That title’s implying an inspirational message, gang, not some weird turn of events.

The Idol Matsuri final was yesterday, and a number of projects that we filthy gaijin fans enjoy made it to the event. For instance, Chemical Reaction, who are in fact quite good and don’t get the attention that they deserve because of great reasons I’m sure. CY8ER. BANZAI JAPAN. Probably some others depending on how you row your boat!

Here’s the whole thing:

It’s almost 5 hours long!

The stretch including the aforementioned begins right about here. CY8ER is next in the lineup, and BANZAI JAPAN just a little while after, so you can get yourself some nice “oh I know of them!” action. None of them won, though, and are in a way terrible, pathetic losers.

This is the winner:

That’s SPL∞ASH, a bunch of ASH graduates like some other people you may know and love. Puts the name into perspective. And note: Not this Splash!, who are now defunct anyway.

Now, to round out the story: In the first place, that’s a pretty big show to get to be part of, so a great way to raise your profile (for instance, CY8ER’s so new, and BANZAI JAPAN has that local thing going for them); according to Pure Idol Heart, who raised this whole matter in the first place and is a big supporter of ChemRe because it’s what all smart and cool people do, the online chatter was much less about the actual winners and more about, well, Chemical Reaction in particular (not just for musical reasons, of course, but we don’t need to split too many hairs here).

And the mainstreaming of rock-and-other-loud idols continues apace, a phrase that I could write every other day and have it be nonetheless true.