T-ARA TARGET - Single Review (Regular Edition Type B)

Lately I've been on a spree of writing T-ARA reviews and I'm back again with another one! Today we shall be looking at one of their Japanese singles and it has the most adorable chibi design to the CD. Look at how cute the members look as cartoon characters! This single TARGET had an app released shortly after based off the song and it allowed the player to play as each member in various mini games. You could also unlock different costumes and songs which sounds amazing!

TARGET is the seventh Japanese single released by Korean girl group T-ARA and it was released on July 10th 2013. The single came in three editions: Limited Edition CD+DVD, Regular Edition Type A CD Only and Regular Edition Type B CD Only. Both Regular Editions are the same and just have different covers. The song was also released as a Recochoku Digital Single as most T-ARA singles were. I have the Regular Edition Type B that I brought second-hand and it came with the following contents:

• CD - 2 track single
• Jewel case
• Lyrics booklet
• OBI
• Sticker Sheet

T-ARA Sexy Love [Japanese Ver.] - Single Review (CD Only)

I have quite a few Japanese singles from T-ARA in my collection so I wanted to work through posting a few of them. The ones in the jewel cases are quite easy to take photos of and I cannot even recall whereabouts I put the cardboard sleeve ones. Will have to dig them out of the cupboard one day to take photos. Today we shall be looking at the Japanese version of Sexy Love!

Sexy Love is the fifth Japanese single released by Korean girl group T-ARA and it was released on November 12th 2012. The single came in three editions: CD+DVD Type A, CD+DVD Type B and CD Only. It was also released as a Recochoku Digital Single along with iTunes. I've got all three editions of the single and the CD Only edition comes with a member plate! I got Eunjung who has a gorgeous look going on the CD and if I had to pick a member who I would've like to have gotten, it would be Boram as her outfit is super cute and she is my bias. The CD Only edition of Sexy Love that I have came with the following:

• CD - 4 track single
• Jewel case
• Lyrics Booklet
• OBI

QBS 風のように Kaze no You ni - Single Review (Regular Edition)

The other day I came across this single in my music collection and had totally forgotten about T-ARA's sub-units! There was two groups and this particular one always gets lost in my collection. The reason for that is that the group name is QBS so it doesn't show near all my Korean music which is listed under the hangul spelling. So I always go straight past it however this single is a beautiful one to listen to and we shall be reviewing it today.

風のように Kaze no You ni is the debut and only single from QBS which is the second sub-unit from Korean girl group T-ARA. The first unit was T-ARA N4 who debuted in March 2013 followed by QBS in April 2013. QBS was slated to only promote in Japan with members Qri, Boram and So Yeon and released one single. 風のように Kaze no You ni was released on 26th June 213 and came in two editions: Limited CD+DVD and Regular Edition CD Only. I brought both editions of the single second-hand from Japan and the Regular Edition included the following:

• CD - 2 track single
• Jewel Case
• Lyrics booklet
• OBI

T-ARA 11th Mini Album So Good - Album Review

Considering how much I love T-ARA, I actually don't have many of their releases in my K-Pop collection. Most of their music I brought digitally over the years and never looked for the physical ones. Such a solid discography from one of the best girl groups and their Japanese stuff is amazing as well. I've reviewed some of their Japanese albums before but today will be the first Korean album. Let's start off with T-ARA's So Good mini album.

So Good is the 11th Mini Album from Korean girl group T-ARA and it was released on August 4th 2015. This mini is also known as their 7th mini album as that is the number if you don't count repackages. And T-ARA had a lot of mini album repackages! I've got with calling it the 11th as that is the number stated on the front cover. I purchased my copy of So Good from a Korean store in town which has sadly shut down. I remember being so excited to see it on the shelf as I thought T-ARA wasn't popular enough to be stock here. You don't get much with this release and the contents are limited to:

• CD - 5 track mini album
• 80 page photobook

T-ARA TREASURE BOX - Album Review (Pearl Edition CD Only)

A few years ago I reviewed T-ARA's first Japanese album Jewerly Box and it is time to review their follow-up TREASURE BOX. I loved how these two albums had a theme and then that all got thrown out the window with their third Japanese album which was called Gossip Girls. Whilst that name is amazing, it would've been lovely to see another box theme title like maybe music box. I feel that would've been a fun concept for the design. Now this album was kind of a pain to photograph as it is very brown and my camera hated that. Loving the pirate theme though and looks like the girls had fun taking the photos.

TREASURE BOX is Korean girl group T-ARA's second Japanese album and it was released on August 7th 2013. The album was released in three editions: Diamond Edition CD+DVD+PHOTOBOOK, Sapphire Edition CD+DVD and Pearl Edition CD Only. The Diamond and Sapphire editions come with different DVD content with some already been featured on single releases. I remember struggling to find this album for a time as no listings contained the OBI and I originally wanted the Diamond or Sapphire editions however they were super pricey. My copy of TREASURE BOX came with the following contents:

• CD - 13 track album
• Jewel case
• Lyrics booklet
• OBI
• Photocard (Random from 7 types)
• Promotional flyers

T-ARA Jewelry Box - Album Review (Pearl Edition CD Only)

Time to share one of my favourite albums from one of my favourite classic K-Pop groups - T-ARA's Jewelry Box! This was a title I was trying to get my hands on for ages and I finally got a good copy with the extras from Japan. I feel sometimes new K-Pop fans forget about how big T-ARA was and this release is a great one to get if you want to get into the group as it covers so many great songs from them. Let's take a look at the Pearl Edition of Jewelry Box!

Jewelry Box is T-ARA's first Japanese album and it was released in June 2012. The album was released in three editions: Diamond, Sapphire and Pearl. I'll talk more about the Diamond and Sapphire Editions later on in the post. I brought the Pearl Edition which is the cheapest edition retailing at ¥3,000. I got mine through Yahoo Auctions second hand along with the Pearl Edition of the group's second Japanese album Treasure Box. My copy came with the following contents:

• Member Plate CD (1 of 7 members) - 13 track album
• Lyrics booklet
• Jewel case
• OBI strip
• Event information cards
• Photocard (8 to collect)

The Pearl Edition of Jewelry Box is my favourite of the three just for the concept and design. The colours are beautifully vibrant and I'm always drawn to anything pink! The outfits are very on point for T-ARA and you can see each member's charms come through in the photos. The front cover has the girls lounging around in a cute bedroom and the back cover has another fun photo. The track listing is noted at the top and there is the usual production credits as well.

Zenmarket Haul - AKB48, Apink, T-ARA, TWICE & S.O.A.P

Finally have some spare time after the busy retail Christmas season AND the post-Christmas sale season. I'm am so happy that everything has finally quietened down and it's not crazy hectic anymore. So it's time to post my recent haul from Zenmarket! I got these items back in December and I did a big order as I wanted to save on shipping. Luckily the 2 - 4 day shipping was only 300JPY more than the 3 month shipping! Zenmarket is currently not offering the usual DHL cheaper option that I normally use so it was tricky to calculate postage costs in my head. But when it came to the selection when the package was created, the DHL Express was the most suitable option so I went with that. Packaging was great and weighed just under 2kg. Anyway enough about boring logistics, let's take a look at the items!

I brought a bunch of releases that had been high priority on my wishlist for a while now and some were ones that are harder to come across. The main artist of this haul is AKB48 which I got 9 CD's of! I'm absoutely mad trying to start an AKB48 collection :P There's just so many to collect! The rest of the CD's are a mixture of K-Pop artists and one special Western release.

First up is the gem of my AKB48 collection so far! One of my favourite AKB48 A-sides is ハート・エレキ Heart Ereki and I searched all over Yahoo Auctions for a complete set of the single. Sure that was an easy task however so many listings didn't include the OBI :( I eventually found this set for 500JPY that had all the OBI's included! Yay! I'm in love with the concept of this single and all the versions look great together. I quite like the AKB48 version system as you get different songs on each version which is good value in my opinion. It's always annoying needing a certain version to complete a set and the content is the same as other versions. My favourite B-side is on Type B of this single which is 君だけにChu!Chu!Chu! by the Tentoumu Chu! sub-unit. This song is so adorable and I love all the songs by this unit. I wish they had actual singles or albums.

ハート・エレキ Heart Ereki Type A, Type K, Type B, Type 4 & Theatre Edition

Next up is a bunch of AKB48 albums and best albums. The ones I brought are  神曲たち Kamikyokutachi Theatre Edition, ここにいたこと Koko ni Ita Koto Theatre Edition, SET LIST〜グレイテストソングス〜完全盤〜 and 次の足跡 Tsugi no Ashiato Type B 2CD Regular Edition. I'm not sure which one is my favorite so far as I love them all! It took some searching for 次の足跡 Tsugi no Ashiato as I specifically wanted Type B and not many sellers were selling it with the OBI. Eventually found a random listing with nothing listed in the description so I took a chance and brought it! Item turned out great and it even came with a photo of a member (I'm not too sure who it is as I only really know certain early generation members).

Mega Zenmarket Haul!

So I brought a few things off Zenmarket recently. Well more than a few actually. I swear this site will drown me in CD's eventually. Managed to tick a large number of releases off my wishlist with this order. All these items came from Yahoo Auctions, Bookoff and Tower Records. Some are brand new and others are used. Here's all the CD's I brought in this order which boy was an effort to ship here. Never going to ship this many CD's ever again as the shipping wasn't the cheapest thing. It always reminds me of that joke from the Australia episode of the Simpsons where the guy goes '900 Hundred dollary doos?!?' That's my thought whenever I see shipping costs to Australia haha. There was so many CD's I had trouble trying to get them all into frame. But I did save a lot of money buying these CD's as some were quite rare and expensive when they first came out. I'll list all the titles in later paragraphs because the list is quite long.

First off is the albums from KARA who I'm trying to complete my collection of. These are all new additions to my collection apart from The First Bloooooming which I already own. Finally got my hands on the Type B of Fantastic Girls which was something I was after last year. And got a copy of the Japan Tour Special Edition of Super Girl which I didn't have! It doesn't have a super amount of new content compared to the first editions of the album but the cover is pink! Here's the list of the KARA albums:

• The First Bloooooming
• 1st Mini Album
• Super Girl Japan Tour Special Edition - CD+DVD
• Girls Forever - CD+DVD
• Girls Forever - CD Only First Press
• Girls Forever - CD+PHOTOBOOK
• Fantastic Girls - Type B CD+DVD

Next is the KARA singles because they wouldn't all fit in the same photo as the albums. I've always loved the single designs of KARA's Japanese singles and I quite like how they are all standard jewel case releases so I can store them all together. Electric Boy would have to be my favourite design out of the bunch. A few doubles here with the singles which I'll just sell for cheap. I already got three of these last year off Zenmarket. A nice surprised was from the seller I brought the next set from included Ji Young's version of French Kiss which I wasn't expecting. I was over the moon to see if included with the set as I was planning on collecting it and it was brand new too. Here's the list of the KARA singles:

• Electric Boy - Limited Edition A CD+DVD
• Electric Boy - Limited Edition B CD+PHOTOBOOK
• Electric Boy - Limited Edition C CD Only First Press
• Speed Up/Girls Power - Type A CD+DVD
• Speed Up/Girls Power - Type B CD+DVD
• Speed Up/Girls Power - Type C CD Only First Press
• Bye Bye Happy Days! - Type A CD+DVD
• Bye Bye Happy Days! - Type B CD+DVD
• Bye Bye Happy Days! - Type C CD Only First Press
• Thank You Summer Love - Limited CD+DVD
• Thank You Summer Love - CD Only First Press
• French Kiss - Limited CD+DVD
• French Kiss - Limited CD+DVD Ji Young Version

February Favourites

Going to give myself a gold star as I spelt February correctly in the title on the first try! Seriously, I struggle to spell February every year when it rolls around. Anyway this month went so quick! I still feel like it's December though because it's just been so busy and I don't realise how quick the days are going. It's still pretty hot here, we're having a sudden heatwave. Normally I don't mind the heat but after the last heatwave in January when it was nearly 50 degrees, I'm a bit over it. Plus it's quite hot at my work then it's hot at night so you can't sleep then everyone is tired for work the next day. The endless circle! 

Gaming
Amazingly I didn't play much video games this month. A bit of Style Boutique here and there to update my Shopdo but I don't recall playing it much. All the posts on the blog this month were a back log of images I had from the game. I did however make some new outfits on teh Design Centre which I need to post on here. Here's a sneak peak at one of them!

Music
Big month music wise. I got a large order from Japan but it's not quite ready yet to post on here as some of the CD's absolutely reeked of cigarette smoke when I got them. So I've been using some techniques to make them smell better and I think there working so far. I did get some albums and singles in good condition or brand new. Picked up CLC's Japanese releases from Tower Records which I'm super happy about. I brought the two I didn't get from Tower Records second hand the other day so I'm excited to receive those soon. Here's some of the songs I've been listening to this month!

30 Day Cosplay Challenge Day 15 - Roly-Poly (Japanese Version) by T-ARA

One of my favourite K-Pop groups that I rarely talk about on here is T-ARA. I became a fan of the group quite late (around 2015) and I totally regret finding them so late. The group has so many good songs and had a large number of Japanese releases. Haven't got any physical albums from the group besides So Crazy but I'd like to get my hands on their Japanese ones. So for this cosplay, I tried to replicate the girl's outfits from the Japanese version of Roly-Poly. I'm using the outfits the group wears on the covers for the Type A and Type B versions of the single.

The main reason why I chose this song for the cosplay was because of the gingham tops. I knew there was a similar looking top in the game and I was right! It's one of the new items in Styling Star and is a crop style off the shoulder top with a gingham pattern. For the hairstyle, I created my own style that took inspiration from a few of girls hairstyles. Plus I really wanted to use this headband from AZ-USA as it's so cool looking. The music stage for the photo shoot location matched perfectly to the stage in the MV!