Pretsy

I normally never bother(ed) to try out acts like this (seeing as I wasn't really enchanted by general J-hip hop/rap elements), but it looks like I found a gem here! /totallynotbiased Just as Jigsaw mentioned - Iinazuke Blue was basically something what hooked me - and perhaps many, many other new fans of Charisma.com to try out their other new songs. These same fans (including me) for the most part, didn't get disappointed at all when they tried out the whole package. The incorporation of electro-pop elements along with sweet rapping flow by the courtesy of MC Itsuka really gets the listener's mood up for a long time - personal upbeat favorites of mine, such as catchy Iinazuke Blue (duh), fierce Jenga Jenga, freaky Happy Turn, sassy Sodaigomi no Koi and wild Pain Off guarantee that your mood won't get down...and might even make you bob your head/move your feet along to the beat no need to get ashamed if you want to get groovy! There are also some straightforward-ish, calmer and poppier tracks for the sake of having breathing pauses in between constant party-around-ing: trippy but beautiful No Datte, almost R'n'B-y Mr. Beer and perhaps one of the pinpoints for this album after Iinazuke, Sorairo Will. To say it bluntly, there's enough variety to keep the listener in place and not fleeing out of fear/boredom - that doesn't necessarily mean that there wouldn't be *ANY* elements that might you think twice whether to like it or not. I have to admit that I found it quite hard to digest EDM-iness of some songs out there (Super Girl, Iinazuke Blue, Jenga Jenga) and unnecessarily very radio-poppy approach of Chankoi (was almost expecting a SCANDAL song there, haha). They are not necessarily something what would slow down your interest towards this release - but you have to be quite *open* and *accepting* in order to embrace DIStopping at whole. All the fuss aside, I already consider this to be one of the best J-albums for this year - if you don't mind fun, groovy and upbeat electro-pop mixed with rap/hip hop and some ballady numbers, grab this one ASAP! | Truly solid AOTY-material over here, people! Hurray for MC Itsuka and DJ Gonchi!

Great!

Kinda surprises me that Ryo is sort of a multi-instrumentalist o_o Not sure about vox tho

^Oh, sorry for the lack of that exact info - and if I were to respond: Believe it or not, but the only input that Kyary has in her music is basically her vocals - producing, composing, lyrics, mixing and mastering is SOLELY done by the same guy throughout her career (Yasutaka Nakata, as I mentioned). It's not a stretch then - read the liner notes/credits in release booklets Of course there are also news about two artists contributing to her music (on a later phase) , but that's unrelated to this matter...

Lycaon, obviously. (I am not minding their SADS-y worship-era tbqh)

Additional note by me: I know that many people around here have a lot against this artist - I do get it of course (sometimes it's either a) her vocals or her overboard, quirky and naive "musical status"). But seeing as fortunately some people manage to get over these pretexts - and see that she definitely deserves her own position in Nakata's "girl-vocal-group-trio" (Kyary-Perfume-Capsule these days), who for their part deserve respect for being able to convey Nakata's lively world of electro music. Those who are quite interested - AND acknowledge "the man behind Kyary", know certainly what I'm saying. Tracklist with romanizations: Now that we have a producer, who's definitely on fire release-wise - we have a chance to look at his...or in this case, Kyary's new full-length called "Pikapika Fantajin". Some people felt that Kyary's release tempo was getting too fast, and thus some singles ended up being quite "effortless" according to the general critic fanbase (especially in Japan, hm). But in the end the album itself managed to reveal some truly welcome surprises , and I am going to take them into account as well as I review this piece... After we get past the majestic-like intro, the album kicks out with three single tracks - "Kirakira Killer" ,"Yume no Hajima Ring Ring"'s album mix and "Mottai Night Land". "Kirakira" is a full-on, upbeat and typical Kyary track, so there's not really much to say about it - other than that it's quite great, and works well as a possible "indicator of typical Kyary-istic sound". Yume no Hajima Ring Ring on the other hand caused some "small ruckus" in Japanese netizens' part due to various plagiarism/"zero effort"-crapstorms. Quite unfortunate that this child-like, but nicely nostalgic piece got too much hate - and in vain. Yes - the song itself was way too straight-forward as a Kyary's single song, but Nakata interestingly enough took some notes from general reaction towards his piece - and rearranged some parts (especially the final chorus which sounds much more...nostalgic and epic, hehe) for this album. My positive opinion didn't change at all even after some "obvious renovations" in this album mix - best single out of "Pikapika" over here! "Mottai" instead has nothing much to pinpoint - very straightforward effort as well, but I think ragtime-y piano saves it from becoming a dull filler. Then we move on to the song, who deserves a lot more than just this lousy paragraph - "Serious Hitomi". Quite a shocker for those familiar with Kyary's earlier repertoire, seeing as the song heavily relies on "real band sound": you can hear and jam freely along to the guitar soloing, dynamic bassline and nice drums. I cannot come up with any proper comparison for "Serious", but let's make a bit faraway fetch anyway: imagine if Kyary covered Tokyo Jihen's "indiest" songs - a la "FOUL" or "Noriki" for instance. Might sound too biased to be true, but at least it gives you a general idea about awesomeness happening here. Possibly the best song of Kyary? J/k, j/k...very good one though. Rest of this album still needs more "digesting" - but on the other note, it makes you think whether Nakata was getting too lazy while making this album: "do do pi do" and "Tokyo Highway" are definitely the stars of "latter half", mainly thanks to their nods towards Nakata's other projects (Capsule and Perfume, respectively), but in the meanwhile we have songs like "Ring a Bell" and "Koi Koi Koi", which are just wayward silly - and Explorer, despite being quite an okay track (retro-y strings ) , is definitely nothing close to the proper closer material, and thus leaves a listener confused. Where did "Chan Chaka Chan Chan"-like closers go, Nakata? I'd personally put "Yume no Hajima" here, thanks to its obvious farewell-like message. I have nothing much to say about remaining single mixes - they are okay, albeit very straightforward efforts. The release in general starts out quite solidly, but ends up quite lazily (the same problem occured in "Nanda Collection" as well). Positive thoughts-wise though, there are many tracks worth pinpointing - and my personal picks are: Standouts: Serious Hitomi, do do pi do, Tokyo Highway, Yume no Hajima Ring Ring Cool tracks: Kira Kira Killer Okay tracks: Mottai Night Land, Family Party, Sungoi Aura, Explorer Tracks worth the big fix: Ring a Bell, Koi koi Koi (I won't rate the title track - intro, duh) - Not really perfect, but still very solid release by Kyary...and Nakata. Might come back here to edit more if I have more to say/fix.

lol

I kinda like those reconstructions (DS and Juuyoku) + Vanitas' Los Awkis ver. WTF is with Dreambox being a lounge song though, haha And now, speaking as a Narasaki-following weeb: did he just hire a power electronics-guy (AXONOX) to do the most of that DC remix arrangement? Oh my...

Session band name sounds defo like a JGV movie title :// (all the possibilities of a vk guy ending up in a jgv scene tho, hehe...)

Someone should seriously hint Mizuki/Mao @ameblo about this being a very HORRIBLE idea :/

"Worthless War meets $ocial riot machine$" ? Wow.

Digging that Malice Mizer track a lot ) (good memories) (romanized) 1. Nightmare - Akane 2. La'cryma Christi - Siam's Eye 3. Fantastic Plastic Machine - Euphoria (Mondo Grosso re-mix Radio Edit) 4. Asian Kung-Fu Generation - Machine Guns to Keiyoushi 5. The Smashing Pumpkins - Thirty-Three 6. Pizzicato Five - Planets 7. JiLL-Decoy Association - Irony 8. Swans - When She Breathes 9. mouse on the keys - unflexible grids 10. Janne Da Arc - Strange Voice A bit of a mess, but either way - good ol' La'cryma with good ol' "staple classic' takes the lead for me

Then again - I took most of that nitpicking from the site that has multiple ripoff threads involving hilarious accusations - like say, "Gazette RTU riffage is as same as "Final Destination" by Coldrain" (what??!) For those who are able to read Japanese (somewhat) : http://new.bbs.2ch2.net/test/read.cgi/kotanuki/1251342689/i voila (it's one of those many, many other threads - and yes, Grieva has its own separate threads, haha) also, the courtesy of 2ch in YT form:

Grieva post - powered by Japanese 2ch and ameblo rants: Oni to Kage 1. SE → Gauze -mode of Adam- true grief→ゆらめき (Dir en grey) 解離性同一障害→ an eternity (Laputa) +/or Raison detre (Dir en grey) 鬼経-kikei-→mazohyst of decadence (Dir en grey) 蜥-tokage-→Unknown...Despair...a lost + Cage (Dir en grey) 拝啓、愛しのアイドル様へ→アイドル狂いの心裏学 (Kagerou, idk??) +　FILTH (Dir en grey) 中絶→切断 (La:Sadie's) 夕刻絶好センチメンタル→MASK (Dir en grey) Wish→I'll (Dir en grey) Dead[en]D→S[K]ape:goat (DELUHI) 孤独人形症候群→Schweinの椅子(Dir en grey) 黒い涙→架空と現実 (La:Sadie's) 退廃的狂葬→残 (Dir en grey) 甘イ右脳、赭イ左脳。→脈 (Dir en grey) + Bel Air (chorus) (Malice Mizer) Diary → Jealous (Dir en grey) + Jessica (chorus) (Dir en grey) + 未成年 (the GazettE) (solo parts) 現実は心に蔓延る絶痛と叶わぬ理想の巣窟→DIFFERENT SENSE (Dir en grey) Grieva vs Grieva SE → G.D.S (Dir en grey) (idk??) Bondage → 蜜と唾 (Dir en grey) THE Suicide☆＄HOW TIME →CHILD PREY (Dir en grey) Mad Murder Lesson→ 蒼い月 (Dir en grey) 退廃的狂葬 →業 (Dir en grey) 潔癖症ノ僕。→ R指定 (Kagerou) + 性的緊張インプラン (Kagerou) I checked only a few of those (especially Diary) so yeah, feel free to suggest/fix/question (ps. how did I do that? Well, by googling out "Grieva ripoff /plagiarism" in Japanese, you will find lots of stuff - especially 2ch shitstorms )

^ Bach's "little" fugue in G minor

Might just request OP (even if it sounds like a bad idea, idk) to change the topic title from "vk" to "J-rock" (I suppose), seeing as the whole J-music scene in general shares many common titles - a case in point: "Stay Gold" - Buck-Tick, Rentrer en Soi, Utada Hikaru, Spyair, Aqua Timez, EXILE, Steady & Co., ZIGGY, Mari Hamada, Nana Mizuki, Flow, Hi-Standard, V6, Shonan no Kaze "Solitude" - Lareine, KinKi Kids, Akina Nakamori, Miki Imai, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ringo Shiina (Kodoku no Akatsuki's intl. title) etc. "Tsumi to Batsu" - Dir en grey, Ringo Shiina, Acid Black Cherry, THE HIGH-LOWS, Shunsuke Kiyokiba etc. "Kamiuta/Kami-uta" - The Mad Capsule Markets, Kaggra,, Phantasmagoria, Mayumi Morinaga etc. (kanjis vary, but the meaning is pretty much all the same, I guess?) ...and I think I will let the others continue my list (sorry for being overenthusiastic!)

Many users liked their previous effort, "Shangri-la" (including me) - at least that's what I found out from the review thread on that album. So yeah, Mucc might become pretty much an "up-and-down" band, who knows.

As we might already know it, Mucc will -never- return back to their 'aggressive/depressive' roots - and some might have accepted the changes, and some (read: most) are still crying wolf (even if they had released pretty ~solid~ releases after their 'departure' - say, what's wrong with Gokusai/Shion/Kyuutai trio for instance?). So let's take this into account and try to see/review this album without nostalgia-tinted glasses... But before that, I will skim through single tracks and have my say about them (album order-wise): ENDER ENDER - cookie cutter metalcore with wubwub. Very cheap, Miya. HALO - the best singe track out of TEOTW. Ingredients are pretty much in place here - solid rocking with good riffage, Tatsurou having varied vocal parts and ofc, catchy chorus World's End - I didn't mind this during its single release, and I still don't mind this as a new take (despite its tacky autotuned part - and people should seriously stop with "oh my god animu song this suxxxx"-pretexts). Solid 8/10-er of this album Now, a few words about non-single songs: unfortunately, unlike in Shangri-la, most songs were just poor revisions of their earlier, perhaps superior experiments ("Ms. Fear", title track, "Hallelujah", "Japanese", the last song) and ONLY SOME were actually something, what MUCC should have emphasized / tried further - indie-ish but still hard rocking in "Tell Me", groovy and solid funk in 369, and silly but sweet 'Lemming-meets-punk' revision in "999". Hey MUCC, you had like 1 year and a half time to do refreshing experiments instead of relying on stripped, rushed revisions - what's with the rush? I am not sure how I should rate this, seeing as one round is clearly not enough for MUCC releases, as we can see. For that sole reason, I refrain from giving final, numerical rating to this album - and sum up a few things: + Some fresh parts + HALO and revised World's End still sound great + 'Tell Me', '369' and '999' are fun to listen to - Some revisions weren't really needed - They should stop doing lousy metalcore a la "ENDER ENDER" and "Ms. Fear" - Ballad numbers weren't really well-thought

I really dig that Umbrella preview (finally Kyo didn't decide to resort to complete lyric impros, haha)

Reminds me of their release pace back in 6/Gokusai era, lol.

10/10 because Claypool makes some genius basslines/riffs...and nothing wrong with LaLonde's shredding either (okay, Brown Album is the least album from Primus I like, along with Antipop but still) Intro/Main riff (+ there are many other nice riffs scattered throughout)

Is it me or does mixing/mastering in this DVD (at least based on this preview) suck more than one in Uroboros' Nippon Budokan dvd? (Okay, the bass is more *audible* here but ewww, guitars and drum sounds) Oh well, I am here only for those *special setlist songs* (Aoi Tsuki etc.)

I use solely many variations of my first nickname (which also happens to be one of my first, frequent irl nicknames too) when in the forums and so (last.fm might be an exception but whooo caareesss) So yeah, nickname choices in my case really matter (and no, I didn't intend to refer to one of the worst bloggers ever with my current nick, sorry ppl!)

I might just go and break the borders by saying that "Spica" has been used a lot in J-music scene. Also: "Freesia" (Girugämesh, Laputa, Mucc, Penicillin...) and "Pierrot/Piero" (Pierrot, Lycaon, Kameleo... I am not sure if someone mentioned it already). And the word "Kodoku" (loneliness) can be seen in many occasions (vk-wise Dir en grey, Rentrer en Soi, Lost Ash, Panic Channel, Kein...etc.). Not to mention that this "Romance of.../...(of) Romance" - titling is kinda familiar sight to me when it comes to vk though. I might be wrong but you can already imagine some examples, heh.

They better use more horror game samples then those who know the reference will get it...