!!!!!!!!!! Birthday Messages for 2010!!! Let’s Start Early !!!!!!!!!!

[Enter 2010 Birthday Messages Below]

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Above is a new form that we will begin using NOW to start collecting messages for Sanada-san’s birthday in 2010! We decided to get a jump on things for next year, so we can hopefully, get more messages to him in 2010. Please feel free to leave a message whenever you like. I have set the form to handle 500 characters this time, so the fans will not feel so restricted in the amount that they can write. Also, please note that if duplicate messages are entered, the most recent message that was written is the only one that is kept.

Since we will most likely have more messages to deal with after collecting them for a whole year, I need to set the deadline up to the middle of September, so there will be plenty of time to apply the messages to cards or whatever method we decide to use to display them for 2010.

[The deadline for birthday messages is the evening of September 23, 2010]

***!!!2009 - Birthday/Congratulations Messages - 2009!!!***

[Deadline for Messages - October 5th, 2009]

UPDATE:  90 messages were received by October 5th!  The messages were placed on decorative cards (one message per card) and placed in a lovely Hawaiian themed photo album.  And YES, the album was shipped to Hawaii to be given to Sanada-san for his birthday!!!  To view photos and detailed info regarding the Birthday 2009 Project go here …

http://sanadahiroyuki.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5012#5012

No more 2009 birthday submissions accepted at this time.

Hello Sanada-san Fans!  As many of you know, over the last few years, with the effort of many dedicated fans - birthday wishes, messages and gifts have found their way to our Hiro.  This was mainly possible because he was working and living out of Los Angeles.  We had a particular “Sanada Sister” who made a connection with someone that worked in his L.A. management company.  That kind “connection” was able to accept the gifts and pass them on to Sanada-san.

This year we assumed that we would be unable to get gifts or messages to him.  Our Hiro is not working so much in L.A. right now, so the management company connection cannot really help us.  :-(  But guess what folks!!!  This year Sanada-san is going to perform on the popular U.S. television series - LOST!  As I understand it, he will be taking on an important and reoccurring role!!!  This means that he will be coming to Hawaii to shoot the episodes.  As it happens … our dear “Sanada Sister” (yes, it is REIKO-chan) that I mentioned above, actually knows someone that works in an area of the LOST production that knows who will be on the set!!!!  OMG, can you guys BELIEVE THAT!!!!???

So …  this year there is a fan, Asha, in Hawaii that has offered to make a lovely lei for Sanada-sama and she is going to purchase a beautiful Hawaian themed photo album.  I, and possibly other fans that have websites, will be collecting birthday and congratulation wishes from their websites.  We will apply the messages to decorative digital cards and will forward them to our friend Asha in Hawaii.  She will print and insert the message cards into the photo album.  Then when the time is right, she will deliver the photo album and the lei to the LOST studio and Reiko’s friend will accept the gifts and make sure they are given to Sanada-san!!!

The plan is for us to keep our messages a bit short this year.  We want to be able to fit 2 or 3 messages on either a 4X6 card.  We are late getting around to collecting messages this year, so what we are doing now is a very fast and furious, last-minute, effort.  We will not have the time to deal with long messages or other special items that people might wish to include with their messages this year.  I know it is difficult to put down in just a few words, how much we appreciate him and hope all the best for him, but sometimes the simplest thoughts can really mean the most. 

Now since we are not entirely sure of exactly when Sanada-san will show up to begin shooting his parts for LOST, it is possible that he may not receive his gifts until after his birthday.  We want to mention this so people can decide whether they want to leave a birthday message or a congratulations message about his new role in the LOST television series.  We can write about BOTH if we can keep our messages short.

Above you will see that I have set up a little form where you can type in your messages.  The messages will be collected in a database.  I will extract the data after our deadline (stay tuned for that information) and post the messages onto the digital cards.  Please give your name (it can be first name and last name, just your first name or you can use your internet aliases).  It’s all about what you are most comfortable using.  You should enter the country where you are from and then proceed to enter your message.  There is no limit set in the form, but I suggest that you keep your message to about 300 or 400 characters long.  If there are messages that are way too long, I will be forced to edit them or leave them out entirely.  I will have to work very quickly once we’ve hit the deadline, so I doubt I will have much time for editing, unfortunately. 

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for your participation in this quick little project.  We know that in the past we have made our presence known to Sanada-san.  He IS aware that he has a wonderful, international, online fan-base.  It is always an awesome privilege to continually make him know how much we appreciate him!

Online Fans’ Birthday Gifts Make It To Sanada-san!

Just like for Hiro’s birthday in 2007, birthday messages were collected from online fans from all over the world.  Below is a quote of what Misty of http://hiroyukisanada.com said about how the messages and gifts were organized:

“Reiko made our messages and stories into booklets, and she also made a separate booklet for the “story of Speed Racer Tokyo Premiere” taken from this blog.  If you have missed them, go ahead and read my report on this blog - all are in “Speed Racer” category.

She also added the beautiful orchid arrangement.  We don’t know what was HIS reaction to the gift package, but at least she was successful in making people at his agent’s office “OOHING” AND “AAHING” when it was delivered to his office!”

Then he DID SEND A RESPONSE after receiving his package!!! 

“Thank you for the wonderful gifts, the beautiful flowers and especially the
heartfelt messages.  I read all of the messages and I received a lot of love
and energy from them.  I will keep running during my 48th year!”

-hiro-

For a full description of how the gift-giving transpired this year, I suggest that you start by checking out this link to Misty’s blog.  She also provides links to photos of the gifts and links to where people posted more birthday messages on the SHIN forum.

http://hogacentral.blogs.com/hiroyuki_sanada_news/

I am also providing links to various threads in the SHIN forum, provided by our dear Reiko:

hiro response thread
http://sanadahiroyuki.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=513  

PICS of gifts at agency
http://sanadahiroyuki.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=514  

gifts w/misc. picsn & MORE PICS of the booklets, etc.
http://sanadahiroyuki.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=479&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45

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Just as in previous years, it has always been such fun to celebrate Hiro’s birthday.  He is blessed with such a wide range of international fans that adore and appreciate him greatly. Thanks to a fine team effort by truly dedicated fans, a lovely presentation of appreciation made it to him again this year! HUGE thanks go out to all fans that participated in this effort and even though this post was slow to make it here on SHIN, I wanted everyone to know what a BIG DEAL it is to actually be able to get a RESPONSE from him.  He has been in the entertainment business since he was 5 years old.  Japanese fans have always known that, perhaps due to his agency in Japan, responses were just NOT sent out to fans that sent in gifts, packages, letters, etc.  That agency may have made a point NOT to give him items from fans!  But now that he is living in L.A. we know that occassionally he really does RECEIVE special items on his birthday and is able to respond to them.  It’s SO lovely to think that he may really look forward to seeing these gifts for his birthday each year!!!!

Now get on out there Fans and check out those links!  Even though his birthday is over now, there is still no reason to feel the excitement of this year’s Birthday Bash!!!!!

Send Sanada-san Birthday Wishes - Deadline 8/31/2008

YES!  It IS that time again.  A team has formed to collect birthday messages for Sanada-san.  Akira has set up forms for the entry of these messages and Reiko and her sister will take these messages and compile them into another splendid book that will be delivered to Sanada-san!!! 

To post your messages, you can follow these links to the forms:

This form is for IE and Opera users.
http://hiroyuki-sanada.com/bd/message.html

If you are a Firefox user, use this form.
http://hiroyuki-sanada.com/bd2/message.html

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Below I am quoting Misty from her post on HSA about what happened last year and what the team is trying to achieve this year … 

Then, a few days later, we got an e-mail from his agent office forwarded us this BEAUTIFUL thank you note from HIRO!!

The Japanese writing on the left says “Arigato” - Thank you, and the on the right is his autograph in Kanji characters.

So this year, we are targeting at reaching to 100 messages!! Folks, PLEASE SEND IN YOUR MESSAGE!

It does not even have to be in English. The team has created the form to accommodate alphabets, Japanese and Chinese. (We know at least, Sanada-san can read these languages.)

This year, also, we have made the form so NO ONE in the production team actually read your message. It can be automatically gathered and made into a PDF file, to be delivered to the production company. So you don’t even have to worry about your privacy. Please go ahead and write your very personal message to Hiro!!