disband

Vanilla Beans, An Appreciation

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After just over 10 years of delightful Shibuya-kei inspired pop mixed with electro excursions, Vanilla Beans officially announced that their disbandment will take place this October, ending with one final concert.

While I’d admit it’s not a terribly shocking turn of events, (They’ve mentioned the possibility previously.) it’s still a sad loss to those of us who always adored their harmonies and retro-cool aesthetic. They were, in a sea of idols, a very special group marching to their own drum.

I was first charmed by Vanibe way back in 2008, after seeing the MV for their second single “Nicola”. (Lisa was actually not part of the very early duo, but a girl named Rika.) I was instantly obsessed with the song, and it remains to this day among my very favorite pop tunes of all time. And MV was also sublime with it’s brilliant design and subtle humor. In short, it gently delivered what I consider to be a perfect capsule of pop. Vanilla Beans let me in on something exciting: “Idols” weren’t contained to the carefully constructed tropes I had pegged to the genre. 

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So Mistress Ain’t Dead, Huh?

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

Well hell’s bells, friends. What is dead, truly, may never die, at least not as long as idol is a thing. Mistress, hot off of disbanding, is back — in a sense! Yes, the members are all gone, and the group had its farewell live, but “the mistress” lives and has a real-deal MV to prove it:


It’s clearly time to update that ranking of PassCode songs!

There’s obviously not a whole lot to go on from here, except that the debut is on the 11th and there are members: Continue reading →

Damn It All, We’re Losing Babyraids

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

This is the worst news:

To those who reached out: You are bad friends and I demand that you retract the existence of this. Continue reading →

The End of PLIC PROCK Is Nigh

/ Homicidol Maniac

I thought it might be a good idea to check in on the Path to Oblivion that PLIC PROCK has been on, and I see that the final live has been scheduled:

That’ll be nice. But man, what a letdown, and what a bizarrely poetic way for them to go out. Continue reading →

And Thus Ends DISDOL

/ Homicidol Maniac / 3 Comments

It happened so quietly that it wasn’t until Idolatry hit me up the other night that I had any idea that things were amiss:

Yup. DISDOL called it a wrap. Or, more specifically, called it an end to idol and the full transmogrification into bandhood. Continue reading →

And Now Even Lyric Holic Has Bitten the Dust

/ Homicidol Maniac

At least I can stop complaining about idol being boring this year; the death toll alone is incredible. Lyric Holic, at times the most viciously loud thing in idol but also capable of real-deal beauty (because Tama), had their final one-man later today*. Maybe it means something that I wouldn’t have even known it if not for randomly seeing a tweet from a member of another (friendly) group** wishing them well:

Idol English, man

I’d point you to stuff directly from the official account, but it appears to have simply given up. Instead, we tell a story with the members themselves! Continue reading →

Love Is Pointless: NEVE SLIDE DOWN to Disband

/ Homicidol Maniac

I was in a mood even before the tweet from Viz Major:

The real link is here. There’s no explanation yet, just the obligatory apology. Continue reading →

The End of Guso Drop

/ Homicidol Maniac / 4 Comments

Sigh.

We’ve been waiting for it for a while now, but the end of the Heaviest Idol in the World, Guso Drop, finally came. I wanted to post something appropriate yesterday, but there wasn’t any video up yet when I had time to look; major sleuth Viz Major came to the rescue:


Just pretend like it isn’t real!

And in a lot of ways, at least from my vantage point, thus ends an era. Continue reading →

What the Flippin’ Heck, DISDOL?

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

Doop-dee-doop, strollin’ through Twitter … hello, what’s this?

Well shut the front door! Continue reading →

I Interview Idol (Managers): Daichi

/ Homicidol Maniac / 4 Comments

I alluded to this one yesterday, team, and I’m still buzzing a little bit from getting a chance to have a real-deal conversation with the man behind Guso Drop, 2&, Hoshina Fumimi, Himegoto Zettaichi, ancillarily Screaming Sixties, formerly Poroporo Baroque, and so on. Folks have been dying to know the score ever since it was announced a few weeks ago that Guso Drop was going to disband, and, while Daichi has been pouring his heart out on Twitter, there have been oh so many questions.

Krv is the real hero here — because he’s friends with Daichi in addition to being a fan, he offered to hook up an interview, and then provided real-time translation over LINE, and at an ungodly hour for his timezone to boot. I have the patrons to thank, too, for providing a really good starting place in terms of questions and topics. I ultimately cut this about in half by combining thoughts and letting Daichi do some of the driving, but I hope that we were able to get to the gist of what you were curious about.

I was just hoping that I wasn’t going to offend anybody.

So! Have you ever wanted to get into the head of an idol manager? What about an idol manager who’s in the midst of ending his flagship project? Or an idol manager who’s always looked at himself as a musician first? Or even just a guy who’d say:

If he throws a dinner party with human flesh on the menu, I’d probably go along!

Read the whole thing! Continue reading →