Bikkuri Survey

I’ve never done a survey on here before, so to start, Celestia’s Bikkuri Survey.

JE Still Owning the Oricon

So the Oricon half year charts are finally out. Out of the top 100 singles, the Johnny’s releases are:

Yamapi Gets Mobbed by Fans in Korea

This has been circulating madly amongst NEWS and Yamapi fans, but for those who don’t know yet: a few days ago, Yamashita Tomohisa (NEWS, probably better known now as Yamapi) went on a private trip to Korea with his friend Shirota Jun (D-Boy’s Shirota Yuu’s brother) and his manager. It went all well, but news of his trip somehow leaked on the sixth, and at the airport for his return flight… well, I’ll let the video speak for itself. (You might want to turn down the volume.)

Arashi’s surprising first week…

If there’s one thing we all know about Japan, it’s that Japan is insane and however integrated and educated of their pop culture we are or think we are, we’re still all dumb gaijin and will never really know what they like nowadays.

Seriously.

Sure, we know that Johnny’s fangirls have cash to burn, Koda Kumi albums will always top the charts, KinKi Kids will get #1 on Oricon. These are expected. If anything changes (KinKi’s record of number 1 singles finally stops, people actually really start to dislike Koda Kumi’s music) it’d be shocking.

But did anyone anticipate that a temporary duo formed for a school drama with two Johnny’s idols that integrated Spanish into cheesy lyrics (Shuji to Akira’s “Seishun Amigo”) would become one of the country’s top singles, two years in a row? Would you have bet good money that, after years of the top yearly single being pop artists like SMAP, KAT-TUN, Hirai Ken, and Ayumi Hamasaki, that 2007’s top selling single (”Sen no Kaze ni Natte”) would be classical, from a tenor?

Girl Groups I Like, and Girl Groups I… Don’t Like

The other day, a roommate was watching Music Station and asked me, “why don’t you like Buono?” (To which I, confused, responded “Bono from U2? Whaa?”)

The thing is, I’m incredibly in love with Perfume right now, and in the past I was incredibly in love with SweetS. They’re the only two idol girl groups I’ve really adored. I have been slightly fond of Hinoi Team too. But somehow, I’ve never developed a liking (and actually hold a distaste) for any other female idol groups - nobody in H!P, not AKB48, not even the female parts in AAA. To my roommate, there’s no difference - Perfume and Buono! are all groups with three girls who dance in sync in performances to pop music. Besides, I listen to bad Johnny’s songs all the time obsessively, so music-wise I should be tolerant.

But to me, there’s all the different in the world - I was even slightly offended that my musical taste seemed to include H!P releases.

I’ve thought about it, and I’ve narrowed it down to six differences between the ones I like and the ones I don’t: