Favorite J-Pop Singles: Wands / Ai wo Kataru Yori Kuchizuke Wo Kawasou

I was given this single years to learn for the j-pop rock band I was in for a few years, but we never did get around to playing it! It didn’t matter though, because by the time I was told it wasn't going to be part of our repertoire,I had already fallen in love with the song!

Awesome song, great drums, especially that double-bass kick throughout the tune…woulda been real fun to play it!

Hirosue Ryoko: A Revelation of Sorts

My first memories of Hirosue Ryoko was back when we were collecting idol magazines aoound 1995 or so.Back then we were hungry for those Babe-a-licious idols like Miura Rieko, Hinagata Akiko and Kanno Miho, so we were quite confused when plain-looking (in fact, rather tom-boyish) Ryoko Hirosue started taking over the pin-up magazines!
“I just don’t GET it!” I would say to Morningberryz, “Why is this chick so popular?!” “She ‘s not a babe, and in fact, with that haircut she looks like…doraemon!” We just didn’t see her appeal back then.
She played the part of a child-prodigy piano player who gave Kimura Takuya a hard time in the classic drama Long Vacation, and thereafter was always affectionately referred to by us as “Piano-Brat”. “Piano-Brat’s on another Kindaiga cover!” Or: “Piano Brat’s in that new drama Shota No Sushi!” It seems we couldn’t get away from her!

Things slightly changed for me around mid 1996, when she starred in serial in the re-newed Mokuyo No Kwaidan Mystery show with Tamao Nakamura. The story was about a girl who befriends a ghostly spirit, and the theme song was Maji de Koi Suru 5byou Mae, sung by Ryoko herself! I have to say that I watched the show pretty regularly, and even ended up buying the single of this unbelievably catchy tune!

Next I saw Ryoko in dramas like Beach Boys and Boku ga boku de Aru Tameni, but it wasn’t until the comedy / drama Sekai de ichiban Papa ga Suki with Akashiya Sanma that I actually started really liking her as an actress. Actually, it was the NG stuff on FNS HAPPENING that warmed me to her, she was so funny when she flubbed her lines, you could tell she was fun to be around in “real life”. There was this one NG scene where she is handcuffed to Sanma, and they both trip and fall, she is laughing so hard, you start laughing, too!

Next was a real 90 degree turn for her, as she played two very dark suicidal characters in both Seija no Koushin and Lipstick. I remember even then thinking, “Wow, she’s come a long way since the Piano-Brat days.” I truly thought her new image was going to be a more rebellious-type character, and thought she could do it,too!

I didn’t see Ryoko Hirosue again until Otousan in 2002, (which I was watching for Kyoko Fukada) , and was surprised at the character she was playing, a sad, introverted girl with no self-confidence. I was shocked ‘cause I’d never seen her like this in any of the other dramas I watched. But I had to admit it was a pretty interesting character.

Jump ahead to 2007, and my friend Car is obsessed with all thing Domoto-Brothers related. Browsing through some blog online, I notice that the three Domoto Tsuyoshi J-doramas that fans seem to love are Second Chance (I loved it,too!), To Heart (with my babes Kyoko Fukada) and one called Summer Snow. Summer Snow? How did I not see this one before? So I downloaded the show. Here it is 2007 and I’m downloading a show from 2002.

The story’s about a young man named Natsuo, (Domoto Tsuyoshi) taking care of his two siblings, who meets a young girl (Hirosue Ryoko) suffering from a heart-disease. The two compliment each other well, she is kind and insightful, and he is fun-loving and outspoken. The drama is about the chance meeting the two have and the relationship that develops.
Without giving away any spoilers, I have to say that the drama was incredibly touching. Lots of good acting here, ESPECIALLY Hirosue Ryoko and Chizuru Ikewaki (such a cutie here!), who really knock their scenes out of the ballpark.

Ryoko’s character Yuki Katase….what can I say. This was without a doubt the best character I’ve ever seen her play. She was so positive and yet so vulnerable. When she was happy, she was so adorable, you just wanted to hug her to bits, and when she was sad, it just broke your heart.

I think this is the first time I’ve fallen in love with one of Ryoko Hirosue’s drama personas; she was just the sweetest thing ever! And the scenes where she’s crying made me realize that NO ONE breaks down like Ryoko Hirosue! So real and emotional, it just destroys you. But for whatever reason whether it be her acting, the story, or my personal preferences, all the scenes really hit home!

I might rate the Summer Snow drama an 8, but I’ll DEFINITELY rate Ryoko Hirosue’s performance of Yuki a 10! When the show was finally over, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. More precisely, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ryoko’s scenes… I had to laugh- This drama has got me smitten with Ryoko Hirosue! With the actress I once referred to as Piano-Brat! I just HAD to write up this little blog entry, if only to state for the record for Ryoko Hirosue and Ryoko Hirosue’s fans :

O.K., O.K….I “GET” IT NOW!

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Be-B / Manatsu No AI YAI YAI

Continuing on with my coverage of favorite songs from that very first j-pop mix I’d acquired years ago is a fierce little rocker called MANATSU NO AI YAI YAI by the super-cool vocalist known simply as BE-B!

Be-B had a very original vocal style that immediately stood out from the rest of the songs: Throaty and raspy with a definite rocker edge, the way she wailed and built up each bridge to the awesome “SHINING HEART!!!” climax, this song was definitely among the first j-pop songs I truly, truly LOVED!

 The J-pop buyer at work let me borrow a few Japanese Music Specials from earlier that year, including the past Kohaku Uta Gassen and the Japan Record Awards. It was here I first got to see Be-B in all her rocking glory, singing a cool little tune called “Doumu~Kaze Ni Mukatte, and after that I picked up her greatest hits package (entitled, simply enough, Be-B Singles) What an awesome collection this was-Triple Gatefold Sleeves and all!

Those Wacky GNo嵐 Opening Credits!

 One thing that I've always loved about the various variety shows that J-storm group ARASHI have are their catchy and hilarious opening credits that accompany them!
  A long-standing tradition among these beginnings is normally soft-spoken leader Satoshi Ohno stepping up and playfully striking various "Tough Guy" poses and attitudes! In two "D NO Arashi" openings, he is portrayed tricking the other members into spelling out "Leader Saiko!" In another, he is carried by his co-workers on their shoulders, "emperor" style! In one, the members are carried like mannequins onto the set, followed by a very real Ohno slipping on some cool shades before the group animates!
 But out of all of these, my very favorite one has to be the "Fight Song" opening credits of "G No Arashi"!

It starts out innocently enough...

Sakurai Sho is happily polishing his trophies..

Masaki Aiba is twirling a Soccer Ball...

Kazunari Ninomiya is catching up on some reading...

...and Matsumoto Jun yawns, waiting for something to happen.

Then suddenly,Ohno shows up, and WANTS THEM ON THEIR FEET!

He perks up Nino first...

approaches Sho...

persuades Jun...

and convinces Aiba...

Then gets the boys in line to form their FIGHT pose as the line GANBATTE echoes!!!

A fun beginning that instantly gets you in the mood for the episode's activities!
It doesn't hurt that the theme Fight Song is a terrific tune, either!

First Foray in J-pop: Tenchi Muyo!

My very first introduction to japanese pop music came through an Anime Series that the girls in the Video Room at Tower Records used to play over and over again every night we worked! The Series was Tenchi Muyo, and once the songs hooked me, I made it a point to watch every show, eventually falling in love with the series and buying every episode on laserdisc, as well as most of the CD soundtracks that were available!
The two songs that brought me in were the ending credits to the first series, called "Talent For Love" and the opening credits to the second series called "I'm A Pioneer". Both songs were sung by Chisa Yokoyama, the voice actress who also supplied the voice for Sasami. Both feature peppy, catchy, hummable songs, both feature great animation,and there'll probably never be an ending credit sequence better than the Talent For Love clip with Ryo-Oki growing a carrot!
My favorite character of the series just has to be intergalactic scientist Washu, better known (by her request) as Washu-chan! My favorite episode is the "Hello, Baby" episode, which is, naturally, centered around Washu and her past. I think she's just the coolest, sexiest, smartest chick in that household, second to none!

Shakalabbits!

Here's probably my favorite current J-pop group out there right now,the rocking and quirky SHAKALABBITS!

A Friend asked me to describe them in a sentence, and I said "Judy and Mary for a new generation of fans!"

YES I said JAM, so they're an acquired taste and not for the faint of heart!

Whenever I would check out the latest postings on the mighty Japanese ORICON charts, there always seemed to be groups that charted regularly in the top echelon that never seemed to appear in television shows like Music Station and such. You would see these names like ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, GARNET CROW and BUMP-OF-CHICKEN, and think, “Who ARE these groups?” I suppose if I lived in Japan, or at least had access to japan radio shows, I’d know them, but being completely reliant on shows like UTABAN and HEY HEY HEY to “educate” me about new groups, there were quite a few that remained unknown to me!

  Shakalabbits was one such group. I’d see this group with its weird name continually making the top twenty in the Oricon charts, and one day, a kind and generous soul on Jpopsuki uploaded the latest single of theirs called “DAZZLING SOUP”, and I downloaded it so I could finally get to HEAR this group!

 Wel, I didn’t know what I expected, but this song was just fantastic! As I mentioned above, they struck me as a latter-day JUDY AND MARY, but this group also seemed to have 1980’s nu-romantic overtones in the music as well (at least in THIS single), and I immediately knew I wanted to hear more!