뿐 Sappeun Sappeun. The single was released on the 25th of February 2015 and came in nine editions: Limited Edition Type A CD+DVD, Limited Edition Type B CD+PHOTOBOOK and seven limited CD Only member plate editions. I brought my Limited Edition Type B copy from Yahoo Auctions and it was in excellent condition. It came with the following contents:

• CD - 6 track single
• Media book style case
• Photobook

You can probably guess what the concept for this single is. Of course it is cats! The girls are sporting some bold cat-inspired outfits, some even look like catsuits. The front and back covers have different photos and they are quite large! I appreciate the effort put in this edition as you get some high quality photos. The back cover also contains the track listing of course along with production information. I always write that about the back covers, but I do find it interesting to read these and see how many companies are involved in the production.

AOA 胸キュン Mune Kyun - Single Review (Cutie Version CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B)

Last week I posted a review of the 胸キュン Mune Kyun single from AOA and the review looked at the Sexy Version CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B. This week the review will be about another edition of the single, the Cutie Version CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B. I won't go into as much detail with this review as the single is pretty much the same apart from the single design and photobook. So let's take a look!

AOA 胸キュン Mune Kyun - Single Review Cutie Version CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B 

胸キュン Mune Kyun is AOA's third Japanese single and is the Japanese version of their hit Korean song Heart Attack. As I mentioned in the first review, the single was released in eleven editions: Limited Sexy Versions CD+DVD Type A and CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B, Limited Cutie Versions CD+DVD Type A and CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B, and seven member editions. I have all the Limited Sexy and Cutie versions but not yet the member versions. I don't usually collect those early on as they are pretty basic with just a member CD plate. My copy of the Cutie Version CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B was second hand and came with the following contents:

• CD - 6 Track Album
• Photobook
• Photocard

AOA 胸キュン Mune Kyun - Single Review Cutie Version CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B 

 The single has the same design as the Sexy Version but feature the Cutie concept and a pink/aqua green colour scheme. The photobook is separate from the case and is the same size as the other version. Photos of the members in cute sporty themed outfits are the concept of the Cutie version and the girls wore the same outfits in the dance version of the MV. I love the colours of this single as I'm always a fan of pastel schemes and it matches well with the tennis court background of the main photo. The track listing is shown on the back cover along with production credits.

The interior of the single is the same as the Sexy Version but this time 胸キュン Mune Kyun is written in a different font. Both fonts are just gorgeous and the stunning CD design is featured once again. Still one of my favourite designs in my collection.

AOA 胸キュン Mune Kyun - Single Review (Sexy Version CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B)

Haven't had an AOA review for a while so I thought I would post one. Last year I got a few editions of their Japanese single 胸キュン Mune Kyun which was one I had been after for a while. This is my favourite song from the group and the Japanese version is my favourite version of it as well. Let's take a look at one of the many editions of the single, the Sexy Version CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B.

AOA 胸キュン Mune Kyun Sexy Version CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B

胸キュン Mune Kyun is AOA's third Japanese single and is the Japanese version of their hit Korean song Heart Attack. The single was released in eleven editions: Limited Sexy Versions CD+DVD Type A and CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B, Limited Cutie Versions CD+DVD Type A and CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B, and seven member editions. Boy that's a lot of editions! I currently have all the Sexy and Cutie versions but not the member editions. I brought my copy of the Sexy Version CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B used and it came with the following contents:

• CD - 6 Track Album
• Photobook
• Photocard

AOA 胸キュン Mune Kyun Sexy Version CD+PHOTOBOOK Type B

The design of this edition reminds me of K-Pop releases as it looks like a book you open. I haven't had too many J-Pop releases like this so it was a surprise. I'm more of a jewel case person for J-Pop releases as I love having my collection look symmetrical. Both the Sexy and Cutie Type B editions have the same sized book, just with different images. I'll post a review of the Cutie version next. The Sexy version has the group posing in sporty outfits on the front with a pastel colour scheme which I'm always a fan of. The back cover has the group logo along with the track listing and production information about the release. I love how Japanese releases list the release date on the back as it makes it so easy to catalogue my collection.

When you open up the single, you will notice that the photobook isn't actually held in place like normal K-Pop releases. I was quite surprised by this and wasn't expecting it to pop out. The interior design of 胸キュン Mune Kyun is pretty basic but the CD has gorgeous Japanese lettering on it. One of my favourite CD designs I've seen for a while and it fits the simplistic feel of the design.

Zenmarket Haul - AOA, KARA & WJSN

Time for another Zenmarket haul! I received this package a few weeks ago so I thought it was finally time to share it. In this order, I got a bunch of AOA, KARA and WJSN albums and singles. When I was typing out the name of this post, the title made me laugh because all the groups are written in capitals. That rarely happens and this time it was just luck that all three groups I got CD's for had capitals in their group name. Anyway, here are the CD's I got from Zenmarket!

First off, here are the AOA singles I got! All these came in a set from the same seller I brought my AFTERSCHOOL set from. All the albums were in great condition like the last ones I received. The main reason I brought this set was because it contained four editions of the group's 胸キュン Mune Kyun singles and I have been after them for a long time. 胸キュン Mune Kyun is favourite AOA song and it is the Japanese version of Heart Attack. The editions of the single that I received were Sexy Version Type A CD+DVD and Type B CD+Photobook and Cutie Version Type A CD+DVD and Type B CD+Photobook. The original listing stated that there was 2 photocards included which were the group one. But when I opened up all the cases, there was an extra 3 photocards! So now I have 5 of the same photocard. The photobooks for 胸キュン Mune Kyun are a removable book nad I'm not sure what I think about this. I'm usually fine with this concept if the single/album comes in a box but 胸キュン Mune Kyun isn't that so the photobook just comes out. I do love the pastel colours of the photobook though, they're stunning!

胸キュン Mune Kyun - Sexy & Cutie Type A and Type B editions

胸キュン Mune Kyun photobooks for the Sexy and Cutie versions

The other AOA single I received was  愛をちょうだい Ai Wo Choudai (Give Me Love feat. TAKANORI NISHIKAWA (T.M.Revolution]) in the Type A CD+DVD Edition. This is another one of my favourite AOA releases and I did not yet have any edition of this in my collection. Love the concept of this single and looking forward to collecting the other editions of the single.

AOA Runway - Album Review (Limited Edition Type C CD+DVD Edition)

I've been meaning to post this review for ages now as I mentioned receiving this album last year, but never posted a review. So here it is finally! A review of one of my favourite albums, AOA's second Japanese album RUNWAY!

RUNWAY is the second Japanese album from Korean pop group AOA. It was released in 2016 and comes in eleven different editions; CD+Blu-Ray (Limited Edition A), CD+DVD (Limited Edition B), CD+DVD (Limited Edition C), Limited First Press Edition that reverts to the CD Regular Edition, and seven member editions with one edition per member. The picture member editions only come with the CD of 11 tracks. Limited Edition A & B come with a DVD of a live concert and Limited Edition C comes with the music videos and making of footage. I brought the Limited Edition C in the Taiwan Edition which is exactly the same as the Japanese Edition. This edition comes with the following:

• CD - 11 track album
• DVD - contains MV's and making of footage.
• OBI
• Lyrics Booklet
• Photo card
• Taiwanese Lyrics booklet

All editions of the RUNWAY album are gorgeous. I love the sport themed thing the group has going on in the album design. Personally I prefer the bowling themed covers to the soccer (I think it's that sport?) themed ones. But they're all still beautiful. The album comes with an OBI (the little piece of paper that fits on the side) which I always love! I always keep the OBI's with my Japanese albums and singles. The back cover of the album details the contents and information about the DVD region. The CD and DVD have a cute ball design on them.

My K-Pop Collection 2017

During 2017, I focused mainly on building up my Japanese Pop collection and didn't really work much on my Korean Pop collection in terms of physical albums. I did purchased a lot of digital albums this year from a variety of groups. This post will only look at my current physical album collection though. Here is a photo of all my albums which are a lovely selection of crazy sizes.

The albums in my collection include:

• Crayon Pop - Evolution Pop_Vol.1
• I.O.I - Mini Album Volume 1 - Chrysalis (Special Edition)
• T-ARA - Mini Album Volume 11 - So Good
• Strawberry Milk - The 1st Mini Album 
• Crayon Pop - 2015 Mini Album Volume 2 - FM
• Orange Caramel - The Fourth Single - My Copycat/Do It Like Me
• Orange Caramel - The Third Single - Catallena
• I.O.I - Single Album - Whatta Man
• Crayon Pop - Single Album - Uh-Ee
• Hong Jin Young - Mini Album Vol 2 - The Most Beautiful Moment In Life
• AOA - Vol 1 - Angel's Knock (Taiwan Version A)
• April - Single Album Vol 1 - Boing Boing
• Red Velvet - Vol 1 - The Red
• Girls Generation - 2011 Girls Generation Tour (2CD + Photobook)
  
• Crayon Pop - Mini Album - Streets Go Disco (Australian Version)
• Girls Generation - The Boys (US Version)

Crayon Pop makes up the largest part of my collection as they were one of my favourite groups whilst they were still together as a five-member group. Nowadays they don't release anything, so I haven't had anything new to add to my collection. The Evolution Pop album I ordered from KpopMart which I had never used before. I enjoyed getting the free poster, but I was surprised the order reached me as the box was badly beaten up when I received it. I also found (and I know other fans found it as well) that the product was faulty and the CD's weren't held in place well. I easily fixed mine but I heard you could've sent it back or something. I was lucky enough to get the Australian version of Streets Go Disco a few years ago when the group had a deal to sell the album at a local music store chain. The one thing that I don't like about the Crayon Pop albums is the fact they don't come with photocards (the ones I have didn't come with any). FM would've been an amazing album to have photo cards for!

Crayon Pop collection

Orange Caramel is another favourite group of mine and I'm so disappointed that they no longer promote as a group. Cmon on Pledis, just announce that After School and Orange Caramel are disbanded already and put me out of my misery!! Anyway I only have two physical Korean albums from the group and I would collect more if they weren't ridiculously overpriced. One day I like to get the rest of their Korean singles and albums, but for now I'll just stick with the digital versions.

Orange Caramel collection

My J-Pop Collection 2017

This year I added quite a few new albums and singles to my Japanese Pop collection. 2017 was the year I started getting into collecting albums from E-girls and Dream Ami. This month I finally got the last Dream Ami single I was missing to complete my singles collection! Besides those artists, I got a few new albums from some of my favourite groups such as After School and KARA. I got very lucky and managed to get a set of Girls Talk and two Super Girl albums extremely cheap from a seller in Japan. I was so happy when I found them as they are hard to come across, especially the limited edition ones. Here is a photo of my J-Pop collection at the end of 2017. These are all the physical single and albums I have, I have a lot of musically digitally as well.

The albums in my collection include:

• KARA - Girls Talk - Type C (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Super Girl - Type C (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Super Girl - Type A CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Girls Forever - Type A CD+DVD (Taiwan Edition)
• KARA - Best Girls - Type C 2CD's (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Mamma Mia! - Type A CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Girl's Story - CD+DVD (Taiwan First Press Limited Edition)
• AFTERSCHOOL - Bang! - Type C CD Only
• AFTERSCHOOL - Diva - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• AFTERSCHOOL - Heaven - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• AFTERSCHOOL - Lady Luck/Dilly Dally - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition
• AFTERSCHOOL - Dress To Kill - CD+DVD+Photobook (Taiwan First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - RaRiRuRe - CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - Dancing All Night - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - Crayon Pop - CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - Pop!Pop!Pop! - CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• AOA - Runway - Type C CD+DVD (Taiwan First Press Limited Edition)
• Kyary Pamyu Pamyu  - PAMYUPAMYU Revolution (Hong Kong Edition)
• Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - Pika Pika Fantajin (Australian Edition)
• CocoSori - Itoshi no Mermaid - Type B
• Pungdeng-E - Pungdeng-E 1st Japanese Album Ppi Ppi Ppa Ppa
• Orange Caramel - Lipstick/Lum no Love Song - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• Orange Caramel - ORANGE CARAMEL - CD+DVD (Hong Kong Edition)
• Orange Caramel - Yasashii Akuma - CD+Photobook (Taiwan Edition)
• E-girls - Lesson 1 - CD+DVD+Photobook (Taiwan Limited Edition)
• E-girls - E.G. Time - CD+DVD (Taiwan Edition)
• Dream Ami - Dress wo Nuida Cinderella - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Try Everything - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Lovefool - Sukidatte Itte - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Hayaku Aitai - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Kimi no Tonari - CD Only

Kara makes up the largest part of my collection and they were the first k-pop group I got into many years ago when I first started listening to the genre. I'm hoping to collect the last album I'm missing which is Fantastic Girls next year. I have a number of After School and Orange Caramel (After School's subunit) singles and albums, but I have some more in digital form and haven't got the physical ones yet. Dress To Kill was a great buy that I found this year. I brought the Taiwan edition which was about $40 cheaper than the Japan edition of the exact same CD+DVD+Photobook edition.

KARA Collection

AFTERSCHOOL Collection

Orange Caramel Collection

When buying J-Pop singles, I usually get the CD Only edition as it comes with the instrumentals and occasionally bonus tracks. Plus they are always the cheaper edition to buy. With albums, I try to get the DVD edition and occasionally the photobook as well if it comes in the same edition. However these editions often are extremely expensive or out of print. I often buy the Taiwan edition of albums as it is a cheaper price than the Japanese versions and comes with the same content (sometimes more!). I recently got the Taiwan edition of the E-girls album Lesson 1 and it was a good buy as it came with the CD plus a DVD of the music videos and a 64 page photobook. I also have the Taiwan edition of E.G. Time which came with the CD and DVD of the music videos. This year I managed to collect all the singles from Dream Ami who is my favourite solo artist. The covers of her singles are just gorgeous, I just can't pick which one is my number one favourite. I did not buy her recent album though as it was quite expensive for how many songs I didn't own (was only missing four which were new ones), so I just brought the seperate songs on iTunes. I'm hoping maybe one day to find the CD+DVD+Photobook edition cheap second hand if I ever go to Japan.

J-Pop Albums - E-girls, Dream Ami & AOA

Ordered some J-Pop albums recently from YesAsia and they arrived today! The ones I brought were AOA's Runway album, Dream Ami's Lovefool - Sukidatte Itte single and E-girls' E.G. Time album. I've had my eyes on the E-Girls album for a while and finally brought it. Both the AOA and E-girls' albums are the Taiwanese versions as they came with the bonus DVD and were a good price. The Dream Ami single has the most gorgeous packaging and came with the sleeve packaging which I love because it keeps the albums in great condition when storing them.

I will post some reviews on all theses albums soon as well as AOA's Angel's Knock which I received recently also with After School's Dress To Kill album. I've already done a review of Dress To Kill and spoiler alert - it's amazing.