Following the orbital rise of Korean girl unit Girls Generation, Japanese pop has been searching for who can combat the continental ladies' incredible leg power.
This answer, it is being touted, is this new group, Bikyaku Jidai -- literally "Beautiful Legs Era" -- who have been formed for this express purpose.
The main qualification for the seven ladies in the group was that they had lovely legs.
With such single-minded approach we suspect their musical success may be rather limited. This is one of their masterpieces.
By way of comparison, here are the Korean ladies in ...
Only yesterday we were lamenting the victory of K-Pop over Japanese rivals.
And now we see news that kind of confirms how stranger and strange local pop music is getting. As if the boy band Sexy Zone (comprised of kids only just into their teens) or the army of AKB48 (not as young as they look, but looks are everything), now comes a new group with a much-trumpeted average age of just 13.7.
Formed by an agency to appear in TV dramas and sing terrible songs, Her Best is made up of 14 girls. There were over ten thousand applications to audition, leading to the name Her Best (sounds ...
Ayumi Hamasaki surprised the entertainment just over a year ago by announcing her sudden marriage to an Austrian model and actor who had starred in one of her music videos.
Hamasaki's sales have ailed in recent years and we speculated that perhaps she might retire and start a family.
The latest twist is that Ayumi and Manuel Schwarz are already divorced! Less than a year is not a great length for any marriage, to be sure, but Ayumi officially blames the March 11th earthquake, which forced her to stay in Japan and remain close to her beloved fans. Rather than move to America with ...
Singer and model Takako Uehara (28) is suing the editors of a magazine for 30 million yen ($400,000) after claims it made in an article about disgraced comedian Shinsuke Shimada.
Shimada famously had to resign after allegations that he has had long connections to the yakuza -- it's well known that the whole entertainment industry in Japan is in cahoots with the mafia -- and Shimada, no stranger to scandals, was made an example of (probably so he could go and do other things, including reportedly hoping to enter politics!).
In the article in the September issue of weekly tabloid Shukan ...
She might have been losing some ground with the public of late if those Senbatsu Election results are anything to go by, but you'd be a fool to count the achingly cute Tomomi Itano out just yet, especially when she's capable of producing material as pleasing to the eyes and ears as her new single 'Fui ni', released this week.
The song, available in Japanese retail outlets from the 13th, is the second physical single release from the 8th-placed AKB48 starlet, following last year's quite well-received 'Dear J'.
Cleverly (or should that be cynically?) coupling a pounding, ...
Underage fans of overlarge idol groups rejoice - the long-standing ban on under-18s attending SDN48's theatre performances has been lifted at last, granting you access to the AKB girls' older, edgier counterparts in (almost) all their raunchy glory.
SDN, the brainchild of AKB48 producer Yasushi Akimoto, was conceived as an "adult idol" group, differentiated from AKB through sexier attire and their focus as a "Saturday Night"-style act (hence the name) aimed at a more mature audience. Having made their major label debut on Universal Music in November of last year with the single ...
Japan's lingering global reputation for being the spiritual home of all things tacky, wacky and weird may be largely undeserved, but the Japanese don't exactly help themselves when they choose the most bizarre things to obsess over and popularise (Pachinko? 1950s-style greaser dance groups? Ganguro girls? Stitch?!). Mediocre 2006 Disney-Pixar effort Cars is one such curiousity (its popularity in Japan strikingly disproportionate to, well, its popularity everywhere else) and, with a sequel set for release this summer, the folks behind the movie (albeit unwittingly) have rewarded the Japanese ...
Nostalgia is a powerful tool and Yahoo reports that super popular idol group Morning Musume is calling back all of our favorite graduates to form a Dream Team to battle the young whipper snappers from groups like AKB48.
Dream Morning Musume's roster includes Nakazawa Yuko, Iida Kaori, Abe Natsumi, Yasuda Kei, Yaguchi Mari, Ishikawa Rika, Yoshizawa Hitomi, Ogawa Makoto, Fujimoto Miki and Kusumi Koharu. Tsuji Nozomi, another former member, was slated to join but after the birth of her second child she's taking some child care leave. While the currently active Morning Musume has an ...
I used to think that many Japanese pop stars just didn't compare with idols. Sure, they can sing and dance (kind of), but they lack the tits and ass that make idols so great to look at...
But girl band Perfume has proved me wrong. Their new single Voice certainly has a sexy cover! Check out the legs on these three gals!
[Pics via ...
A real survivor and long-time favorite, it was inevitable that we would have to select the wonderful Takako Uehara (上原多香子) soon.
Born in Okinawa, the singer is now 27 but kicked off her career way back in 1996.
A model often seen on TV commercials, she delighted and disappointed her fans in equal measures when she released a several sexy photo book in 2003.
To be honest, her solo singing and activities with (reformed) pop group SPEED have been quiet of late. We only hope that Takako's career is not over ...
