REIRIE, the most highly anticipated, and surprising, new unit of 2023 dropped their debut MV yesterday. REIRIE marks the reunion of two of the most highly revered talents in chika idol, Rei Kuromiya and Rie Kaneko, who first endeared themselves to the world with LADYBABY. The re-assembly of this well-loved duo was announced on New Years Day, which makes the title of their first single entirely appropriate for this Year of the Rabbit.
Ladybaby
Let’s Discover Rie Kaneko’s New Project, Ilie
Ilie is a solo project of Rie Kaneko who we know and love as the only original member of LADYBABY whose tenure lasted for the duration of the unit. At some point after hanging up the leather and lace of her former death pop group, Rie signed on with the ultra-hip ekoms production and management company (home of Qumali Depart, CROSSNOESIS and the dearly missed Maison book girl). She debuted as Ilie back in July with this MV for “aimai”.
And Thus Goes Ladybaby Gentle into That Good Night
The other night, as you know unless you do in fact currently live under a rock or perhaps spend your energies elsewhere, LADYBABY had their final live. Folks have been responding to it and reacting to it and writing about it and doing that whole thing, as is appropriate, but I felt like the whole thing really was best summed up in a few official photos:
活動休止ラストライブ"REBURN"終演。
ご声援ありがとうございました。 pic.twitter.com/KEN9vb3Hiq
— LADYBABY (@ladybaby2015) January 13, 2020
It wasn’t enough to just go out with a farewell one-man, though; they gave us one final parting MV, and while it’s usually trite to even think the phrase “saving the best for last,” you’ll be hard-pressed to convince me that it isn’t exactly the case here: Continue reading
This Is How LADYBABY Ends
I won’t get into how this MV landing yesterday set off a wild few minutes of me only half-remembering any of the details related to LADYBABY’s upcoming dismantling except to say that it’s funny in retrospect, but also, man, their end-of-life period caught up to us pretty quickly, didn’t it? We still have a month and change until the final live and farewell re-recording album, but yeah, it’s time to start to wind things down. And what an oddly appropriate song to do it with!
If this is the last thing we ever get from Ladybaby*, isn’t it interesting how it’s the least Ladybaby thing they’ve ever done and the most conventionally idol? I kept waiting for something — anything — more in tune with how the group has all but always functioned, and ne’er was there a whiff of a growl or chant or anything. This is not to say that it’s LADYBABY going out with a whimper or anything (it’s a very nice song), just that it was not the foot forward that I expected at this point.
There’s almost no way this is the very last thing from them, though, and I expect that we’ll be treated to one more true-to-form LADYBABY video that more clearly explicates the content of that farewell record, and leaves a more conventional aftertaste.
And Down Goes LADYBABY
LADYBABYより活動休止のお知らせ。
LADYBABYは、2020年1月13日の恵比寿リキッドルーム公演をもって活動休止いたします。
詳しくは公式サイトをご確認下さい。https://t.co/m8Er8MJPPJ#LADYBABY— LADYBABY @1/13恵比寿LIQUIDROOM (@ladybaby2015) October 29, 2019
What the ever-living hell is going on in the world of idol? Continue reading
The Italian Job: One Englishman’s First Idol Concert
Our story starts on the morning of the concert. I had been doing a spot of sightseeing in Bologna…
LADYBABY Love You, but Have to Destroy You
I promise that I will never look away again.
On Team Homicidols, we’ve been distracted a lot lately by art house groups and hi-concept math-punk units or idols that make you stare at your shoes and weep. But now that we gazed so hard at ・・・・・・・・・ that they vanished back into the ether from whence they came, it might be best to sink back into basics for a little while. Like a nice, simple “you got chocolate in my peanut butter” blend of J-pop and Metal.
I wonder what LADYBABY has been up to?
DAAAAaaaaaammnnn… Continue reading
Making an Idol Monster: We Talk to the Creative Team behind Monster of Dolls
Just a few months ago, Homicidols published a profile of fans-turned-promoters bringing alternative idols to the Western World. Looking back now, the article is a bit embarrassingly anglo-centric. Unbeknownst to us at the time, a group of Italian-speaking fans were putting the finishing touches on their own considerable efforts to launch an alt-idol festival in Italy. When the final lineup for the event was revealed in mid-February, it was clear that there was a new and significant player in the business of importing underground Japanese idol to the West.
https://twitter.com/monster_dolls/status/1096753534014578688
Seemingly overnight, the hardol diaspora had grown another tendril.
On May 11th in Bologna, Italy, Monster of Dolls will play host to alt-idol A-listers LADYBABY, the Western debut of JyuJyu, and an appearance by the legendary Sari of NECRONOMIDOL fame. The event’s biggest coup, however, is scoring the first ever overseas live for perhaps the hottest chika idol act in Tokyo: Melon Batake a go go.
The appearance of this top-tier alt-idol festival, seemingly out of nowhere, was the most pleasant of surprises. Our curiosity was piqued, not just about the cost of plane tickets to Italy, but also about the festival itself, the brains behind it, and about the Italian-speaking fandom whose presence we had been totally ignorant of until now. So we reached out to our new Italian allies in the quest to bring alt-idol to the West in the hopes that we could learn all we could.
We think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
So LADYBABY Just Took Me for One Hell of a Ride
Did I miss something out there? There’s been a definite feeling that LADYBABY was about to do something significant — and I very Mandela Effectively could have sworn that I’d seen an announcement for a new single in the last few days — what with the ExEx gigs going down and, I don’t know, more chatter than usual on their channels? Something was up.
It turns out that something is a new MV! With a great big contribution, performatively and creatively from Emily and from HAJIMETAL, and Rie’s fingerprints all over the production. And what a trip it is:
Here’s All the Jazz with Monster of Dolls
Folks, a new idol event has sprouted from the fertile soil of Western music fandoms, and the time has arrived for all details to be known and tickets to be available.
Monster of Dolls, a one-day event (May 11) in Bologna, Italy, is bringing as fine an assortment of idols and personalities as you can shake a stick at:
MoD 2019!! ✨
THIS IS THE FINAL LINEUP! 🔥
FOLLOW THE LINK ON OUR FACEBOOK EVENT TO BUY TICKETS! ~ LET'S GO! 😎😎😎https://t.co/IGjJSYfCtf#MoD2019 #Monsterofdolls #idol #concert #event #アイドル pic.twitter.com/X8qHensqKi— Monster Of Dolls (@monster_dolls) February 16, 2019
You can actually skip the Facebook thing if you don’t like being part of a massive data-mining scheme and just click here for tickets. Continue reading
