Sadly not with a robot backup band, and I am sorry to report there are no North American dates as yet, but Babymetal is setting up its first World Tour. The announced stops include Paris, Cologne, London, and Chiba City, and they are currently negotiating more concerts, so we could still get to see them here. Thanks to Crunchyroll for the heads up on this one, who got the word from J-Pop Idols, who heard about it from Natalie.
This band continues to amaze me; here are a few more tracks I hope you will find as wonderful as I did. The first song is their Christmas selection CROSS THE SKY, the second is called METEOR, the third is FUTURE. And these are only a few out of the last 7 years; there are so many more that will make you smile to yourself and want still another song.
If Miyazaki Films Were Like Other Anime is the name of this hysterical video, made by the folks over at College Humor, a site I tend to visit pretty much every week to see what new silliness they are up to this time. Of course, Hayao Miyazaki never made an ordinary anime in his life. Each work he crafted was amazing, and are some of the best animations in the world.
Considering how often she has turned up on the hit Japanese TV show Music Station, I can’t be very surprised about Avril Lavigne’s latest music video Hello Kitty. I was not sure if it was filmed in Japan; that part has now been confirmed. It is kind of refreshing to hear Japanese lyrics in an English language song, rather than the other way around. Unfortunately, I can not embed the video into my page for you, it is only available from her web page, linked here.
NOTE: Since that last comment, it has been released in embeddable form. Enjoy. Watch the third video here carefully, and you will see her being given the Hello Kitty guitar she uses in the Hello Kitty music video, when she appeared on a Japanese talk/variety TV show.
They call themselves the Wagakki Band, which means Traditional Japanese Instrument Band, and while the name is not imaginative, the music they create certainly is. It is a mix of traditional, pop, rock, and a bit of metal, played on a combination of traditional and modern instruments. The musicians are masters of their instruments, and Yuko Suzuhana does an amazing job on the vocals. The first track is called Roku Chounen to Ichiya Monogatari, The second is a live version of their song Ephemera Days, and the 3rd is Senbonzakura. Since I still only have a vocabulary of around 100 words of Nihongo yet (meaning I understand the language as well as a smarter than average dog), I am depending on Google Translate for those titles. The final track is the band version of Tsuki Kage Mai Ka (The Shadow of the Moon, perhaps?) which they posted online back in November of 2012. Bottom line, I am very impressed with this group, and would love to see them come to North America on a tour, preferably as the warm up band for The Yoshida Brothers their first time. Even though they have been around for years, their first full album is being released on April 23rd, at least in Japan. With luck it will be available here through iTunes.
The latest track from FT Island is kick ass; check it out and let me know what you think! They have created some excellent tunes over the years, I think this one makes it obvious how good they are. Thanks to Warner Music Japan for the heads up on this one.