it is a mini album, btw.
honestly, I wasn't a fan of the last one but Anata Sonata did grow on me over time. Sounara Iinonina is one of my favourite of their songs and there's a enough weird shit buried in there that I still occasionally give it a spin. And when I saw them last year, in spite of not being a fan of the cutesy j-pop direction they're heading in, Alex Taneko just happens to be enough of a captivating and commanding enough stage presence that the songs still hit with enough weight. I don't think anyone left the show without having at least a
little crush on her.
As for the Babymetal thing, I think they're a gimmicky one note joke that stopped being funny after the first time I heard Gimme Chocolate!!! (and as a fan of metal, cute girls, and weird japanese shit, I can't help but feel a little pandered to) but honestly I think I'm okay with this. A lot of metalheads have always taken themselves and their genre super seriously, even though so many artists have always had sense of humour about what they do (y'know, like Rob Zombie) but those super serious types were probably the same people that jumped to Phil Anselmo's defence during the whole WHITE POWERRR incident. I'm always quite happy to see people like that get knocked down a peg.