It was an incredibly eventful week in global idol news!! First off, ATARASHII GAKKO absolutely slayed Coachella for the second weekend in a row. Then PLANCK STARS made their debut appearance in South America playing Anime Summit in Brazil. Everybody had a wonderful time!!
https://twitter.com/planckstars/status/1782230640575873476
Or, maybe not…
I have family visiting, so I don’t have as much time as usual to devote to the Weekender. I’m going to keep the preamble short and apologize in advance if I miss anything. I mean, you all are my family too in a way, but if you disown me I’m not at risk of the loss of an inheritance, so without further ado:
More details of Isiliel’s US summer tour dates are rolling out. Tickets are on sale for the New Jersey show as well.
https://twitter.com/Isiliel_jp/status/1781291678957232160
When compared to the craziness of last week where we saw an avalanche of April Fools Day projects and a dump truck’s worth of new releases to kick off the new fiscal year, barely anything happened over the past seven days.
Not that nothing is going on. In a major milestone, ATARASHII GAKKO!, our quirky, dance obsessed, new school leaders who used to play URBANGARDE’s annual Depression Fest, are performing at Coachella this weekend. You can witness their accomplishment live on YouTube tomorrow.
https://twitter.com/japanleaders/status/1778662494279712934
Welcome to the Homicidols weekly recap, with a quick caveat: this version of the weekly round-up is devoid of any idol shenanigans that took place on Monday. Check out our April Fools Day round-up for all of that craziness.
April 1 is not just April Fools Day, it is also the first day of the Japanese fiscal year. The impact this has on the music industry is that a ton of new songs get released on either March 31 or April 1 depending on how management’s accountants want things to hit the books. Regardless of the opinions of actuaries, the overall impact that matters is that the Japanses fiscal yer roll produces a veritable flood of new music, and this year was no different.
It has been a a few weeks since we asked members of the Homicidols community to identify their favorite choruses, drops and hooks in the genre of alternative idol. We published the nominations for Best Alt-Idol Choruses a short while ago, and now it’s time for the breakdowns!
For the exercise, we defined the category of drop or breakdown pretty loosely, with the primary requirement being that the element marks a sudden change in the dynamics of the song. The submitted entries essentially fall into two different categories:
The first are examples of the hardcore breakdown, where a tune takes a ruthless drop into harsh vocal or screaming metal territory. In idol terms, these are brutal examples of where the gap is bridged, the kawaii slams into the kakkoii, and the sugar and spice gang up and punch you in face.
The second category are songs that are completely devoid of harsh vocals or metal elements, but accomplish startling breakdowns via sudden and distinct shifts in tempo, tone, and genre.
Idol April Fools Day (aka Fox Day) is one of the biggest holidays on the idol calendar, up there with Idol Halloween and Idol X-Mas. The amount of time, energy, and commitment that idols devote to their April Fools day pranks each year is always impressive. However, it can be difficult at times to tell an April Fools Day stunt from normal, everyday, Japanese idol insanity. For example, it may seem that, at first glance, this is a well executed comedic sketch by yosugala, except that salted fish roe sac, cherry blossom, and shrimp pizza is an actual real thing that people will apparently pay money for. Luckily, Homicidols is here to guide the unwary or overwhelmed idol fan through the events of April first and help sort fact from jesterly fiction.
Here are some of the best April Fools Day pranks that our favorite idols pulled off this year:
