The J-Music Lovers' International Assembly

[Ryusenkai]

Even though the song grew on me this song was such a disappointment.

 

Has anyone heard any of the new b-sides is the single worth listening to? I know there's different versions and one b-side is just his digital single.

 

I'm in the same boat as IceHism 2014 has been lackluster for me so for except for Loveland, but it's starting to wear on me.

 

It depends a lot on the genres you listen to - it's been a pretty good year for pop-rock/rock thus far.  Not sure if it'll be an amazing one yet only just over 3 months in, but it definitely hasn't been bad.

[Ryusenkai]

1st song is akai koen? Its a bit too short for my liking. Decent instruments, voice is eh

2nd = hitomi? Its okay but not very interesting

3rd klooz? Well I'm a bad judge of genres like rap

4th the enka song? Its fine but I didn't think it was ear catching nor was I really ready for it as I was expecting something more fast paced.

Any more?

 

I'll take a crack at this:

 

http://en.musicplayon.com/play?v=742506

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9LpyP4h9No

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4BLiOP1aaY

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxfSCmVM1zk

[Ryusenkai]

for me

 watch list: Mahouka, No Game No Life, Sidonia no Kishi

 

kind of watch list, might drop if too boring: Black Bullet, Gokukoku no brynhildr, Akuma no Riddle, Ping pong, Mushishi Zoku Shou, , M3:sono kuroki hagane

 

still deciding: mekaku city actors.

 

other than those, i'm watching some old stuff too.

 

 

All the shows with too many male characters are mostly shoujo / josei slice of life shows so i see what you mean.  What shows are you watching?  

If you want to see a unique anime this season, mushishi zoku shou is probably the only thing that i can call original this season(though it's entertainment value is different for each people). It's an episodic anime of short stories that tell the lives of people influenced by supernatural entities.  There's no action btw.

 

Mushishi Zoku Shou is my personal favorite this season (and taken as a whole with the first season, one of my favorite anime of all time), but brilliant as I feel it is, I do acknowledge that it's not for everybody.  The pacing is very slow, almost to the point that I'd call it kind of "natural" in the way that a tree grows.  However, the writing is exquisite and deep, the atmosphere utterly excellent, the art beautiful and poignant, a fair amount of symbolism is present, and the whole thing just comes off as a labor of love.  But yes, your mileage may vary, since it's certainly not a "traditional" anime, though I wish that there were more like it.

 

I'll just leave the opening here and let that speak for itself, since it's just as different as the rest of the show is from the norm.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHVvqKqgpa0

[Ryusenkai]

okay, i'm not even gonna be surprised LOL.

 

I don't like the art for mushishi tbh.  reminds me of miyazaki and that kind of art was never my style whether anime or not to begin with.  The only thing i like so far is the really good storytelling.  I know the stories are full of symbolism and meaning but i still think they are mediocre stories with mediocre themes at the end of the day.

 

*snirk* Is it that easy to recognize the type of media I tend to gravitate towards?  :P

 

I don't really see as much of a resemblance to Miyazaki's work as you do, but art is one of those very, very subjective things.  As to the stories themselves, I think of them like folktales.  They're not supposed to be incredibly complicated and are supposed to have a theme/moral to them.  So it might be because that's what I go in expecting that I'm very and perfectly satisfied with them.  The writing IS excellent though, from an objective standpoint (take this from the person who's had to write the equivalent of 2-3 college theses for his major this year - it's good).

 

Still, like I said, it's not for everyone.  I do feel that it is something that can be appreciated just the same, if for nothing else than the sheer amount of care put into it.  It's not often that a show like Mushishi comes along, and it'll in all likelihood be a while before we see one again.

[Ryusenkai]

Of course it's easy to recognize, you got a bunch of hipster anime fans calling this art as if it was instrumental music from the 1700s-1900s.

 

 

the good storytelling probably comes from the good writing.  but good writing doesn't mean good short story.

For me, i expected things to be a lot darker, most of the stories are either light or tame.  It's not controversial either.

What do professionals call good writing anyways.  how do they define it?

 

I'm no professional author, but as I understand it it's a matter of diction, flow, style (the assertion of such, not a preference for whether you like it or not), "show don't tell", clarity, proper grammar (unless deliberately aiming for something without such) and for creative writing, you add things like pacing, characterization, techniques like alliteration and consonance, strong description, and one's ability to impart atmosphere through their words.  In all honesty, it really depends on what style of writing you're approaching, since for example, when I'm writing argumentative papers (which is what most of my uni-related writing has been this year), clarity, diction, flow and style are still important, but so are things like reasoning, proper citation, proper argumentative form, persuasion, etc.  It's difficult to hit down every category you'd need to write well, but there's a fair bit of check boxes that you can hit that help.  There are also some rules, like grammar, that can be bent for certain specific intents.  I've done a lot of very different forms of it over the years, so a lot of what I know comes from experience and from what more experienced and qualified people who've read my various works tell me.  You just learn to do and recognize it better over time.

 

Anyway, I've digressed.  I don't really see myself as a hipster, personally, just a fan of old school anime and good writing.  Considering my music taste has been called 20 years too old for me, that kind of fits better.  xD  There are some darker stories, particularly towards the end of season 1 of the show (I always find the set of episodes dealing with "birth" somewhat unnerving), but there is a fair range of atmospheres among the stories (even though I admit that there tends to be more happy than sad endings).  Frankly though, things that are too grim-dark tend to bore me, so I like the kind of darkness Mushishi approaches, so we'll have to agree to disagree both there, and about the merits a short story should have.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Ryusenkai

[Ryusenkai]

I wonder how much rentals cut into sales... That's where a lot of sales are apparently going now. Like if there were no rentals, what would sales be like?

 

Blame Taku!

 

To address that - the Maximum the Hormone album released last year had a rental ban on it for the first 6 months after its release.  That ended up breaking 300k in the end, so while it's hard to tell how much influence that had or whether it was just because it was their first album in 6 years, it's hard to say.  Still, you'd have to imagine that they did that for a reason.

 

As to albums released this year - yeah, sales have been really low thus far.  I'm still waiting to see if a few certain releases which might really perk things up get announced (or for certain albums which I think will outsell their predecessor by at least a bit), but we'll see.

[Ryusenkai]

Didn't Yuzu's outsell their one from last year?

 

Aye - by a big margin.  Right around 50k now; it's their most successful album since FURUSATO back in 2009, and they've even passed Kobukuro as the predominant folk-pop(rock) group in the scene right now sales-wise.  I also expect DREAMS COME TRUE's new album to outsell their previous one, since I expect them to go all out for their 25th anniversary (plus it's been almost 4 years).

 

Honestly though, the album I'm predicting we might see later this year that might actually smash is a new studio set from Southern All Stars.  It's been almost 9 years since they released Killer Street, and if they released something now and promoted it right ... I think they could still pass a million copies sold.

[Ryusenkai]

http://onehallyu.com/index.php?/topic/66891-sexy-girl-group-concept-discussion-with-dal-shabets-subin-rainbows-jisook-and-stellars-gayoung-on-kbss-the-spokespeople/

That gyrobot user....we haven't had someone like that in a while. -_-

 

 

isn't that the same person that was posting some BS about japan not being as open to other races as korea a while back?

 

Yeah, that plus some more offensive stuff said off-site.  Don't much like people who have his attitude.  That said, nice response Mandi - that's pretty much what I've been wanting to say since he showed up.

[Ryusenkai]

^ We can only do what we're doing and try to coax them out of hiding, really.

[Ryusenkai]

Are we a scary bunch? :(

 

I'd like to think not, but we might come off that way.  It's hard to say since I can't look at how we interact from an outside perspective.

[Ryusenkai]

They need to come back!

 

 

Maybe they can release something after Kaname's collab single. They've been gone long enough. 

 

Douchin has a new single out on May 14th already, so it doesn't seem that likely.

[Ryusenkai]

Today, I turned 25.

 

Happy Birthday!

[Ryusenkai]

It is if you follow what is mainstream, ie idols. 

 

I mean I pretty much always have a new release to listen to but it's not exactly things that would be exciting like how things were years back when you were referring to. It's not really like a big to do. It's more like... here's my record, I'll do a music show if that, and that's it.

 

The past few weeks have been kinda slow since not a lot of things were coming out since everyone is doing things at the end of May/June.

 

Personally, I feel like there's a certain more organic quality to that kind of release though.  An album will speak for itself, regardless of promotion or fanfare.  If you're an artist who's confident in your music, that's really all you need.  But yeah, releases will speed up in 2 weeks once the flood begins anew.

[Ryusenkai]

I feel as if the scene really is more about that now than it was a few years ago. There was more hype years ago. I think a big part of this is age. I feel as if the mainstream scene when I was younger was more diverse so there were more kinds of acts getting fanfare and whatnot. That's something you only really see with idols now and a few of the older acts, like the Yuzu's and SAS's.

 

The overall scene is as diverse as ever but it just doesn't sell so it doesn't get the fanfare it probably would've like a decade ago.

 

For a lot of the older acts (excluding Yuzu), that has to do with how far they're spacing their releases apart these days - I mean, SAS releases a single every 3-5 years and hasn't released an album in almost a decade.  So when they finally do release something, there's hype by basis of both how big the act is and how long it's been.  Yuzu are unique in that they've really fought their way back into the prime public eye with some REALLY solid tie-ins for all of their songs in the past couple of years.

 

I also kind of feel that it's because the main make-up of the market has shifted a lot from what it necessarily was a decade ago.  It's much easier to start out now than it used to be, where you almost needed a certain degree of hype to you to get signed.  Now you can earn it through consistent increases in popularity over time a lot more easily (you could in the past as well, but I don't feel that it was quite as common).

 

 

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a1z56ZrIGY[/media]

 

The same PV set for the B-side, I can't.

 

But still, USAGI. :ahmagah:

 

 

The other A-side, but nonetheless, I like the song.  Still like Kobukuro more (I feel they're the closest comparison), but I feel that USAGI really will go places once they get a break-out song with a great tie-in (and then they'll get better PVs).

Edited May 8, 2014 by Ryusenkai

[Ryusenkai]

It does feel easier to get signed now. The thing is, how much will you sell once you are signed, which is where I think acts need a bigger push. But then I also think the industry and artists and fans know the reality of certain kinds of acts. They know that they'll never be huge but they will be comfortable. 

 

Aye - rather than trying to collect a set of hit-makers, these days I feel that most labels are trying to gather a web of different artists to cover all of the possible bases of tastes that exist.  Which means that more acts will get signed, but they're really only trying to make them successful among that niche.  Which ... is kind of a manufactured zero-sum game.  These acts probably aren't going to improve much, but probably won't decline much either.  It's an extremely "safe" business strategy all things considered, since it's basically assuming that certain acts could never make it big even if promoted.  Which, while true in some cases, is not true in others (and also doesn't take into account organic growth in popularity, but that's an entirely different animal).  In the past, I think there was more promotion since labels were willing to take risks on acts that they knew COULD be hits, and the chance of that was worth it to them to try.

 

In the end, I can't say that I don't prefer it this way, though.  More acts that otherwise wouldn't get any recognition at all are at least being pulled a little bit more into the limelight.

Edited May 8, 2014 by Ryusenkai

[Ryusenkai]

I'll save Kobukuro, since I like them and have plenty of posts to do it.

[Ryusenkai]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFucIdMtCYQ

 

<3333

 

 

Yeah, I really like this - was by far one of my favorite singles of April.

[Ryusenkai]

This has turned out to be an absolutely great week for singles - I'm surprised at how much I've picked up and liked in the last 24 hours.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Ryusenkai

[Ryusenkai]

It's going to be quite busy for the next few weeks...

 

Aye - no kidding.  Next week the real rush starts (and I get my copy of Koshi Inaba's "Singing Bird", which Amazon.jp wore me down into buying >_>) with a ton of albums and singles dropping.  Then it just gets crazier until we hit June 4th/11th; the 4th in particular is nuts.

[Ryusenkai]

What has been your favorite single and album thus far this month?

 

Albums, nothing really yet this month (that'll change in a big way next week, as there are 3-4 acts releasing studio albums that I'm interested in already).  As to Singles ... I'd give my favorite to Douchin Yoshikuni's "Samenagara Miru Yume", which as a whole is just beautifully composed and the songs compliment each other wonderfully.  If he's going to keep producing material that heads further in this vein, I wouldn't mind him remaining solo a while longer.  Runner-up for that spot is USAGI's "Hello / USAGI ~Fumaina Story~", which is also very good.  Other notables are Superfly's "Live" and Creephyp's Neguse".

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsbNZF7tnng

Edited May 15, 2014 by Ryusenkai

[Ryusenkai]

Oh, this is really nice. I need to check out the others as well. 

 

The B-side ("Merry-go-Round Wonderland") is really nice as well - it's whimsical in a kind of subdued way, which makes it pretty unique, all things considered.  But yeah, there were a lot of good singles that released this week.  

[Ryusenkai]

 

I haven't been able to find the single, but I did give Usagi ~Fumaina Story~ a listen and like that too. I think it's time I get some random downloads of some artist, especially these cause they are great.

 

 

 

Don't you know men and women can't just be friends.  :lol:

 

 

As soon as PMs are back up, I can help you with that.  Yeah - every once and a while it's nice just to try something from an artist you've loosely heard about but never actually listened to.  For example, I just listened to my first Mariya Takeuchi album today - it fits right in with my old-school taste.  :P

[Ryusenkai]

Just did today's digital chart and Frozen's hold is starting to weaken as we get into a busy period.

 

We'll have a new digital hit by end of May or early June probably - thankfully.

[Ryusenkai]

Have something in mind?

 

A couple things - Kana Nishino's "We Don't Stop" will probably at least steal a few daily #1's, but considering its poor performance on the ringtone chart, I don't think it'll have the proper support for a weekly #1 unless Let it Go drops precipitously.  Other than that, Kobukuro's "Hidamari no Michi" will probably do the same.  Shiina Ringo's "NIPPON" might do all right.  Mr.Children's "Hanatareru" WOULD probably take a weekly #1 if it's going to drop in a couple weeks, but there's actually still no info. on that, so I'm wondering if they might be holding off on that for an album later on.

[Ryusenkai]

Interested to hear the new UVERworld single. I liked them the most when going through the songs for the J-Rock battle. (Bump of Chicken and SPYAIR were a close second.)


Off topic to what you were talking about, but the new Zelda is getting revealed at E3 in a few weeks! :ahmagh:


Doesn't everybody? :lol:

 

You and me both (in terms of eagerness to hear their new single).  I like UVER because they're really consistent in terms of putting out quality material.  They could be a little less samey at times, but I do like their sound, so it's kind of okay.  Still, after Nano-Second, I'm eager to see if they keep trying new things.  Plus, the single's cover is really nice:

 

Edited May 19, 2014 by Ryusenkai