What's Up With J-Pop?

So I confess, I like Puffy Ami Yumi, that ever-so-cute J-pop duo that owns the charts in Japan and has a host of adoring fans in North and South America as well. I mean, everybody’s got a cartoon these days, right? And a video game. What’s up with that music video that features the pair singing to an image of Jimmy Hendrix? I totally don’t understand it, but I want it. Here's a sample of their music.

Perhaps the most famous of recent J-pop divas, Hikki Utada, has sold over 35,000,000 albums worldwide, according to her bio on Wikipedia. Fluent in both Japanese and English, she released her very first album, Cubic U, in the U.S. Other, J-pop girl bands of note include Morning Musume, SPEED and Perfume. Solo artists of note include Kyary Pamu Pamu and Namie Amuro, a Japanese R&B singer.  On my Jpop Youtube playlist, I've got some great examples of Jpop stars & groups. I'm also very fond of Shiina Ringo and the time she spent with Tokyo Jihen. She's my personal favorite, but alas, has just retired. This is her best tune with the band. Also been listening to a bunch of "Capsule" tunes, what I'd classify as Jpop "electronica." 

Regular listeners to J-pop begin, over time, to recognize a certain similarity to a lot of the tunes. The players also seem to be regularly refreshed. I think Morning Musume has had six or seven different line-ups. It’s what my favorite Japanese pop-culture blogging maven Neomarxisme calls “the template.” Though producing mega-Dollars (actually, mega-Yen) in Japan, the world’s second largest consumer of retail music to (you guessed it) the U.S., actual sales of new music in Japan have been trending down. That’s the logical product of digital music sharing and the highest CD prices on the planet. But in the U.S., musical explorers, gamers who love Japanese graphics and anime fans are driving a modest, but reliable market for J-pop.

I really admire the “whatever” confidence and the unbridled creativity of J-pop cute. Even if there is some “templating” involved. Though I can’t quite put my finger on the magic, it works. As the sales of gazillions of dollars of merchandise will attest. But there’s more to J-pop than cute. And more ways to explore and appreciate the sub-culture than music. Fashionistas will second that.

If you’ve got NetFlix or a Blockbuster account with a good foreign section close by, dial-up Kamikaze Girls, a contemporary Japanese “chick flick” that features an irresistibly cute heroine who is absolutely obsessed with Rococo fashion. That’s Rococo. Think Marie Antoinette. Our protagonist is completely oblivious to everything and everybody around her until she accidentally hooks-up with a biker chick with tats on a café racer. That’s what I’m talking about: cute with attitude. Here's the IMDB page.

For a serious dose of J-pop attitude, check out Fruits and Fresh Fruits by Shoichi Aoki, two volumes that explore the colorful, multi-layered teen fashion of Tokyo's Harajuku district in its heyday. No text, just image-after-image of creatively dressed teens pushing all the limits.

(First posted in 2007. Edited with updates and new links in 9/14)

Tokyo Street Style

The Japan Fashion Association tracks Tokyo Street Style. They maintain a neat website that has the latest photos from Harajuku. If you are a serious fashionista, you know that the varied looks of Tokyo "street fashion" are as influential as "South Central" and hip-hop. So check it out. You know you want to.
fashion

J-Pop Redux

Over two years ago, The Author posted this blog's first note about J-Pop. That was way fun. The Japanese popular culture scene is rich and storied. Think Harajuku (Wiki Commons image: Harajuku girl) and Fresh Fruits.

That first post covered some of the icons of J-Pop, and a personal favorite, Shiina Ringo. Ringo (pictured right), often described as born sick and needing immediate surgery, is a unique talent in J-Pop.

Shiina is a rebel who has always gone her own way. And judging from the length of her Wikipedia entry, she's into details. I'm only in the mood for this kind of stuff on occasion, but when the urge hits, the music of Shiina Ringo is often where I go. Check out these videos. The first is pretty standard rock, the second definitely isn't.





J-Pop
Shina Ringo
Music

Sumo Wrestling World Rocked by Pot Scandal

OMG! The centuries old sport of Sumo Wrestling, revered with religious fervor by many fans, has been rocked by...Marijuana. Read the sordid details. Could it be that entire stables of Sumo professionals have discovered that a good toke stimulates the appetite, eases the pains of excess, and serves as a better sleeper than warm milk or hot Sake? But no, this horrific practice will "sully" the good name and historic reputation of the sport. Uh-huh. Like we're buying that. People, worry about serious drugs like stimulants and roids. Leave the mild herbals alone already.

SUMO
MARIJUANA

Matsushita Robot vs. Energizer Bunny

Based on this Japan Today item, the ubiquitous pink Energizer Bunny might just have some new and formidable competition. Japanese electronics giant, Matsushita, just released the pictured image and the news that their cute robotito successfully climbed a rope up a 530-meter cliff in Arizona's Grand Canyon. Yea, take that pink bunny. Go ahead, beat your silly little drum while the real battery-powered bot scales a cliff in the Grand Canyon. Hoo-ya!

No seriously, the Japanese have more robots at work than any other developed country. It has even been reported that the Japanese prefer the company of robots to foreigners. I guess that's understandable in a country were the same word is used for "foreign" and for "wrong."

Japan
Robotics

Silly Saturday - Hello Kitty Diplomacy

Well, Richard Nixon had his ping-pong diplomacy. Today, Japanese officials announced that Hello Kitty, that adorable and ubiquitous pink feline, will become a "tourism ambassador" to Hong Kong & China. Conquering with cute, or Kawii as they'd say in Tokyo. Read about it here.

Kawii

Historical Revisionism - Everybody's Doing It

Historical revisionism is nothing new. The power elites have been re-writing history to suit their own ends for as long as humans have populated the earth. And people wonder if skepticism is hardwired; and if so, why. Uh huh, no brainer that. We've all heard the old adage that to "...ignore history is to repeat it." I guess that depends on just what "history" one refers to.

Today, discussions around inaccurate historical portrayals even extend to video games.

In the real world, the most visible and egregious historical revisionism is going on in Japan. Conservative lawmakers last week denied that there was ever a "rape of Nanking." No, the massacred Chinese must have died in some other manner 70 years ago this anniversary year. The Japanese Prime Minister insists that the Imperial army didn't use "Comfort Women;" and now, new textbooks that ignore the military's edict to loyal residents of Okinawa to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Americans have so riled the island natives that their parliament has issued a statement condemning the oversight by design. Read about it here. How is it that a country that makes such great cars and robots can get accurate historical reporting so wrong? Unbecoming at best, a PR disaster at worst.

And of course, Japan, China and Korea are engaged in a vocal and sometimes naval confrontation over several small groups of disputed islands that are largely uninhabited but hold some sway over fishing and oil/mineral rights. Each side has historical claims to buttress its arguments.

Holocaust deniers; apologists for repressive dictators; and, the obsessed with power and security are always - it seems - busy re-writing history for their own ends. Nowhere is this phenomena more prevalent than in long-running ethnic and territorial disputes. Take the Northern Irish "troubles," the Turkish/Kurdish wars; the Middle East morass; Tibet, and just about every case where indigenous populations were displaced by colonizers for example. And when potential war crimes are involved, the re-writing of history reaches a fever pitch. Wingnut Christian fundamentalists are even trying to re-write American history to ignore the animists, theists, Unitarians and agnostics among our founding fathers and their families. And I won't even get into the major historical debate recently stimulated by a fiction novel: The Da Vinci Code. There's no shortage of relevant contemporary efforts to re-write history.

Not to be outdone, the Bush administration has taken the trend to new heights. For this crew, history is a fluid, moving target that can be altered and substantially re-written on a minute-by-minute basis dictated by need. Reality does not play an important role in the equation. And the main-stream media appears to be willing participants in the charade. In this environment, it is encouraging to this observer that citizen journalism and bloggers have risen to provide alternative sources of information, analysis and opinion. Leave it to the grassroots to get it right, governments and the traditional media are doing a great job of proving that no-one else can be trusted.