Your Homicidols Weekender #279

It pains me to say it, my dear readers of Homicidols dot com, but I have failed you. When I took the reins of this storied site from Maniac’s weathered yet capable hands, I made myself a commitment to ensure we publish at least one post per week in addition to the Weekender. Though such a modest goal, it appears that the maintenance of even that small measure of output was beyond me. This week, for the first time during my nascent tenure as el hefe de Homicidols, I did not manage to publish a post between Weekenders. I, of course, blame the demands of the day job which have been onerous of late. It certainly was not for lack of news and new releases. While I was distracted by maintaining gainful employment, the idol world did not rest. So, please accept my apology and my promise: I will do my best to churn out uninformed garbage thoughtful idol commentary more frequently in the future.

For now, let’s forget about work and schedules and the other worries of the week and catch up on the stuff that matters:

lyrical school went and dropped one of the best songs of the year (so far). I love it when they channel the shoegaze.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #278

It was a very eventful week with two very different dynamics at work. On the one hand, we had some pretty big announcements in the graduation and disbandment categories. At the same time, we were receiving word of some pretty big unit reboots and debuts. Our hearts would get ripped out one moment just to be resurrected the next. So, while we usually segregate all of the bad news by itself away in Oshiloss Corner, I thought we would try something different this week and alternate the tragically devastating news with shocks of unexpected joy in a new emotional amusement park ride we’ll call, The Idol Whiplash.

Don’t worry, we’ll go through this together. But like all good roller coasters, it begins begin with a long, anticipatory ascent to ensure that the fall will be all the more devastating satisfying. Let’s go!

Everything abut the new CROSSNOESIS is a nice, slow burn.

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Where the Men At? : The Boys of Alternative Idol

By Cal and Daemon

The recent completion of the very first WACK Men’s Audition means that we are closer than ever to seeing what may be the first serious attempt to launch an all-male punk idol unit by an A-list, independent agency. While recent years have seen more and more underground idol units welcome men as members, the almost complete lack of male idols or a prominent alternate idol boy band has always been a curious aspect to the genre. It is actually one of our favorite recurring discussion topics both in Team chat and over on the Homicidols Discord Server. So, before WACK (or YOSHIKI) usher in a boy band wave to wash over the alternative idol world and drown us in guys, we figured we had better put down our thoughts for posterity while also making note of the trailblazing men who have already made a mark on the genre.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #277

It’s IDORISE!!FESTVIAL weekend! The idol festival so exciting that two exclamation points are built right into the name. It consists of of six stages of simultaneous idol lives for two straight days but, for those of us who still can’t quite get to Japan yet, it’s what’s happening at O-WEST, O-EAST and duo MUSIC EXCHANGE that are of most interest as they are being livestreamed over on Nico Nico.  Day one has already wrapped up but you can still catch day two later today (or tonight, depending on your time zone) featuring NEO JAPONISM, Ringwanderung, INUWASI, ZsasZ, HO6LA, THE ORCHESTRA TOKYO, QUEENS, Nichoume no Sakigake Coming Out, Qumari Depart, kolokol, ukka and many many more.

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New and New to US: Emerging Idol Units, Report #02

Welcome to the second edition of our report on units that have recently caught our attention for the first time. From seemingly well-financed projects backed by veteran agencies to truly independent units fueled by little more than dreams, here are some truly promising new groups that we think are worth adding to your watch list.

On the treat Super Season

Debuting early last August, On the treat Super Season is a six-member unit produced by Ary, formerly of uijin. Members include Ebihara Ten, formerly known as Sheishei Shiei of LAST IN MY CULT.

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Monday Match Game: Who is the real MGC?

Yes the Monday Match Game makes one of it’s occasional re-appearances to settle a paramount question to the team at Homicidols.  Long time readers may dimly remember the Match Game as a frivolous and, if we’re honest – pointless, contest where we take two things from the idol world which share some superficial connection and encourage you to vote for the one you like best.  And we have a chuckle and then forget about it and don’t even look at the results because they aren’t important.

Well this one is important!  There are now two idol groups going around with the initialisation MGC and it’s giving me a headache in the Team Chat.  Therefore you, our dear public, must decide which of the two following groups gets exclusive use of this three letter abbreviation on the pages of homicidols.com.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #276

Is it an early spring? As Friends of Homicdols, Poppy and Haru Nemuri kick off their long-delayed tours and Japanese rock acts like BAND-MAID, NEMOPHILA, CROSSFAITH, MAXIMUM THE HORMONE and SCANDAL all plan summer and fall appearances in the West, hope has begun to bloom that we could soon return to regular overseas idol appearances.

Yes, please!!

In the meantime, while we were deluged last week with releases from new names and talents, this week, the big-name veterans decided to remind us that they are still alive and kicking.

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Let’s Discover Some Idols: Tokyo Psychopath

The worst and most lazy Western takes on Japanese idol typically involve the broad assertion that idols in Japan are almost universally young, well-behaved, virginal and entirely controlled by exploitative talent agencies. As we know, anything more than a superficial investigation into the genre will demonstrate that this is a cavalier and reductionist presumption. The sheer number and diversity of idol units across Japan guarantees that any gross generalization an outside observer can make will be directly contradicted by dozens of exceptions. Major label and independent idol units eschewing the image of youth, affable conformity and chastity are not a rare or recent phenomenon in the least. A few examples:  Bed-In has been celebrating sexual liberation and raunchy excess since 2012; Cent Chihiro Chittiii of BiSH has been promising fans that she won’t date more than two guys at once since 2015, the same year Non of DEEP GIRL started the normalization of idols with facial piercings; Negicco, Dempagumi.Inc and 1009-thank you- all have active members who are married and/or mothers; and the rebelliousness and chaotic energy of punk and metal have been embraced by 100s of idol units for over a decade now.

Still, there are a few lines that, until very recently, idol has been very tentative about crossing. Enter Tokyo Psychopath, who introduced their smoking, drinking, tattooed selves to the world last August, and seem intent on crossing them all.

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