Sexy...Zone? | Thoughts on Sexy Zone's 'Fuller House' Cameo

A few days ago, the episode of Fuller House that features our precious baby Marius Yo was released on Netflix. I spent a few days catching up on the series since I was a little behind and now I was finally able to watch it. So here is a brief review kind of thing with a focus on Sexy Zone's apperance. If you want to watch the episode yourself it's season 3 episode 10.

Marius' first apperance happens when characters Ramona and Jackson are exploring the streets of Harajuku. Ramona is upset that her ex-boyfriend Popko is already seeing other girls and carelessly walks out into the street. A motorcyle is speeding towards her but just at the last minute Marius jumps in and saves her from getting hit. For the two it's love at first sight and Marius invites her to meet him at Tokyo Dome later that day without even telling her his name. Lucky girl!

Later, Jackson and Ramona arrive at Tokyo Dome but Ramona's true love is nowhere to be found. That is until the concert starts and she's surprised to see him on stage. It made me laugh how Jackson said "Sexy...Zone?" because I remember when I was a huge fan of them and people would always have that confused reaction to hearing the group's name for the first time.

The Majibo Experience | Thoughts on MAGiC BOYZ' "Dai Ichi Ji Seicho Ki ~Baby to Boy~"

Now, MAGiC BOYZ do have a bit of a reputation for being weird. When they first debuted I thought they were pretty funny in a cute way. These adorable, seemingly innocent Japanese schoolboys rapping to some sick beats didn't seem to fit right at all and that's what made them so entertaining. Yes, I did in fact just say 'sick beats'.

But then they got older, members graduated, and new members joined. It stopped being cute and just got kind of awkward. I was constantly asking; how are they still going? What audience are they even targeting? Who is even buying their CDs?! They're like a bad parody of hip-hop, but at the same time it seemed like they were actually legit trying sometimes? Someone help them.

As objectively terrible as Majibo are, I still fell for them. Their songs are catchy as heck and the members are all lovable dorks. Their concerts look like so much fun too. Basically, I am Majibo's target audience; someone who just loves male idols regardless of how weird and whacky they are. Sure, the members might not be the most talented but it's their imperfections and the bond they share with their fans that keeps me coming back for more. I've bought several of their CDs and I'm only a little ashamed.

On August 30th of this year, Majibo released their first album. I had been putting off buying it for a while since it was quite expensive but much to my surprise, I recently discovered that it was up on iTunes. MAGiC BOYZ' releases did used to be put up on iTunes for overseas fans to buy but for some reason they stopped after their 3rd single. It's nice to see that their label has remembered the overseas fans again, and buying the album on iTunes obviously turned out to be much cheaper than getting the whole physical CD shipped from Japan.

The Number One Otaku Male Idol Group | A Brief Introduction to EPIC STAR

I’ve mentioned in a few previous posts that earlier this year, Japan Expo in France was lucky enough to see the debut overseas performance of energetic rookie male idol group, BREAK☆THROUGH”5D. At the same event, dansou (girls-dressed-as-handsome-boys) group THE HOOPERS returned to Europe for round two after their performance in London last year. But they weren’t the only idol boys to crash Japan Expo this year. 7-member (now 9-member) group EPIC STAR also put on a great performance where they enthusiastically introduced themselves to their French fans for the first time.

EPIC STAR refer to themselves as an “idol-style otaku group”. They received the privilege of performing at the large event in Paris after being declared the winners of the first ever edition of Tokyo Candoll -BOYS-, an annual competition for up and coming male idol groups. The female idol equivalent - Tokyo Candoll - has been active for 3 years and this year’s winners - notall - were also able to perform at Japan Expo.

Upcoming Jpop Boy Group Releases for December 2017

Ano Hi no Yume to, Ima no Boku. on CDJapan
Release Date: 2017/12/12

On December 12th, BREAK☆THROUGH”5D will release their 7th single “Ano Hi no Yume to, Ima no Boku.”. Check out the music video for the title track above.

My Friend / Kimi de Ippai on CDJapan

Release Date: 2017/12/13

On the following day, EBiDAN group EBiSSH will release their 2nd single “My Friend / Kimi de Ippai”. "My Friend" is the ending song for the anime "Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head".

Arsrottle on CDJapan

Release Date: 2017/12/13

On the same day, "otome" group ARSMAGNA will release their 4th album "Arsrottle".

The Time I Met THE HOOPERS

Last year I was lucky enough to be able to see THE HOOPERS live and also meet them afterwards at Hyper Japan Christmas Market. Since this year's Hyper Japan Christmas Market is coming up I thought now would be a good time to share my experience. I won't be attending the event this year mainly due to the fact that there aren't really artists I'm interested in performing but you best believe I'll be spamming their feedback form with requests as always, haha.

I'd bought THE HOOPERS' penlight and album especially for the event. I also slaved in front of my TV screen for many days watching their concerts to get the hang of the wotagei routines, haha. Turns out they weren't signing though so I wasn't able to get my CD signed but it was still awesome to have it and I would have bought it anyway.

I Dreamt of This Day Too | BREAK☆THROUGH"5D Release MV with English Subs

On December 19th, 4-member boy group BREAK☆THROUGH"5D will release their 3rd major single. Its title is "Ano Hi no Yume to, Ima no Boku" (A Dream of That Day and Who I Am Now). It will be released in 3 editions and if their previous releases are anything to go on, it should be available to purchase on iTunes for those of us overseas as well.

This will be their second release since their debut overseas performance in France back in July (the music video for their last release was filmed in Paris) and they recently uploaded the music video for the title track on YouTube.

I like this MV. It's nothing we haven't seen before but it's still pretty cute. The song isn't bad either and I love the costumes and the choreography. But the MV itself wasn't what caught my attention. Because, what's that below the video? Japanese subtitles...and English too?!

BREAK☆THROUGH have always been a pretty decent group in terms of overseas accessibility but this has me a tad excited. Since - as I mentioned already - this is one of their first releases since their performance at Japan Expo, could the English subs be a hint to more overseas activities in the future? Or at least them making more of an effort to target fans abroad? This is the first music video from a Jpop boy group I've ever seen that actually has English subs done officially (rather than being a fansub), not to mention that they actually read as if the lyrics have been translated properly rather than just run through Google Translate or something. They just might be taking this seriously.

I'm not expecting BREAK☆THROUGH to start doing world tours or anything. Afterall, they're a pretty small group in terms of popularity and it's only early days. But as a smol overseas fan who annoyingly has very specific tastes in groups and sometimes has to go to the most ridiculous lengths just to buy one little CD, I appreciate each and every step that Japanese artists and their agencies take to get a little closer to their foreign fans, no matter how small.


How do you feel about this news? Are there any Japanese artists who you wish took more notice of their fans abroad? 

Jpop and Idol Fandom Terminology

This is a more in-depth update of a post I did on the Jpop Amino a while back; a list of Jpop terminology! Some of these words or phrases may not neccesarily be exclusive to the Jpop fandom but they are just sayings that I see commonly used so I thought I would make this post to help out any new fans who don't know what they mean. Hope it's helpful and feel free to comment down below if there are any words that I've missed.

BATTLE BOYS Bias | 5 Members You Should Vote For

Hello all, I’m back on another EBiDAN high (pun unintended) so expect a lot of EBiDAN posts over the coming weeks. Today the spotlight’s back on BATTLE BOYS, specifically my favourite members that you should totally vote for ok. But before we get started, let’s check out the current ranking over on the BATTLE BOYS website.

1. Nagano Ryota
2. Yamanaka Juutaro
3. Miyamoto Ryunosuke
4. Ishii Masaya
5. Muto Jun

I knew Ryota was pretty popular but I was surprised that he was popular enough to overtake Juutaro for the number 1 spot, considering Juutaro is older and how handsome and cool he is! I’m happy though since I do like Ryota a lot. I’m a little disappointed that Masaya has fallen from the top 3 but at least he’s still in the top 5. I do like Ryunosuke, but Jun I don’t know much about.

Meanwhile my baby Sora has fallen even further down from 6th to 9th place, and my ichiban Jeffrey is all the way down in 16th! Also Yamashita Yue seems to rising slowly up the ranking. Hopefully this post will persuade more people to show them some love, haha. Also be sure to check out this post from the lovely tanoshimitiger if you want a more general introduction to all of the BATTLE BOYS members.

Jeffrey Malone

 

I really don’t know how to persuade you to vote for Jeffrey because when I try to talk about his good points it just ends up sounding more like I’m insulting him, haha. His dancing is terrible and he’s a huge dork but that’s what makes him loveable. As you can probably tell by the name and the way he looks, he’s not fully Japanese. He’s half-American on his dad’s side and seems to speak a decent amount of English. I wish he’d shown off his English skills a bit in his introduction video; he usually does introduce himself in English durng events. I guarantee if you pay attention to Jeffrey he’ll make you laugh; if not from his awkward dancing and cringey English lines then from his messing around and failing at trying to be cool. All jokes aside, he is a talented boy and does have a lot of cool points. Just check out his special skill in the video above!

Age of (No) Future | G=AGE A Year Later

Here I am again for some reason, talking about a group that already disbanded. Recently, the fifth and final member (Mahiro) of the now defunct G=AGE started an official social media account which means all of the boys are now online. Not only that but it's also been about a year since all of the drama that was going on with the group that caused their disbandment started to surface so I thought now would be as good a time as any to write a kind of reflection post.

If you don't know who G=AGE are they were a 5-member Jpop boy group both born and died (not literally, haha) in 2016 who got a lot of attention at first mainly due to the fact that 4 of its members were originally part of Johnny's Entertainment. And if you'd like the details on why the group disbanded, links to the member's social media accounts, and just a lot of me blubbering helplessly then you can check out this post.

I loved G=AGE a lot. I half-jokingly gave myself the nickname "That G=AGE Girl" over on the Jpop Amino (where I mostly posted my translations, random fangirling etc. before I started this blog) and would try to promote them any chance I got. It's probably not that big of a stretch to say that if it weren't for G=AGE this blog probably wouldn't even exist because my desire to spam people -- I mean introduce people to Jpop boy groups all started with them.

*Insert soppy explanation about how I was going through a bit of a rough time in 2016 and G=AGE helped me out a lot but I don't want to go into it too much here okay now moving on*

My Top 5 non-Johnny's Entertainment Jpop Boy Groups (Update 2017)

When I was on break from blogging, I found myself nosing around my old blog for a bit of inspiration. While reading one of my personal favourite posts from that blog - my top 5 non-JE boy groups post - I realized that my list had changed somewhat. Be it due to groups disbanding, me discovering new groups, or just simply developing more passion for the groups I already knew and loved. So without further ado, here is my 2017 update of my top 5 favourite Japanese boybands outside of Johnny's Entertainment! These are of course my favourite groups and not neccessarily the "best" groups so be prepared for a lot of personal bias, haha.

5. X.E.N.O. Project 

 

X.E.N.O. Project are a 4-member indie group that debuted earlier this year. They haven't released any CDs yet, but they're actively doing performances around Japan and have a few dance practices up on their YouTube channel.

The reason why I became interested in X.E.N.O. in the first place was because I was a huge fan of the group G=AGE and all 4 members of X.E.N.O. used to be members of G=AGE's trainee unit, G-BOY'S. I looked them up out of curiously and although their videos and singing aren't that great, their songs are all pretty catchy and I ended up falling in love with all of the members.

My Ichiban: Tsukasa #ThirstyForTsukasaSquad
My Favourite Song: Shake It! BOUNCE

4. Choutokkyu 

 

If you're into Jpop boy groups then I'm sure you know Choutokkyu. Also known as Bullet Train, they are a 7-member group from EBiDAN made up of 5 "front dancers" and 2 "back vocalists". They have a very upbeat, colourful, and slightly over-the-top image.

Choutokkyu was one of the first groups I discovered and while I'm not as big a fan of them as I used to be, they still hold a special place in my heart for that reason. They're a reasonably accessible group for new fans, their songs are catchy as heck, and their fans tend to be absolutely bonkers (in a good way!).

My Ichiban: Kai (blue)
My Favourite Song: Battaman

What is BATTLE BOYS? | Show Love for the Tokyo Boys in EBiDAN's Newest Project!

If you're subscribed to Stardust Digital on YouTube you may have noticed a few of these short videos popping up lately which feature a member of EBiDAN Tokyo introducing themselves and talking about their skills, charm points, and goals within EBiDAN. Below is Jeffrey Malone's video because I'm biased as heck.

JPOP SUCKS?! | 6 Japanese Boybands That Kpop Fans Love (and you will too!)

Many Kpop fans who discover Jpop for the first time have initially negative reactions to the genre and to be honest, I can understand why. Very generally speaking, the two genres have a rather different feel to each other. If I had to explain it very simply:

Jpop = cute, imperfect, innocent.
Kpop = flashy, on point, why is everyone so dang sexy?!

Not that I'm saying that either of these are good or bad. It just depends on personal preference, really.

Part of the Jpop idol culture is watching the members slowly improve from when they're quite young. They may not be the best at singing and dancing right away but that's okay, it adds to their cuteness. Whereas Kpop idols are usually expected to be perfect right from their debut which is what leads a lot of Kpop fans to think that Jpop is "bad" compared to Kpop.

Not all Jpop idols are like this though. There are some groups who I'm sure you'll love even if you prefer the Kpop way of dong things. So, continuing somewhat from my post a few weeks ago about the most accesible Jpop boy groups, here's a list of some of the more "Kpop-like" boy groups.

Upcoming Jpop Boy Group Releases for November 2017

TRANS MAGICIAN on CDJapan

Release Date: 2017/11/08

On the 8th, Stardust group SECRET GUYZ will release their 8th single "TRANS MAGICIAN".

100degrees on CDJapan
Release Date: 2017/11/08

On the same day, THE RAMPAGE from EXILE TRIBE will release the single "100degrees". The single will also feature an English-language version of their 3rd single "Dirty Disco".

Help You on CDJapan

Releaset Date: 2017/11/15

On the 15th, EBiDAN THE STREET group Satori Shounen Dan will make their major CD debut with "Help You". The single will be released in 3 editions, each with a different bonus track. The bonus track for Type B is "It's My JK Life", the song the members wrote with the help of a group of high school girls.