PassCode

For pages and posts that relate to PassCode.

Well That Was Easy

/ Homicidol Maniac

It feels like basically yesterday that we were lamenting the departure of our dear Yuna from PassCode. I think everyone who follows them was immediately curious to see who would replace her in the group, right down to some obligatory dream casting. And yet somehow I allowed myself a moment of pleasant surprise when this tweet popped up a little while ago:

Yep, that’s ex-LADYBABY Emily, that is undeniably a very good harsh singer but one of the more oddly utilized ones in her old group. The timing of it all suggests that she was already in the wings before Yuna’s retirement announcement, sure, but frankly you probably could have had her on retainer ever since LADYBABY went under and barely missed a beat — the two singers’ styles aren’t quite the same, but honestly? Natural fit, right timing, easy thing for fans to accept. Emily officially joins in a few weeks at the kickoff of a quick Zepp tour prior to the close of the STRIVE tour pre-Budokan, so good opportunities for those who actually can to properly greet the new girl.

Good job, PassCode, and welcome, Emily!

Yuna :*(

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

Got to wake up to very bad news this morning. I’ll thank Papermaiden for messaging it without trying to soften the blow: “Yuna out of PassCode.”

It’s been a few years since Yuna first went on hiatus due to an ovarian cyst, and the way her and management’s statement reads, the pressure of performing eventually just got to be too much. You know she was taking a break from the STRIVE tour over the last several weeks — a break that in retrospect feels more like “take a few weeks off and think about it” than “get your rest” — so I can’t blame her for not feeling like coming back was the way to go. Continue reading →

I Don’t Always Listen to Live Idol Albums, But When I Do, I Prefer PassCode’s

/ Homicidol Maniac

This post is entirely about doing three things:

  1. Posting about PassCode, which we don’t get to do enough
  2. Enjoying a PassCode album, as we haven’t had a new one in a while
  3. Spreading the gospel and hooking in some people who maybe aren’t as familiar

Anyway, let the title describe it for you. I almost always pass on live records from big idol gigs, the exception to date being the OG Red Night/Black Night Babymetal recordings. There’s just only so much time and unfathomable amounts of music to fill it with, and I may love idol but I also love a lot of other things; if I wanted to listen to off-quality recordings of people who for the most part aren’t particularly good singers in the first place, I’d invite my friends over for DIY karaoke again. Continue reading →

PassCode Ignites a Spark Indeed

/ Homicidol Maniac

When everything’s coming up roses … We’ve been waiting with all the patience of a sugar-addled kindergartner for the STRIVE album’s release (just a few more days!), and PassCode first chooses to whet our appetite by announcing that they’re striving for Budokan, which isn’t so much a strive as a done deal but you gotta do the Road To homework I guess, and now after plenty of teasing we finally get to experience the MV for “SPARK IGNITION”:

Don’t watch it here, though; click through so you can take part in the live chat with the members!

Continue reading →

PassCode’s Going to Budokan, Hell Yes

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

Well, folks, I’d been licking my lips at the prospect of new PassCode stuff to show off and get excited about since their latest major album is right around the corner, but we simply must pre-empt our own posting for this off-the-charts awesome announcement. PassCode’s on the road to Budokan!

I love everything about this moment. PassCode was on such an ascent, hung in through some challenges, and have just kept building prominence among fans across a pretty significant spectrum of musical interests. This album is, I’m sure, going to be quite good, and yeah there’ll be a hyperventil-y post about it in no time, probably. But the album … who cares about the dang album! PassCode’s doing Budokan, man. That’s just so cool. I hope Yuna screams a literal hole in space-time and nothing ever happens again because reality simply ceases to exist (somewhere right in the middle of “TRACE”, preferably).

Sounds like a good time for the end of the universe to me.

New PassCode Feels Good, Man

/ Homicidol Maniac

Consider yourselves lucky that I didn’t turn this entire post into one long pun on the song title

I’ll be honest with you, folks: I may have shut down almost all of my old barrage of notifications to keep from losing my mind, but I did keep a few on, and one of those was for PassCode, which partly works because their Twitter account is about 10% as busy as most, so you the ratio of quality information to filler schedule stuff is quite high, but this being the season that it is and the environment that it is and with everything else going on, I kept seeing “Anything New” and assuming it was some kind of streamed live event and only realized late yesterday that OMG ITS’S A NEW SONG, WELL THAT’S APTLY NAMED I GUESS, HOLY HELL THERE’S AN MV COMING. And so I did that little nervous hoppy-hand-shaky dance thing in my head and got all het up, so when the sucker came up live on YouTube this morning I could not have been more ready.

Yes. Yes! Ha ha, yes! Continue reading →

PassCode Answers the Question You’ve All Been Asking: What Would Bring Me The Horizon Sound Like If Covered by Idols?

/ Homicidol Maniac

Well of all the things that I definitely didn’t expect to run into yesterday, but did anyway, I think you can chalk up “PassCode covering a big-ass deal Western band and releasing a very Western-friendly MV to go along with it” as not only the winner, but also the closest I came to actually snorting coffee all over my keyboard since Covid-san chased me back to Maniac Mansion for work. Good job, PassCode! And also: Good job, PassCode! Your cover of “MANTRA” is right the hell on!

Original, for reference

Continue reading →

Scream into Phone, Win Prize

/ Homicidol Maniac

We haven’t had a whole lot to say about PassCode this year, gang, and frankly it makes me sad. I have a deep bias for Osaka’s loudest denizens, and I genuinely really loved their Clarity album even though I couldn’t get it past the Best Of censors and onto the final ballot. It is nonetheless right and good that we should at all times and in all places make a big deal out of PassCode-related things when those things are fun, and especially when they involve the masses doing a thing together to support their favorite loudols.

In this case, that thing is a, well, look at the title of this post, then watch this video, then go to the description and copy it and paste it into your favorite translation app (or use a browser extension like a fancy person!) and figure it out, jack!

Basically, you get the app, you record yourself shouting, and you enter into a worldwide(?) competition with lots and lots of other people, including members of PassCode, to see who’s got the goods and takes home … some kind of prize? I didn’t read that far, and frankly I happen to best like the idea of this being a competition entirely for respect, and that some random person in like Chile winds up being ranked first ahead of Yuna and then everybody high-fives them and laughs.

Sounds fun!

I Wasn’t Going to Say Anything about the New PassCode Single Until the MV Was Available Here, But Screw It

/ Homicidol Maniac / 2 Comments

It’s been about a week since the first full recordings were available online, right? And then the MV dropped a couple of days later and I made my eager face and watched and waited and waited and watched and … like, PassCode usually has an international version of their videos available after a brief interval, so I’m not crazy to have done this. But maybe because it’s being used in this commercial, we filthy gaijin don’t get the full version?

So okay, no MV for us, but the song exists, so first listen to it if you need to:

Continue reading →

Welcome Back, PassCode

/ Homicidol Maniac / 1 Comment

From digest to short-version MVs, PassCode’s pulling out the usually promotional rotation for the CLARITY album, which is yes now completely out on all platforms, so stop wasting time and start jamming this stuff into your brain via olfactory orifices:

If this is what passes for a “short version” anymore, what’s even the point of shortening?

Continue reading →