Asian Addicts Anonymous

Unfortunately, I end up listening to more Korean music than Japanese. It used to be the other way around, but thanks to the Hallyu Wave, it’s actually a lot easier to access new Korean music than it is to necessarily access new Japanese music. Be that as it may, I still really enjoy Japanese music and wish I could afford to pick up more new releases (Japanese music is freaking expensive).

Like I did with the Korean review, I did compile my list of absolute must-haves. These are songs that I listened to over and over and over again. These are my top favorite songs of 2013 in Japanese music. Would you believe that I had heard of ONE OK ROCK, but never really listened to them until this year? What have I been missing all of this time?!

• girugamesh – INCOMPLETE
• v[NEU] – The 25th Century Love/APOLLON
• Sekken’ya – Blue Clouds
• Gille – Try Again
• Kimaguren – Ayumi
• ONE OK ROCK – Clock Strikes
• Alice Nine – SHADOWPLAY
• GReeeeN – HEROES
• Da-iCE – I’ll Be Back
• WEAVER – Yume Janai Kono Sekai
• flumpool – What is Important is Not Found in Anyone Other Than You
• Maydayxflumpool – Belief 給等待春天的你
• MIYAVI – Horizon
• Monkey Majik – Story
• Niiyama Shiori – Don’t Cry
• Kobayashi Taro – Kodo
• Sako Tomohisa – Bye Bye
• GLAY – Eternally/Diamond Skin
• DEEP – Starlight
• Yasuda Rei – Best of My Love
• EDEN – Never Cry
• Chon Tefu – Sasori no Namida
• Komatsu Mikako – Owaranai Melody o Utai Dashimashita
• VAMPS – Ahead/Replay
• One Draft – Calendar ~Kenkashitari, Fuzaketari, Nakasetari~
• Breaking Arrows – Tears Falling Heavy
• Gille – Hikari
• Neverlost – TO LIVE or TO DIE
• ALL CITY STEPPERS – Precious Girl
• VALSHE – Blessing Card
• Magistina Saga – Double Face
• FUZZY CONTROL – What Are u Waiting For? / The Way You Decide
• Honey L Days – Regret/Namida no yō ni suki to ietara

I didn’t really keep track of non-Korean releases that I liked until March of this year, so no favorites for January and February. Like I did with Korean music this year, I made lots of new happy discoveries in new solo artists, bands and groups that I had not heard of before.

Some great discoveries this year: Hazzie, The Sketchbook, Kodera Kento, Sekai no Owari, satellite blue metro, Abe Mao, Flower, Neverlost, ALL CITY STEPPERS, KIDS, Magistina Saga, LUNKHEAD, Kerakera, Lead, FUZZY CONTROL, Champagne. Any great new discoveries for you?

March saw CROSS GENE officially launch their Japanese promotions. Their first mini album Timeless was released in both Korean and Japanese. Shooting Star was their first solo Japanese release. It also saw a new member added to the line up after my favorite vocalist left. “Shooting Star” is a great song. Visual kei band Kameleo released “Sandwich Love” and there is actually official English translations of the lyrics. It’s a really interesting song and story. Now, there is nothing wrong with SHINee’s Korean releases this year…but I actually preferred their Japanese releases more. “Fire” was a really great song. Boyfriend did a lot of promotions in Japan and I did enjoy their ballad “Hitomi no Melody” and I also fell in love with MyName’s dance song “We Are the Night”. I was debating whether or not to include Izuoka Misaki’s “Teens” as a monthly favorite, but the awesome chorus won me over as I was wavering over not liking the verses as much. My favorite vk band Alice Nine celebrated their 9th anniversary with triple singles, the first being “Daybreak”. FT Island was active in both Korea and Japan this year. I really enjoyed the song “You Are My Life” from their 3rd album.

Before April of this year, I had not heard of LUV (my jpop experience of boy groups was sadly limited mostly to Johnny’s groups). I really enjoyed their song “One Piece” featuring TOC from Hilcrhyme. Sakanamon (a new discovery) released the fun “Signal Man”; watching the BTS of the band making the video was priceless. Singer/actor Kato Kazuki released “Kiseki” and EXILE Tribe members Sandaime (literal translation is Third Generation) J Soul Brothers released the awesome song “Spark”. GReeeeN released “Icarus” which showcased an interesting PV with lots of screaming. Colorful band DIV released “Taste of Life” which had an interesting MV that belied that actually more serious and existential at times lyrics. Kiyotaka Sugiyama released a very soft song with a very suitable title—“It Was a Dream”. Mori Megumi released the beautiful ballad “Bird on the Street” and visual kei band ALSDEAD released the song “Heaven” on their 2nd full album Separator which blended a harder chorus with a somewhat softer verse and it worked out well.

I think I had heard of Sekai no Owari before May of this year…but I did not discover their awesomeness (in spite of that clown guy…) until now. I really enjoyed their song “RPG” with it’s fun MV. Alice Nine ended their back-to-back single releases with “Shooting Star”—another ballad. Kameleo released their first full album which included “Sandwich Love” and the awesome song with an awesome MV “Kimi to Now.” Shikata released the haunting song “First Love” while Shinzato Kato released the addictive song “Hands Up!” which was one of the opening songs for long-running anime One Piece. I can’t choose just one song from Kodera Kento’s first album Destiny. The entire album is pretty awesome.

June! Summer months see lots of releases for some reason. One of the few girl groups I enjoy PASSPO☆ released “Truly” and the trio Tsukemen released the gorgeous song “Akatsuki”—another instrumental track I thoroughly enjoyed. A.F.R.O released “Ao” which also had an endearing MV. EXILE has some amazing vocalists. One of them being Takahiro. His solo debut song “One Thousand and One Seconds” is just a beautiful ballad you can’t help listening to over and over again. Speaking of EXILE…their song “Flower Song” is another gorgeous song. They are an interesting group overall as they have vocalists and “performers” composing their group, thus in videos you only see usually 2 singing since those are their vocalists. A great discovery this month is the trio The Sketchbook. I absolutely fell in love with them after listening to their song “Crack”. Ultra Super Express, despite having horrible costumes and a slightly silly dance at times in their MV, really do have a nice song with “Starlight”. The maturing An Café came back again with “Bee Myself Bee Yourself” – it is different from their earlier music, but not in a bad way at all. One of my favorite co-ed groups AAA released the fun summer song “Love Is In The Air” and rookie jpop group SOLIDEMO comes out with impressive vocals in their song “Come Back To Me” (again, what is with all theses “come back” songs this year, lol?).

July got it’s very own playlist for Japanese music! With over 100 songs…will it be hard to choose my favorites from the month?Not hard, but the problem is there is just too many even paring out the songs I didn’t really like at all or found just “ok.”  I guess this month alone makes up for doing nothing for January and February, ne?

July Part 1: I must mention Spyair’s “Genjyou Destruction” as I love Spyair. Language released the haunting ballad “hikari” with a zombie-themed video…hmmm…why was the zombie theme so prevalent this year, too? Kyo Mi released the heartwarming song “My Baby” and asano released the pleasing “Continuation of the Dream”. BiSKET released their first album and I fell in love with the song “HOPE” even if I can’t understand all the English they use in the song. Visual kei band SCREW made their major label debut with “Red Thread”. Perfect for summer, Yamazaki Aoi released “Natsumi”. GOTCHAROCKA released their first full album which included the awesome track “C U” while DaizyStripper released their 13th single “Uso to Kagero”. Noa released her album Molt and I fell in love with the track “See You…” featuring. LGYankee’s HIRO. I really enjoyed rock band Awake’s “ByexBye” song. I fell in love with Hazzie thanks to his song “for YOU” and Hirai Dai thanks to his songs “Dream” and “Sweet Home”. Liphlich’s “Mazurou Mansion” is oddly addicting and while there is nothing amazing about Lil.y’s song “Eternal” I really do like it. Ueno Yuuka released the very pretty song “Kimi toita Sora” and Kita Shuhei had the awesome “Beyond the Rainbow ~Yumemiru Sekai~”.

July Part 2: Aso Natsuko has a great song with “Never Ending Voyage”. Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra was another great discovery with their song “Diamond In Your Heart”. I highly recommend checking out satellite blue metro’s entire mini album When You Exit the Tunnel as well as Namie Amuro’s Feel. The awesome vocalist CHIHIRO collaborated with Hilcrhyme’s TOC for “Love Letter” and I really enjoyed ammoflight’s “cheese”. Chie’s “LIFE LOVE GAME” is a fun and addicting song as is Tokyo Karan Koron’s “16 no Beat”. CANTA’s “HEAVEN’S WAITING” has an haunting appeal. Sandaime J Soul Brothers’ “Waking Me Up” is an awesome song. FT Island’s “Shiawaseori” is a phenomenal song as is U-KISS’s “Inside of Me”. bump.y’s “Savage Heaven” is a really good song and Koda Kumi’s “LaLaLaLaLa” is really fun and addictive. GENERATIONS’ “Go On” is another great song from the EXILE TRIBE. D-LITE released the emotional ballad “I Love You” featuring Taro Hakase. Royz never disappoints as I like “EGOIST” as much as their previous releases. Takahashi Yu’s “CANDY” has this odd way of drawing me in… An Café’s “Ouch Woman ~No Pain, No Love? Japain Girls in Love~” is a song with an awesome video. Best Partner really are a great duo; I love their song “Aozora to Kimi”. The Sketchbook’s “Split Milk” (not a typo) is another awesome song from the trio and Sadie’s “Setsugekka” is a powerfully awesome song. I also enjoyed the Raid.’s “Moment”. I hadn’t heard of Baby Raids before this year, but I strangely found myself attracted to their song “Ambitious Baby!” for some reason. Led Apple did have that cute and addictive song “Gimme Kimi LOVE”.

Phew…July done. Now on to August. One of my absolute favorite songs that I had on repeat is TAK-Z’s “BELIEVE YOUR SMILE”—it’s such an awesome song and almost made my all time faves of 2013. I discovered the awesome Abe Mao with her song “I Like You”. As summer draws to a close, nothing is more suitable than Katahira Rina’s “Summer Night” that sticks to you like a hot summer’s night. LiSA’s “träumerei” is a great song and apparently an anime opening theme. LUV’s “Itsuka Mata” is a beautiful ballad. Flower has another beautiful song with “Taiyo to Himawari”—they are my favorite girl group of 2013. Sashida Ikuya has a great ballad in the song…”Ballad”. ROGUE’s song “Memento” is a great song of mid-range and high notes and PERIDOTS’ “Home Movie” is a hauntingly good song. I wonder how long it took androp to film the video for “Voice” since the crowd has to carry all the band members? √５song “Pure Love Delusion” was a good release this month. I was happy to discover KIDS with their song “Kotonoha” and “38.5”. Fis block’s “Don’t Give Up” is an endearing song. EXILE’s ATSUSHI has such a pretty voice that is really emphasized with the piano opening in “Signpost”. Sure, the song is in English, but it’s still a Japanese band. Check out POINT-UP’s “Share Our Lives”. AAA’s Nissy released the fun “Do Shiyou Ka?” and I discovered the plaintive Chicago Poodle with “I Like Your Smile Above Everything Else” (rough translation of the title). Sakanamon’s “Full Color Girl” has an awesome MV that makes me fall in love with the song more and more. GReeeeN had the awesome song with the awesome video “To Love You”. I fell in love with Head Speaker’s “Magnolia” and SO-TA’s entire 3rd album 2FACE and Jupiter’s Classical Element. Hazzie’s “Rain” is a pretty song as is aagna’s “forever” which features Noa. N.O.B.U!!! joined forces with HAN-KUN for the awesome song “The Fine Weather Today” and you should definitely check out universe’s first album Cosmos Museum. cinema staff has a good song with “great escape”.

The month where fall begins…September…what good music was released? Well, lots of good rock music, that’s for sure. LUNKHEAD released the awesome “Because They Live” and 12012 released the equally awesome song “THE SWAN”. EXILE had the dance ballad song “No Limit”—EXILE never has a disappointing song, I think. Singer Yuzu joined up with an orchestra for the song “When the Friend Departs” and it makes it all that much more awesome. Another great rock song was knotlamp’s “Ashe’s Children” which was a good blend of English and Japanese. After Kerakera’s upbeat debut, they released the awesome ballad “Pretend Friend”. Buzz the Bears released the great song “Nari ya manu uta” and Cure Rubbish released the beautiful “forever”. I found myself liking Taoruzu’s “Thorn” this month and the wickedly weird song “BLACK DYED” by Straightener Also good by Straightener is “Cinderella Song”. Koganecho Garam released an awesome new mini album which contains the track “Voice”. Nagareta Project released “fake” which had a fun MV. Marumoto Riko released the upbeat track “Happy Babe”. Got to love Scandal—nothing like a female rock band. Love their song “Over Drive”. While the vocalist’s makeup tends to something that gives me nightmares, I have to say NoGod has some good music. I really liked their song “The Power”. I discovered Lead with their great songs “strings” and “GREEN DAYS”. Kameleo has fun songs and fun PVs to go with them and “dameo/gomennasai!” is no exception. JiLL-Decoy association released the beautiful ballad “Papa no Beibei”. Lee Tegan’s “Over and Over” eventually won me over. The Sketchbook has been very active in 2013. I really enjoyed their song “Ashita e” and Shiina Yoshiharu’s “Soreja Bye Bye”. Superfly released the gorgeous song “Eyes on Me” and AAA released the beautiful “Koi Oto to Amazora”. Synk;yet’s “Cross of Sin” is an epic song and the pillows have a masterful song with “Happy Birthday”.

October got off to a good start with ROACH’s “GET MORE!!” with actually good English mixed with the Japanese and “Awanaitsumorinio, Genkidene” by Scandal. KNOCK OUT MONKEY’s “Paint it Out!!!!” is an oddly addicting song (I love the skies they show in the PV). EXILE ATSUSHI collaborated with Hisaishi Jo for the beautiful song “Confession”. One of my favorite VK bands D=OUT released “Kanden 18-go” with a very addictive melody and chorus. NIKIIE released “Signal” and EXILE released “EXILE PRIDE ~konno sekai o aisuru tame~” where you can hear their awesome vocals and if you watch the PV, see their awesome dance skills. They also released a “PERFORMERS PRIDE” which focused solely on their dancing. I also really liked BoA’s “Message” and its PV. This month I fell in love with DIV’s “ZERO ONE” from their first full album and Sandaime J Soul Brothers’ “The Winter’s Tale” (too early for a winter song :P). Monkey Majik had the great song with a fun PV “Alive”. Duo canna had the awesome ballad “Kan’na no Hana”. ROYALcomfort released the song “Kimi ni suki to tsutaeyou” which I love. I discovered Kodera Kenta’s beautiful “Nagareboshi” (Shooting Star).Korean group CODE-V was very active this year. Their sad ballad “Ima, tsutaetaikoto” is just beautiful. PrizmaX released the fun song “Ready” which seems better suited to summer rather than fall. Then there’s e-girls’ “Round and Round”—a really great song and another great song is Alternative Medicine’s “Freedom”. TWIN CROSS released the awesome song “I Do Not Laugh At You”.

November. The month that the US celebrates Thanksgiving. What music am I thankful for? etusco’s beautiful ballad “Christmas ~a 29-year-old ONE LOVE~”. AV169’s “TEAM”. BACK-ON’s “Nibun’noichi”. CHIHIRO’s beautiful ballad “Akai Ito”. CROSSE GENE “Page of Love”. DEEP’s “I Promise You”. KEYTALK’s “Coaster”. MyName’s “Shirayuki”. phatmans after school “Tsukiyomi”. SCREEN mode’s debut single Moonlight STORY. “TOKYO BLUE” by Katagiri Maiko from MAY’S. TOMMY heavenly6 “Can you hear me?” and “RUBY EYES”. I was surprised by how much I actually liked ℃-ute’s “Love is More Innovative”. CLIFF EDGE’s “Gift from You”. Song Riders “Snowing Again” which has such a sad MV. Lin Yu Chun released Ballad Show which is an awesome CD you need to check out. Shionotani Sayaka’s “Snow Flakes Love” and “Ichirinka”. Niiyama Shiori’s “Soliloquy”. √5’s “Love Treasure”. I have no idea why, but I find myself liking Super Express’s “Kiss Me Baby” which has such a strange PV. Aso Natsuko’s “MoonRise Romance”. AAA’s Nissy’s “Selfish”. Kobayashi Taro’s “The Sun”.

December brought a lot of winter-related releases, ne? The awesome girl group Flower released “Snow White” and UNIST released the fun song with a fun PV, “Kung Fu Punch”. CTS (Circle Triangle Square) released “Beautiful Love World” which was strangely addictive. The good parts of DIV’s “Justice” outweighed the bad, so I came to like this song. Fumiya Hiraoka released his first mini album which contained the awesome song “Separated”. Code-V released their 2nd album. I really love one track from that CD, but am uncertain just what the name of it is. ADAMS released “Seseragi” (Babble) which I think is my new favorite of their songs. Ohno Aika released her 3rd album Silent Passage which has many beautiful tracks to check out. So’Fly released the addictive tracks “Ain’t No Fun Without U” and “Really Into U”. Ledapple released “Greatest World” and “I Wanted to Go Home”. Kuroyume’s “Guernica” is a haunting song. You should also check out “I Hate Your Popstar Life”. Pokota released the beautiful song “White Love”. YU-G released his new album with the inspiring track “Namida-iro Garasu”. The amazing Kodera Kento released his 2nd album Tears which you definitely need to listen to. I fell in love with Champagne thanks to “Oblivion” and “Run Away”. Another of AAA’s amazing vocalists released a solo album. I really love Urata Naoya’s sad song “Kimi ni Aenaikara” (Because I’m Not Able to Meet You). Rock duo TarO&JirO’s “Snake Bite ~Silent Siren” has an addictive melody that pulls you in. Kinoko Teikoku released the haunting song “Umi to Hanataba”. Okay… I’m not sure if the band’s name is reading note or name and if the song name is reading note or name…so if you know, do clue me in. Either way, it’s a great band and a great song! SHINee released “3 2 1” and I really like the chorus of the song. DigiCut released Digicut Two with the awesome song “Arinomamano Jibuntte Nannandarou”. I really Love Hazzie’s 5th single “White Winter Love”—it’s so beautiful.