Month: April 2021

Erisu Goes ‘Battlestar Galactica’

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

I wish more idols had the sheer gusto of Erisu. They’ve been officially a thing for six? seven months? And yeah, a lot of new units pump out a lot of content early to build a fan base, and then from there I presume that the business logic is to spend judiciously, release strategically and hold on for dear life as the consecutive percussive waves of flavors of the month roll on and on toward the little niche of recognition you built for yourself. But isn’t Erisu in an interesting position? Based in Italy, under absolutely none of the same kind of performance pressure of every other idol unit in existence, and as true a passion project as you’re going to find, they get to do what they want how they want and when they want, and damn if they don’t do it well.

The announcement of the new EP with the kind of prog-or-Fall-Out-Boy title that I love hasn’t even been out all that long, I don’t think, but I knew that I didn’t want to miss the drop. And I was right! You don’t either. This is taking your “idols have a concept” concept and running it to absolute exhaustion. If you’re gonna go, kids, go hard:

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Himegami CRISIS Is Hanging ’em Up, But We Get a Nice Parting Shot

/ Homicidol Maniac

“Oh neat,” said I somewhat aloud as I looked at the tweet from Himegami CRISIS with a YouTube link in it, “a YouTube link from Himegami CRISIS!” Click, open, confirm: Yes, new video! What else is on their Tw–

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Let’s Discover Some Idols: MAD JAMIE

/ Homicidol Maniac

It appears to be that time of year again, folks. That’s right — it’s the time when not a whole lot goes on for about a month, so let’s discover some idols! We’re in an odd-numbered year right now, and history has shown that (idol-ly speaking) it’s the even-numbered that tend to be chock full of awesome debuts and important albums and stuff, and the odd years when things like the Mass Graduation and Disbandment of Beloved Idol Things of 2019 happen. Like, for all its warts, 2020 was a pretty okay year for debuts! And somehow, maybe because the entertainment universe held its breath for the past 12 months or maybe just in penance for the really shitty time we’ve been having as a human society, we’re still getting good ones here in 2021.

So when Mr. Toxic Breakfast himself shared this in Team Chat recently, it definitely felt like something to run with:

That’s MAD JAMIE, obviously, which, as Chris put it, “Thankfully Mad Jamie is not the local 15 year old arsonist, but is some idols.” And what idols! Continue reading →

In Which NEO JAPONISM Pursues the Pinnacle of Idol Expression

/ Homicidol Maniac

I’m still fighting through the mini ‘rona you apparently get when this double-dose vaccine built with the intention of stopping a previously unstoppable — heretofore unknown! — virus in its tracks, so forgive the shortposting, but also the title says it all. You sometimes just don’t have anything more useful to say than to point at the thing and tell other people to go look at it. I’d have preferred that NEO JAPONISM have dropped this when I was both available and hale, but as it stands I was none of those things and now the last thing I want to do is put thought into a post. So:

Also, I apparently missed Hina going with blue hair

I mean, cool song and all, but it’s actually the video that I love best. I’m split between whether it’s innocently the most idol thing in existence — determination! perseverance! togetherness! running! — or deliberately (and therefore less charmingly) so. Either way, it was exactly what I needed to see this morning. Go get those flags! May we all be inspired to metaphorically do the same things in our own lives.

Your Homicidols Weekender #230

/ Homicidol Maniac / 3 Comments

Good morning! Man, I may state a hard preference for autumn as my season of choice, but this rough midpoint of Actual Spring is something else. The air is cool but the sun is out and it’s just colors on top of colors on top of BIRDS SINGING OUTSIDE MY WINDOW FROM PREDAWN TIL THE STARS COME OUT. Savage. Like, I don’t begrudge you all your reasons to sing, and yeah it’s kind of my fault for encouraging bird habitat around Maniac Mansion, but still. Let a man sleep a little. It’s bad enough that billions of cicadas are due to arrive basically any day now and given us six full weeks of awful cicada hell-sounds.

I’ll be honest with you, gang: This is a really light Weekender! Lots of time demands in the first place, and also it seemed like idol kind of chilled out after a busier period. And that’s fine. There have been 229 others of this thing, they’re not all going to win awards. Just prepare yourself accordingly.

But I’m now off to see to some auto repair and then get my final COVID shot! If you haven’t done the latter, please do it as soon as your local authorities will allow, so that you can be safe!

There Is No Safety

Somebody with more energy than me and more time than sense in general write the blog post that discusses whether WACK has full-on jumped the shark OR if it actually broke the mainstream:

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Li-V-RAVE Has a New Single

/ Homicidol Maniac

I wish I had more to say about this one, gang, but it really couldn’t be more straightforward. Last Friday, Li-V-RAVE, whose continued existence is just the happiest damn thing, dropped the MV for their new single that’s not out for well over a month, but hey, promo time is promo time. I thought you’d dig it like I did, so:

All about it. This website has long supported idol power ballads — when those power ballads are cloaked in easycore elements that are themselves bizarrely inverted to better serve a power ballad? Butter. If I had any complaint at all it’s that the composition doesn’t serve the vocals well (pre-chorus, I’m talking), but you know? There’s tinkly piano in there. I am rendered incapable of complaint.

Because you’re a trooper, here’s the B-side:

We need more power pop idol, period, in all its forms. “MISSING LINK” is out May 31.

Greet / Escape: YMM! announce new members, new MV

/ chris

Unofficial Homicidols house band You’ll Melt More! have been uncharacteristically quiet of late.  Perhaps our marathon coverage of them last year scared them away?  I can’t think of anything else on this hapless planet that could account for it.  But now they’re back, back, back and 75% bigger besides.  Three more recruits have been promoted from the Pupil More! subs bench, so it’s hello to Heso (orange), Matsuri (yellow) and Meari (blue) who was formerly known as Waka.

Heso from idol group You'll Melt More!Matsuri from idol group You'll Melt More!Maeri from idol group You'll Melt More!

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PIGGS’s First Single Is Really Driving Something Home for Me

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

Yeah, first, I know. But it’s true! PIGGS has only released excellent longer-play material so far; “T.A.K.O.” drops a week from today as the official first single of Pour Lui’s emeritus project.

I’ll tell you: I had no idea what to say about it! You can only complete so many permutations of “it good” before you run out of ways to put some kind of spin on a piece, and “it good” is just padding in a very similar way to how I’m padding out this sentence to increase the post length and give you all some extra bang for your buck. So let’s get it out of the way and talk about something that did strike me, maybe meaningfully, while watching this sucker.

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EMPiRE’s HON-NO Will Have You Saying HON-YES

/ Cal

We’ll let our top tier headlines speak for themselves and jump right into EMPiRE‘s new music video, shall we?

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Your Homicidols Weekender #229

/ Homicidol Maniac

Good morning! I hope you all had as … cathartic a week as I did. Busy as hell? Yes. A great deal of things accomplished? Also yes. Making big steps in personal right directions? Man, I tell you yes. Good feelings and moods abound.

And look! It’s the elbow of the year unless you’re in a polar or equatorial region, so regardless of if you’re enjoying spring (yay us!) or fall (boring people on the other side of the planet), put that energy to good work! Go hike or garden or bike or something. Hell, it’s raining here and all I want to do is go outside and run around, especially because Fiancee had to jet for a couple of days and I’m sitting here with way too much antsiness to do or be anything that approaches productivity. I just wanna fun!

So if your idea of fun includes idol at some point of some day, then you can take this Weekender and just really dig into it. I actually held some stuff out because I want to have more to talk about later! No, it wasn’t a terribly productive week, but it was good enough and frankly there are so many more significant idol lives nowadays that you’re almost tripping over good video anymore. Just watch the heck out of it!

O– Okay?

This is pretty much it for KOTO, so:

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