Make Believe Mailer Vol. 41: Summer Laziness Turned Way Too Long Edition
Temperatures have been just stupid high this past week in Japan, and the heat has made me extra lazy over the past five days. Which is all to say I'm going to slack off a bit with the newsletter this week. I don't want to rush out any of the topics I'm hoping to do a deeper dive in, so instead I'll just flesh out the sub-heads for this week. Thankfully, a fair amount of news and views to dig into.
The only other topic I wanted to tackle up here — Western Japan is still digging out from historic rains that triggered flooding and landslides. For anyone looking to donate towards relief efforts, Rakuten has a page set up, while Time Out Tokyo has listed other places where you can send your money.
News And Views
You thought SMAP, the long-running pop group that blew up in fantastic fashion a couple years back, was done, wasn't it? Well somehow...despite announcing their end back in 2016 and the three members who left the agency moving into the next chapter of their career...Takuya Kimura, who stuck with Johnny & Associates, kept hosting a radio show called What's Up SMAP! in the years following the breakup. Dude REALLY can't get over the fact SMAP doesn't exist anymore. But he'll have to find peace, because that program ends this August, and will be replaced by a new Kimura-helmed program called Flow. This marks the final existing piece of the SMAP empire to crumble.
Japanese music fans are aging. But that doesn't stop them from heading out to shows, sometimes with babies in tow. This is becoming such a visible trend that Gotch of the band Asian Kung-Fu Generation recently posted that ear muffs designed for kids will be available to borrow at the band's live shows. Fuji Rock Festival, held next week, is also selling official ear muffs for the first time this year, most likely due to the number of families who have attended in recent years.
Hikaru Utada makes bad tweet, tweet not received positively, Utada backtracks and learns from the experience. This whole mini-episode highlights a lot of the most glaring issues found on the pop culture side of social media, including anyone expecting multi-millionaire celebrities existing in ecosystems they'll never sniff to be social justice avatars and the extremes of people rushing to "cancel" a person matched by knee-jerk defense that ends up feeling like...fandom wars? Anyway, it's something that shouldn't stick to Utada, and she handled it right by signaling that she was off and emphasizing the "I'm learning" part. Honestly, the only thing that makes my eyes roll about this is her saying it took "courage" to tweet out the initial thought -- there's no bravery in wishy-washy thought experiments online! Log off, read a book, read one of the billion thinkpieces written on this very subject. If half-baked tweets are courageous, build me and most of Twitter a monument.
You don't have to tweet.I've been critical of 88 Rising in the past, but hey! Gotta give 'em credit when credit is due, as they have finally spotlighted an up-and-coming Japanese artist in their remix of "Japan" by Famous Dex (who offers up a great example of when the "learning experience" apology doesn't work). World, say hello to...Verbal. But seriously, wasn't m-flo coming back in full force supposed to contain him?
Pour Lui shared how much she made in BiS during her last three months in the group. It is not a lot.
The Needle Drop devoted a video to review Harunemuri's fantastic Haru To Syura album. Going to avoid deep thoughts on this one -- this thing is already longer than I expected -- but a.) I think it's good that an artist who has gotten minimal English-language coverage got the spotlight treatment from America's most popular music critic (sorry fellow writers) and b.) he still shares a lot of misconceptions about J-pop...but one you'd expect from most staff writers at major publications. I'm trying to avoid sharing bad articles -- it doesn't matter in 2018 -- but there have been some stinkers this week that make this video review read like an academic study in comparison.
This week's big debut in J-pop -- virtual YouTuber Kizuna AI, who offered up some of that kawaii bass. This is currently the top trending song in Japan on Spotify.
Oricon Trail For The Week Of July 9, 2018 To July 15, 2018
There's been a small but vocal amount of people arguing that Johnny's groups music has actually been good in 2018, so let's check in on this week's number one by Kis-My-Ft2, who I'd go to bat as being the best group in that world currently. And...huh!? Isn't there a whole younger group whose schtick is to perform while roller skating? Why are they cannibalizing this novelty? Does the other outfit have to use a pogo stick or moon shoes now?
Perfume's GAME (33 1/3)
My entry in the 33 1/3 Japan series is out now! Get a copy at Bloomsbury or Amazon. Or at Kinokuniya bookstores in the US.
Look At Me!
If you subscribe to this, you don't need another look at DA PUMP's surprise success, but I wrote one for the masses in The Japan Times. One thing glossed over in that link and, up until now, in your inbox -- the song has also become a challenge on YouTube, wherein people sing the hook and add their own fact about the States. This has lead to benign observations (you get a lot of French fries at restaurants) to slightly darker ones (all prisoners wear orange).
Reviewed the latest EP from Taipei's Meuko! Meuko! for Pitchfork.
Nobody pays attention to banking announcements in Japan, and then they complain about it online. I'm on the case for Japan Pulse this week.
Blog highlights: nostalgia, nostalgia, and nostalgia (of a different kind, with video now removed)
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
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