National May 3, 2013

Girl group bases style on Nikkei ups and downs

by Jun Hongo

Kanon Mori, Yuki Sakura, Hinako Kuroki and Jun Amaki have been following the Nikkei 225 stock average obsessively since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in December. The oldest of the foursome is Mori, but she is still only 23. The youngest is Kuroki, ...

CD Review | BEST-SELLER Mar 21, 2013

NMB48 "Teppen Totande!" (Laugh Out Loud Records)

by Patrick ST. Michel

Contrary to popular hemming and hawing, the big problem with Oricon chart-dominating act AKB48 isn’t their music. Their discography certainly contains misfires, but producer Yasushi Akimoto and company can pen great material for the dozens-strong group. Last year, they boasted two of the best ...

Digital | TECH_JAPAN Feb 20, 2013

Freeware has animators dancing to the Hatsune Miku beat

by Akky Akimoto

If you search for the acronym MMD on Niconico or YouTube — the two most popular video-sharing sites in Japan — the resulting list will have over 100,000 anime videos, most of which have 3-D anime-style girl characters singing and dancing to electronic J-pop ...

Music | Strange Boutique Feb 1, 2013

AKB48 member's 'penance' shows flaws in idol culture

by Ian Martin

The image of a young girl in front of a camera, her head recently shaved, sobbing into the lens is one that’s guaranteed to shock. But when that girl is a key member of idol group AKB48, the reaction is bound to be stronger. ...