Summer is always high season for fans of Japanese pop culture. School's out, weather's amenable and festivals, conventions and expos shift into top gear in Japan and across the globe.
Many in the pop-culture business are branding summer 2014 "the summer of kawaii" (Japanese uber-cute), and it's not hard to see why. To inaugurate the season, Japan's digital diva and holographic pop star Hatsune Miku, cute as her turquoise pigtails, hit the road in late May as the opening act for the first leg of megastar Lady Gaga's North American tour. Miku's makers plan to reprise her supporting role when Gaga tours Japan in August. This echoes animated band Gorillaz's collaboration with Madonna at the 2006 Grammies — beautiful illustrations and flesh-and-blood pop icons share the stage. Expect more.
If you happen to find wolves cute, animalistic Japanese rock band Man With a Mission kicks off a 16-date North American tour on June 18 that will take it from New York to Canada and California, with new EP "When My Devil Rises" hitting iTunes a few days ago. The wolf-headed band blends the melodic funk of Red Hot Chili Peppers with the guitar crunch of Foo Fighters and Japanese mod rockers The Blue Hearts, singing several songs exclusively in English. When I asked bilingual guitarist and songwriter Jean-Ken Johnny after a Tokyo show last month whether the wolf masks ever get hot, he answered: "These aren't masks. We were born this way."