Krv and the Wild World of Anisongs

So, before I got into this whole idol thing I was quite into anime. I still watch quite a few, but I have anime to thank for me learning Japanese in the first place and for opening my eyes to the rather madcap world of Japanese music. Of course, just like most of the rest of J-pop, anisongs run the whole breadth of the musical spectrum from the cutesy happy pop of Koharu's oft-disturbing anime themes to dark and peculiar tracks which I'll likely outline a few of in the post. I'll likely avoid any idols this post, as to be honest, Momoclo's Mouretsu just blows all other idol anisongs out of the water so there's no point.

So, to start, I'll give you the first anime song I ever heard, due to it being the theme of the first anime I ever watched. It's called Sakura Saku by Hayashibara Megumi. The OP for Love Hina, it's pretty damn crazy. The bassline was more insane than a great deal I'd ever heard at the time, and the cutesy voice plus guitars made me wonder what insane world I'd reached. I did try to tab it, but I failed spectatularly. I was young then. Relistening I'm surprised I've not listened to it a lot more. Probably confused me too much back then so I just sort of glossed over it in my head. Now, however, I'm able to truly appreciate its mild insanity and love it better for it.

After this I experimented far and wide with pretty much any anime that would have me, and gave up on most of them. However, I got hooked on a new manga, which was to seal my fate, as it were. Called Mahou Sensei Negima, helpfully penned by Love Hina's mangaka Akamatsu Ken, it drew me in with its massive cast of cute girls, a Welsh kid, and fantasy. And vampires. And robots. And time travel. And magic. And huge-assed battles. Being a Sci-Fi/Fantasy nerd I couldn't pass it up, and indeed, I ended up scanlating some of it with a certain now-deceased HQ scans group. The manga is now finished and the ending was an ill-thought out mess, but it did provide me with 355 chapters of distraction. Likewise, it received a ridiculous amount of anime adaptions, all of which broke the story in some way. The first adaption had a cool theme song which I did eventually tab. It also had a huge amount of versions which sort of melded into one. It was called Happy Material. Either way, I was pretty hooked. One of the so-called "character songs" also really enthused me. Performed by the seiyuu for the vampire, robot and ghost, it was called Maze of the Dark, and gave me my first hint of metal in Jpop. After the first anime came a weird Shaft-produced adaption, which was more a crazy Shaft-style anime than it had any links to the source material. However, it did get me hooked on Shaft (which comes in handy later in the post) and gave me 1000% Sparking, another mildly insane OP. One day I actually got mildly bored and did a death metal karaoke. Very bored, in fact.

Anyway, from there, we enter the twilight zone of the weird and wonderful.

Ebichuu's Immaculate Return to Achieve Final Victory For The Glory of the Vampire Race

Subtitle: C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

With wu's recent delightful spamming to keep this blog alive, and with me being virtually deceased due to getting involved in some hideously complex processes known as a) making films and b) getting my ass into gear and finally getting a photobook printed, I figured it was high time I made a post. Just as I thought that, I saw Ebichuu's new video and thought, "aha! Perfect." And then I saw the rest of the video and my "perfect" turned into a "YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!" type of thing, though probably not for the reasons you may (or may not) be thinking.

Also apologies at the start for what will likely be an incredibly illogical post, I've been battling my ISP all day and likely will do so several more times before the post is finished, so it may start semi-coherent and then descend into a mass of feeble writhing over an increasingly bloody pane of glass.

So, the PV:

Momoiro Clover Z - 5th Dimension Review

So, the time has come. The time of reckoning. The opening of the wormhole to the next and 5th Dimension. The progression of Momoiro Clover Z to ever greater heights.

Or something.

It's worth pointing out at this point that Battle and Romance was one of my favourite idol albums ever, and if I hadn't actually reviewed the second disc it would have been even higher. The bar is thus set rather high from the start and there's no shame in falling short of the exacting requirements needed to better the first album. Still, with luck (and a great deal of hope), this album won't fall anywhere. It may even surprise me and match (or possibly even better) the first. We shall see.

I'll start off with a word of warning. This post is a bit wordier than I planned. Also, you might want to keep your mouse handy to hover over the text, this post is link heavy, but the new theme doesn't really draw any attention to them whatsoever.

An update...

It was only yesterday when I was saying that my feelings towards this blog were that it was becoming a chore, and that I'd likely move everything over to Beat Laments The World from now on and then leave this here.

But, then today, I saw something. Idolminded is having its anniversary and Ray posted a series of Blog Maintenance topics that got me thinking, especially this one.

I can't remember how long I had the pink theme. I remember I had a white one before it, but that didn't last more than a few months, if I recall, which means that I had the pink theme for about 3.5 years, somewhat longer then than Ray's annual change. It also took me back to something Dean (who used to write for Yonasu but dunno what he's doing these days) said not long back: that my theme was shit.

That, to be honest, was perfectly true. However, in my general feeling of disregard for this blog I gave not a fig and carried on regardless.

However, upon seeing Ray's blog today I started thinking. Then after thinking I went straight into blogspot's helpfully useless Template editor and started screwing around. That theme was probably up for about an hour before I thought, "hold on, I need a new banner."

I made the banner you now see, which is horrific and needs fixing, in about half an hour, and uploaded it.

"There, done," I thought to myself, clicking off and buggering off to do somewhat else.

Ten minutes later I was back and browsing template themes. I found one I really liked, then spent the better part of the next three hours tweaking it until it stopped sucking. The work on Blogger never ends...

The idea behind the new theme is a bit more of a Web 2.0 look, a more concise theme. You may see the posts in the slider bar: those are the top viewed posts. I have nothing to do with it. Don't blame me that the number of foot fetishists on the internet outnumber the ass fetishists, leg fetishists and hip fetishists by a significant amount.

I wanted a theme that was both clean and dark, because the interlude theme was a very dark grey and light blue theme I chose to stick mostly to those colours, and ended up with a black and light grey theme.

I also deleted some of the various sidebars, moved the album rating compendium up in the header and wrote a new About page.

Anyway, this blog did have a point, that being: someone, out of the kindness of your heart please make me a banner that doesn't suck. If you want to, there's a bunch of social media links at the bottom now where you can stalk me tell me if you want to make me a banner.

The other point is that the new theme has made me somewhat more receptive of the idea of continuing with this blog. Hell, you can't spend most of a day turfing out bits and pieces of HTML and Javascript and chopping and mending CSS without coming to fall in love with something again. So yea, I probably won't quit. Until I have to review the Berryz album and then I'll want to stop again.

Anyway, until next time.

Krv

9nine - Retrospection in Musica

I'll be honest, my feelings towards this blog are becoming almost certain that it's now redundant, a water-laden ship wallowing half-sunk upon the waves of the wota blogosphere. The few features I do now: the album reviews, the January idol list and the December Year in Reviews are becoming harder and more time-consuming to write. Of course, this is because when I started this blog I was very solely stuck to H!P, and then it was mostly Momusu. Of course, I expanded, and quickly, being DD will do that to you. Perhaps too quickly. My idol bodyparts list sank, I doubt I'll ever finish it. It's not that it's hard to write; indeed, there is very little writing to be done. It's that it's tedium. And that's the way I feel in general now about writing for this blog. Album reviews no longer flow like rivers from my fingertips. The new Berryz album awaits, unlistened to. The new Momoclo album beckons, yet the words of praise falter on my lips, the minor disappointment of Neo Stargate fresh in my memory.

Even on the other side, on Beat Laments The World, has my content slowed to a stuttering halt. I still write posts, of a surety, but I'm nearly a year since my last massive list post and no further ideas strike me. Those that do sit, awaiting but someone to stoke the flames. It seems then, I must content to idle, posting what unwelcome reviews I may, and generally existing until I regain somewhat of my sundered inspiration. I'm even considering moving everything over there (probably to Henkka's annoyance) and just leaving this place to rot in peace, a derelict monolith to the follies of youth. Another point in favour of that course of action is that Wordpress is decidedly less willfull than Blogspot, much as I disdain of the control panel in it. I've had to code half of this post fully, yet the other half was content with simple enters and Ctrl commands. I'm undecided though.

But anyway, enough lamenting. As some of you may know, 9nine released their new album CUE not long back, and this has given me the opportunity to further rack myself with tedium. As I did with Tokyo Girls' Style, I'll do a bit of a music retrospective, and review all of their albums, due to me being yet to review any of them. Of course, that means hours of listening and writing for me, and probably a lot of time reading and getting bored for you. Good thing the tedium cuts both ways, I guess.

Anyway, I'll touch briefly into 9nine's history. They're all on the LesPros agency, and formed at some point in 2005 and worked up to an indies debut called Sweet Snow in 2006. Then they released some digital singles (seemingly their preferred method of distribution), starting with Shine, and a few physical ones, alongside two albums on Victor, which endured until halfway through 2010. Then they redebuted under Sony, and released some actual singles. The Victor era was exemplified by weird release strategies and hardly any sales or promotion, the Sony era practically the opposite, though these reviews will decide on the most important factor: the music.

PVs are scarce. The indies stuff is nigh unfindable, the Victor stuff given but brief snippets, and the Sony stuff hidden behind SMEJ's great anti-gaijin firewall. Of course, pretty much the only PVs on youtube are the ones for the songs that aren't on any album. Great.

Momoiro Clover Z Really Do Rock My Fucking World

After a conversation with wu on twitter I realised I'd been a bit lacking in regards to actually making a coherent and non-list/FAKSM Momoclo post. Usually I put all my nuggets of wisdom into album review posts, but as Momoclo are approaching 2 years since their last it's been a little difficult. However, with the release of their second album, 5th Dimension, only a month away I figured I'd do an in-depth and comprehensive post on why they kick my ass on so many levels. This will, of course, mean that this post will be unbearably long and no doubt boring to those of you who have no interest in Momoclo. However, it may awaken some of you to your inner nutcase and allow you to safely descend to the depths of being a mononofu without fear of reprisal. On the other hand, this post is basically just to convince wu that Momoclo are probably the ones most likely to get him back into J-idols, so if you're not wu then you could probably give this post a miss. But why would you do that when I have lots of crazy Momoclo links?

So, where to start? For a change, not the beginning, because the beginning is boring and if we're taking this post as a mental guide to Momoclo then I may as well channel Sheogorath and make as little sense as humanly (or Daedrically) possible.

Thus far in Momoclo's storied careers, the biggest change they had to endure was the departure of Hayami Akari, the Blue rapper. Granted, other girls left while the group was in its formative stages (Kashiwa Yukina would later join Nogizaka46, and Takai Tsukina joined SKE48 before rejoining Stardust for some reason), but none of them had as big an impact as Akari. She was their subleader (and by all rights a slightly more effective field marshal than the minorly batshit insane Kanako, or the majorly batshit insane Reni before her) and in charge of all the rap parts in their songs. She was also the most mature and serious member, and probably had the smallest fanbase. Yet it's telling that now, two years after her graduation, blue glowsticks are still a notable staple of their live shows, and the group is prone to opportune shout-outs in her direction at any given moment, most especially at last year's Kouhaku. The second album is even being released on the second anniversary of her departure. In any case, one can certainly mark a delineated line through Momoclo's history at this point, and the beginning of their "third era", so to speak. Assuming that the first era was the pre-debut and Indies days, and the second era the major singles before Akari's departure. Nowadays, the lineup is just five: Kanako (red, leader), Shiori (yellow), Momoka (green), A~rin (pink) and Reni (purple, ex-leader).

This departure led to some of Momoclo's known insanity (hardcore nationwide touring at a young age in a crappy van will do that to you) seeping ever deeper into their music. Granted, Ikuze! Kaitou Shoujo, Pinky Jones and Chai Maxx got on my prog list, but it seems that with every released single they plumb as yet unconquered depths in the human psyche just by descending deeper into madness, whether that be through song structure, timbre, highly relevent lyrics or just the damn imagery.

Which brings me to the next point. Momoclo's PVs, aside from mostly being silly, irreverent and referential, seem to have a theme or plot, especially nowadays. A quick runthrough since their major debut:

Brainstorm This!

So, Morning Musume have come out with a "Loose Shot" version PV for their next single, Brainstorming, the release of which is about 7 weeks away still. The early reactions I've seen seem to have reached a consensus that the song is good, the dance is amazing, and that Ayumi looks delicious in twintails.

So, let's take a look at the video, shall we?

On Avex, Idols, "Dance and Vocal" Groups and Tokyo Girls' Style

Damn long post title is long.

Anyway, today I'm going to share my thoughts on what I think of as the "Avex Model" of idols. Recently they've sort of broken out of this model by launching Idol Street, a few groups who are more idol-like idols than Avex's normal, dance and vocal shtick. However, when I think of Avex I always think of groups like MAX, AAA, later SPEED, SweetS, and nowadays TGS, Dream5 and Fairies.

I'll admit, this type of music doesn't usually do much for me. Much of it is too urban, and I'm never too keen on that. Also, it used to seem to me that too much effort was wasted on ensuring the beat was danceable, and then they skimped like hell on the actual musical bits. However, of late, I've had to amend my thoughts a bit.

You might remember a while back I reviewed a bunch of idol albums I'd been neglecting. In amongst that was the debut album of Tokyo Girls' Style. I didn't give it a particularly good review, indeed, it was the lowest of those on that post. However, there were definite standout moments amongst the moments of mediocrity, such as the still amazingly beautiful Sayonara, Arigatou and the amazing funkiness and chorus of Himawari to Hoshikuzu.

Fast forward rather a bit more. A few months back my bandmate, who usually sticks to his comfort zone in idol music, namely oldschool H!P stuff and a smattering from elsewhere, actually recommended something to me that I'd never heard before, rather than the other way around. It was Dream5's frankly disturbingly amazing COME ON! It managed to do what I hadn't up until that point been entirely sure was actually possible. It had mixed a driving beat which lent itself to a dance even I paid attention to (and that's impressive, there are very few dances that can do that to me, because I have no fucking clue what to look for in a dance) yet also had a nice techno driven tune, and the greatest chord progression in the history of music in the chorus. Not bad going.

Even more recently, I randomly heard what can only be described as TGS' tribute to Sigh in the frankly astoundingly win Bad Flower.

Then I saw the DVD for Sasshi's Idol Event, Yubi Matsuri, which featured TGS. They actually seemed to be human, rather than the emotionless robots I expected. I decided to do some more research... And the rest, as they say, is history. I grabbed the latest two TGS albums I'd not heard yet and pressed play. Now I'll review them so I can see if my slightly revised view of Avex has had any effect.

FAKSM #22: When America Gets It Right

So, metal. America sucks at it.

Yes, I said it. Honestly, I've never been too keen on any American metal bands. They have had a lot of influence, and several of their "scenes" have been at the forefront of mainstream consciousness (hello Metallica, hello Limp Bizkit, hello Trivium), yet artistically I've honestly never found any American metal band who grabbed me by the balls and ran me through the rinser for more than one album.

I'll run through some. Thrash Metal, innovated by British legends Venom, found its niche in the Bay Area scene, boasting such "luminaries" as Metallica, Exodus, Possessed and Testament. Yet these, and the subsequent extra bands that make up the "big four", Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax, never reached the heights of musical quality that their rather more interesting German counterparts managed. Granted, Slayer's Reign in Blood was good, as was Metallica's Ride The Lightning. But after that American thrash went downhill in a big way and yet Sodom and Kreator are still making thrash albums that are thrash and not shit. Hell, I even preferred Bathory's two thrash albums in the mid-90s to most American thrash.

Death Metal tells a similar tale. I cannot stand Obituary or Morbid Angel. Oddly, Death and Atheist actually turned out pretty good, but even so musically I find American death metal lags severely behind the superior Polish scene, as well as some of the less-sucky Swedish death metal (Opeth stand out) and most Finnish death metal.

The biggest offender though, is black metal. There has not been a single amazing American Black Metal band. People used to tell me to listen to a band they described as the "American Burzum", a one-man project called Xasthur. Would that I hadn't. It is quite honestly the least interesting metal I've ever heard. Here, try some. I also heard good things about Wolves in the Throne Room, but that just left me bewildered that anyone would release it. On the more melodic side you have Abigail Williams, who sound basically like Cradle of Filth meeting Dragonforce in a bar fight; Eyes of Noctum, the band of Nicolas Cage's son, which is a Dimmu Borgir clone but even worse; and Dragonlord, which is Testament moonlighting as a black metal band. To be fair, they do a better job at it than any other American black metal band I've heard except one, a band called Veneficum whose first album was actually interesting. Then there was a 7 year wait until their second album, which was rather less amazing.

However, the dearth of good metal from America now seems to be over, broken by none less than a progressive black metal band. Unfortunately they're not stylistically similar to Enslaved, but they most certainly rule. Their name is Xanthochroid.

Stylistically, they remind me mostly of a mashup between Emperor and Opeth. They have shades of Opeth's gloriously deep and luscious melodies, and Emperor's musical "chill" that manages to make even beautiful passages of music sound grim and frostbitten. Then they add folk and epic orchestral passages and end up with possibly the most glorious self-released album ever.

I present to you, Blessed He With Boils.

[audio:http://www.intlwota.com/metalhead/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Xanthochroid-Blessed-He-With-Boils-2012-02-Blessed-He-With-Boils.mp3|titles=Xanthochroid - Blessed He With Boils (2012) - 02 Blessed He With Boils]

Of Business Management and Democracy

So, I'm straying quite far from my usual type of post here. Usually I stick to what I know: music and cute girls. If I like the music, I listen. If I like the girls, I'll watch their variety shows or buy their photobooks. However, with the business side of idoldom, I tend to ignore it. Apart from the odd bitch at Tsunku for screwing something up, which probably isn't Tsunku's fault in the first place, but Yamazaki Naoki's. Or maybe if a girl gets pushed I really can't stand or one ragequits that I think should have been pushed.

But events of the past day or so have changed that.

Thursday was the first day of AKB's annual Request Hour concert, during which they count down from 100 to 1 their best songs, as voted for by fans (who get the voting tickets through buying the October single, mostly). Thursday's day one was odd, but I thought nothing of it until I saw a post by the man himself, Akimoto Yasushi, on G+.