TWIJ…#40
07 November 2007
I’ll probably sound like a broken record for the rest of the Oricon calendar year but IT’S YET ANOTHER BUSY WEEK. Aargh.
Last week’s reviews’ chart placings
Singles
01.Tabidachi no Uta. Mr.Children (238,380)
02.Ashes. GLAY (78,982)
04.Chiisa na Tenohira. Aqua Timez (30,766)
05.Honto no Jibun. Buono! (29,715)
07.Koi o Shiteiru. EVERY LITTLE THING (23,258)
08.Mou kimi ga inai. FUNKY MONKEY BABYS (20,498)
09.JOINT. Kawada Mami (15,949)
11.Doubt&Trust. access (14,772)
15.Lucky Star Chara Song CD Vol.10 - Munepettan Girls (10,004)
17.Lucky Star Chara Song CD Vol.09 - Haikei Combi (8,875)
22.Aishiteru. Base Ball Bear (7,409)
28.Tashika na koto. Ulfuls (5,473)
37.Ashita wa Ashita no Kaze no Naka…Yume no Naka. U-Ka Saegusa IN db
Albums
02.Round About. SEAMO (56,109)
03.COVERS ALL-HO!. Yamazaki Masayoshi (37,607)
04.COVERS ALL-YO!. Yamazaki Masayoshi (33,757)
06.Las Vegas. Onitsuka Chihiro (28,410)
The singles chart has picked up a bit, but now it’s the turn of the albums chart to go dead. Still, there’s NEWS this week, KinKi Kids the next and Laruku the week after so at least there’ll be a few guaranteed 100k+ sellers approaching the end of the year.
Singles
After Dark. ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION
Strange to think that it’s been a year since their last single, I’ve hardly noticed their absence. And nothing’s changed for Ajikan, not musically anyway. Still the same old style that many bands try to replicate but fail miserably at. But I really like After Dark, helped much by another great PV. They always produce the goods in that department, from the synchronised swimming antics of Kimi no Machi made and the bizarre dancing midgets in Kimi to Iu Hana and it often makes up for their same-y sounding songs.
Watch: After Dark PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.05 (second day=↑ to No.04)
Rating: ★★★★☆
Aoku Yasashiku. Kobukuro
One of their poorest ballads in ages, I’ll be surprised if Aoku Yasashiku turns out to be one of Kobukuro’s long-selling singles cos it doesn’t deserve to - it belongs in the bargain bin. Gag.
Watch: Aoku Yasashiku PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.02 (second day=⇔ at No.02)
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
LAST ANGEL. Koda Kumi feat. Tohoshinki
LAST ANGEL doesn’t have anything resembling a tune really, but at least there’s some nifty dance moves and eye candy courtesy of TVXQ. Dear Family’s sort of my kind of thing, a sort of mid-tempo winter ballad except that it doesn’t have the strong melody of stuff like you or Hana. Kumi’s not selling well these days, is she?
Watch: LAST ANGEL live
First day Oricon chart placing: No.03 (second day=⇔ at No.03)
Rating: 
weeeek. NEWS
I picked the lesser of two evils and went for the single instead of putting myself through an album’s worth of cheesy boyband music. Predictably Johnny’s are milking fans by not including weeeek on the pacific album….. but weeeek is rather…. weak. Or should that be weeaak -_- Everything from the ‘rapping’ to the (sorry excuse for a) chorus screams crappiness. Listening to this makes me appreciate Kanjani8 and KAT-TUN more. And why are there four ‘e’s? Are they copying Greeeen?
Watch: weeeek PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.01 (second day=⇔ at No.01)
Rating: 
Pocket. Otsuka Ai
Seems that none of the ‘big-name’ Jpop stars deliver this week (apart from Ajikan) with a bunch of limp, mediocre songs. Of course, Otsuka has to continue the trend with a dire ballad which I guess is supposed to be all touching and stuff but only succeeds in driving me to push the ‘next’ button faster.
First day Oricon chart placing: No.04 (second day=↓ to No.05)
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Beatiful Life. w-inds.
Ooh short hair for Keita, melikes. I’ve had a sort of love-hate relationship with w-inds., a lot of their songs are barely listenable (i.e. LOVE IS THE GREATEST THING) but they’ve also recorded some of my favourite Jpop songs ever like Shiki and Kirei da. Beautiful Life is a bit more disco and not something I remember them doing too often. Nice to hear to them doing different things once in a while - I like it more than NEWS but not many other people will I suppose.
Watch: Beautiful Life PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.06 (second day=↓ to No.08)
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Yume o Chikatta Ki no Shita de. Harafumi
I was rather excited about this collaboration, it certainly looks like a good match-up on paper. Mrs. Kuwata Keisuke/Southern All Stars’ resident keyboardist Hara Yuko and piano pop band Fumido. Hara hasn’t released anything under her own name for 10 years with only SAS and the odd collab here and there so it’s good to hear her voice again. Yume o Chikatta… is the themesong for dorama Swan no Baka, and predictably features plenty of piano. The tune is more Fumido jazz-pop than SAS ballad-pop, not that that’s a bad thing. Just that it doesn’t appeal to the Jpop buying public much, sadly.
Watch: Yume o Chikatta Ki no Shita de PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.23 (second day=↑ to No.18)
Rating: 
SPEED KING. RIP SLYME
SPEED KING isn’t among RIP SLYME’s best songs, but the PV is damn entertaining, featuring the rappers (+1 DJ) as animated skeletons in a Mario-like world. I’m betting most people would find the song incredibly annoying, and I would too if it wasn’t RIP SLYME. I normally hate rap but I just adore them, I can’t quite explain why……..
Watch: SPEED KING PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.11 (second day=⇔ at No.01)
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Wakamono no Subete. Fujifabric
….eh? Wakamono no Subete is so un-Fujifabric it kinda shocked me. It seems that they’re so intent on appealing to the mainstream that they’ve dropped everything that set them apart from all the other cookie cutter rock bands in the first place. Sounds more like a GOING UNDER GROUND song if you ask me. The zany Kuma no Wakusei just about saves the single from being a complete waste of time, but the bitter taste of Wakamono no Subete coupled with the pretty rubbish live performance of it I saw on Music Fighter the other day makes this a miss for me.
Watch: Wakamono no Subete PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.20 (second day=↓ to No.21)
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Sakura addiction - Hibari Kyoya vs Rokudo Mukuro (Hibari ver.). Kondo Takashi vs Iida Toshinobu
The thought of this outperforming the likes of Nightmare, RIP SLYME and AI makes me laugh. I know Katekyo Hitman Reborn! is vaguely popular, but none of the opening or ending themes before this have sold this well. Flummoxed! Hibari is pretty hot though. Er… well the song itself is quite alright, but the SPLAY version is slightly better (they wrote Sakura addiction). Kondo Takashi’s a decent enough singer, and his Hibari image song Hitoribocchi no Sadame ain’t half bad either. I enjoyed this a lot, eventhough I know nuts about Reborn! (except that the DS game is crap).
First day Oricon chart placing: No.09 (second day=↑ to No.06)
Rating:
Sousei no Aquarion. Terashima Takuma, Kakazu Yumi, Kobayashi Sanae
It’s quite amazing how popular Aquarion still is…. It’s one of my top 20 favourite anime songs, but obviously the three seiyuu lack the singing power of AKINO. Kakazu Yumi desperately needs voice training, Sanae sounded fine as usual and Takuma was well…. drowned out by the girls. The ‘gattai’ bits had me giggling - yeah, I love the cheesiness of it all. I know it’s horrible but I can’t stop listening to it.
First day Oricon chart placing: No.14 (second day=↑ to No.12)
Rating:
Neophilia. Hirano Aya
While it’s definitely better than LOVE★GUN, Neophilia certainly won’t win her any new fans, inhabiting the sort of inoffensive pop-rock ground that Do as Infinity did for their entire career. Guess the reason it sounds like just another bog-standard Jpop song is that it’s written by Saito Shinya, who wrote a fair chunk of Tamaki Nami’s (ugh) works. He wrote Nakagawa Shoko’s Sorairo Days too, and that’s what Neophilia most reminds me of; the intro and overall structure & arrangement of both songs sound pretty similar. Only that Sorairo Days‘ chorus is infinitely stronger than Neophilia’s. And it probably wasn’t a good idea to release the single this week due to the competition but tbh, things wouldn’t get any easier for the rest of the month anyhow so it’s a nice way to measure how popular Hirano really is. And the answer? Not as popular as Aquarion or HibariXRokudo ^^;;;;
Watch: Neophilia PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.15 (second day=⇔ at No.15)
Rating:
Cutie Honey. Wild 3-nin Musume
I’d almost forgotten about the existence of the joke trio. Wild 3-nin Musume is my least favourite of Kuribayashi Minami’s projects but they couldn’t really screw up such a well-known song could they? Well if anyone can ruin it, it’s JoyMax and Jackie Yang (aka Taniyama Kisyo) with their rubbish rapping ^^; They’re really annoying, and that’s why I stick to the ONLY MINAMI version. Nothing needs to be said about Bondage Racer, with such a stupid title what were you expecting?
First day Oricon chart placing: No.40 (second day=↓ to No.50)
Rating:
Mighty Body. AA-CHINO
I really did think they were singing Buddy in the song y’know… and when I first heard the song in YUA: Full Throttle I kept thinking Initial D. It’s just cheesy….. very 90s. I like it ^^; The enka-styled c/w song Hayaku Koi Koi Rekka-sha (roughly Come Quickly, Tow Truck) made me laugh too. And it’s selling better than I expected ^_^
First day Oricon chart placing: No.46 (second day=↑ to No.39)
Rating: ★★★★☆
Clubhouse Sandwich. Yuumao
Clubhouse Sandwich is the Genshiken 2 ending theme and is already shaping up to be one of my fave Yuumao songs, though I’d be hard pressed to name one of her songs that I didn’t actually like. The c/w Ginger Ale isn’t as good, but still catchy enough to bear further listens. I’m happy to know Yuumao’s writing the lyrics (with Fujita Junpei composing/arranging) for a song on Mizuki Nana’s upcoming album, cos the last one she did was a classic & still one of my faves - Tears‘ Night.
First day Oricon chart placing: >Top 50
Rating:
Monologue. TRIPLANE
Anyone disappointed by the Mr.Children single last week should definitely give TRIPLANE a try, their style and Ebata’s vocals are so similar to Misuchiru it’s quite disconcerting at times. Monologue is however, a pretty breathtaking ballad and one of their best songs to date. They also throw in an acoustic version of Dear friends, personally my fave TRIPLANE song and also their best known one, having been used in One Piece some time ago. It’s a strong single overall but I doubt they’re gonna end up selling many copies, they’re not promoted enough.
Watch: Monologue PV
First day Oricon chart placing: >Top 50
Rating:
Present. Dew
This is one of those random songs that you probably wouldn’t give a second listen if you heard it on the radio, but I guess it’s use in a Max Factor ad with Ayase Haruka has given it a bit of a boost. I think it’s Yu’s voice that makes Dew songs stand out more than your average piano-driven ballad duo (think Kiroro, Rythem etc). This single has piqued my interest somewhat, and that they’re signed to one of my favourite Japanese labels (BabeStar, a sort of left-field arm of Victor Entertainment) probably means I’ll be picking up their releases soon.
First day Oricon chart placing: >Top 50 (second day=↑ to No.45)
Rating: ★★★★☆
Lipstick. Tainaka Sachi
Tainaka’s fairly struggling without Fate/stay isn’t she? Her voice is still sublime, but the songs probably don’t do them justice. Lipstick is another one of her happy Jpop songs, inoffensive but ultimately unmemorable. Ichibanboshi is much more interesting, a moody ballad that serves as the theme song for Persona, a movie that will only hit theatres next year -_- so why is Tainaka releasing the song now? Strange move by her label, that.
Watch: Lipstick PV
First day Oricon chart placing: No.41 (second day=↓ to No.43)
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Albums
Kanashimi nante nan no Yaku ni mo Tatanai to Omotteita. Makihara Noriyuki
Jeebus, what’s with the unnecessarily long title -_- It’s being trounced by NEWS in the charts, which is a bit of a shame. Makihara’s one of those classic 90s Jpop singer-songwriters whose records people will buy based on reputation alone, for good reason. He produces consistently good pop songs and there’s lots of them here; Itsutsu no Moji, GREEN DAYS and Anywhere are all songs that you can imagine selling millions if only they were sung by SMAP. There are a couple of stinkers like the dreadfully dull Love was sleeping (Was it? Dunno, but I sure was when I was listening to this song) and the totally unhip dance tune lose no time but they don’t stop this being one of the best pop albums this week…. maybe this year too.
First day Oricon chart placing: No.02 (second day=⇔ at No.2)
Rating:
Oyasumi Monster. GOING UNDER GROUND
So maybe I was a tad worried about how this album would turn out after a bunch of so-so singles but I needn’t have since it’s another solid effort from GOING UNDER GROUND. Packed full of their trademark catchy rock songs with plenty of highlights including the not-very-country Cowboy ni Yoroshiku, the delicate Monster and a capella(!) closer Oyasumi. Great stuff.
First day Oricon chart placing: No.13 (second day=↓ to No.14)
Rating: ★★★★☆
Lost in Time. AKINO from bless4
Don’t the most of the songs sound oh so familiar? Well yeah, since all but two of them were used in the original Aquarion series. Which leaves Chance to Shine and Suashi as the only songs to sink my teeth into. Unfortunately, neither song is matches up to the aforementioned Aquarion stuff; in fact they’re pretty boring. This gets a decent score purely for reminding me how good songs like Koya no Heath and Pride~Nageki no Tabi are.
First day Oricon chart placing: No.14 (second day=↓ to No.19)
Rating: ★★★☆☆
metanoia. Yousei Teikoku
I find it hard to be objective about this sort of music (goth…. whatever) but I do have a soft spot for Yousei Teikoku because of Itsuki…. no, Fairy Yui. Ugh, whatever she wants to be called I guess…. They’re not half as weird as Ali Project and their songs do have some variety to them instead of sounding like waltzes/operas from hell. I really like Haitoku no Hana and Heisoku Kokorodama but Eternal waltz annoys the pants off me. I wouldn’t like to put this on the car stereo - it’d scare the passengers out of the vehicle ^^; but I did enjoy this more than I thought I would. Am I slowly being converted?
First day Oricon chart placing: No.30 (second day=↓ to No.36)
Rating:
November 9th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
So I wasn’t the only one who heard DAI in Aya Hirano, heh. Her voice reminds me of Tomiko Van at her prime, or at least early-to-prime stage.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Note to self: must listen to more of the songs you review. Then at least I’d have a better basis for comparison. In any case, I’m running true to form in thinking that Hirano’s Neophilia is really good.
I had to go back and listen to Sorairo Days to realize that they do betray the same songwriting hand. But I personally find the chorus of Neophilia far more interesting and enjoyable. Maybe because Hirano gives it a little twist and mystery, as opposed to vanilla-bland Shouko. I definitely think this is the best music Hirano has produced.
But you are certainly right that this shows Hirano does not have #4 popularity in a week with real competition.
I listened to Yousei Teikoku because I liked Itsuki Yui’s appearance in Koshimizu Ami’s blog. Who knew that I would love her music?
Of course, I also loved Buono’s Hontou no Jibun, which couldn’t be more different. And it did maintain its popularity, contrary to your expectations last week. I think that combination of voices really has something.
However, the thing that most pleases me is seeing Onitsuka Chihiro’s album at #6 for the week. The lowish ranks of the singles had me worried. She’s baaack. Although is it my imagination that she is not pushing her voice to the limit any more?
November 10th, 2007 at 8:43 am
…..*shrug* Both Aquarion and Sakura Addiction continue rising up the charts on their third day, with Hirano falling 4 spots - pretty disappointing.
Of course, Hirano sings better than Shoko-tan - anyone who says the latter can sing well needs an ear transplant. But hey, Nakagawa’s appeal lies not in her ability to sing ^^; Sorairo Days is more memorable to me for various reasons - but mainly due to its use in Gurren Lagann.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:10 am
I’m amazed to see Sakura Addiction selling well (looks like it was still 5th on its fourth day - hah, even above After Dark…). Is it thanks to Hibari on the cover? ^^;
Honestly, it doesn’t sound like a groundbreaking song to me, and the Reborn anime isn’t that popular… so unless people are attracted by the bishonen on the cover (which sure sounds unlikely), I don’t get the sudden great sales. Well, this is a fun mystery, and I rather like Takashi Kondo so I’m not complaining.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
[...] already made my feelings about Maybe I can’t good-bye. and Neophilia known. Ashita no Prism and Breakthrough were songs I disliked from way back, no change there. And I [...]