Last week, Char T Saki tweeted at me a blog post made by a big Kamen Joshi fan on their experience at a Guso Drop show. I thought, that’s got to be interesting, so I asked for a translation (the thing was in Japanese!), and Saki was able to oblige.
If you’re new, or if you aren’t familiar with Kamen Joshi/Alice Project and/or Guso Drop, the reason that I found this interesting was in the clash of styles: Kamen Joshi trends toward big, melodic idol rock and idol metal, doing colorful daily shows in their own home theater and boasting a #1 single, etc.; Guso Drop are like the queens of the underground, doing gritty-ass hardcore and assorted un-idol performance down in the muck. Though both are technically independent and employ some similar visual elements on stage (weapons, basically), they’re very different.
The post includes:
- Notes on the MC
- A deep appreciation for Rei
- Very close, very clear photos of the Guso Drop members
- Lyrics for “Hirari Hira Hira”
- And various other scene-level musings
The translation is right here on Saki’s on blog, so give our friend a follow there, too, if you like.
Update: Video of the show (thanks, Philippe!)
Yes.Queens of the Underground for sure. It’s good to see idols getting the deserved recognition for all their hard work.Their resume of accomplishments is impossible to ignore.
-#4 single and #1 single a first for female indie, yet to be matched.
-Lives at
Budokan
Rock in Japan
Summer Sonic
Premiere Metal Festival Loud Park
Saitama Super Arena
#5 DVD for SSA show
Multiple ZEPP appearances including their own self titled festival to highlight younger artists.
Nationally broadcast TV show
Mutiple SBS TV appearances
Largest discography in the underground
Countless cross promotions with top game developers and anime creators.
Nearly 1,000 shows per year
2.4 million likes on facebook
Indeed, The Undergrounds Strongest.
It’s strange I didn’t see any of this on their profile page. It’s almost as if …………………….
Going from Kamen Joshi to Guso Drop has got to be like going from drinking lukewarm coffee wrung out of a gratuitous bikini to having toefuls of cocaine forcibly applied to your nostrils via a sweaty Doc Marten.
Wow.
Interestingly most of the old-school AP/KJ wota (ie. before Tomoe bitchslapped Seiji in the face for being a rapist motherfucker) have now gravitated towards Guso Drop. A few others went to Petit Pas or Next Shoujo Jiken, but the vast majority came to Guso. Even now when I tell them people in the West are starting to latch onto KJ, all they do is laugh and reminisce.
This is interesting. The more you know …