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Saturday, July 09, 2005
Tsujikago Meets Visual Kei and Other News
This is too good not to share: on Magical-Girl.com, there's photographic proof that W's dresses for their recent musical is taken from a member of visual kei band Psycho Le Cemu. I'm horrified and surprised - if anything, you'd think W would take their costumes from Malice Mizer...
While I'm at it, I should note some other excellent posts in my favorite corners of the Jpop Blogosphere...
Undoing the mercator projection has a great extended post studying a recent BoA concert. I'm not a BoA fan - though perhaps it's just a matter of time - but as always the insights on East Asian music are fascinating and well-written.
The new kid on the block, I'm bad at naming things, takes a look at last Sunday's Hello! Morning and has some interesting comments on Sayumi. He's much fairer to Sayumi than I was when I first got into Jpop, which makes me feel a twinge of shame. (But just a twinge.)
Breadready's been doing screencap-heavy coverage of Hello! Morning the last couple weeks, including this past Sunday's episode. Definitely worth a look at, and I hope he keeps it up.
And saving the best for last, Santos at Idolizing St. Anna celebrated his goddess Anna Santos' 18th birthday with a cake. It's a beautiful cake, too. Is this excessive? I'd say not - the blog is inspired by her (hence its name), so a cake is the least he could do. Besides, I think he's hoping for a ticket to her solo concert...
I won't link it here, but somebody also took one of Santos' Irie Saaya posts and copied it verbatim on his own blog. I'm not sure what the guy was thinking, he's young and I seriously doubt there was any malice intended, but still it wasn't kosher. Even if imitation's the sincerest form of flattery, you gotta draw a limit.
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While I'm at it, I should note some other excellent posts in my favorite corners of the Jpop Blogosphere...
Undoing the mercator projection has a great extended post studying a recent BoA concert. I'm not a BoA fan - though perhaps it's just a matter of time - but as always the insights on East Asian music are fascinating and well-written.
The new kid on the block, I'm bad at naming things, takes a look at last Sunday's Hello! Morning and has some interesting comments on Sayumi. He's much fairer to Sayumi than I was when I first got into Jpop, which makes me feel a twinge of shame. (But just a twinge.)
Breadready's been doing screencap-heavy coverage of Hello! Morning the last couple weeks, including this past Sunday's episode. Definitely worth a look at, and I hope he keeps it up.
And saving the best for last, Santos at Idolizing St. Anna celebrated his goddess Anna Santos' 18th birthday with a cake. It's a beautiful cake, too. Is this excessive? I'd say not - the blog is inspired by her (hence its name), so a cake is the least he could do. Besides, I think he's hoping for a ticket to her solo concert...
I won't link it here, but somebody also took one of Santos' Irie Saaya posts and copied it verbatim on his own blog. I'm not sure what the guy was thinking, he's young and I seriously doubt there was any malice intended, but still it wasn't kosher. Even if imitation's the sincerest form of flattery, you gotta draw a limit.
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This isn't the first time that Morning Musume/Hello! Project has had a run in with visual kei. The gothic lolita fashion craze if often attributed to Malice Mizer and the visual kei subgenre for its popularity. Konno, Kamei and even Takahashi have sported brand name Gothic Lolita dresses on a few occasions for their old Hello! Pro News characters. I can dig up specific pictures if you'd like, but I succinctly remember watching the last Hello! Pro News segment (where all the old characters came back out) and thinking, "Wow, Takahashi is wearing a Baby the Stars Shine Bright dress!"
Actually, the Malice Mizer joke was referring to the whole Kago / Gackt thing. But the Gothic Lolita angle with Hello Pro News does explain a lot! I just thought Konno was asked to wear something strange and frilly for her interviews, I didn't even make the connection. It'd be great if you could put some pics up on your blog and explain it, it opens up a whole new way of looking at H!P.