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:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB2VnuPLlfQ

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.

Technorati Tags: けいおん！, concert, high school, Japanese girls, japanese high school girls, K-ON!, keion, kohaku, live, music, perfume, Scandal, seifuku

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThmUt7fXX6U

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)

Technorati 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

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.

Technorati 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

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYeZ1A_5fv0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhzm22rfvt4

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!

Technorati Tags: capsule, dream fighter, electronic music, jpop, jumper, more more more, music, nicovideo, perfume, techno, video, ystk

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:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNdlKecb_0Q

There are a few versions:

1. The original:

2. With VOCALOID lyrics:

3. Orchestrated:

4. With the original songs remixed:

5. Like above but more chaotic:

6. Ronald McDonald style:

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!

00. 時報 -- This would be a whole ‘nother blog post trying to explain these. Basically, sometimes you get the time when watching ニコニコ動画 (NicoNicoDouga).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuuEMXEqIy0

01. Star Rise -- The ending theme to バンブーブレード　(Bamboo Blade).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODIt-rUj6e4

02. 寝・逃・げでリセット！ -- a song from the anime らき☆すた (Lucky Star).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX-xFloai1o

03.　ハナマル☆センセイション -- The ending theme to こどものじかん (kodomo no jikan)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8I9B7h0M64

04. caramelldansen -- Best explained over at Tokyo Mango…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX6e7sO1ss0

05. カービィのグルメレース -- Did you know there are lyrics to that Kirby song (besides “drop it like it’s hot”)?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeABtvgbe78

06. nowhere -- a song from the anime Madlax.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W66Xka2U_o

07. チーターマン -- Apparently a rap someone came up for the Cheetah Men II game theme.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FhcOFeCDCI

08. Ievan Polkka -- I’ve already posted this one, but hell, I love it so much, here it is again.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5kDcIJ9i_A

09. バラライカ -- I won’t pretend to say I understand what this is all about…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgiOKM9O3sM

10. 男女 -- A single by an artist called 太郎 (Tarou) released in late 2006. In early 2008, this nicovideo revived the song from obscurity!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezIivYoz4to

11. モンタギュー家とキャピュレット家 -- A movement from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” that was in a SoftBank commercial.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x4oVt6IPvE

12. “I’m lovin’ it!” Do I really need to explain this one?

13. The Last Wolf Suite -- a BGM song from るろうに剣心 (Rurouni Kenshin)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uh__MTM0pQ

14. クリアまでは眠らない -- “Can’t Sleep ’til I beat it!” One of the two awesome Team猫かん (Team nekokan) rock songs about MegaMan.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG_GnjntufY

15. 未来への咆哮 -- “Scream to the Future”, an opening from the anime マブラヴ (MuvLuv)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKPCCuHiVSg

16. エアーマンが倒せない -- “Can’t Beat Airman” The other awesome MegaMan song. So brilliant.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLbFctG3tw0

17.　メルト -- An original 初音ミク song.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4jkxXyCBgs

18. だんご大家族 -- “Big Family Dango” An ending theme from the anime Clannad.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=24Hx8i5f9F0

19. 風の憧憬 -- Known as “Wind Scene” in English, this is a song from Chrono Trigger.

20. 雪、無音、窓辺にて。 -- A song from the anime The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

21. you -- a song from the game ひぐらしのなく頃に解 (higurashi no naku koro ni kai)

22. 魔理沙は大変なものを盗んでいきました -- a popular flash video made by IOSYS (featured previously).

23. U.N.オーエンは彼女なのか？ -- Originally from the game 東方紅魔郷, this one has been remixed so much! My favorite is the Ronald McDonald one.

24. お嫁にしなさいっ！ -- Another IOSYS production. “Make me your wife!” @_@ Very cute though.

25. ロックマン2 ワイリーステージ1/おっくせんまん/思い出は億千万 -- Another hard one to explain in complete. The short version is that this the Dr. Wily Stage 1 song from MegaMan 2. The long version is that X Japan did a cover, and then someone did the linked video, and… I dunno. When culture gets remixed so much like this, it is awesome and really hard to follow! XD

26. After Dark -- (Åh) När Ni Tar Saken I Egna Händer -- Another one where I’m fairly confused about, but everyone calls it オナニー. Oh, nani?

27. ハレ晴レユカイ -- That dance song from Haruhi, probably popular enough for you to have already heard of it. There’s even a MegaMan version.

28. God knows… -- Another song from Haruhi.

29. JOINT -- The opening from the anime 灼眼のシャナII (Shakugan no Shana II)

30. 解読不能 -- another anime song from コードギアス 反逆のルルーシュ （CODE GEASS Lelouch of the Rebellion).

32. パーフェクトスター・パーフェクトスタイル -- A perfume song!!! This is the version with the Idol Master characters.

33. 患部で止まってすぐ溶ける～狂気の優曇華院 -- Another IOSYS creation.

34. Help me ERINNNNNN!! -- Another IOSYS creation. From the CD Flowering ERINNNNNN!! Seems to have a lot of stuff going on related to it.

35. 千年幻想郷　～ History of the Moon -- from the game 東方永夜抄.

36. Little Busters! -- opening theme to the game of the same title.

37. 1000％SPARKING! -- From an anime called ネギま！？ (negima!?)

38-39. Some songs from the Prince of Tennis musical

40. エージェント夜を往く -- From THE IDOLM@STER game.

41. ネイティブフェイス -- from the game 東方風神録

42. true my heart -- Opening from the game Nursery Rhyme, here is the VOCALOID version.

43. ケロ⑨Destiny -- Another IOSYS production.

44. YATTA! -- You know this one if you have been alive sometime in the last decade. I’m actually in this video if you know where to look.

45. みくみくにしてあげる♪ -- An original 初音ミク song by ika.

46. レッツゴー！陰陽師 -- a song from the game 「新豪血寺一族 －煩悩解放－」

47. Air on the G String (nice boat)

You can now go to 電刃 without feeling too much like a 外人 (gaijin). I hope you enjoyed going through all these songs as much as I did. XD

Update: Here is a YouTube playlist of all the songs!

Technorati 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

Perfume, from your wife

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?!

Technorati Tags: A-chan, bbs, cd, divorce, dvd, electropop, Japanese girls, Kashiyuka, marriage, music, Nocchi, perfume, society, Yahoo, Yahoo Auctions, yasutaka, ystk

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!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvC0TcBCpQM

Technorati Tags: blogs, electropop, girls, Japanese girls, music, perfume, pop culture, video, ystk