2022 Japanese Idol Year In Review

Another year has gone by, and here’s what I thought of it, at least as far a Japanese idol pop goes. 

I’ve already reported on some of the idols that have graduated and some idol groups that have disbanded in 2022 in a previous article I wrote on May 23, but those weren’t the only idols that left the entertainment world in 2022.  NODOCA, the leader of Michinoku Sendai ORI☆HIMETAI, graduated on March 27, 2022.  The new leader of ORI☆HIMETAI is MIHO.  I already mentioned that MOMOHA of Marble Angel graduated on May 5, 2022, but on December 11 the leader of Marble Angel, Umeda Aoi, also graduated.  The new leader of Marble Angel is Ishimatsu Haruna. Ayaka of Menkoi Girls graduated on November 27.  The duo Chibi Mini. only lasted a few months before disbanding. 

So, now I want to focus on something more positive!  My favorite idol songs from 2022, in no particular order.   

“Rabi Love Spell (Acer Version)” by Rabi Rabu IDOL School is a song I play often.  This is pretty much my pick for Best Song of the Year!  Rabi Rabu IDOL School have a new single that will be released on January 1, 2023, and I’m sure that song will make my best of list next year!  

“messiah” by Lock★Rock BAB is another great song I like to play the video for.  This one’s for all of you hard rock and metal fans!    

“Tokimeki no SPACE” by ww is a pretty good song that has been announced on Twitter as the group’s first single, on sale April 4, 2023!  If only I could find the SPIRAL MUSIC singles I want on sale online... 

“DIG” by Aoshima Momo is a funky “vocaloid” song that Momo wrote the lyrics for.  The video is a limited animation video, with no live action.    

“♥Kyu→Pid♥” (“Cupid”) by Chibi Mini. is a song by two balls of energy better known as Takahashi Kazaha and Shiraki Hina (who has now changed her stage name to PINA for some reason).  Do you recognize the silver trailer that is used for some scenes in this video?  It’s the same one that was used by St. BONAPRO SCHOOL in 2013 for their video “Yumemiru Carnival”.   

“Planet Rendezvous” by Harajuku Gakuen is the debut single by another SPIRAL MUSIC group (the third one listed in this article, after ww and Chibi Mini.) that is one of my current favorite groups.  When Harajuku Gakuen perform on their home stage you might see the members, mostly leader Aoyama Nanako and Amakawa Mio (who now has short hair), goof off.  That’s what makes watching all of their videos fun for me.  

“Rockyun Date Sunday” by Rockyun Roll was the first - and last - single by this duo (Hoshino Runa and Yuduki Ramu).  There isn’t an official video, but you can hear the audio while looking at the CD cover.  

“YOSOLO” by CRUiSE! is a typically energetic song from this group, with one slightly odd musical shift.  I love everything that CRUiSE! does, so I’m not complaining.  

“flick! flick! flick!” by Hiwillow is a song I wasn’t sure I’d like, since it’s their first single without former leader SHIKI.  But I was surprised that it sounded good to my ears.  There is an official video (two, actually), but it can’t be found on YouTube.  You need to buy the single which comes with a DVD to see the music videos.  Here’s a live fan video.  

“Symphony of Singing to You for 7.7 Billion Minutes” by Fluffy Star + SUNNY Fruits is a collaboration song, although both groups feature some of the same members.  Each group released a single with this song on it, and I assume it’s the same version on each CD.  The Fluffy Star single, titled “Go x 5”, is now out of print.  Again, I’m assuming that only a limited amount of copies were pressed and it sold out faster than was expected.  I never got a copy, so I hope it will be reissued.  At least the SUNNY Fruits single, “SWEETS”, is still available (at the moment).  

“Tippy Toes” by XG was the first single for this group, who are probably the most recognized out of all the groups I am sharing music for in this article.  They sing in mostly in English, but also in Japanese and Korean, and are trying for an international appeal.  To me, this is still J-Pop.  My biggest reason for liking XG is Ueda Juria, former member of the kids idol group amorecarina.  I think she’s an amazing singer, as well as being very beautiful.  Truth be told, all the girls are pretty amazing.    

“POP SHARK” by Shinozaki Karin, formerly Kimura Karin of NA-NA, is her second solo single.  Every one of Karin’s fans should know that she loves sharks, so I’m not surprised she is singing a song with “shark” in the title.  I like this a bit more than her first video / single “My Life”, so this one goes on my list of favorites.  

“Welcome to Nyanko Town” by Momonyan (Momo is her name, “nyan” is the sound a cat makes) is her first solo single after leaving the group Fluffy Star.  Momonyan writes her own lyrics and sometimes uses sign language for certain songs too!  Of course, all the members of Fluffy Star also write their own lyrics, so this must come natural to her by this point.  I had to choose a fan video, and I hope I found one that looks and sounds good to everyone.  

Well, that’s all I have to share for this year.  Obviously, this is not all of the Japanese idol songs I listened to in 2022, but these are the ones that stood out to me.  As always, I thank you if you read my blog and took a look at the videos and links included here.  I hope all my readers have a great rest of the year and all the years to come!       

Once More, With Feeling

As many of you reading my blog knows, I’m an adult who is a fan of what is called Japanese idols.  They’re not exactly the ‘idols’ you see on Western TV talent shows, but rather girls and young women who sing pop music often while wearing colorful costumes.  Idols can also be male, but I usually don’t listen to them out of disinterest.  It’s hard to explain exactly why I choose to listen to female idols, but I’ll try to do my best one more time, just for the record. 

As a kid I usually listened to whatever my parents were playing on the radio or their stereo.  They usually played what some people call ‘oldies’, due to the songs being much older than whatever is currently popular with today’s listeners.  As I grew up and developed my own tastes I started to listen to and collect records of then current pop and rock artists.  Yes, vinyl records from the 1980s.  I collected cassette tapes as well.  Thus, I began a journey of discovering many artists from around the world.  The genre I listened to depended on my age and whatever I discovered, sometimes through friends.  I eventually collected compact discs when I bought my first CD player and took a chance on various new artists I wanted to hear.  I often bought CDs of music I wasn’t really sure I would enjoy, as I didn’t have a computer and the internet at the time.  Now I can just stream music or go on YouTube and watch a music video for free.  Well, I guess I’m paying for it since I pay for the internet.       

My interest in anime is what got me interested in Japanese pop music.  At first, all I really knew was the artists that recorded songs for the anime I liked, so I focused on getting soundtracks for these series.  Then when I finally did get a computer and the internet, I discovered tons of new artists and songs by watching random YouTube videos.  You know how YouTube often suggests what to watch next, based on what you just played?  Well, I played every video that I had time to watch and learned about so many new singers and groups.  Although many of the artists I discovered were adults, I also discovered that there were lots of kids and teenagers singing pop music too.  In the United States, where I live, most pop and rock singers are adults, and it’s rare to come across a teen or kid singing.  Unless, of course, you count whoever is on The Disney Channel.  No offense to these Disney kids, but most of them didn’t interest me.  I don’t watch American TV anymore, so I no longer pay attention to all these young, new stars.  I don’t watch many new movies, either, so I can’t name the current generation of popular actors.  And it’s been many, many years since I listened to the radio, so I couldn’t tell you who are the most popular singers these days. 

I think it was because I was getting tired of American entertainment that I started to focus on Japanese entertainment.  Pretty Japanese girls singing pop was a lot more interesting to me than a Western singer covered in tattoos singing some sort of trendy new song.  Tattoos and facial piercings don’t look good on women.  There, I said it!  Sue me!  Japanese females of all ages usually do not have tattoos or piercings beyond earrings.  Earrings are fine, as long as you don’t overdo it by having more than a couple earrings per ear.  Yeah, you can tell that I’m not really into the fact that some people today look like 1970s punk rockers.  Putting aside (if you can) my dislike for the way some Western people look, it was mainly the voices of these Japanese girls that caught my attention.  If they weren’t talented enough to capture my attention, then I wouldn’t care for them at all.  It’s not that male voices don’t interest me, because that’s not true.  It’s mostly because (yeah, here it comes) I just don’t want to look at men and boys all the time.  No offense, guys, but you’re not as attractive as the girls. 

So, what appeals to me in terms of singing?  Well, cute and girly voices are my favorite.  Voices like these make me smile.  Husky voices don’t do much for me, but I guess it depends on the song.  A good song is very important too, because I don’t want to waste my time listening to garbage music no matter how cute the girl is or how popular she is.  I don’t choose to listen to a Japanese singer based on how trendy they are or how popular they are with other fans.  In fact, most of the singers I like are not popular, even with fans of this music, at all.  I keep hoping I’ll meet a fan online that has the same tastes as me, but that isn’t going to happen.  When I started to listen to idol music, I did listen to some of the most popular groups at the time, but they eventually got boring to me due to me hearing them sing the same songs over and over.  I wanted to hear more than whoever was popular this week, so I started to watch new idol videos of groups I knew nothing about.  This is what got me interested in writing about idols.  If there was nothing written about them in English by other people, I wanted to be the first to do it.  And so, I did, many, many times.  But, for the most part, I was writing about idols that few people were interested in.  I didn’t care.  I like these girls, I like their singing, their dancing, and their songs, so they are the ones I write about!  I’m not writing this blog to be the most popular fan blogger who specializes in writing about Japanese idols on the internet, I’m doing it as a labor of love. 

Somewhere along the line I started writing about a lot of young kids who sing idol songs.  I even started a fan page on Facebook called Young Idol Singers.  I kind of started it as a way of sharing videos of groups that were too young for certain fans, out of spite for some of the negative comments I read about these girls.  Yeah, I understand why some people feel uncomfortable about watching videos of kids singing a song.  Some people just want to focus on entertainers that are close to their age or older.  I’m fine with that if this describes you.  I think some of these kids have really good voices, though, and I encourage people to give them a chance.  What I don’t like is people who write off kids as not being good entertainers.  I can point out examples of kids throughout modern entertainment history that do have talent and can be enjoyed by adults.  Shirley Temple.  The Little Rascals.  The Jackson Five.  Jodie Foster during her early career.  Dakota Fanning during her early career.  I’ve met adults who like all these former child stars.  And there’s more examples than I have the space to add here.  So now that several years of writing about Japanese idols, and several kid idols, has passed, I’m now considered by some idol fans as something of an expert in this field.  Not that I consider myself an expert at anything.  If you don’t want to listen to these girls, that’s okay.  You don’t have to.  But I’m going to keep watching, keep listening and keep track of all the new, young talents out there before they are discovered by everyone else. 

Speaking of which, I feel privileged that I did discover several idols who later joined another group or became a soloist and became better known to fans.  In my original idol blog, “I ♥ Miyoshi Ayaka’s Idol Musings”, which I stupidly deleted out of depression, I wrote about several idols that later became much bigger stars in the idol industry.  I can’t prove this, now, of course.  There are examples of idols in my current blog that I have also done this for.  Some examples are Sakura Gakuin, and in a sense their more popular spin-off, Babymetal; Watanabe Koume of B Flat and Party Rockets, who later joined SUPER☆GiRLS; amorecarina (later amorecarina Tokyo), which counted among their members Saitoh Kiara, now in =LOVE, Matsumoto Momona, now in Takane no Nadeshiko, and a former member of Last Idol and Choux Cream Rockets, Ueda Juria, now in XG, and Kiyono Momohime, now in BEYOOOOONDS; amorecarina Osaka, which counted among their members Yano Yuka, who later joined A Little Bit, Tanaka Ayaka, who is now in Reiwa Startup, and Kobayashi Ran, who is now in AKB48; amorecarina Nagoya, which counted among their members Suzuki Ena, now in SKE48; PARLISH, which counted among their members Noguchi Monami, who later joined GEM, Takeuchi Nanami, now in SUPER☆GiRLS, and Nishkawa Reika, now a soloist; SunRisa, which counted among their members Imamori Manaka, who later joined Showjo Kagekidan, and Okamura Minami, who is now a member of BEYOOOOONDS; Jumping Kiss, which counted among their members Mizuno Zion, now going by the name Kameno Zion and a member of NMB48; and Rabi Rabu IDOL School, which counts among their members (both current and former) Higashionna Ruka, also in CherryChery and OKI.7STARS, and Fujibayashi Yume, now in 4xstAr5.  I certainly hope I not forgetting anybody.     

Ueda Juria 

Tanaka Ayaka

Nishikawa Reika

Fujibayashi Yume

I should probably point out that I don’t really pay attention to most of these new groups that the idols I like join after they leave the indie group that I’m a fan of.  One problem I have is that new members who join a popular group often don’t sing much.  Since they are the new girls, they are mostly backup dancers for the first few singles after they join.  It takes a while for them to get their chance to sing and show what they can do in this new group.  While the fans know this is the system an idol goes through and seem to want it this way, I don’t personally like it.  It’s a waste of the girls’ talent and a waste of my time listening to a group that I don’t really like.  The popular idol groups, for some reason, sing bland love songs, for the most part.  And as I said above, a good song is very important to me.  If my favorite member(s) aren’t doing much, and the songs are forgettable, then I have no reason to pay any attention to yet another bland, boring idol group.  There are plenty of exciting idol groups that are much more worthy of my attention. 

I get the feeling that most people won’t like most or all of what I said in the article, but this doesn’t really matter.  This is my blog, these are my opinions, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  I rarely get a chance to discuss Japanese idols with anybody, even the few friends I’ve made on the internet that also listen to this music.  We all have different living and sleeping schedules, and we all have different tastes.  Everything I just said is something I’ve always wanted to discuss with other fans.  I feel better now that I have finally got to say all this, even if I had to do it in my blog instead of having a conversation with people in a room. 

As always, thank you for reading my blog, and have a good day!

Exciting Idol News!

I have some exciting news to report about a handful of idol groups, and one soloist, so let's get to it!  

Rabi Rabu IDOL School now have a sister group named Rabi Rabu Baby's.  (Yes, spelled like that.)  The group debuted on September 11, 2022  as dancers for the main group.  I'm not sure if this group of younger girls will sing or have a single released.  Higa Kisa, who was announced as a trainee in November 2021, is part of Rabi Rabu Baby's.  The other girls are Katsu Yuna, Kina, Yafu Rua, Tanahara Yuume, Miyagi Rea and Higashionna Riria.  (Riria might be Ruka's sister since they have the same family name.  I'm not sure of this, though.)  Here's a new video of all the members of both groups performing "Rabi Rabu IDOL School Song". 

SPIRAL MUSIC's Harajuku Gakuen announced that they are releasing their first single on November 22, 2022!!  The bad news (well, you may not consider this bad news, but...) is both Amakawa Mio and Matsuda Karen have cut their hair short!  sigh  

Another SPIRAL MUSIC group made their debut recently.  They are named ww worldwide the mix girls unit.  Similar in concept to the now disbanded Global Unit Comet+, ww have members that are (mostly) of mixed heritage.  Lin Oberndorff is German and Japanese.  Kokoa is Japanese and Thai.  Takehashi Kazaha has two Japanese parents.  Lila is said to be of American, British and Japanese heritage.  As I have mentioned on a wiki I created, I'm pretty sure her parents are from the U.S. and U.K., but she was born in Japan.  Finally, Punamu Kanda is Indian (the country India) and Japanese.  Kokoa and Kazaha are former members of Konyanko.  Kokoa was also in Neko Punch and Kitty Cat.  Kazaha was also in Chibi Mini.  Here is ww's first live video.   

Someone at that Fandom wiki site that I am also a part of found a Imamori Manaka video!  Manaka is a former member of SunRisa, and also my favorite idol!  Apparently she is now part of a theater company.  I was surprised to see Manaka's hair so short in the video and didn't recognize her at first.  Yeah, I'm hung up on girls with long hair.  But in any case, Manaka is still one of the prettiest girls in the whole world to me!  I won't stop liking her just because she cut her hair.  And besides, this video is now over a year old.  It's possible she grew her hair back by now. 

Oh, here is Manaka's profile.   

Soloist Aoshima Momo has a new song titled "SAKEBI", and apparently it's an anti-suicide song!  I wasn't expecting this type of song from Momo.  I didn't know this, but apparently there is a high suicide rate among teenagers in Japan around late August and early September because summer is over and school is back in session.  I'm very sad to hear this.  Momo is trying her best to get these kids to listen to her music and hopefully prevent them from killing themselves.  Wow.  This is a very heavy topic for a thirteen-year-old singer to sing about.  Here is the video. 

Now, I'd like to know why Momo or her management took down the music videos on her old YouTube channel.  Unless you downloaded the videos like me, you can't see the videos for "I'll try ~todoku made~" or "Kokoro no Time Capsule" anymore.  That's a shame for her new fans.  

Well, that does it for now.  Thanks again for reading my blog, and have a great day!      

       

Hiwillow's New Single

When your favorite member of a Japanese idol group leaves, it sometimes seems like there is no longer a reason to continue following the group.  I've mentioned this before, and this time I'm talking about Hiwillow.  The departure last year of Hiwillow's leader, and my favorite member, SHIKI, has really hit me hard.  I saved over 400 photos of her, mostly from Twitter, and I didn't bother to save that many photos of the other members.  That's not to say the other girls in Hiwillow aren't pretty or talented, it's just that they weren't my favorites.  I was also hoping that before SHIKI left that Hiwillow would release their second single, as originally planned, in 2021.  That didn't happen, and now that Hiwillow have released their second single with their new lineup I have discovered that it's not "Baby Baby", the last song that Hiwillow performed with SHIKI.  Instead, Hiwillow have released a single titled "flick! flick! flick!".  My first reaction to the short preview on YouTube is that it's too cutesy for a Hiwillow song.  I was expecting something a bit more "cool" than "cute".  I was also hoping that the full video would be on YouTube, but so far it's not.  What I have found is some live fan videos, all uploaded by the same person, of the full song.  Now that I have heard it a few times, I'm actually liking it.  Who knew I'd feel this way?  

So anyway, the new single is available in two versions, each with a DVD containing the regular version of the music video and something else unique to each DVD.  Type A has a "pajama version" of the music video and Type B has video messages from each member.  I'd love to see the "pajama version" of the video!  Below are the official preview and live fan videos of "flick! flick! flick!".  

As always, thank you for reading my blog! 

  

Idol News

It's only May but there's been a lot of things going on in the indie scene of Japanese idols.  Here's a few of the things going on that I wanted to share, and some videos too.   

A few graduations have happened or will happen soon.  MOMOHA of Marble Angel graduated on May 5, 2022.  I have always liked her a lot because she is a very talented singer and she's very pretty.  She's also very good at drawing.  When MOMOHA left Marble Angel she was 11, but her birthday was May 13, so she is now 12 years old!  Happy birthday to one of my favorite idols!  Here are a couple videos from MOMOHA's final performance as a member of Marble Angel.  

Yuduki Ramu from the idol group Rock Kyun Roll is graduating on June 19, 2022.  The group's first - and last - CD single, titled "Rock Kyun Date Sunday", will be sold on this date.  Here's the cover.  

Sano Junna, the leader of Rabi Rabu IDOL School, has announced that she will be graduating on July 30, 2022.  Her energy on stage is amazing!  I will definitely miss her when she leaves.  For those not familiar with the newer members, Non (real name: Kanon, pink), Roia (orange), Rea (yellow) and Mairi or Miley (red) are their names.  Rabi Rabu IDOL School released a new single titled "Rabi Love Spell" on March 21.  Although they apparently filmed a music video for this song, so far it hasn't appeared on YouTube.  However, several live videos of the two versions - that's right, there are two versions - have been shared.  Here are both versions! 

Ishida Aoi of Petit Kiss, formerly Jumping Kiss Standby, graduated on April 16, 2022.  Unfortunately, many girls have graduated from Jumping Kiss and the group now has four members, plus Matsuda Kurumi, the other member of Petit Kiss.  Last year Otsuki Ai disappeared shortly after Jumping Kiss released their third single.  Here is Aoi's final photo uploaded to her Twitter.  

Speaking of groups that keep losing members, CRUiSE! now have only three.  The group's latest single, "YOSOLO", only has Aoi Miyu, Tonogawa Haruka and Akahoshi Nana in it.  Yeah, Aizaki Yukine, the group's best singer, has graduated.  CRUiSE! has a new subunit named Compass, which features former Marble Angel member Kondou Misora.  I hope Compass make their debut soon, because I'd like to hear an original song from them.  In the meantime, here is the latest from CRUiSE!  

  

Two groups I'm following disbanded.  COLORLESS broke up sometime in March.  Si☆4 broke up on April 29.  Obviously, I'm not really happy about this.  Each month it seems there are less and less groups that I like that are currently active.  

COLORLESS (October 2021)

Si☆4 (April 2022)

Konyanko Kingdom is the umbrella name for two kids idol groups, Kitty Cat and Neko Punch.  They have been active for over four years, originally just as Konyanko, yet have not released an original song.  Neko Punch was the name for another idol group that was active around 2011 to 2013, and they released a single titled "Moon Light Flower".  Kitty Cat (not the new Neko Punch)  covered this song in one of their live videos on YouTube, so I know the name for the new Neko Punch is not a coincidence.  Two former members of Konyanko, Takahashi Kazaha and Shiraki Hina, have now debuted as Chibi Mini.  (Yes, that means the translation of their name is "Mini Mini".)  Chibi Mini have released their first single, essentially titled "Cupid" (spelled "Kyu-pid", with hearts and arrows in the title).  Here is the video!  

Aoshima Momo released a new song on a new YouTube channel (which is why I didn't see it on the day it was shared) titled "DIG".  The video features a still drawing of Momo with the Japanese lyrics in various fonts onscreen.  The music is  very funky, and the lyrics, of course, are written by Momo herself.  

Former Rabi Rabu IDOL School member, Fujibayashi Yume, the original pink girl, has her own Twitter.  She is working hard as a model these days.  I'm sharing this because I knew everyone would want to follow her!  

If you are looking for a loud, hard rock idol group to listen to, try Lock★Rock BAB.  The first song in this video, "Brave", is my personal favorite! 

Well, that's about all I want to type right now.  But that's a lot of information I have been wanting to share with everyone.  I hope all of you enjoy these videos and photos and, as always, thank you reading my blog!