Rival Waah - BABYMETAL's "Doki Doki Morning"

BABYMETAL's "Doki Doki Morning"... at first I thought this was weird and creepy and laughed at it. The concept is cute and hilarious: three tweens/teens moshing about to Death Metal with trolling bits of cutesy bubblegum in between. The older girl, the vocalist, makes some hilarious idol-y faces while still keeping a tongue-in-cheek badassedness. The younger girls, though; they may be scarier than the Olsen twins.

Eventually this song became more than just an odd novelty to me. I genuinely like this song now, even if the girls are still a little creepy to me (I think the lead girl is cool, it's just those neo-Olsen twins...) So when I hear about their new song, I was excited. But I think whenever something epic comes around, it dooms its follower. Their new song is just another creepy novelty song to me. Maybe it will eventually grow on me like the first song did. Only I doubt any of their future songs can match the feeling of watching "Doki Doki Morning" for the first time.

I kind of wonder what will happen to this group in the future. They aren't going to remain "baby"-like forever. And isn't their mother idol group the group that graduates girls when they enter high school? And even if the older girl can stay because of her vocals and image as the group's face, I get the feeling the other two girls can just be easily replaced by fresh screaming pre-teens. I guess I'll continue following this group and see what happens! (And maybe it will take a few more songs to break out of the high expectations I have due to "Doki Doki Morning"'s epicness.)

Rival Waah - Fudanjuku's "Love Spider"

Since embedding is disabled, please watch the video on YouTube here.

I'm in love with these "guys." Color-coded? Check. Cute and cool at the same time? Check! Goofy? Check. Nerdy? Check. No need for a cod piece? Cheeeck! There's even a manga about them, which I would seriously consider buying if it was released in English. The concept of the group is genius, at least from the perspective of a female idol group that wants to bait female fans just as much or more than male fans.

Fudanjuku's "Love Spider" is another song that has a "this is so 80's feel." Can you tell I like songs that incorporate retro sounds yet? Hee. And that beginning little tune that repeats later in the song! It's like a herald of awesomesauce and just those five seconds get stuck in my head. Which then recalls the rest of the song and it gets stuck in my head, too.

Fudanjuku may not sound much like a male group. Some of the girls come close, but many are unmistakably women, which dictates how the group sounds as a whole. But that doesn't matter, because they all look like gorgeous guys. If they didn't charm me so much as idols, maybe I would want more consistency between their sound and image (even if that meant altering their pitch and having them lip sync in live shows.) But no, I'm content to listen to this awesome song while admiring their gorgeous cosplay. This is a group built on fantasy and I don't mind playing along.

I love Yellow's nose, hehe. But otherwise, I don't have a favorite, they are all cute with their own precious quirks.

Fanart Corner - Cute Bananas

Nakky - Maimai - Chisa

Half of C-ute drawn in cartoon style: Saki Nakajima, Mai Hagiwara, and Chisato Okai. Maimai is where the style started to degenerate/mutate into long-limbed giants. I wish I could keep the heads and re-proportion the bodies, but it's too late for this series. All but the Morning Musume ones need to be re-drawn.

JunJun

Part 2 of the Graduation Special! JunJun! Her obsession with bananas was awesome. Now it's like I can't avoid putting in a banana reference every time I draw her. I wish she could have tormented Yuko (who hates bananas~) while she was in Hello!Project, because Yuko is hilarious when she's pissed and JunJun is just plain hilarious.

Fanart Corner - Cheesy Superheroines

Sae

Uggh, this one is so embarrassing, yet I laugh at it, too. It's supposed to be Sae Miyazawa from AKB48. She seems to be the silly, sporty, and manly member. At least she looks silly here? Uggh, she looks like a superhero reject here rather than sporty (what was I thinking?! Besides superheroes, who else wears their underwear over a body suit?)

Koha

Graduation special! I already posted the Eri caricature in an earlier post and the Aichan caricature on deviantART (the only one that has been inked and colored so far.) This time I post an earlier grad, Koharu Kusumi. It was fun drawing her, since a crazy expression fits her character. Such a goof. I grew to love her character (I found her annoying when I first became a fan, though.)

Fanart Corner - OMG The Faces

Manoeri

Back around the summer of 2009, I drew Morning Musume in cartoon-style. Those scans were lost when I recently re-imaged my laptop, so I'll have to find them again to scan and post (they are actually in not so good shape because they were torn out of a large, flimsy sketchbook. They are probably fraught with creases by now.) Then I decided to draw everyone in H!P in that style (though the style skewed worse and worse later on.) From 2009-2011, I drew the rest of the girls. Here's Erina Mano, H!P's composite of famous faces and sole soloist. She actually doesn't look so bad, just not as angular as the original style I used for Morning Musume. She even resembles herself a little, gasp!

Rii

Caricature of Risako Sugaya. Well, this looks like her. The ears, lips, and eyes (kind of) are hers. But they fit together so awkwardly. I need to find a way to draw her that exaggerates her features but doesn't make her look so terrible, because she really is a pretty girl (despite what Hello!Project's fashion supervisors would have us think. H!P, please stop putting your thicker girls in granny clothes!)

Retro Corner - The Alfee's "Sweat and Tears"

And now for something almost, but not entirely different. The Alfee's "Sweat and Tears" (1986) is another 80's rock song (this time a ballad), but is not sung by a girl or an idol. This would fall under glam rock, if I'm not mistaken. Just look at how pretty the lead singer is! Whatever happened to epic hair like that? I miss it, even though I wasn't even born back then.

Vocally, this song is catchy, yet repetitive (at least the main refrain is partly in English!) The instrumental is awesome, too- it would fit in well on a classic rock station, yet spice the playlist up for a non-Japanese audience, for whom this song is mostly unknown.

I knew this song was repetitive, but seeing this ten minute version on YouTube made me wonder if they crammed in another half dozen refrains. The refrain isn't bad, but there is a point where it seems like the spaceship on Spaceballs that never seems to end. But actually, there's more epic instrumental and more... cheese. One guy is totally working his booty. This performance is actually pretty adorable! (The estrogenic screams in the latter half are there for a reason.)