Look, I don’t want to take anything away from Izumi Makuro. She sounds just fine here, rapping in a relaxed way that sounds effortless and certainly isn’t as, shall we say, acquired as other pop-rap outfits in Japan. If anything, it is easily compared to Her Ghost Friend, except with a more hip-hop bend. It’s…
Amongst the bright neon lights and garish mechanized crabs of Osaka’s Dotonobori district looms Kaela Kimura. The J-Pop star leaps behind a candy shell of colors appropriate for the city’s top tourist destination, part of her black shirt digitized as if to hide something. No ad save for the famous Glico Man comes close to…
If you want an extremely entry level look into life at Japan, this parody rap video done to the tune of “Nothin’ But A G Thang” will tell you all you need to know about convenience stores and blood type obsession. Of course, you have to endure parody rap (the lowest of low), so I’d…
Finally, AKB48 and I cross paths in a longer piece on The Atlantic. The article serves as both an introduction to the massive group for readers who don’t geek-out over Japanese pop music and to examine AKB’s current push throughout Asia. In a great bit of timing, this story about the Jakarta group appeared in…
Last Thursday, The Japan Times ran an article by Ian Martin about Japan’s current efforts to crack down on…wait for it…late-night dancing. Read it here. Here in Osaka, this has been going on for a while now and has been impacting all sorts of great events in the city…INNIT used to go all night, but…
Buried in the Make Believe Melodies post graveyard is a very very long-winded entry about Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s “Crazy Party Night.” The not-600-word version — I get what it is doing and I think it is a smart move commercially, but woo boy is it so clearly her worst single to date. Part of me…
