Ami's Blog Post - New Album in the Works! (For this year?!)

The last bit of "news" I wanted to post tonight is a brief look at Ami's blog post dated 1/09 - the English translation of which is both cryptic and mysterious!

First, if you're unlike me in that you don't check Amigator and all the staff blogs every day, you should do so now. Here's a link for my Japanese readers, and here's one for the English speakers. Not to discriminate or anything - if you're Japanese and speak English, feel free to read the English version and vice versa.

This was her first post of the year (she's since written two more short ones). Most of it's pretty standard stuff, but two bits of fairly big news seem to be contained in the last two paragraphs (one of which you know already if you've read the Shojo Beat interview):

a) PUFFY are back in the recording studio, (as predicted) and
b) There is something "really special" coming from the band.

That second part is a bit confusing, if you read the English version of the post. Here's the translation:

Since 2 years ago, the Puffy team has been enjoying the tough times and really appreciating each day while of course we complain every now and then but finally as we enter year 2008 I think we're close to being able to provide something really special.
AmiYumi don't usually think about what will happen in the future, especially cause you don't know what to expect in this industry but
I hope you all (and of course us too) do the best to create and save lots of OP（Omoide Point = Memorial Moments）.

For any Japanese speakers out there, this is the original:

さて歪んだOBの世迷い言はこの辺でさておいて、
今年もよろしくお願いいたします。一昨年あたりから我々パフィーチーム一同、己に厳しく時には甘く、ブーブー言いながら日々培ってきたものが、
ようやく実を結ぼうとしている２００８年じゃないかと思っております。
先のことはあまり考えないアミユミではありますが、
どう転ぶか先が見えにくい職業だからこそ、自分達はもちろん、
みなさんのOPを素敵に貯めていくことに全力を注ぐことに尽力いたしたく思う所存でございます。

I asked my wife to look at it, and as usual she says Ami's non-standard Japanese is really hard to translate. But apparently, she's basically saying, "Over the last year we've been working really hard, and now we're going back into the recording studio. We hope we can finally bring you guys something really special on our new album. And we hope you like it, even though we haven't started it yet." I'm not sure that's all in that paragraph; some may have been in the paragraph following.

The official translation is a little off - Ami was talking about the past year, and while I don't see the standard word she usually uses (アルバム), my wife assures me she specifically mentions a new album. So, I'm not to blame if I'm wrong here! But I gotta believe what she tells me.

I'm a little surprised they're starting work on another album so soon, but not entirely shocked. These girls just do not waste any time. What I am a little taken aback by is that they've all but announced it before honeycreeper has even seen a US release. Perhaps that's why it's not in the official translation. Anyway, I'm sure we're all looking forward to it.