Thank You Nagi Noda

TOKYOMANGO had a post about 野田凪 (Noda Nagi)'s last music video before her tragic death. I had been putting off watching it, but I finally got around to it today and I'm floored. It's so well done.

The song is precious, sung by MEG, music by 中田ヤスタカ (Nakata Yasutaka), the DJ behind capsule and perfume. The video is directed by the late 野田さん.

Her works feel like Michel Gondry, utilizing amazing tricks that are totally mundane in nature. Another video to check out is Yuki's Sentimental Journey for more of 野田さん's work.

In the MEG video, we have the people in black doing the magic. It blows my mind, because the first time I saw this effect was in 文楽 (bunraku), which is a Japanese puppet theatre where one pupper is operated by 3 people. When I first saw it, I thought it was a real person... and then the camera zoomed in on the puppet.



So this video has it all. Music by 中田ヤスタカ, PV directed by 野田凪, and MEG, of course. Bravo, simple amazing.

Is perfume breaking up your marriage?

So remember I was taking about perfume, the wildly popular elecropop girls trio?

Well, looks like perfume are so popular, they are starting to break up marriages.

The story comes from
a thread on the message boards over at Yahoo!知恵袋 (Yahoo!chiebukuro). My translation of the initial post is as follows:

My wife is pressing the "perfume" question.

Hello. I'm a 29 year old married man. I don't have any children.

It's not like I'm really big into music, but I download and listen to a lot of different kinds of music. It doesn't matter if it is Western or Japanese and I enjoy music from any genre.

The other day, a friend of mine recommended I give perfume a listen, but although it was music that was fairly off my particular radar, I gave them a listen and really liked it. The music videos are also quite spectacular, so I really started to get into them and started to buy DVDs on Yahoo! Auctions and collect all the CDs I could.

When I recommended them to my wife, she quietly listened and said "This is some interesting music, huh?" But then, one day, I asked her over dinner, "Who is your favorite out of the three perfume girls?" She responded angrily, 『殺すぞ』 (korosu zo, "I'll kill you.")

"Who gets these girly DVDs and CDs at this age?! You are always listening to it everyday! You pervert!" Among the verbal abuse, she overturned the table. Since then, my wife has started to curse the very thought of perfume. If they show up on TV, she will change the channel. If their music is the background of a commercial, she will mute it just for that commercial. She does this all with a blank face. It's scary.

One day, when I came home from work, I found that almost all the pictures on perfume CD covers had labels put over the faces of かしゆか (Kashiyuka) and のっち (Nocchi). Somehow, あーちゃん (A~chan) made it unscathed. When I asked my wife what she was doing, she replied with the question "Which is more important, our life together or perfume?"

We aren't very wealthy nor affluent. It seems my hobby of trying to buy CDs and DVDs had ticked her off. In the end, she hit me with these conditions. "Put all of your perfume stuff on Yahoo! Auctions, and stop listening to perfume completely. If you can't do this, I want a divorce."

Up until now, I had a lot of CDs of young girl bands/singers in pretty heavy rotation, and I bought some DVDs, but my wife had never said anything before... And how come あーちゃん was the only one to make it out without being covered in stickers? But I'm not in any position to be asking these questions right now. I have to get rid of the CDs and DVDs by the end of the month. This is really harsh...

To the wives and women out there, is there some way that I can peacefully end this thing? My wife is the same age as myself.

Thank you for reading.

On a side note, my real name is Yasutaka.

(Translator's note: That last thing about Yasutaka, the DJ who produces and makes perfume's music is Nakata Yasutaka.)

Poor guy. But, I gotta say, if is wife is that upset about it, he must be totally otaku-ing out on perfume.

But that is a good question... why perfume? And why not A~chan? Maybe it is just her cryptic way of saying which on is her favorite?!

Tunak vs. Capsule

A new remix video from the guy who brought us IKZOLOGIC... Tunak vs. Capsule. Enjoy.

perfume

The fabulous trio known as Perfume are starting to leak across the sea...

There is this odd phenomenon where when you don't live in Japan, but are interested in it, it takes a while before something reaches critical mass and starts to leak out to other country's Japanese-speaking populations. perfume archived this a few weeks ago.

perfume (generally not capitalized) is a three girl group from Hiroshima. The members are あ～ちゃん (A~chan), かしゆか (Kashiyuka, sometimes ksyk in ローマ字), and のっち (Nocchi). They struggled for many years, apparently since elementary school, to make hit songs, but until Yasutaka Nakata, a fairly popular DJ, picked them up, they didn't really succeed.

My personal history with perfume started when I saw the IKZOLOGIC video a while back. From that video, I started to get into capsule. Yasutaka Nakata is the DJ for capsule, so when I went looking for more music by him, I ended up hearing a lot of perfume.

But I didn't think much of them. And then they took off and started showing up on TV and now I am on-board... they are a girl group... they don't make their own music, but Yasutaka-san is awesome, so at least it is good music. They are just there to look pretty and dance. All their live performances are lip-synced to allow them to dance in their very unique way.

Funny thing is most people have a favorite. They are made to all look different, mainly with wardrobe and hair styles differing. I must admit that のっち is my favorite. She's the short haired one... (-.-;)

Their blog is here. Sorry, it's in Japanese... for now...

I leave you with their music video/commercial for Pino brand bonbons. Enjoy!

IKZOLOGIC

This ニコニコ動画 video is the pinnacle of human evolution. It has since inspired not only the name of this blog, but also my newly re-born love of electronic music in general. The title is "吉幾三×Capsule×DaftPunk×BeastieBoys　StarrySky - IKZOLOGIC Remix."



For those without a NicoVideo account, here is the YouTube link. For those who don't get it, you should first get familiar with 吉幾三's song 俺ら東京さ行くだ.

Basically, since April or so of this year, there has been this crazy fad of mixing 俺ら東京さ行くだ in to all sorts of other songs. From the Jackson 5, to the Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop themes, to Nirvana, to Philharmonic Symphony Orchestras.

It's kinda like the Japanese version of mixing Cosby with everything on YTMND.

Anyway, so in the mix I am posting about, they mixed 俺ら東京さ行くだ with capsule, Daft Punk, and the Beastie Boys... It blows my mind clean off my shoulders. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Also, since it is the pinnacle of human achievement, I think we can all pretty much give up since it is all down hill from here until the end of the world in 2012. ;)