Thanks to Pedestrian Y’s comment, she has helped me found another cover of Mika Nakashima’s “Yuki No Hana.” After her comment, I was reminded of ANOTHER cover of it last year, and it’s a direct Japanese cover. These two covers have something in common - they’re both sang at unusually high key by men.

First, Park Hyo Shin’s Snow Flower (Thanks Pedestrian Y!), which you can find on this album.

Then, we have the Japanese cover, which was probably inspired by the Koreans’ ability to realize the song can be done with a male voice, done by Hideaki Tokunaga on this single (It was actually on the Oricon singles chart too).

I could sing it that high too, it’d just be creepy, and no one wants to see a video of THAT, right?

Today’s song of the day appears on three different albums - Mika Nakashima’s compilation “Best,” her second album “Love,” and also Hong Kong newcomer Vincy Chan’s second album “Flower Without Snow.” It’s Mika Nakashima’s “Yuki no Hana,” or “The Snow Flower”…..or “Flower of Snow,” depending on however your Japanese ability would like to argue with mine.

Why, especially since it’s Spring now? Because it’s known as Mika’s masterpiece, and unlike Lin Xi’s incredibly contrived attempt to adapt the lyrics into Chinese (Vincy’s delivery and the new arrangements are all fine), the imagery is beautifully conveyed in this original Japanese version. And it’s a damn beautiful song anyway.

And here’s Vincy’s attempt to outdo Nana herself

After posting up all those news yesterday, there’s not much left for today. In fact, it’s mostly Japan news.

- I reported about the opening week result of Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo’s latest “Bugmaster” yesterday, along with a Hoga Central report. Now Eiga Consultant helps and puts it all in perspective. On its opening day on Saturday, “Bugmaster” made 95 million yen - that’s 44% of Shinobi (Joe Odagiri’s hit film from 2005 that ended up making 1.4 billion yen), and 61% of director Otomo’s previous film Steamboy, which ended up making 1.16 billion yen. Looks like not even Joe Odagiri, Yu Aoi, nor the creator of Akira could get fans of the original comic to show up for a movie about bugs.

- Jason Gray also has some tidbits from the Japanese film industry, including the fate of that Genghis Khan movie (that effectively proved you can’t just shove anything down Japanese audiences’ throats), and what one Japanese actress thought of the latest Rocky movie.

- After Takeshi Miike’s latest “Ryu Ga Gotoku” just came and went in theatres, he’s already hard at work on another relatively high-profile film. Twitch provides us today with a link to the teaser for “Sukiyaki Western Django.” It looks like crazy western fun, but I’m not a huge fan of Miike, even though he can be as crazy as it gets, so we’ll see what happens when it opens in September.

- Speaking of Japanese films, Lovehkfilm updates with a review of Japanese blockbuster (but Hong Kong flop) Dororo. Also up is a review of the latest Milkyway film, Eye in the Sky, which opened the Hong Kong International Film Festival this year. It also have some reviews from your truly, but I’ll just let it go.

- It was just announced last week, but Hayao Miyasaki’s latest “Ponyo on the Cliff” already has a progress report, thanks to the people of Twitch, Ghibli World. and NHK.

- Remember that I reported that the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan suspended NTV’s membership after the natto scandal? Well, now they just decided to just kick them out of the damn organization altogether. Ouch.

- Oh, and Haruki Murakami’s anthology “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman,” which includes the original short story of Tony Takitani (great film, by the way), just won a Kiriyama Prize. Yay.

I told you there’s not that much news today. See you tomorrow.