Watanalien Vs Predator-chan

/ Cal

Our apologies to AKB fans, women and anybody with any kind of common sense – that man Kuro-chan is unfortunately relevant again.

Remember the hot new unit from WACK who became so popular overnight they gained upwards of 1.5 million views a day? They debuted on a segment on the most popular prime time TV show in the entire country? They had an extremely successful “vote with your wallet” sales campaign? Those MAMESHiBA NO TAiGUN girls! They’re back with not one but TWO new songs and of course, a campaign to go with it:

 

The premise of the campaign is “Kuro-chan vs WACK” – another voting gauntlet where money talks. But instead of actually going to a Tower Records and buying 20 singles which you’ll inevitably throw into a landfill, the money here is just YouTube adsense dollars. If you hate Kuro-chan and want him to go away forever, because being dunked into ice water while suspended from a crane on live TV wasn’t enough, go and watch the MV for WACK produced “Daijoubu Sunrise” (Everything OK Sunrise). If you have a love for pervert older men who’re built like a leatherback sea turtle, go and watch the MV for Kuro-chan produced “Rocketstart”.

Want Watanabe? Go watch Daijoubu Sunrise. Crazy for Kuro-chan? Go watch Rocketstart. Simple, no?

MAMESHiBA NO TAiGUN’s (or “Puppy Horde” as English speaking fans have taken to calling them) last single campaign was an emotional ride for idol fans across the globe. Seriously, it’s hard to express how gargantuan they were for a hot second and how many emotions that dredged up. They were so popular that the millions of views a day on their video spilled over to BiSH – Promise the Star and Orchestra finally passed 10 million views with a flurry of “who else is here because of Kuro-chan and Mameshiba?” style comments in Japanese. More controversial videos like BiS’ My lxxx and BiSH’s Hoshi Ga also got comments in the vein of “gee, I hope this isn’t the future of Mameshiba” because unsurprisingly, the casual TV audience who doesn’t know WACK that well might be a little jarred going from the cute idol song to “tits out in the suicide forest” and “literal fake shit being sprayed everywhere”.

WACK’s dear leader Watanabe was also the target of a small online hate campaign after MAMESHiBA fans found a video of him smacking an intern upside the head for not interviewing potential idols fast enough. People demanded that Kuro-chan be reinstated as the group’s producer at once because obviously, the guy who’s comedy routine is “sexual harassment” is totally somebody you want in charge of young women and not the guy with a successful decade long stint managing idols.

But of course, any smart businessman knows how to turn controversy into profit (after reminding people that online harassment is a jail-able offence in Japan with a cryptic tweet) and now we have the new double entry in the Puppy Horde Cinematic Universe! 

But what do we English speaking fans think? Let’s vote with our ears:

Daijoubu Sunrise:

Rocketstart:

 

Rocketstart and Daijoubu Sunrise will be available on Spotify on the 13th of February, with physical CDs containing a bonus re-recording of “Restart” with new member Kaedepheonix. Check it out!