I Like Everything...

...don't you just *hate* that? Warning: diatribe follows.



One of the things I accidentally left out of my Things that Tick Me Off post is something that I suppose doesn't tick me off, but instead, puzzles me to no end. People who say that they 'hate' (no, I mean really, *hate*) a certain idol or idols, yet are just as much in love with their favorite idol as I am with Ms. Kayo Aiko.

People who worship one idol and outwardly despise another... these are people that I don't want to know, really. For example, there are plenty of Kusumi-haters out there (you know who you are, you heartless bastards!), and also, plenty of people who love to hate Ms. Mitsui Aika (pictured above). When I look at that picture I don't feel anything even approaching animosity. I used to be indifferent to Aika, because to me she was relatively unknown and there were plenty of other Musume to focus on.

Look at my track record so far... I reviewed the Girls Box Movie (and liked it), brought up some of my favorites: SPEED, Perfume and Capsule, every Morning Musume album, Slayer... and I had good things to say about all of them. So why post a picture of Aika and say anything negative about her? Well, I'm not going to. I like Mitsui, and I like her alot. Damn right I do.

Yeah, I could nitpick and deconstruct her, mention how she's not as good of a dancer or singer as (insert random Musume here). I could talk about how the nickname 'Moonface' is seemingly apt -- Paul, we need another Chris post -- or how she actually did look kinda scary to me when she joined up... maybe it's all those teeth, she looks like she *does* bite:



..and if she does, well, no cutting into the queue! I'm in my rightful place, waiting to get bitten. But I digress.

Bringing up such a polarizing personality as Ms. Mitsui might get a reaction from some people, good or bad. I've been on both sides of the fence with her, from in the past possibly wishing she'd go away, to now, where I'm contemplating starting a site dedicated to her... hmm, moonface.blogspot.com? Naw, I just don't have the time; besides, if anyone, it's Saito Michi, then Nacchan, then a toss up between Sasaki Nozomi or Ogura Yuko.

I remember buying some °C-ute songs from iTunes, looking at the cover, and wondering, 'who *are* these people?' Some of them, I swore, I would not be a big fan of, especially Chisato, with this haircut:



I tried to think positively, that she was just as much a part of the group as all the rest, bad haircut and photograph and all. I just couldn't get past how boyish and strange she looked. Luckily, my reaction wasn't enough to go online and trumpet how much I despised her, nor ask ad nauseam, 'what's up with *this chick*?' By that point I'd had enough experience to know that if she was any good, I'd find out sooner or later. Nowadays, her signature adorns my wall, along with those of the rest of the °C-ute ensemble. And I treasure it. Chisato, sweetheart -- you ever need a place to crash, lemme know...

So after that ordeal, and seeing Mitsui Aika in a swimsuit (yowza!), it's not like I'm going to disown her as a Musume or as a person. All readers -- love her or hate her -- I'll say 'hi' for ya when I see her in Los Angeles.

Sorry, but this blog will remain a place of praise. Might be a little tiresome after a while if you keep reading my reviews and find out that I like everything I see or hear. Well, I don't, actually, and if you knew me better you'd be tired of my complaints by now. But when it comes to Japanese pop music and idol culture, I'm kind of biased.

My previous post mentioned how music is good for you, in a very real way. And I thought that finding Berryz Kobo, °C-ute, and Kusumi Koharu was a quasi-fountain-of-youth, bordering on the legend of Elizabeth Báthory in terms of extending my life without scientific proof.

With all the real things I have to complain about, Japanese pop songs (and the personalties behind them) are nice to have. Furthermore, none of these girls would hurt a fly (or you), unless they asked me to do the honors, whilst playing up the whole cute-and-scared angle.

So why all the hate?

It goes without saying that most of the internet is populated by well-meaning but loudmouthed teenagers who simply *must* project their thoughts into the world, whether those thoughts are rational or not. But even adults want to spread hate about their least-favorite idol, and these are the people I'm speaking out against.

If you can't stand Japanese pop, fine; but please, don't be a hypocrite. I'm already puzzled enough.

For the last time, then, here goes. If you're a Jpop lover, but still claim to hate certain idols, I've got to call you out, here and now. Of all the things you might have reason to complain about, why are you so down on some teenage girl from Japan who sings and acts cute?

Are you more attractive than she is? Are you worth more as a person than she is?

Then why the heck aren't people watching your videos and buying your records?

Again, love to Ms. Mitsui Aika, even if it makes me seem uninteresting. Seriously, why do you harbor hatred for specific little Japanese girls?

As a postscript, does anyone know Mitsui's 'concert color'? Or, For-The-Win, can anyone point me to a list of *all* the Musume's colors? I want to show my support (and recognize others' allegiances) at AX, 48 days from today.

Check out some Girl's Box music

In my post titled "Finding more Aiko..." I threatened to make the a☆girls song 'Tsuioku no Heroine' available for preview, so I've done myself one better and am making a number of Girls Box songs available.

Each song I've uploaded has three things in common: first, I enjoy these songs and think that some of you will enjoy them as well. Second, I'm not aware that any of these songs are widely available on the 'net, if you can even find a portion of them anywhere else. And third, each song has been modified so that you get most (but not all) of the song here; just enough to make you think that if only you had that extra minute or so, including the brilliant ending, your life would somehow be complete.

I'm not trying to encourage piracy, I just think you'll like them enough to search for them legitimately at some point. I'm just tired of shopping for music where you are *lucky* if you get titles, or any correct information at all. I'm also displeased with 30-second soundbytes that don't really give you any idea of the scope of the composition. I don't own the rights to any of this, and I'm not representing any company in doing this. Just getting it out there so that maybe someone else will pick up on it. I know Avex wants to sell this, and I know the retailers want to sell this. If you haven't heard these before (or, like me, you may be on the fence about some things), this will give you the chance to hear this music for what it really is. And really, what it is, is... awfully good. I've provided links to the albums at cdjapan, but now that you know what you're looking for, feel free to buy them anywhere.

So, if you're still with me, here's what I've got:

Girls Box ~Best Hits Compilation Winter~
(also available as CD-only)
There are 11 songs on this disc, and I am providing previews for:
Track 3: Hiroko Sato: "Can't Hide"
Track 5: a☆girls: "Tsuioku no Heroine
Track 8: Nanase Hoshii: "Fuyu no Opera Glass"
Track 9: Saito Michi: "Tooi Machi no Dokoka de"

Girls Box LOVERS HIGH Original Song Collection
(also available as CD-only)
There are 6 songs on this disc, and I am providing previews for:
Track 2: Nagasawa Nao: "To you"
Track 3: Kayo Aiko: "Runaway girl"
Track 4: Nanase Hoshii: "Dawn is standing on my back"
Track 5: Saito Michi: "HOLD ON"

Right, here is the collection for download at Mediafire. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me (see profile-->) with your thoughts.

Finding More Aiko, You Can't Always Trust the Internet, and Some Ground Rules

My latest cdjapan purchase was a treasure hunt of sorts.  My first selection was 'GIRLS BOX ~Best Hits Compilation Winter~.  While most of these GIRLS BOX compilation cd's include Aiko songs, they are usually singles you can find elsewhere.  Aiko fans, take note:  this cd contains a song of hers that you're not likely to have, or find on the internet.

In 2005, before there was Kingyo, there was "a☆girls", a duo consisting of Pretty Ami and Aiko Kayo.  Though I'm not sure what they did otherwise, the song "Tsuioku no Heroine" is included on this compilation.  Any Aiko completist needs this song in his or her collection.  The song is in a style that I'd term 'hard disco', similar to Aiko's 'Fantasy' with a little more variance and more sound effects, plus a few polyrythms.  In typical Aiko style, it's upbeat and catchy, slightly aggressive, but with an underlying coolness that shines through.

In the future I might make a lo-Q version of this song available, to drum up some advertisement for this album.  You'd want this song if you could hear it.

If this were the only reason I'd purchased this disc, it'd been worth it;  but there are a few more bonuses for the Aiko fans.  A long version of '3rd Xmas' (now with more 'yeah yeah yeah sha-la-la-ding-dongs!), and that song's PV (which I don't think you can get elsewhere), with clips from the Girl's Box Xmas TV series.

Also, a live clip of 'Futari no Ai Land', sung by a stage filled with every Japanese girl that ever lived.

  

Standing next to Aiko during 'Futari no Ai Land' is the incomparable Saito Michi.  Feels nice to know that Saito is Aiko's partner in crime for this song.  Plus, she gets her own song on the album, 'Tooi Machi no Dokoka de...', a Christmas song, a very good song.  I'm slowly becoming a huge Mi-chan fan, the more I hear of her.

Also among the millions on that stage, front and center is Nanase Hoshii.  She also gets a song on the album, one I didn't have before, 'Fuyu no Opera Glass'.  It's another Nacchan song which (again, dammit) defies description.  There's mellotron, referee whistles, old-Pink-Floyd style electric organ, flange guitar, and a sitar.

Prepare yourself as well for a song sung by Hiroko Sato, labelled a 'newcomer' here.  She's a ridiculously gorgeous model with a surprisingly average voice.  She's a model, after all, and unfortunately, hasn't done much with music before or since, perhaps something a little more suited to her voice.

The other item in my purchase was, unfortunately, Aiko-free.  I've seen titles of a couple songs Aiko had sung for anime, prior to her first single, and was hoping to unearth one to prove that it really did exist.  Those songs are 'ABC no Kodomotachi' and 'Midnight Horror School', and so I bit the bullet to try for the latter.  The first installment of Midnight Horror School looks like this:

My sources had listed 'Midnight Horror School' as the 'first' theme song for this anime.  There's another theme, 'Happy Mystery', credited as the 'second' theme song.  Sounds logical, then, to get the first few episodes to find my Aiko song.  Mission failed, however.  'Happy Mystery' is the theme for the first four episodes, and I know that for a fact.  The song was done by Kawakami Tomoko, not Kayo Aiko.  So if Aiko did do 'Midnight Horror School' the song is not the 'first' theme song, if your method is chronological order.

There are 13 of these MHS collections, each priced a little over $40 each, so I'm not taking chances which might ultimately cost $600 to collect the whole series, just for one Aiko song which may last 1:30.  I invite anyone with a little more knowledge on the subject to come forward on this before I empty my wallet again.

So it's bad enough that Aiko's song has been mis-labeled as the 'first' theme song when it isn't, but remember, there's also hope for another song, 'ABC no Kodomotachi', right?  Wrong.  I wasn't expecting to find it so easily, but 'ABC no Kodomotachi' is on this disc, and it's again done by Kawakami Tomoko.  Don't believe everything you read on the internet.  There's still hope that a song called 'Midnight Horror School' exists, and that it's sung by Aiko.  Otherwise, my sources were wrong, and Aiko should not be credited for 'ABC no Kodomotachi', nor the 'first' theme song of this anime.

Not all is lost, though;  the anime seems really cute and done in beautiful CGI.  Once I get over the shock I'll have to go back and watch the show.  I may enjoy it enough that buying every successor will come with time.  Sadly, this DVD is Aiko-free.

Last, as promised, some ground rules for the S.P.A.K.A. site.

I won't enforce copyright of anything I post here.  Meaning, unless other rights are reserved (the cropped Aiko pictures, for instance), this site is fully public domain.  My only goals with this, as posted before are:

1. to get in touch with Ms. Kayo Aiko and let her know we appreciate her.

2. to encourage continued support for her career in showbusiness.

3. to provide information about Ms. Kayo Aiko to anyone who wants to know more about her.

I'm not doing this for personal gain, except maybe for the chance to shake her hand and tell her 'arigatou' and 'ganbatte'.  If you have any information about her, pass it on.  It'll help me (and the entire English-speaking world) to be able to sort fact from fiction.

Girl's Box LOVERS HIGH Review, Part Four

Why, oh why, did Hoshii Nanase have to play the 'bitch' character, save for the last five minutes of this film?  She plays it WELL, mind you, but if this were your first exposure to the actress, you'd probably wonder what the hell she'd ever done before this and why she showed up for filming if she was just going to be a crab about the whole thing.  Nacchan was one of the cast members that I was really excited about seeing and unfortunately, in my opinion, the writers left her out in the cold.

You WISH you were this prolific at age 19;  trust me, you do.  

She started out in music with the single "Glass no Kutsu ~Nacchan~".  The song is about being discovered;  she, the 'everygirl', somehow the song is also about the whirlwind of exposure she got from being the star of a popular orange juice commercial in real life.  So the video for this song, THE BEST CHEAP VIDEO EVER MADE, is this:  Nacchan walks down a dirt path in a school uniform with a bunch of other school kids in the background, as if she's late for something.  She's not too hurried at the start, but as the song goes on, she picks up the pace, and is almost in a full sprint three minutes later, leaving the other kids in the dust behind her.  It's all done in one shot, and the song plays, but she doesn't 'sing' it, she just keeps hurrying to some important encounter somewhere behind us.  An analogy for something, probably 'heading towards fame', but still very open to interpretation.  

It's a religious experience for we viewers at the very least.  We never find out what she is running to, she never gets there, and it doesn't seem to matter.  This song is the perfect pep-talk for those times when we know we have to keep going despite all, but just can't seem to face the world.  

Sometimes when the mood is right I'll sing along with this song, and choke back tears when she gets to the bridge: "watashi wa Nacchan/utatte odoru/jyu go byo dake no Cinderella" and I realize that I'm crying over a f**kin' orange juice commercial, one that refers to 'becoming Cinderella in fifteen seconds', and I don't care, because it's really about something more, dammit!  The next bridge is even more perfect for the occasion, "watashi wa Nacchan/itsu itsu made mo/kagayaki tsuzukeru Cinderella", (forever, a Cinderella shining endlessly), and it's you versus the WORLD!  So if this twiggy little girl can face a seemingly insurmountable challenge, what's stopping you, eh?

Quickly bucking the orange juice image, she then released "Renai 15 Simulation", which is a five-minute rap song.  On first listen I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard.  Every listen after that I've been transfixed, bobbing my head like I'm Dr. Dre all of a sudden, and listenin' to her droppin' a flow over that slammin' beat.  

I've memorized this song, for godsakes, and once joked that I'd still listen to it "if it had been recorded with a boombox from a mile away".  The song and the rap image (complete with Lakers jersey) that Nacchan conveyed gained her even more fame, and she had appearances on Hey Hey Hey and Utaban to promote the single, and the hosts were agape at her flow and gang-sign-flashing stage presence.  A couple of years later, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that she's a little embarrassed about having recorded this song, maybe she's not, but had this been the only song she ever recorded, it would still be one of many high water marks.

I'll skip the next few singles and just say that each one was again very different from the predecessor.  If you've never heard Perm Pavilion, quit reading this and find it and listen to it and watch the video!  Same with Nana Navigation, which was the first Nacchan video I fell in love with, least of all for the building-licking dragon, an alien abduction thwarted by a magical wheeled suitcase, and, get this:  Nacchan breaking into an already-soaring jet with a jackhammer!  All while singing about a 'heart that runs on gasoline'.

She then turned a huge corner and is now in a punk/electronica band called Seventh Tarz Armstrong, my current weapon of choice when trying to blow out my pesky ol' eardrums (who needs em?).

Search her whole musical catalog, front to back, and find nothing but nails being hit on the head, from sentimental (Suki Desu) to cool urban kiddie-life (Famiresu Kousaten) to dance-pop (Nanapreme no Renai SO! DANCE! RADIO-7700), and all points in between.

Search her acting résumé, which I don't know very well, and find out that she's had more than a few gigs, and should be well up to the task at hand, the Girl's Box Movie.

And what does her character 'Nana' do here?  Mostly she says, "Go away, I'm a bitch!"  It can't be her fault... she's the real-life 'total producer' of Kingyo (propers!), a charming celebrity of her own merits, and as an idol she scores consistently higher than Ms. Kayo Aiko (in a different age category, but still) so it's doubtful that in real life she's some alienated youth seeking refuge from stardom.

In subsequent viewings of LOVERS HIGH it's still unclear why she lives at the Girl's Box bar with everyone else, maybe she's related to someone, but she clearly doesn't work there and calls it "Garbage Box".  So?  Go find a bridge to live under, then, jeez...  While she gets the pivotal role of handing a tape of the "Lover's High" song to Kingyo, and starts the sequencer at the end of the film to get the group a'going, I just wish they'd chosen a more upbeat and rounded personality for her character.  Again, though, she plays it well.   I'd been so stoked to write about Nacchan, as she just represents all that is hip and holy, and musically has been in every corner and still refuses to be pinned down to any one image, or any one genre.  If there IS OR EVER WAS a more tuned-in 19-year-old Japanese girl, please let me know, and if so, she still couldn't have been this damned cute.  This is fact, not opinion.

Her character's quirks (for me) lie mostly in her guitar-playing abilities.  I'm a guitar player so I watched closely and have determined that she is NOT playing here, but only from one (1) cut of film can this be determined.  I'd guess that in real life she is learning to play or knows some basics already, because it's believable, just not if you're watching very closely.  Still, it's the little things... for instance, if you had written a song and were just banging it out for the first time on your acoustic guitar, you'd get to the end of the lyrics and stop right there to think 'should I add something here? did these words really flow? etc.' and instead, as I touched on earlier, she gets mad when Yua claps after having eavesdropped on the song.  But again, if you were writing a song, you wouldn't end the verse, play for a few more bars, and then play the final resolving chord really strong as if it were a recording session (if you're just playing it to yourself).  This isn't an 'error' as such, just a curiosity, because she seems to be playing the song for someone else.  But Nana is CLEARLY loathing the fact that Yua had heard any of it.  Later, when Yua sings the song to break up a bar brawl (and in the midst of this brawl, Nami is bustin' heads left and right), all the girls are impressed with Nana's 'secret' songwriting ability.  But she didn't write it, really, she just belted it out to the fish in the river for no reason, and Yua picked up on it.

Next, we see Nana later putting a new string on her guitar, the fifth 'A' string.  So I have too many questions, like:  "are you going to do the last one, too?" because she puts the guitar in the case when she's done with that one, and if you restring the whole guitar, you usually go from one side to the other (basically, the middle strings are not the last ones you put on the guitar).  

Another question is:  "Did she just break the 'A' string?" as (a.) it happens, but usually it's the low 'E' or the high 'E', (b.) if it's been more than a week, you'll want to replace them all anyway (bronze acoustic strings oxidize (rust) very quickly, and you've got five rusted strings and one really twangy string in the middle), and (c.) if you break a string and your playing session ceases, you usually take the old string off and save putting on the new one for the next time you play.  Maybe she's more in tune to the 'rusted string' theory than I am and will pick the guitar up again in a few days, nullifying the one-new-string's twang.

On the upside, she uses a capo on the fourth fret, and for all you aspiring -- or ol' pro -- guitar players, this is correct, I've checked.

(Image derived from Aiko's blog.  Sorry I cut you out, Ms. Kayo, but you're up next, I promise.)