JapanSugoi

Earlier this year twenty year old  Rumi Koizumi 小泉瑠美 of Jpop idol group Idoling!!! アイドリング!!! announced her retirement from the group. Koizumi was one of Idoling!!!’s original nine members who made their TV debut in October 2006.   Rumi Koizumi  remains under the Watanabe Entertainment talent agency and will continue working in other areas of the entertainment business. Idoling!!! will continue on as a 16-member group.

Read more about Rumi at her blog here.

Rumi Koizumi Videos

Rumi at the beach

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In Japan’s top 30 singles this week, Japanese group’s B’z has lost the number 1 spot to AKB48.  Ken Hirai’s “Boku wa Kimi ni Koi wo Suru” is at number 3 and looks on course to be number 1 on the Jpop charts.  Read more...

No, we’re not talking about the JET program for living and working in Japan, we’re talking about Australian rock band JET.   The hard playing band from Melbourne played Japan twice – once at the Fuji Rock Festival in 2004 and again at the Tokyo Budokan in 2007.  They received huge applause for playing their 2003 global hit “Are you gonna be my girl”

For the Tokyo performance,  the 10,000 strong crowd were treated to the appearance of two local Japanese heroes, the newly crowned Japanese national air guitar champions joining JET on stage during”Are you gonna be my girl”.  Read more...

Just what do you make of the Digicco Dunlop Girls? Are they race queens who are attempting to be a Jpop group or a Jpop group wearing sexy race queen outfits?

The Digicco girls are actually a Jpop group who became the official Dunlop Sports campaign girls. There are 4 girls Shizuaka, Nori, Umi and Aimi and you can read an interview (in Japanese) with them here. They also have their own blog (in Japanese) here.
Here are some videos from the TokyoDV blog.

Live in Shibuya

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Depapepe デﾊﾟﾍﾟﾍﾟ are an acoustic guitar duo from Kobe, Japan consisting of Takuya Miura and Yoshinari Takuoka. The duo formed in 2002 and performed as street musicians.  They released three indies before their major debut Lets Go (2005) which was ranked within the top 10 of Oricon’s Instrumental Artist Debut Chart.

The band’s name combines the Japanese words for ‘overbite’, ‘deppa’, because of Miura’s overbite, and the name of Tokuoka’s previous band ‘DERUPEPE’. This Jpop band has a relaxing and refreshing sound which has made the popular among young Japanese women.  The band has released 6 singles and 9 albums to date.  Read more...

Light rock/Jpop group Anatakikou アナタキコウ was founded in October 2001 by Masaki Houjo (vocal/guitar),  Masaki Matsuura (vocal/guitar) and Toshimitsu Fuji Toshimitsu.  In May 2002, the band produced their first demotape “Lily” that led to a recording contract with Sonata Records.

The band’s refreshing sounds have been captured in their 4 albums “Sweet montage A”, “Gradation’12″, “Message Pie” and ” Yellow Matador”. Earlier this year the band announceanad that main vocalist Masaki Houjou would be leaving the band in order to pursue a solo-career. Despite this loss, the two remaining members are continuing the band together along with support member Mina Sugimura.  Read more...

One of favorite all girl Jrock Jpop bands is back with a new single called BEAUteen.  Scandal are dressed in their trademark schoolgirl outfits and this song is one of the songs on their new single release Yume Miru Tsubasa which is due out on October 14th.

The Osaka based gals  have also been featured in Japanese TV commercials promoting Cecil McBee cosmetics, Nike,  and the song BEAUteen was part of energy drink Pocari Sweat’s summer 2009 campaign.

Scandal BEAUteen Music video

In 2001, Jpop diva, Utada Hikaura released “Final Distance” her 7th Japanese-language single and the 1st single from her Deep River album. “Final Distance” was the first song that Utada Hikaru’s ex-husband Kazuaki Kiriya filmed the music video to and it was the first time that Utada Hikaru collaborated with Japanese rapper M-Flo. The song debuted at #2 on the Oricon charts in its first week and had a tie-in as the NTT docomo M-stage CM song.  Read more...

Miracle Hikaru ミラクルひかるの is a Japanese celebrity impersonator from Toyooka in Hyōgo prefecture.   Although she has done impersonations of  Mari Hamada, Ayumi Hamasaki, Paako Hayashiya, Shizuka Kudō, Seiko Matsuda, Yumi Matsutoya, Aya Matsūra, Chisato Moritaka, Tomoko Nakajima (of Othello), Yukie Nakama, Masami Nagasawa, Moe Oshikiri, Keiko Toda, Juri Ueno and You, she is best known for her  amazing impressions of  Jpop diva Utada Hikaru.

Miracle has one released one album Miracle 2008 but she does not cover any of Hikki’s songs

Read more information about Miracle Hikaru at her blog here.  Read more...