Your Homicidols Weekender #132

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

We made it! To what? To the gol-durned summer, ya jamokes! Oh man, I cannot express how good this makes me feel. For those outside of the United States: This weekend, which includes the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, is the semi-canonical start of summer; I happened to goose it a little bit extra for myself by taking time away from work yesterday, too. And oh was it glorious — with a warm breeze blowing and a DJ poorly mixing hip-hop and reggae, I had passable local beers with friends and ate way too much Mexican food. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be beautifying Maniac Mansion, hitting a beach, slow-cooking meat and unwinding as much as a person can. NOTHING CAN STOP ME.

This Weekender, which is a fine one, is incidentally a perfect one for a weekend like this. Even if you’re on the other side of the planet and are in fact preparing for winter, this liminal spot on the calendar is perfect for getting into the groove that’ll power idol forward over the next few months, through TIF and beyond.

So let’s commence. Prepare yourself for the kinds of little joys that come only a few times per year, when the confluence of life cycles is just right. Go play the Fun, then delve into this idol stuff, and for the love of all things holy don’t do anything that you don’t need to.

Some of Us Have to Work, You Jerk!

Yep, NEO JAPONISM is officially on hiatus now:

Not getting into the reasons why, which are predictable and sometimes stupid

At least they left us with a final live video of the classic lineup:

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Will You Go Goo-Goo Ga-Ga For Baby♡♡Holic?

/ Kerrie / Leave a comment

Well, this is certainly a thing that’s happening.

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A Friday Fun for When You Wish for Something Safe and Boring

/ Kerrie / Leave a comment

Last week you described music videos, badly!

Today’s Friday Fun is brought to you by
BLACK HISTORY!
cana÷biss!
And the newly-announced Baby♡♡Holic!
You know what they all have in common?

Regardless of whether you think their music or members are good or not, they all have names that make you go “Wait… what are they called?”

Are their names technically good names because they bring forth attention and discussion from the overseas fandom? Or are they just plain bad? Either way, try telling someone your favourite J-Pop group is KinKi Kids and see their response. Continue reading →

Minna no Kodomo-chan Kicks off Summer with an Inexplicable Home Movie

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

I knew there was a reason to get out of bed today!

I don’t know if 2019, for idol, can truly be salvaged. After the huge run of beloved personalities and groups hanging it up just in the first quarter and a sudden paucity of particularly great releases, here we stand at the unofficial gateway to summer needing some kind of savior. Might we remember the year for the two BiSH EPs-turned-album? What about NECRONOMIDOL’s upcoming record? Or maybe something out of left field, yet to come?

Or maybe what two-time Corenament champions Minna no Kodomo-chan, who got me so very eager to see what they were going to be able to do with five straight months of new music when they … announced that that they were releasing five straight months of new music. Have mercy. You’d think that idols who consistently dominate the international popularity contests epic athletic contests annual contests that I definitely don’t rig Corenament would have just this enormous battery of digitized content for we humble gaijin fans to embrace, but it’s just not true — the best way to describe MV releases from the Children is “semi-annual.” (Or at least that’s the case for their history so far!) Rather, as we learned with “The Walls” a couple of weeks ago, they hold those cards close so as to unleash their full power at opportune and always impressive moments.

So this string was going to be special, you know? With five months of fresh material in the offing, it’s reasonable to hope that at least one track would get video treatment. And, brother, that hope was not in vain, though you may lose all hope by the time you reach the end:

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Withdrawn Wednesday #6

/ Kerrie / 1 Comment

Want to hear Cococo’s new project?

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Is This Curtains for NEO JAPONISM?

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

Go ahead and read the title again in the narrator voice from Batman, you know you want to

Well if this isn’t something that I had no desire to follow up on (for sads reasons) and usually don’t even post all that much anymore (for other reasons), but I’ll be danged if I’m going to miss out on an opportunity to publicly air my own dang feelings about a group that I really enjoy probably going the way of like 99 percent of all idol things in history and calling it quits. But: As mentioned before in the Weekender, NEO JAPONISM fairly ominously tweeted about half of the membership needing a break. And today:

Yikes. I mean, that doesn’t outright say “The group is done peace out ya fools,” but it doesn’t look good. Not at all. And it’s just left hanging there in the timeline without supporting information one way or another — the tweet immediately preceding is about a live performance! That is apparently canceled! And we never got that promised update about the members’ status! Unless this is it, and it’s really bad news!

Should I be mercifully incorrect, I’ll be very happy to post that there is a future for one of the coolest and more innovative loudol units going, but I don’t really anticipate that, you know? It’s not really a good sign when they start to offer you refunds!

Because the World Needs More Like buGG

/ Homicidol Maniac / Leave a comment

It’s quiet out there. Too quiet! Somebody went and twisted around the spring timeline to drop us into the middle of idol doldrums right smack dab in the middle of what used to be a pretty exciting time. Boo on that! So let’s get back to fundamentals for a minute and do what Homicidols Dot Com used to be really good at — looking at new and of-limited-discovery idol projects!

Here’s one that’s been on my personal radar for a few months (this draft was in the queue as of Dec. 28, 2018!), one that quite literally popped up due to a recommendation-by-affiliation with some personal favorite stuff but that I, being occasionally dense and consistently lazy, didn’t draw out completely until much more recently. They have a fun name (that reminds me of this, you’re welcome) and seem like a fun time and in fact aren’t “new” at all so much as they’re probably unfamiliar to most of us — it’s buGG (Twitter), and here’s their newest song!

Here it is live: Continue reading →

Melon Batake a go go Go Rogue With “Runaway Girl”!

/ supremenothing / 1 Comment

What? Melon slow down? No way, they’ve got two speeds: “Go” and “Go-Go”!

So fresh outta the gate from their recent incursion into the west (Of which Chris shared his harrowing experience here.) and following up their so-recent-the-paint’s-still-wet MV for “Nightmare Before Vampire” (Of which Maniac discussed here.) we’ve already been smacked across the melon with a new video for their to be congruously released single “Runaway Girl” and owe it to ourselves to go-go check it out…

I’ll tell ya, I do like this one more than the “Vampire” tune, with certainly wasn’t bad by any means, but just more “Hey that’s pretty good!” good than “Holy-Crap-That’s-Sick-Outta-My-Head-Awesome-Good!” good. I don’t have any scientific analysis to explain why that is and really it’s subjective anyway, but this song sticks the moon-landing a little harder and nails the delivery. What’s interesting as well here is that the song is essentially another Rukatama solo showcase, and it’s also a cover of a song by 80’s rockabilly revival band ROGUE, which gives the tune a bit of familiarity among a segment of their older-school Japanese following.

As for the video itself, there’s an enigmatic story unfolding here that I hope never gets explained because it’s more fun to interpret it yourself anyway. Is Rukatama being confronted by her darker-half persona? Is she trying to run away from her inner self? Are the other Melon girls here to help her, or are they forcing Rukatama to come to terms with her darker destiny? And at the end of the MV, when she sits on the couch next to them (and herself), has she accepted her fate or has she mastered it? And what’s the significance of the subtitling beyond the fact that Thai script has beautiful aesthetics that look organically mysterious?

And also: Idols and guns… idols sure do love to pack heat! Somebody oughta write a dissertation over-analyzing “Post-war Japan Popular Culture and it’s Fascination for Young Women with Firearms”. Not me, that is, but somebody.

On July 26th, Melon Batake a go go, through their new major label, will release “Nightmare Before Vampire” and “Runaway Girl“ concurrently as separate singles. (“Hey, why not just release one EP? Because IDOL That’s Why!”) If you love the Melon, maybe get a copy of the goods yourself, or at least keep an ear out for legit streaming avenues, and absolutely definitely tell your friends about these psychobilly idols from outer space. They’re on a mission to spread their fanbase (Go Go’s) worldwide, and that means good things may very well come our way if we prove worthy!

Oh hey, while we’re at it, here’s a video of ROGUE performing “Runaway Girl” for a little comparison and context. Enjoy!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monster of Dolls interviews, Part 1: Sari

/ chris / Leave a comment

First, apologies that it’s a little short. Translation difficulties I alluded to elsewhere meant that the chat was not as free-flowing as I had hoped. But hey, isn’t this the first post-Necronomidol interview with Sari?I’m pretty sure it’s the first one in English, so let’s claim that.  Friends, Romans, countrymen: Homicidols.com presents…

THE FIRST POST-NECRONOMIDOL INTERVIEW WITH SARI (in English)!

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Your Homicidols Weekender #131

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

Good morning! I hope you all had a good week, and have fun plans ahead. I’m gassed, but entirely for good reasons, and now I’m letting myself be convinced that it’s a good idea to go do a bunch of physically demanding stuff despite the fact that I feel like I ran a marathon just this morning. You’re supposed to slow down a little as you age! Yikes.

This was a pretty good week for idol, wasn’t it? It wasn’t April-good, but it was definitely better overall than a lot of what we’ve been seeing, and there’s plenty of fun summertime stuff ahead. Despite that, though, still my favorite outcome from the week is from right here in this very HTML universe, especially Chris’s Bologna recap.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s plenty of good stuff for time-wasting below (also: the Fun), and I have … oh good dogs, just so much crap to do. Have fun!

It’s Never as Fun as You Say

You remember ONEPIXCEL, right?

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