These days, it’s easier than it’s ever been to discover and follow Japanese idol groups from abroad.  Social media, streaming services and, overall, YouTube have opened up more content to us all, and while those lucky and annoying people who actually get to go to Japan might tell you that you’re not getting the authentic idol experience, you can at least listen to the music.  But there are plenty of idol groups happily performing in local venues, selling chekis and CD-Rs to local fans, that are not concerned about such things as music videos or haven’t gotten around to making one yet.  Some of these groups may be great but how will we stupid gaijin ever know?

Well, I stumbled across one by accident back in March – more on that in a minute – and since then I’ve been ordering their CDs but I’ve not really been able to show anyone what they are like, until now!  Here is the first MV for STELLASUGARLET:

That’s Koi no Mahou or “Magic of Love”.  Did you like it?  Fans of CY8ER may find something to love here but this group have added amateur charm and a slightly more experimental bent.  There’s even a shoegaze song on their debut mini-album!  They are a self-produced unit from Kansai and their album lists their member colours as “Sky Blue”, “Cheerful Pink”, “Negative Red” and “Domestic Purple”.  Though perhaps the Red member was too negative as they seem to have been replaced with an “Unbalanced White” member.

I discovered them when the songwriter/musician for RETRO NA SYOUJO (who aren’t idols so probably won’t be covered here but are idol-adjacent and do have MVs for great songs that you should totally check out) mentioned that he’d written a song for this idol group.  And even then I still had to use YouTube to hear more as they had at least uploaded a trailer for their album.  I wouldn’t have found that on my own.

At the moment they have one song available on digital platforms and it’s a good song but it’s not the one in that first video.  I don’t know when you can get hold of that one but if you’re feeling intrepid you can buy CDs of other great tunes from their store.  Or follow them on Twitter and they may notice us foreigners and make more stuff available online, which is the motive behind my writing this article in the first place.