idol

When You Have Things to Say But Don’t Know What to Say

/ Homicidol Maniac / 4 Comments

I’m sure by now you’ve seen the disturbing news about Oomori Seiko; if you haven’t, just search her name on your network of choice. I was late to the story myself, but after seeing why so many mutuals were expressing basically the full emotional gamut late last night, all I could do was log back off.

It’s fitting that I was listening to Comeback Kid’s “False Idols Fall” on my way home, just a few hours prior. If recent years have proven anything to us, it’s that the people we laud — idolize — the most are too often the least worth of acclaim. Continue reading →

Japanese Idol Industry to be Dismantled after Insightful Critique by Westerner

/ DAEMON

Every idol unit across Japan announced mass graduations today after a scathing yet revelatory indictment was leveled against the entire industry via commentary on a Western website. “We had no idea our entertainment culture was so flawed and toxic”, said an industry spokesperson. Continue reading →

Let’s Get to Know Night Owl

/ Homicidol Maniac

So remember back in 2017 Year in Review in Review*, when I said that I was making it a new year’s resolution to do more for idol debuts in 2018? And then I did and 2018 was like the best debut year since … 2014? 2012? It was amazing. So much good stuff, though not all of it panned out. Well, I’m making something of the same commitment for this year; I have a tough time keeping up with news these days, but maybe I can keep up with cool debuts as they happen? Sure.

Which brings us to Night Owl (Twitter)! Who … did not debut anytime near now, but in fact back in August, during the period that we shall always refer to in hushed tones as “Maniac’s Interregnum.” And then I had them on my official radar since, golly, at least November if my tab history is to be believed. But more on that. This is what they got:

Oh that’s interesting! What are they about? Continue reading →

TFW You Can’t Quit Idol and Idol Can’t Quit You

/ Homicidol Maniac

The waning days of 2019 and opening week of 2020 have been a special time. Some of the greatest legacy acts and personalities of our time hang ’em up at last — the literal goddess of earth and sky herself even revealing that she’s been secretly married all this time — and with that saw the retirement from idol and return to solo work by the grand dame herself, Pour Lui, twice founder of BiS, mature member of BILLIE IDLE, from whose fecund mind sprang the cultural movement that created not just modern chika idol but about 95% of what we like to cover here. That Lui was going back to her roots as a solo musician (though still connected to the Watanabe/Matsukuma machine) felt like a nice coda, something natural. She was done with idol, and idol — graciously — was done with her.

Or so we thought!

New group with a familiar-sounding name. New auditions. New music. “It’s complicated” with WACK. Somebody stage an intervention for this woman! Continue reading →

All the Adjectives in All the Languages Would Fail to Describe Ikigusare

/ Kerrie / 1 Comment

Lessee here… so far on Homicidols we’ve covered chika idols, mainstream idols, K-Pop idols, anime idols … are we missing anything else on the idol spectrum?

That’s right, I don’t think we’ve covered virtual idols yet!

Well, everyone give a round of applause to bacci on twitter for introducing me to this curiosity last night:

As an avid fan of all three of those names listed, how could I not give Ikigusare a chance? So, going into it blind, I can say … yup, that sure was an excruciating yet somewhat enjoyable experience of three Sega Saturn-looking girls singing about eating hamsters I just sat through! Continue reading →

Tickets Are Now on Sale for the Most Indie, Idol and Infamous Tour in the UK

/ Homicidol Maniac

How conveniently named then!

Yes friends, the thing that you should be incredibly hype for if you’re able to go, and at least somewhat hype for just because it exists, is now something that you can officially purchase a ticket for, which you should undoubtedly do, and soon:

Continue reading →

Importing the Kawaii Underground

/ DAEMON / 5 Comments

Meet the people bringing Japan’s most compelling music acts to the West

For those Westerners who have fallen down the JPop rabbit hole, there are a few common stages that just about everyone goes through. Somewhere after devouring any English-language sites Google can find and consuming all unblocked videos on YouTube, comes the burning desire to see our newfound musical idols live. North America and Europe have been fortunate the last few years to see almost annual tours by BABYMETAL, Perfume, One OK Rock and Hatsune Miku, but for those whose tastes are a bit less mainstream, the chance to see independent and alternative artists usually involves pricing plane tickets to Japan.

Fortunately for us, a small group of fans-turned-promoters have taken it upon themselves to bring live underground idol and alternative JRock to the West. A few of these intrepid souls were gracious enough to answer our questions about why they decided to jump into the business of international music booking and promotion, the biggest challenges they encounter, and what plans they have for the future.

Continue reading →

ZOC Feels Too Good to Be True

/ Homicidol Maniac

As if 2018 hasn’t already been absolutely lousy with great idol debuts, along comes every idol’s greatest champion, Oomori Seiko, with a unit of her own. Like, when this was announced, I thought, oh neat it’ll be cool if she stands in as producer and writes some tracks — I didn’t expect that she’d don the skirt herself and step right the hell up as leader.

Given the quality of this pre-debut teaser, I’m guessing that she just didn’t want to feel left out:

And this is just the intro! There’s precious little info about where this project is heading (even Natalie.mu is stripped down to the basics of them debuting tonight). That means speculation — the stupider the better! — so I’m going to go out on a wild-ass limb and say that it’s time to go all-in because: Continue reading →

The Abstract World of Okinawa Electric Girl Saya

/ supremenothing / 2 Comments

Okinawa Electric Girl Saya is one of those artists we’ve been intending to cover on Homicidols for quite a while (Like at least a year.) but criminally, we haven’t gotten to it until now. My apologies for the wait, but the truth is, that while I’ve been digging what she’s been up to, I  felt like I never knew enough about her to flesh out an article. But in recent days I decided that it was simply past-due to give this avant-garde idol a feature she undoubtably deserves. Saya is actually still a bit of an enigma to me, but that’s not a bad thing, and we should embrace the mystery. We’ve certainly done that with other idols who fall into the experimental realm before, after all! 

Saya traces her home base to the lovely island of Okinawa. This is fascinating already, because I don’t really picture experimental music coming from such a laid-back, easy-going region of Japan. On the other hand, Okinawa also has a reputation for fiercely independent people, so maybe it does make perfect sense. This island is where the idol group she originated from, Tincy, was created. Continue reading →

This Is A Whole Mess of Live Video from TIF

/ Homicidol Maniac / 2 Comments

Who else remembers that glorious first TIF that we all spent together, in 2016? Ah, those were the days, when streams were free and people could rip video right from their DVRs, or industrious gaijin wota would use screen capture apps to capture everything that Nico Nico could throw at them. Terry had nabbed something like 15 videos that all lasted just long enough for TIP to notify YouTube, and then came the copyright hammer. We probably lost more vital idol-enjoying content in that one fell wave than at any one point up until then, and arguably since. Good times!

Last year’s TIF emerged practically video-less, and maybe TIP learned their lesson, because there’s actually a decent amount of good stuff left over from the Greatest Weekend of the Year. I have way more to do than clog the world with unnecessary HTML, so here’s just a big ol’ glut of stuff.

The biggest glut is the let’s-take-over-Saturday thing that all of the WACK idols did, covering each other’s material and doing solo spots and all: Continue reading →