The J-Pop Thread

nice creepycute MV for a song from the recent Maison Book Girl album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtrx_eov524

Lol wow that's amazing!

The new You'll Melt More! album is out and sounding excellent so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIR31yk4cdc

this record rules

The first half is their lovely brand of pop-punk and then the last few tracks are free reign for whatever weirdness you want to put at the end of a 70-minute album.

Title track, WOW WOW WAR and Go Out are all brilliant. I guess focus isn't really their watchword and I can respect that

yehhh really loved freestyle zenbu too

on constant repeat :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eevf7k8Chps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqBUTHdZa-Q

really enjoying these

dempagumi.inc's "moshi moshi internet" (the second video there) is so intriguing, it feels quite retro but in a way i can't really place and it's kinda proggy too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrggLg_hGE0

some kind of new peak for mashup pop?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyhcardbgiA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku5-YnZwe7o

i like these singles from kalen anzai a lot

Nice of Dempagumi to drop their album internationally on my birthday. Moshi Moshi Internet and Nemadempa (which has been reworked) are the most radical things on it, and I’m slightly disappointed there isn’t more in that vein. Still an amazing collection though.

finally got around to the dempagumi.inc album and i agree about those being highlights. still adore "inochi no yorokobi" too

An EP appeared on Spotify last Friday too. Not sure what that’s about. Haven’t had a chance to listen yet.

4s4ki’s stuff has been doing it for me lately, and this track in particular, which sounds a bit like if OPN went jpop

https://youtu.be/mQGEv3SgLQE

her full length is solid too. it’s all in spotify.

hey look Ano is releasing solo stuff, I thought she might go full hikki after leaving YMM so pleasantly surprised

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqhVE_m1nfU

prominent p-model sighting @ 0:37! wish this sounded more like p-model tho.

toriena goes digital hardcore/breakcore/prob some other things with 'core' at the end:
https://open.spotify.com/album/0IKpDSa4UJRYexL2bW1oGU?si=ybzk5I5ISBetyNdgu1xDSA

Definitely enjoyed that Toriena album!

Here's CHAI with a cover of Mariya Takeuchi's Plastic Love, ie the song that started this thread.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhkQgyxzRzI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvB9WaEzF9Q

i don't know if i exactly like this but it's an impressive level of kitchen sink chaos

cute song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SCbb297oJM

absolutely love the new yuki single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSVWpPK8yaY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDd2gQWYRv8

Kids, don’t try the 🧠 in the microwave thing at home yeah?

whoa, gooooood vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bexHugfKowk

haven't paid attention to Dempa for a while, had no idea who most of the girls were (lol) and the song wasn't very denpa until it suddenly was. awesome that Mirin is married and still an "idol" at (looks it up) age 34!

Yeah I think this is an introduction to the new line-up

yeah, I saw they became, like... DMP-10 recently, heh

that's pretty cool about mirin. wonder if those factoids are still taboo with the otaku?

dunno, maybe Dempa otaku are less subhuman than the others? i hope so.
reading up about it Mirin married the guy who writes & draws her fav manga, is a twitch streamer as well as an idol and is currently pregnant. living that otaku life to the fullest!
also Pinky is 9 years younger than Mirin wtf

yep, pretty cool that mirin is marrying a mangaka. I'm prob mostly just buying into the hype but dempagumi did always come off as pretty legit to me, this interview with neum probably my fave example:

https://asianbeat.com/en/icon/yumeminemu-1.html

lyrical school's new album Wonderland came out last week and it's really great, consistently creative kitchen-sink pop-rap. "fantasy" is on it, here's the other singles which are all just as cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b9OQfimGXI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABtks_cSsio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcZ74O53AOc

those are cool

for anyone interested the French label that has put out Haru Nemuri, Suiyobi no Campanella, Charisma.com etc LPs in the past has a 2LP Oomori Seiko set out at the moment. only 500 copies pressed, just got mine in the post this morning.
https://specific.bandcamp.com/album/alchemy

Nice. They're also selling all 56 of their digital releases for €8.50?!

noticed that on the Campanella release page.. that release is just pay-whatever-you-want for the files. Anyway thanks I'm gonna check some of this out.

just did represses of the nemuri records too

still kinda hurts to think about how charisma.com turned out after that sick first record

keep going back to this new dempagumi single. looks like hyadain wrote it, which man, of course he did. hope there's more...

have we talked about Atarashii Gakko no Leaders yet?
I love their cartoonish energy, how much fun they seem to be having.
I believe they do all that insane choreography themselves too?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3venzR3TnQ

thanks for that. i love it. i feel a tokyo jihen influence

hah tokyo jihen influence might explain why it's musically not for me but that video is definitely pretty great

they are quite varied musically, this is the song that got me into them (and the synchronized head jerks haha)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yR1IBtixHY

for anyone interested the French label that has put out Haru Nemuri, Suiyobi no Campanella, Charisma.com etc LPs in the past has a 2LP Oomori Seiko set out at the moment. only 500 copies pressed, just got mine in the post this morning.
https://specific.bandcamp.com/album/alchemy

thanks for the heads up on this, I snagged literally the last copy

woah good timing! I wonder how many copies made their way to Japan via forwarding services

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRwHZ0nsbBY

kenmochi hidefumi of wednesday campanella fame has gotten really into footwork lately, here's kanano senritsu - "drop" which he produced

looks like she's a ZOC member. man, that newish ZOC double album rules, one of my fave things in the seiko-verse from the last few years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HChQoG282bM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcEHpWR__Dc

ryutist - "mizugurasu"

love this

oh man, that IS great!

also, my ZOC enthusiasm has gone down the last few days... anyone else following this?
https://aramajapan.com/news/gossip/oomori-seiko-bullies-and-beats-fellow-zoc-member-kannagi-maro-in-shocking-audio-clip/114778/

but then oomori was promoting a new maro single on social media the next day and that was weird.

then there were many apologies during a subsequent live ZOC performance:
https://storywriter.tokyo/2021/08/15/4992/

here's a translation of some of what oomori said then:

I translated what Seiko & Maro said about the incident at their recent live #ZOC pic.twitter.com/nTKb0Kk2lc

— -アンナ- (Anna) (@0kada_Akiko) August 16, 2021

I honestly can't follow exactly what's going on but it sure doesn't seem good

yeh it's awful, there have been rumours for a while about Seiko being a mess behind the scenes but hearing it for yourself is a whole other thing

yeah, the whole thing is bumming me out, she should take a little breather and definitely step away from this particular project (altho she's basically what made it so interesting, sigh...)

yeah this stuff is depressing, if she's just going to recreate the worst abusive dynamics of the idol industry what the hell is the point