Make Believe Melodies For April 28, 2025

A Kawaii-To-The-Core Idol Edition

CUTIE STREET — “Chikyuu Make-Up Keikaku”

The J-pop vibe shift truly registered with me in recent weeks, when I heard CUTIE STREET in a kindergarten. As absurd as it sounds, a glorified holding pen for toddlers offers fantastic insight into what’s poppin’ in the country. A five-year-old kid responds to big hits, while the teachers tend to be more general in their taste. The likes of YOASOBI and Creepy Nuts and especially Mrs. GREEN APPLE have reigned supreme. Yet at some point in the last 14 days, CUTIE STREET’s breakthrough number “Kawaii Dake Jya Dame Desu Ka?” has entered rotation both in its original form and, most recently, a somewhat bewildering music-box cover echoing through the halls¹.

It feels fitting, as that song coupled with the surge in popularity experienced by other acts under the KAWAII LAB umbrella — referring to Asobisystem’s branch devoted to bringing the kawaii back to idol — points towards a greater idol renaissance at play in modern Japanese pop. For the last half decade, J-pop idols — by which I refer not to male outfits or the K-pop-ified stuff of the latter 2010s, but the traditional cute-and-innocent-and-slightly-unsettling variety defining the nation’s pop scene since Star Tanjoo! aired in 1971 — have been invisible. The peak days of AKB48 ended and the -46 groups existed in their space, highly profitable but seemingly away from the zeitgeist. BiSH broke up and Dempagumi.inc called it a day, while Momoiro Clover Z soldiers on, waving the flag for early 2010s zany pop antics. This feast-or-famine timeline always happens with idol music in Japan, and we’re coming out of the bubbly depression now, with what appears to be a real hunger for the upbeat and playful fantasy fun of this corner of music.

I wouldn’t say it’s quite at mainstream boiling point yet, as your FRUITS ZIPPERs and CUTIE STREETs remain a rung below the nation’s top of the pops, including the continued dominance of Mrs. GREEN APPLE. Yet these outfits are making huge strides, and I think the latest from the second name mentioned above offers a fantastic intro to what this era of idol is all about. “Chikyuu Make-Up Keikaku” exists somewhere between the perky sonic barrage of an AKB with the loopier construction of a Dempagumi, with the maximalism of the prior working with the off-kilter energy of the latter (see sudden tempo changes and spoken-word interludes). It’s a wonderful Technicolor criss-cross, topped off by lyrics starting small (a laundry list of bad happenings, from spilling chocolate on your white dress to eating too many calories in one day) but mutating into a call to make the world more kawaii (reminding me a bit of an idol favorite, Team Syachihoko’s bonkers “Capital Relocation Plan”). It’s delivered with a hearty wink without dipping into the irony of underground idoldom, reverent to the history before it while being aware there’s plenty of space to stretch the style out and bring it to a new generation. Listen above.

CANDY TUNE — “Oshi Suki Shindoi”

Let’s use another KAWAII LAB creation to get at one of the central points about the new idol sound — it’s most important reference point is Dempagumi.inc. Listen to anything featured on its YouTube page (except the Yasutaka-Nakata-produced one), and you’ll hear echoes of Dear Stage². The latest from CANDY TUNE offers the connection in its most stark terms, opening with a piano crash-out almost straight from just over a decade ago before hitting a rapid-fire spoken word bit about “cute aggression” that feels akin to another Dempagumi classic. “Oshi Suki Shindoi” uses frantic shifts in pace to create something like a musical interjected with 8-bit touches (very “Future Diver” of you), while the masterstroke is in the self awareness — this is a song about being a fan, seemingly at first from the perspective of a woman doing everything they can to prop up their faves, before becoming clear it’s about CANDY TUNE fans doing just that for the members here…all with a playful acknowledgement of how soul-draining modern fandom actually is. You can’t celebrate your style right if you don’t truly understand it. Listen above.

Kyururin Te Shitemite — Kyururin Wonderland

You know who might get the Dempagumi.inc sound better than most? The company that brought them to prominence.

For all of the KAWAII LAB stuff, Dear Stage remains a big player in this corner of J-pop, and Kyururin Te Shitemite basically offers the gloriously disjointed sound pioneered by Dempagumi for a new era without them. Latest EP Kyururin Wonderland offers a good overview again of this nervy style moving into the spotlight, while also making room for sweeter pop offerings like the China-dreaming melodies of “Maison de 520.” Listen above.

Saishu Mirai Shojo — “AI SEE CHAT”

J-pop idol-dom certainly deserves to be put under the magnifying glass, but I have found that consistently critics of it tend to overlook the sharpness and sometimes outright ridiculousness of this corner of music in favor of boring literal readings on everything. Saishu Mirai Shojo’s schtick is every member looks like AI…but they aren’t, though they are happy to use familiar touches and elements of the tech to their advantage. The quartet’s best moment is “AI SEE CHAT,” featuring an all-live video sporting lyrics about the modern world loaded with Japanese puns to artificial intelligence, building to one of the catchiest, most existential choruses of the year.

I include it also because it’s a great example of why I think idol music is primed to enjoy newfound attention in the 2020s…it’s a style built on imperfection and actual human growth, a radical idea in the age of AI perfection. This group has fun with the places those ideas overlap, but they are ultimately more tied to traditional idol-ness than a Shinsei Galverse experiment. Listen above…or check out the latest from one of the project’s solo members below.

AiScReam — “Ai Scream!”

It would be silly of me to do a whole round-up post about idol music without mentioning the biggest idol song of the year so far. “Ai Scream!” has gone wildly viral, to the point of, at time of writing, being number three on Spotify’s “Global Viral” chart. So…here’s 2025’s first big J-pop breakout, powered specifically by the post-chorus bit where Ruby tells us she loves you more than chocolate mint ice cream. But I really like this song for more than just its super sweet trend — like fellow Love Live! special cut “peace piece pizza” from last year, this food-themed number draws from modern electronic music (see all those vocal ripples, especially in the bridge later on) and packs in lots of great little details (cowbell!) to create some of 2025’s best pure pop going. It’s a bit silly at its core — yes, I want you more than a cookies and cream cone — but that light-heart coupled with an irresistible core makes for a great example of how this type of music can shine. Listen above.

Hoshimachi Suisei — “Mo Dou Natte Mo Iya”

OK, here’s a twist. That blank period after the pandemic but before KAWAII LAB , the one seemingly without idol music in the spotlight? What if I told you…it was there, just in disguise? Specifically, as virtual YouTuber music?

While flexing a lot of genre diversity, the core principle of VTuber music has been “idol” for quite some time³. English-language creator Kiara Takanashi recently did an all Hello! Project concert recently…c’mon now! This space is only moving closer to music, and the rise of Hoshimachi Suisei underlines in, even if her sound is eclectic enough to avoid easy categorization. Still, Suisei is an idol, and a song like the above — functioning as the ending theme to the new Gundam anime — reminds of the places where idol spirit remained strong, and continues to shine today. Listen above.

WHITE SCORPION — “Beach opening”

Alright, so…what if the future of idol is also just the past of idol?

WHITE SCORPION’s “Beach opening” is a pleasant bit of city pop-ish idol, carrying traces of Especia (albeit without the depth) and a nice groove behind it. In the new vanguard of idol, one could easily see it finding space to stand out. Which would be funny…as this whole project is another one from Yasushi Akimoto, godfather of modern idol music and the force behind AKB48 and…like everything else. He’s never left, but he’s also less in the limelight than ever before. But what if that changes??? Dude built the foundation of all this…don’t discount him in this new generation. Listen above, and also enjoy a snippet of this mind-boggling PR email I got about WHITE SCORPION involving NFTs and blockchain.

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For $5 USD a month, you’ll get an extra post every week! Coming up next…a Pretty Cure review, to keep with the idol theme?

Oricon Trail For The Week Of April 14, 2025 To April 20, 2025

Back in the day, the Oricon Music Charts were the go-to path to music stardom in Japan. Acts of all sorts traversed these lands, trying to sell as many CDs as possible in order to land a good ranking on a chart choosing to only count physical sales, even as the Internet came to be and the number of versions offered for sale got ridiculous. Today, with the country finally in on digital, these roads are more barren and only looked at by the most fanatic of supporters needing something to celebrate. Yet every week, a new song sells enough plastic to take the top spot. So let’s take a trip down…the Oricon Trail.

ME:I — “Muse” (198,730 Copies Sold)

So after all that…how about the other side?

Besides idoly-idols moving back into the domestic light, one of the bigger developments of 2025 so far has been the steady rise of K-pop-indebted idol groups into the international limelight. PSYCHIC FEVER and JO1 did world tours while BE:FIRST follows soon. XG played Coachella. HANA released a very good debut single getting global attention. Grammy.com made a whole list of what I would say are “idol groups” in the K-pop mold save for FRUITS ZIPPER and the two STARTO inclusions. The first five years of this decade were defined by YOASOBI, Ado, Fujii Kaze, Creepy Nuts and other artists who didn’t easily fit the “idol pop” category. Will the next five be centered around projects that definitely are?

Maybe, but I’m skeptical. If I was going to choose a group that I think might be able to rise above it, it would ME:I based off of “Muse” which is actually Muse, an EP but hey it’s Oricon in 2025, they don’t care. The title track from this group — which comes from a K-pop background — basically erases all the major formulaic failings of modern K-pop, an industry currently in creative free fall⁴. I wrote about it at scrmbl, but it isn’t being flashy for flashy sake, but rather letting the odder touches work in tune with the core melody, which is what you really want here.

The rest of the EP? It actually sounds a lot like…2010s idol music, with ample video-game notes and the kind of netlabel-born distortions that marked something like Maltine Girls Wave more than a decade ago. Actually…ME:I might be closer to the traditional idol offerings than the X-pop slop of the world. Listen above.

News And Views

• I talked with Sasuke Haraguchi for The Japan Times. What I find fascinated by regarding his music — both original and produced for others — it how it channels the history of the Japanese internet and uses it to create a disorienting, MAD-indebted sound both in line with global developments but also so very rooted in his home country (and Nico Nico Douga).
  

• KinKi Kids to make all music available on streaming.
  

• Following her big world tour, Ado will hold her first-ever dome performances in November, with a pair of shows in Tokyo Dome and Osaka’s Kyocera Dome. I went to the kick-off concert for her world tour in Saitama this past weekend…and she accidentally shared this news a day early, resulting in one of the more genuinely funny “please please don’t tweet this!” pleads from a major artist.
  

• Asobisystem had to remind fans of the group FRUITS ZIPPER to calm the fuck down with the obsession. Idol music really is back!
  

• Jackson Wang linked up with Number_i.

• Haruomi Hosono to play the UK this summer.
  

• Suiyoubi No Campanella to tour Asia and Europe later this year.
  

• Osaka Expo working miracles, in getting Sashihara Rino to sing “Koisuru Fortune Cookie” again.
  

• A Miku Who Can’t Sing opened pretty well in the United States! Good chance for shameless self promotion of my review of the film (and its accompanying churro).
  

• Apple Music just opened a new studio in Tokyo, featuring new shows starring the members of Snow Man and LANA. I…will have more on this soon, but it underlines growing global interest in Japanese music.
  

• As does this bit of news, which finds Live Nation acquiring Japanese promoter Hayashi International Promotions.
  

• The New York Times’ magazine did a big feature about Japan and part of it touches on J-pop, but I don’t subscriber and the free account I made to see the article…won’t let me see it??? Anyway, let me know if it’s dumb or not.
  

• Yusuke Nakagawa of Asobisystem tells Forbes Japan 2025 will be the year J-pop enters the global market. While part of me wants to make fun of this — you had Kyary Pamyu Pamyu on the verge of doing this a decade ago! — I actually find his take on this quite encouraging and lining up with my thoughts on it, particularly how the industry and government actually seem organized at the moment (my doubts still lurking, of course).
  

• Quite random to close but…I love baseball, so naturally I’ve gravitated to a new anime all about life at the ballpark, primarily told through the eyes of a lady selling beer. Delightful! Yet I bring it up because the ending theme is done by Tomonori Hayashibe of Plus-Tech Squeeze Box, which I find neat!
  

Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Check out the Best Of 2025 Spotify Playlist here!

1. Worth mentioning that just as important to all of this…and warranting a separate post…is the latest season of Pretty Cure is idol themed, which might actually be the biggest development here.

2. I mean…they made the purple one look vaguely like Moga Mogami, I think they know what they are doing.

3. Though this leads to the moments where it diverts from the perky formula being my favorites — see Nerissa Ravencroft doing an entire stream of The Smiths’ covers.

4. They killed NewJeans for this garbage????