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Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Infinite: For You 2nd Japanese Full Album (Limited + DVD) Review

At the end of 2015, Infinite released their second full Japanese album, For You. With this release, Woollim sets yet another record by producing 10 versions of For You, whereas the previous 24 Hours release just had 9. For You has a normal edition (1st press and additional presses), a limited version with a DVD, the same limited version with a Bluray, and 7 member versions. Here I'll be reviewing the limited version with the DVD. I have no immediate plans on getting any of the other versions.
This album includes all of the Japanese singles released since Koi Ni Ochiru Toki, meaning the songs from Last Romeo, Dilemma, and 24 Hours. There are also three songs that haven't been released in Korean though Infinite has performed them in Korean, those being "Can't Get Over You," Love of My Life," and "For You." Additional Korean-turned-Japanese songs are "Bad" and "Between Me and You." I feel so stupid, I didn't realize until about a couple of months ago (well after I went to Infinite Effect) that this album is titled after the song "For You," the one that Infinite performed at Infinite Effect.
The easy way to tell the difference between the limited DVD version and limited Bluray version is that the front cover of the DVD one has the logo and title in gold while that of the Bluray one has them in silver. This album is the same size as most of Infinite's other albums.
The top left sticker reveals the two new side track songs.
The bottom right sticker gives more information on the contents of this version.
The backside includes the tracklist for both the CD and the DVD.
There is an exterior slip case to hold the album together.
Here's the album without the slip case. The print on the spine is black instead of matching in metallic.
I really like this photo; it's just such different composition than Infinite's other photoshoots. The location (and fashion styles) is also so gorgeous.
The back cover of the album lists the two discs' tracklists.
The album is a tri-fold. Opening the first flap reveals the loose-leaf photobooklet.
Opening the other flap reveals the CD in the center, the DVD on the right, and a beautiful background.
The photobooklet has 25 full-color photo pages, followed by 13 pages for song lyrics, then song credits, and lastly album credits. Tucked in the first pages is the promotional event sheet.
The first 14 pages are from the beach photoshoot. There is one full-page photo per member, and one two-page photo of OT7 (two photos up).
The rest of the shots from this beach photoshoot are of the members walking on the beach, soaking in the view. I really like these semi-candid shots.
The following 11 pages are from the field photoshoot. There is one full-page photo per member, the the remaining four pages are semi-group photos.

The DVD contains music videos for "Can't Get Over You," "Last Romeo," "Dilemma," and "24 Hours," where "Can't Get Over You" is the only new music video as the other three were released in the limited version of their respective singles. I didn't know that the Japanese music video of "Last Romeo" has a slightly different intro!

The DVD is for all regions. The making of "Can't Get Over You" is 24 minutes and 22 seconds long. This clip is split into two parts, the first 11 minutes and 30 seconds for the beach and field photoshoots, and the remaining for the music video. Majority is footage of Infinite posing and acting seriously while the instrumental of "Can't Get Over You" plays in the background. Throughout, the members have solo interviews. The audio is in Korean with Japanese subtitles, but when Myungsoo and Sungjong spoke a little Japanese, then they removed the subs. During bts of the music video, the members individually talked about their wire action.

Overall, I really love this photoshoot and wish they made a bigger photobook from it. As for the songs, I'm sad how Woollim now keeps releasing new Japanese songs and we have no idea when they'll release them in Korean.

Friday, June 24, 2016

Infinite: Grow - Infinite's Real Youth Life DVD Review

Woollim produced a documentary movie, Grow: Infinite's Real Youth Life, covering the span of Infinite's first world tour, One Great Step, from August 2013 to December 2013. Grow was released in theaters in December 2014 and released on DVD in August 2015. Sadly Woollim didn't release a DVD version of OGS, and Grow doesn't contain much of OGS besides snippets from various stages. However, this DVD is nice because it focuses on the personal lives of the members off stage and the various emotions and issues they faced. Now on to the unboxing!
This DVD set is the same size as typical DVD cases and Infinite's albums.
The backside has the standard information about the DVDs. There are two versions, one for the Japanese market (there's also a Blu-ray version for Japan but Region A), and one for the rest of the world. I got the one for the rest of the world, which places for regions 1, 3, 4, and 5, and has subtitles in Korean and English.
There's actually a clear exterior slip case with a metallic design to add to the overall look.
Inside the DVD case is a photobooklet (purple) and a folded poster (blue).
Here is a better look at the front covers of the photobooklet and folded poster.
The photobooklet has 21 black-and-white and color pages. There are two sets of individual photos, one of the members in dressy outfits and the other of them in playful outfits. Separating the different sections of the photobooklet are group photos.
The last two pages are candid photos from throughout the world tour. I wish more photos from the world tour were included instead of so many photoshoot photos. Also some of those photoshoot photos are purposefully blurry, which is a bit annoying.
Each DVD set contains this same poster design. The dimensions are just larger than 14.5" x 21.5" and it is thick and really high quality.

Because I got this item a couple of months later than its release, I'm not too sure about the extra promotional goods. I do know that there are also exterior posters and these exterior postcards of the individual members, but I'm not sure how people got the postcards.
This DVD set contains two DVDs. The one of the left is the documentary film and it's about 1 hour 22 minutes long. It is broken up into many short chapters, where the first few chapters focus on each member's problems or personalities. Then, later chapters reveal the conclusions. The members' problems aren't explicitly stated, for example they just state that an article came out for Myungsoo, but not what the actual article was about. These chapters really just focus on the candid emotions they felt and the support they received. Because of this formatting, the documentary isn't in chronological order, though it does follow closely. Sadly there wasn't a strong focus on all stops of OGS, though on the cities they did focus on, they did a great job. This movie shows footage mostly from behind-the-scenes of the world tour, such as the members practicing other countries' songs and languages (Hoya and Sungjong were practicing Cantonese!), as well as the members' free time (meaning not much concert footage). Lastly, it was really cool seeing footage from the L's Bravo Viewtiful 2 fanmeeting where Myungsoo performed his self-written song; this was such a nice surprise.

Disc 2 contains three special features: the movie trailer (1 min 17 sec), the behind clip (19 min 44 sec), and the commentary (1 hr 26 min 32 sec). The behind clip is a lot more lighthearted, showing the members enjoying themselves on their free time throughout the world tour. It usually focused on just one or two members at a time. It was so cute when Hoya was speaking English! And it was cool seeing the CEO buying that yellow LV tote for Sungjong; he used that bag so often!

The commentary shows Infinite viewing the documentary and giving their random comments, all while the documentary is shown in the bottom left corner for the viewer's reference. They first spoke about their impressions of the trailer, and ended with their reflections of the world tour and the documentary. My random thoughts: It was also nice seeing the members a few months after the tour finished. It was so hard for Myungsoo to watch his chapters. And I had originally thought that the narrator was so boring, but then Infinite pointed out that it's the CEO narrating haha.
Here is the image underneath the DVDs.

I miss Infinite so much, and watching the DVDs (more so the special features instead of the documentary) made me so happy again. These DVDs are like a longer version of all of those short special features in Infinite's Japanese limited albums with DVDs; I always like watching those DVDs but they're always too short for me to take the time to watch them, so it's nice having full length features such as Grow. I really do hope Woollim will officially release some sort of documentation of Infinite Effect, whether it be a concert DVD or a documentary DVD.