VOTE NOW!! Here’s Your Homicidols Best of 2025 Ballot

/ DAEMON

It’s that familiar point on the calendar where we stop pretending we’re going to remember everything clearly and put it all down for posterity. Another year of alternative, indie, and underground idol has burned past in a blur of debuts, disappearances, reinventions, surprise highs, devastating lows, and orchestrated chaos. You debated, evangelized, and quietly fixated on the moments that stuck with you the most. We took all of that collective noise, filtered it through community consensus, and emerged with our OFFICIAL nominees for Homicidols Best of 2025.

As always, it was fascinating to watch the nominations roll in. For a while it looked like Quubi’s absolute banger “shed your skin” might make history by landing nominations in four different categories: Best Single, B-Side (as the third track on maxi-single “Fading”), Promo Art, and Song. In the end, it only landed in two (B-Side and Art), although I firmly believe that it should be competing for Best Song of the year.   Despite my very correct opinions and literally owning the site, however, I do refrain from putting my thumbs on the scales too much in this community-driven competition. In consolation, I do get to bitch about it as much as I want in the intro.

If you don’t have your own chika idol blog (or YouTube Channel) and one of your favorite units didn’t get a deserving nod, feel free to drop by the Homicidols Discord server and diplomatically let everyone know, for example, how much zerobansen to yoakemae got robbed and should be up for both MV and album of the year.

Check out all of the nominations below and find your ballot at the bottom of the post. You can also jump straight to the voting and disregard all of the hard work that was put into compiling the rest of this article: 

You have until Saturday, December 27th to vote your hearts out. Yay idols and Democracy!!

(Please note that, per the Homicidols calendar, the 2025 award-year ran from December, 2024 to November, 2025, so none of the WACK news announced on December 1 made the cut.)

Your Homicidols Best of the Year, 2025 Nominees

Best Costumes of the Year

  • anew
  • Oiran Dochu
  • RAY
  • Shitsuji to Meido
  • YURAPICO
  • ZIGA

Debut of the Year (Group)

  • Drawry.
  • Kamisama no Iu Tori
  • Made in Maiden
  • NARUKAMI
  • Scura
  • 丑03-USHIMITSU

Debut of the Year (Members)

  • Hanaoka Kureha (ponderosa may bloom)
  • Kanon Kazama & Karin Otsuki (SITUASION)
  • Nao Izumi & Chiyori Owada (NEO JAPONISM)
  • Romi “St. Lightning Beast” Tsukumo (KAQRIYOTERROR)
  • Shenron Kohaku (HUSH HUSH)
  • Uyu-sama. & Okome (Odoro)

Saddest Disbandment of the Year

  • BiS
  • Dempagumi.inc
  • NARLOW
  • NightOwl
  • PLANCK STARS
  • WAGAMAMARAKIA

Reboot of the Year

  • Akatsuki (ex. ANTITHESE)
  • Candye♡Syrup
  • KAQRIYOTERROR
  • Kingsari
  • ponderosa may bloom
  • Teenage New Punk Story (ex. Hissatsu Emomomomo7)

Collaboration of the Year

  • BABYMETAL x POPPY (“From Me to You”)
  • LADYBABY x DJ BUCHO (“April Fish -TRUTH to BABY FISH”)
  • MAZE x MITACLE BLOCK
  • nonayu x usabeni  (“Tenmetsu bai bai”)
  • RAY x BELLRING Girls Heart Split Tour, “NO MY WAY” 
  • YURAPICO x BERRY, BERRYPICO

EP of the Year

Forgotten Capital (XOXO EXTREME)

Seasons (RAY)

BLASTELLA (MAZE)

Majestic Baby (BELLRING Girls Heart)

Time Flies (YOLOZ)

MO8E (SITUASION)

Overseas Act of the Year

  • BEGIN MIDNIGHT凌晨12点 (China)
  • chérie ifẹ (USA)
  • NEKIRU (South Korea)
  • nextanative (Indonesia)
  • Sentimental Kiss (Hong Kong)
  • THEΔRAREz (Taiwan)

 

Single of the Year

“Full-Metal Attitude” (airattic) 

“Pretend” (YURAPICO)

“SUKIZOID / AZAKOI”  (YA’ABURNEE)

“Blue Monster” (FOKALITE)

“Tentai” (RAY)

“Sleeping Dirty” (Zenbu Kimi no Sei da.) 

Best Friend of Homicidols

  • Brazil
  • CENT
  • Hanabie.
  • KILLERMACHINE
  • PaleNeØ
  • Utaha (Wednesday Campanella)

Best B-Side of the Year

“And Today” (kinopo.)

“Ephemeral” (My Criminal Lovers’)

“shed your skin.” (Quubi)

“Baka” (PIGGS)

“Bitter Sweet” (d.i.s) 

“YUGANDA” (YA’ABURNEE)

Funniest Moment of the Year

Best Promotional Art

  • BA-BY (ASP)
  • 〜Murasakishinku Gourd〜 (by NEMLESS for MELON BATAKE A GO GO )
  • Pig Scriptures (Kami Sama No Iu Tori )
  • S.E.A (AQ)
  • shed your skin (Quubi)
  • TCHOTCHKE (YA’ABURNEE)

Music Video of the Year

“Yours” (SITUASION)

“Maidnight Ravers” (pinponpanpon)

“Tsuioku no Nazca” (Broken By The Scream)

“Tentai” (RAY)

Serpent’s Aubade (Isiliel)

“Alcoholic Fuzz” (airattic)

Biggest Letdown of the Year

  • Fewer and fewer idols (and people in general) visit the USA.
  • Hisui has to ask people to stop DM’ing her how well Phantom Siita is doing without her.
  • New “Japanese Kawaii Metal” unit NEON ONI gets popular but is entirely  AI generated crap from the UK.
  • Shumatsu Piero, a new unit featuring Michelle (ex. THE DEVIL’S KILLING MERRY-GO-ROUND and NECRONOMIDOL) implodes pre-debut in spectacular fashion.
  • The ever-growing use of AI in album cover art.
  • WACK goes scorched earth on image rights after wota cause a stir by plastering Leona’s (MAMESHiBA NO TAiGUN) face all over a building for her birthday.

Performance of the Year

  • ASP in Trafalgar Square
  • LADYBABY 10th Anniversary Live, “ONCE AND FOR ALL”
  • MAD JAMIE European Tour, “THE MAD PARADE” 
  • NEO JAPONISM Reboot Live, “SE~Carry ON Live”
  • RAY 3 Drums Live, “GROOVE! GROOVE! GROOVE!”
  • YURAPICO at “US Idol Fes”

Album of the Year

White (RAY)

Non Label (NEO JAPONISM)

Dogma (My Criminal Lovers’)

Solar Strain (Broken By The Scream)

demiSERUM (demipogune)

Moonbow Rebellion (Isiliel)

Most Likely to Break Through in 2026

  • demipogune
  • FOKALITE
  • kinopo.
  • MAZARI
  • My Criminal Lovers’
  • 丑03-USHIMITSU

Song of the Year

“Tokyo Democracy” (MAD JAMIE)

“otogi” (RAY)

“Serpent’s Aubade” (Isiliel)

“Never Fade Away” (NEO JAPONISM)

“BLOODINESS” (MAZE)

“And Today” (kinopo.)

Idol of the Year

  • MAD JAMIE
  • NEO JAPONISM
  • RAY
  • REIRIE
  • YA’ABURNEE
  • YURAPICO

Go Vote Now!!

Your Homicidols Best of the Year 2025 Ballot