Dreams Crushed, Dreams Realized
Written by Jeshii on 2009.11.28 – 04:19 -So, I heard a rumor that the K-ON! songs were so popular that they would probably be included in this year’s 紅白 (kouhaku), the end of the year Japanese music show that has been a tradition for millions. It broadcasts outside of Japan, so check your local listings (generally on the local Japanese channel).
I was all hyped up to see K-ON! songs covered or just done by the voice actresses. But it was not to be. The line up for 紅白 was announced and I don’t see anything that indicates any K-ON! happening.
Crushed!
Then I found out that SCANDAL, who you may recognize from Japan Nite 2008 fame, the high school girl rock band in 制服, did a cover of Don’t Say Lazy:
And the voice actresses are doing a live event on December 30th in Yokohama. See the public site for more details. Here is the TV spot:
Dreams come true! While I can’t go to the Yokohama event, I will be happy to know there will probably be videos.
Why do I love K-ON! so damn much?!?!
In other news, Perfume is going to be on 紅白 again this year. I’m guessing One Room Disco will be their song, since it is the only song I ever heard from them this whole year. Last year’s performance was kind of weak, so I’m not holding my breath on this one.
Tags: けいおん！, concert, high school, Japanese girls, japanese high school girls, K-ON!, keion, kohaku, live, music, perfume, Scandal, seifuku
Posted in music | 3 Comments »
New Perfume Single! One Room Disco!
Written by Jeshii on 2009.03.13 – 01:37 -
【ニコニコ動画】アイドルマスター ワンルーム･ディスコ(RADIO EDIT)
I was starting to think Perfume had disappeared off the face of the earth after their disappointing 紅白 (kouhaku) performance. (Side note: it was a fine performance as Perfume performances go, but I still think the red team did lost partially because they had a lip-syncing group on the SINGING performance show.)
But they are back! If I had been paying attention to sites like Perfume City, I’d have known they were working on something new! Their new single, scheduled for release on March 25th (1 day before my birthday; what a nice present). It’s a cute little song called ワンルーム・ディスコ (wanruumu disuko) about the trials and tribulations of living on your own.
Anyway, it’s cute and technopop and I’m already hooked.
What’s that? Where did I find out about it? Um… nowhere in particular. What? No, of course I wasn’t because of Danny Choo entry a dannychoo.com news entry. He’s my mortal enemy! I would never be caught dead anywhere near his site. Not even if he linked one of my entries. No, sir, that’s definitely not where I found it.
Update: lol, I’m 馬鹿 (baka). It wasn’t the guy himself, it was just a forum user on dannychoo.com posting his own topic. So yes, that is where I got it. 
Update2: There’s a new video that is a remix of the song done with none of the original track and the voices are all vocaloid! Nice!
【ニコニコ動画】【初音ミク・巡音ルカ・MEIKO】 ワンルーム・ディスコ (yks remix)
Tags: ワンルーム・ディスコ, cute, Danny Choo, idol, Idol Master, Japanese girls, music, music video, nicovideo, One Room Disco, perfume, techno, technopop, ystk
Posted in music | 3 Comments »
Perfume Confirmed for Kohaku
Written by Jeshii on 2008.11.26 – 06:00 -
YES! The 紅白 (Kouhaku) teams have been announced (in English here), and Perfume has been selected for the Red team!
For those unfamiliar with 紅白歌合戦 (Kouhaku utagassen), it is a yearly show on New Year’s Eve where the red team (mostly female music artists) goes up against the white team (mostly male music artists) to put on the best performance. Really, it is just a giant music show with a meaningless contest, but it is fun nonetheless.
I haven’t rooted for the red team in a long time due to the overabundance of Hello! Project shit that has been clogging it, but with しょこたん performing last year, I had to take pause and think about my priorities. (Speaking of しょこたん, she doesn’t seem to be on the list this year, despite 中日スポーツ quoting her as wanting to go really bad…)
Now, with Perfume on the red team, coupled with the fact that no team has won more than three in a row ever, I’m putting my money on red this time.
But the white team has quite the lineup this year… Mr. Children, Porno Graffiti, EXILE… It’s going to be a good show.
Tags: しょこたん, ポルノグラフィティ, 紅白, 紅白歌合戦, electronic music, electropop, exile, girls, Japanese girls, kohaku, mr. children, perfume, porno graffiti, shokotan, ystk, 中川翔子
Posted in movies | 3 Comments »
New Perfume Single and Capsule Album!
Written by Jeshii on 2008.11.10 – 16:18 -
As we speak, YouTube and ニコ動 are probably taking these down, but the new perfume single, Dream Fighter, AND the new capsule album, More More More!, are both coming out on November 11th! The music video for Dream Fighter is already showing up on the video sites, but it is also being taken down with incredible speed, so if the above videos are broken, give me a line and I’ll try to find some obscure copies. Or, you could just go download Dream Fighter.
Both of these songs took a few listens to get into, but now I have them on constant loop into my brain. I wonder what it is about 中田ヤスタカ (Nakata Yasutaka) music that makes it so addictive. And with both of these coming out, he is apparently keeping busy these days! Keep it up mang!
Tags: capsule, dream fighter, electronic music, jpop, jumper, more more more, music, nicovideo, perfume, techno, video, ystk
Posted in music | No Comments »
The SmileVideo Meteor Shower
Written by Jeshii on 2008.09.18 – 12:00 -Say you want to go to DENPA 電刃, that crazy ヲタク (otaku) dance party in Tokyo (as seen on TOKYOMANGO), but you are way behind on your NicoNico culture? Well, this is your chance to study up!
Basically, there is a compilation of popular NicoNico Music called ニコニコ動画流星群 (niko niko douga ryuuseigun, NicoNicoDouga Meteor Shower), as it is a blast of popular songs on ニコ動 in quick succession:
There are a few versions:
1. The original:
3. Orchestrated:
4. With the original songs remixed:
5. Like above but more chaotic:
And below (after the jump) I have compiled a list of (almost) every one of these songs in order! Title linked to ニコニコ動画 and YouTube embeds. Enjoy!
Read more »
Tags: anime, ニコニコ動画, ニコニコ動画流星群, Bamboo Blade, Cheetah Man, Chrono Trigger, Clannad, 男女, Dance Party, Danjo, DENPA, Haruhi, Haruhi Suzumiya, Hatsune Miku, Idol Master, Ievan Polkka, Internet, iosys, Kenshin, Kirby, Kodomo no Jikan, Lucky Star, Madlax, Mega Man, Meteor Shower, music, MuvLuv, NicoNicoDouga, nicovideo, otaku, perfume, Prince of Tennis, Prokofiev, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Uma Dance, video, vocaloid, 初音ミク, 東方, 東方系
Posted in Internet, music | 3 Comments »
Is perfume breaking up your marriage?
Written by Jeshii on 2008.09.10 – 19:00 -
Perfume, from your wife
So remember I was taking about perfume, the wildly popular elecropop girls trio?
Well, looks like perfume are so popular, they are starting to break up marriages.
The story comes from
a thread on the message boards over at Yahoo!知恵袋 (Yahoo!chiebukuro). My translation of the initial post is as follows:
My wife is pressing the “perfume” question.
Hello. I’m a 29 year old married man. I don’t have any children.
It’s not like I’m really big into music, but I download and listen to a lot of different kinds of music. It doesn’t matter if it is Western or Japanese and I enjoy music from any genre.
The other day, a friend of mine recommended I give perfume a listen, but although it was music that was fairly off my particular radar, I gave them a listen and really liked it. The music videos are also quite spectacular, so I really started to get into them and started to buy DVDs on Yahoo! Auctions and collect all the CDs I could.
When I recommended them to my wife, she quietly listened and said “This is some interesting music, huh?” But then, one day, I asked her over dinner, “Who is your favorite out of the three perfume girls?” She responded angrily, 『殺すぞ』 (korosu zo, “I’ll kill you.”)
“Who gets these girly DVDs and CDs at this age?! You are always listening to it everyday! You pervert!” Among the verbal abuse, she overturned the table. Since then, my wife has started to curse the very thought of perfume. If they show up on TV, she will change the channel. If their music is the background of a commercial, she will mute it just for that commercial. She does this all with a blank face. It’s scary.
One day, when I came home from work, I found that almost all the pictures on perfume CD covers had labels put over the faces of かしゆか (Kashiyuka) and のっち (Nocchi). Somehow, あーちゃん (A~chan) made it unscathed. When I asked my wife what she was doing, she replied with the question “Which is more important, our life together or perfume?”
We aren’t very wealthy nor affluent. It seems my hobby of trying to buy CDs and DVDs had ticked her off. In the end, she hit me with these conditions. “Put all of your perfume stuff on Yahoo! Auctions, and stop listening to perfume completely. If you can’t do this, I want a divorce.”
Up until now, I had a lot of CDs of young girl bands/singers in pretty heavy rotation, and I bought some DVDs, but my wife had never said anything before… And how come あーちゃん was the only one to make it out without being covered in stickers? But I’m not in any position to be asking these questions right now. I have to get rid of the CDs and DVDs by the end of the month. This is really harsh…
To the wives and women out there, is there some way that I can peacefully end this thing? My wife is the same age as myself.
Thank you for reading.
On a side note, my real name is Yasutaka.
(Translator’s note: That last thing about Yasutaka, the DJ who produces and makes perfume’s music is Nakata Yasutaka.)
Poor guy. But, I gotta say, if is wife is that upset about it, he must be totally otaku-ing out on perfume.
But that is a good question… why perfume? And why not A~chan? Maybe it is just her cryptic way of saying which one is her favorite?!
Tags: A-chan, bbs, cd, divorce, dvd, electropop, Japanese girls, Kashiyuka, marriage, music, Nocchi, perfume, society, Yahoo, Yahoo Auctions, yasutaka, ystk
Posted in Internet, music | 21 Comments »
perfume
Written by Jeshii on 2008.08.28 – 19:00 -
The fabulous trio known as Perfume are starting to leak across the sea…
There is this odd phenomenon where when you don’t live in Japan, but are interested in it, it takes a while before something reaches critical mass and starts to leak out to other country’s Japanese-speaking populations. perfume archived this a few weeks ago.
perfume (generally not capitalized [like right after I said this, I suddenly saw it in regular caps everywhere...]) is a three girl group from Hiroshima. The members are あ～ちゃん (A~chan), かしゆか (Kashiyuka, sometimes ksyk in ローマ字), and のっち (Nocchi). They struggled for many years, apparently since elementary school, to make hit songs, but until Yasutaka Nakata, a fairly popular DJ, picked them up, they didn’t really succeed.
My personal history with perfume started when I saw the IKZOLOGIC video a while back. From that video, I started to get into capsule. Yasutaka Nakata is the DJ for capsule, so when I went looking for more music by him, I ended up hearing a lot of perfume.
But I didn’t think much of them. And then they took off and started showing up on TV and now I am on-board… they are a girl group… they don’t make their own music, but Yasutaka-san is awesome, so at least it is good music. They are just there to look pretty and dance. All their live performances are lip-synced to allow them to dance in their very unique way.
Funny thing is most people have a favorite. They are made to all look different, mainly with wardrobe and hair styles differing. I must admit that のっち is my favorite. She’s the short haired one… (-.-;)
Their blog is here. Sorry, it’s in Japanese… for now…
I leave you with their music video/commercial for Pino brand bonbons. Enjoy!
Tags: blogs, electropop, girls, Japanese girls, music, perfume, pop culture, video, ystk
Posted in music | 2 Comments »
