Still deep into The Warning, but this year I have expanded to the insanely entertaining band of LOVEBITES. Check out anything they've released. It's insane. Oh btw I am now taking guitar lessons from MIYAKO in LOVEBITES.

What's your blood type? Oh you? I'm blue. https://youtu.be/yhEdAykvhrQ?t=37

I dare say the (Western) writer of this song could have shared it with some Azerbaijani Eurovision hopeful and ended up in 4th place, but it's clearly more profitable in the current state of total Western civilisational collapse to share it with a nascent Kpop group to be a largely ignored album track.

As for Japan, the only song that's seriously impressed me in the last two years is Odoriko by Vaundy (featuring Nana Komatsu miming, as she did in Ringo's Jiyu e Michizure): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HgJIAUtICU


Milet has a nice voice - range, power and rasp - but unfortunately none of her songs seem to feature a melody...
Utada Hikaru's last two albums were disappointing...
Even the idol groups aren't safe - whereas AKB48's lead single videos used to be worth a watch even just for the novelty factor, nowadays it's an extremely effective way of wasting 4 minutes.
Jpop is awash with boring shoegazing and math rock bands who dress like they've raided the Uni-Qlo Winter collection.

While Japan may try to imitate Kpop with groups like XG, the high-end of Kpop palates are being served by fantastic high-concept stuff like this (stan LOONA): https://youtu.be/b6li05zh3Kg?t=164

...and I've never seen editing like this in a Japanese video: https://youtu.be/6ZUIwj3FgUY?t=34


Western movie distributors are releasing fewer and fewer new Japanese movies on home video/streaming, instead choosing to raid the back-catalogue (though companies like Toei charge ridiculous prices (£10,000 per movie according to one distributor)), so even many of these don't get released. Wanna watch a comedy directed by Shinobu Yaguchi? Er, sorry!

The back catalogue premise also applies to city pop - but surely the cupboard must run bare at some point? Surely something new from Japan has to come along? Or is it's soft power as doomed as Cool Japan?

DIH - NOT ENOUGH

And I'm back in Korea, musically.