Merry Christmas, everyone!

Was busy compiling my portfolio, went to the gym and had dinner in Matsuya… alone. Yet another ronery Christmas for me.

The other thing I did in the past week was surfing Pixiv, YouTube and NicoNicoDouga, so I compiled all the awesome Christmas stuff I found from Japan and put them in this post. I am Santa and you’ve been a good kid.

The picture above was taken in Shinjuku station day before yesterday. If you’re a romance anime buff like me, I fully recommend Kimi ni Todoke from past autumn. It’s such a sweet warm anime that you can snuggle up to it on cold winter nights. Moreover, it’s animated by Production I.G and has Noto Mamiko’s voice. Ahhh, Sawako in that hoodie…

Let’s start first with some Pixiv fanart that I deem the best of the 2009 collection.

A nice warm scene drawn by BoniiFuto ボニー太.

When you can’t get a reindeer of your own. Nice colouring by Fuuta フータ.

Starry sky on a holy night. Created by Guma ぐま.

Haruhi is up to no good again. Won’t be receiving any presents this year either. By 9tori ９鳥.

The colour combo look great, somehow this gives me an idea to create my own rendition of such kind. Created by 87 (yea that’s his pixiv name).

Should I be overjoyed and greet him, or follow my instinct and chase him? Drawn by hrt.

Awwww, look at what Chibi-Miku got for Christmas. Created by luu.

Wish a Godzillion wonderful moments happen to you too, Miya (the artist).

Poor Miku, I guess that’s the problem with having green hair. Drawn by Saku さく.

A nice sinister rendition of Santa by TREIZE.

See, I told you to buy a house with a chimney. Drawn by Takefuto 岳太.

Random and childlike, very nice! Click here to see it in original size. Drawn by Uryu うりゅ.

Now we move on to the videos!

Ah, Ranma 1/2. My first true anime love. This is the ending of the second OVA christmas special. Used to download Quicktime movies of all the openings, endings and DoCo music videos back in 1997. Do you have any idea how long each download took at that time? Nothing can stop a Ranma fan!

Remember Love Hina, the show that defined harem anime in general? Its christmas special had one of the sweetest anisong I heard, Winter Wish. No PVs available, so you gotta settle for this equally beautiful guitar transition. You can listen to the original song here.

When I think of Christmas and games combined, the first thing that comes to mind is Christmas NiGHTs for the Sega Saturn. Back to when Sonic Team was good *sigh*. Just fly around and collect stuff; such simple gameplay yet the whole thing has a strong concept, at least for me. Skip to 3:50 if you wanna see the gameplay.

Speaking of Sega, they released this Christmas promotional video for their latest game, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. All was fine until the part the lady sang “Aaaannnddd a heeedgeehooog caaalled Sooooooniiiiiic”. So lame =_=;;

AND speaking of games, this was Sony’s greeting card to their business partners this year. Wish it snowed PS3 here. People might die but at least I’ll get a PS3 for free.

A beautiful short animation created by Mitsukawa Maboro. This guy does animation works (mainly in Flash) about a girl who’s very lonely. I dunno what the details are, but the video is definitely enough to stir up my emotions. Comes with Chopin’s beautiful music rendition too.

Ryuichi Sakamoto is one heck of a musician. He has made a name for himself by winning an Academy Award, a Golden Globe award and a Grammy award. Talk about being greedy lol. His most popular piece has gotta be this one, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. Needless to say, it’s beautiful. In YouTube and NicoNicoDouga you can find many fan-made remixes and renditions of the song, shows how influential this dude really is.

For you people who like a more youthful vibe (read: handsome young men), then you can listen to this one, Exile’s Holy Night. The A Capella version is nice too.

Hey look it’s Gackt *hears many girls screaming*. Alright then, this song needs no introduction, it’s simply one of his greatest hits, December Love Song.

Rewind back to the mid-80s where we had Yamashita Tatsuro sing “Christmas Eve”, which became an instant hit. To an average Japanese, this song is considered to be the standard Christmas song. JR used the song to advertise their Christmas CMs as well. I’m sure some of you have heard the English version, but this is the original one. You decide which one’s better!

Or if you think that’s too much of an oldie (how old are you anyway?!), then you can go for the rap version. Eh, not really my type, but at least it’s by Kick the Can Crew. Like their songs when I was first introduced to them in my previous office.

Another beautiful Christmas song, this time by B’z. Even if you’re not their fan, I’m sure you’ve heard it some time or another. Don’t you just love that husky singing voice?

Bump of Chicken don’t only sing One Piece songs ok! This is a new down-to-earth Christmas song by them this year. Very soothing. The original MTV had its embedding disabled *grumble* but if you wanna watch it, click here.

Ok enough of guys man, sheez! An energetic hip rendition of Last Christmas by Foxxi misQ. So which one do you wanna see under your christmas tree tonight? ;)

Komaneko is a little kid’s show for Cartoon Network Japan, and they had this seasonal ending theme up, sang by Solita. There’s just something about the French language that triples the romance of a song, don’t you agree?

Wanna kick it up a notch with the “mengada” (roughly translated to English, “ARGH”) factor? I present to you little boys group singing Winter Wonderland!

Watch all the stupidity and humour that is the Japanese commercial in this compilation, all for this year’s Christmas. Look out for Nodame and Tommy Lee Jones!

How about a cute computer-rendered voice singing Silent Night? You know I can’t escape Miku’s charms rite? :D The PVs well made too.

And to end the post, we have Osaka sing Jingle Bells. Or should I say arranged to make it *look* like she’s singing Jingle Bells. Tomo (who doesn’t believe in reindeers) and Chiyo-chan joins in the fun as well. Esukareta~ Erebeta~ Sataaa Andagiii~

Have a Merry Christmas! Hope you’re not all alone and writing a blog post on this merry day.