TWIJ…#20
16 May 2007
Hahaha. Yukarin’s Hoshizora no Spica outsold and outcharted Hocchan’s single last week (20,033 to 16,255, No.7 to No.8)…. I’d say it was the StrikerS tie-up that helped, but both Little Wish and Spiritual Garden did pretty rubbish so that can’t be it. Whatever. Spica’s sold more in its first week than either of those two singles did, and by next week will probably have outsold their combined totals (24,326).
A few weeks ago I mentioned Shoko-tan and Nana-chan appearing on Gussan’s MusiG, it’s up on Youtube but you can get the full HQ version from Jpopsuki. It’s amusing how Nana put everyone in the shade during the usual round-table singing session; they did Kawa no nagare no youni (Misora Hibari) this time, one of the most beautiful Japanese ballads ever. Nana-chan might as well have done a solo performance ^^;;;
Oh, and Hocchan on HEY!x3 is all over Youtube as well. Short and stupid - she looked like she couldn’t be arsed to be there…Mawatte!!! Hamada and Matsumoto unsurprisingly, look completely bemused.
Last week’s reviews chart placings:
01. Eien no Tsubasa. B’z (152,778)
04. Hotaru/RUN. Remioromen (30,876)
05. Shiori. Aqua Timez (29,169)
07. Hoshizora no Spica. Tamura Yukari (20,033)
10. Giniro no Sora. redballoon (11,728)
18. Koi no Uta. Maeda Nobuteru (7,696)
19. gravitation. angela (7,525)
21. Akai Namida. Kawada Mami (6,862)
24. Happy My Life. yozuca* (6,162)
28. Yume no tsuzuki e. surface (5,325)
40. BLOOD QUEEN. Misato Aki (3,278)
Singles
Kiss~Kaerimichi no Love Song~.Tegomass
OK, I’ll admit I quite like Kiss now cos it makes me think of Otani and Koizumi walking (spastically). Still hate Kimi + Boku = LOVE? though, it’s the reason I skip the opening everytime I watch LoveCom. I swear I am not biased against Johnny’s groups, I like V6 a lot you know (Inocchi anyway) whose new single Jasmine is out next week.
Watch: Kiss~Kaerimichi no Love Song PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.2
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Ashita Hareru kana. Kuwata Keisuke
Hard to believe it’s been five years since his last solo single Tokyo, not that his band Southern All Stars have been particularly active in that period - just 6 singles and 1 album. Kuwata’s Shiroi Koibitotachi remains one of my all time favourite Jpop ballads - he’ll be hard pressed to ever surpass the 1.5 million copies of the single sold.
It’s almost a crime not to like an SAS song, such is their status as one of the country’s most-loved acts. As for the song itself, it’s a typical Kuwata ballad if anything. Fans will lap it up, haters will well….hate it. I personally prefer one of the c/w songs, Konna Boku de Yokattara, a bluesy, soulful tune that was used in an American Express ad. The single is guaranteed to sell by the bucketloads regardless, being the theme song for the Fuji TV dorama Proposal Daisakusen starring YamaPi and Nagasawa Masami.
Watch: Ashita Hareru kana PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.1
Rating: ★★★★☆
Dramatic. Base Ball Bear
I wonder if they were chosen to do this (Ookiku Furikabutte OP) because of their name, lol. It did sort of surprise me when I heard of it, I never did think BBB would do an anime tie-up. Oh well, that’s what you get for signing up to a major label I guess. Of course, the coolest thing about them is Shiori-chan, their bassist. I remember when I was fooling around with one of my teacher’s bass guitars a few years ago and he said “You look like a guitarist trying to play the bass.” Which is exactly what I was ^^;
Dramatic isn’t one of their best singles but it’s still miles above the increasingly bizarre songs that pass for anime themes nowadays (JUNE, Nightmare). Blame it on the record companies’ (sponsors) desire to promote their artists I guess.
Watch: Dramatic PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.7
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Shura. DOES
A band I only recently discovered, stylewise very close to the sort of Japanese indie rock I like; a bit NICO Touches The Walls with a hint of Base Ball Bear. Again, surprised they got chosen to do an anime song but Sony (and its imprints - DOES is on King Records) have always been like that - using anime to get some of their newer artists recognition (i.e. Kitade Nana, AKFG, redballoon, FLOW etc). And at least it gets some ‘proper’ music into the otaku crowd’s brains ^^;;; As Nakagawa Shoko would say, “You know you’re an otaku when you go to a karaoke and the only songs you know are anime themes.”
Watch: Shura PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.8
Rating: ★★★★☆
United Force. Kuribayashi Minami
For me, Kurinoko always blows hot and cold - I do think that she’s one of the best anisong singer-songwriters around; and whilst she’s written some of the best themes in recent memory (Crystal Energy, Tsubasa wa Pleasure Line, Hoshizora no Waltz) she’s also capable of writing utterly boring, pallid rubbish (Dream☆Wing, Shining☆Days, beginning). Thankfully United Force belongs in the former category (just about). Definitely prefer her faster-paced songs.
First day Oricon chart placing: No.17
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Hikari no Yukue. savage genius
Like Minami, another case of I hate one single and then I love the next. However I do love Hikari no Yukue, which is possibly the only good thing to come out of El Cazador.
First day Oricon chart placing: No.28
Rating: ★★★★☆
Yuukyuu no Tabibito. Snow*
Oh is the world running out of names? Why on earth Otake Yuki had to go and get a stage name that about 6 million others are already using is beyond me. Her name already sounded pretty good to me…. I can’t remember much about stuff she made under the Otake name; I vaguely remember a version of Greensleeves and that most of it was so bloody slow and dull which is probably why I deleted her discography off my hard drive. Oh well. This is the Idolmaster Xenoglossia ending theme, and it’s boring. Both the song and the show.
First day Oricon chart placing: Outside top 50
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Howling. abingdon boys school
Nishikawa’s band’s second single after the D.Gray-man single INNOCENT SORROW and unfortunately it’s nowhere near as catchy or engaging. Verses are fine but the chorus lacks a cutting edge.
Watch: Howling PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.4
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
SUMMER TIME LOVE. EXILE
The first 10 seconds of SUMMER TIME LOVE made me go ‘Woah, Choo Choo TRAIN ripoff.” But it actually turned out better than I expected, and I have to say it’s one of EXILE’s better singles since Shun left the group. There’s also a re-recorded versh of the aforementioned Choo Choo TRAIN with Takahiro on it - I still prefer Shun (blubber), but the other c/w song Hibiki is a pretty good ballad and is better than all that shit on EVOLUTION. Now if they’d only cut out the cheesy dancers….
Watch: SUMMER TIME LOVE PV Live Performance
First day Oricon chart placing: No.3
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Aiuta. GReeeeN
Fast becoming one of my fave Ketsumeishi sound-a-likes, God knows what you call this sort of music - reggae rap? Doesn’t matter. Aiuta is less catchy than their first single Michi, but still better than your average chart rubbish.
Watch: Aiuta PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.9
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Albums
The World e.p. 9mm Parabellum Bullet
So here’s their major-label debut EP (Toshiba EMI) with 2 new tracks and yet more re-recordings of older songs. Of course they all sound slicker, with better production etc but seriously; this is the third time I’ve heard Talking Machine in recorded format and I’m getting the life sucked out of me. Thankfully The World and Heat-Island are worth listening to, or I’d be giving this one star. At least they’ve successfully made the breakthrough to the mainstream with a good first day chart placing. More new songs please?
Watch: The World PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.10
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! OST 2. Misawa Yasuhiro
Probably worth picking up for the coupla vocal tracks alone - the final episode ending sung by all 5 girls, Manabi’s version of the Seioh school song, duets between Mikan/Manabi and Mei/Mucchi and also Momo, ever the outcast, gets her own track - I thought it’d be 4 minutes of Sakki reading some stupid Shimoji related news but the music did kick in after a while. Half of it’s still made up of Momo harassing the other girls though ^^; Other than that there’s a bunch of BGMs, half familiar and half not. Listening to them makes me realize how much I miss the show though….
Rating: ★★★★☆
Also out this week (Way too much stuff for me to cover):
Anata no soba de. Crystal Kay
Kuchibiru kara Romantic/That’s Right. AAA
Pochi. misono
Koko ni iruze!. Atena (Tsuji Nozomi - Robby to Kerobby)
HOT! x6. YOUR SONG IS GOOD
with you. Kimeru
ALL!!. 100s
JOY. Zboned Zubon
all the way. OVERGROUND ACOUSTIC UNDERGROUND
NOTEBOOK~Mirai no Kioku~. Enomoto Kurumi
LEAD SONG COLLECTION. B-DASH
NanaKana. NanaKana (seiyuu unit of Inoue Nana & Sakai Kanako
Anata no Kao ga Mitai. Jackson vibe
WINDER. Shonen Kamikaze (OverDrive OP)
O’kay. Hinouchi Emi
Be Strong. Yazumi Kana (Kenichi OP)
Come on Stand Up!. Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi
Looking ahead to next week:
Very busy week coming. New singles from Kuchiroro, Rie Fu, SUEMITSU & THE SUEMITH, V6, Angela Aki, Yoshii Kazuya, plane and Asai Kenichi. Notable anime releases - KOTOKO’s Hayate no Gotoku!, Nakahara Mai’s Anemone, Miyano Mamoru’s Kuon, AliPro’s Ankoku Tsubasa and of course, Motteke! Sailor Fuku.
Also albums from Tsubaki (rock), Otona Mode, Sakura Merry Men, Arashi, THE BACK HORN, MOOMIN and shitloads of anime related stuff - Nanoha StrikerS SS01 (OMG, how many will there be this time….), Utaware Gakuen & Radio CD3, Clannad Drama CD2, Code Geass Drama CD2…. Gimme a break 
, I have exams in 2 weeks time, lol.
Eurovision is a joke
Oh, and completely random but for any Europeans out there reading this - Eurovision was an absolute f^&*%ing disaster riddled with political backslapping and loads of shit songs too. Let’s split it into East and West Eurovision next year….. My personal fave was Germany’s Roger Cicero but y’know…proper songs never win Eurovision. At least Verka Serduchka didn’t win, Scooch were 2nd bottom and Serebro and Koldun were near the top. Embrace the cheese!
May 18th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Wow Nana-chan keeps proving over and over again that she really does sing live realllllly well! I agree with them! Nana’s singing sounded really spot on… I don’t listen to enka but I’d buy her CD anyways!
And I did notice that Yama-chan’s voice kinda faded out near the middle XD
p.s. I loved your comments on the picture pmouseover! I burst out laughing from reading the “Nana probably thinks Shoko-tan is mad” comment!
May 20th, 2007 at 5:38 am
Yeah, Nana is the best singer amongst the younger crop of seiyuu atm. She can definitely hold her own in the mainstream Jpop scene too - I hope more success in the future gets her on the bigger TV shows…. like Music Station, Music Japan or Utaban…. XD I’m not holding my breath, but I can always dream ^^;