Kuroki Meisa’s bedroom eyes should be banned from all countries.
Perhaps her eyes themselves should be banned, period.
You see, a hellcat, according to thefreedictionary.com, is:
hell·cat (hlkt) n. Informal
1a. A woman regarded as bad-tempered and evil.
1b. A woman who practices sorcery; a witch.
2. A person who torments others.
Now, we can’t have that loose on the world, can we? Her eyes are tormenting enough already, what with the lovely bouts of jealousy and lust they incite in others, and so I offer to you the less inciting cover above. Also, I just don’t like an abundance of hair, and she practically had a mane in the other cover that reminded me of Amuro Namie on a frizzy hair day. But if you need something to jack off to, then who am I to deprive?
HIMEKA, also known as Catherine St. Onge, is a success story that goes beyond the tales of other “overseas talent breaking into the Japanese music industry” tales.
For one thing, as far as we know, she’s not Japanese. (Everyone else has been raised in Japan – Crystal Kay – or partially East Asian. Even JERO had some of the blood… somewhere.) She’s Canadian. And while we’re on it, her Japanese skills aren’t that great either. She’s admitted as much herself.
For another, she’s 27. I don’t mean to be pointing out her age, but the Japanese business is renowned for the overall younger-is-better attitude they seem to have. Leah Dizon was 20 – or 19 – when she got her contract and moved to Japan.
And last, she wasn’t so much discovered sitting around in Canada with whatever overseas/international auditions were being held; she moved to Japan and won her chance in the Second Annual Animax Anison Grand Prix.
The result of this, a contract with SONY. So between you, me, and at least a hundred others according to her facebook fangroup… yeah, I’d say she’s done pretty well for herself.
Her first single, 明日へのキズナ [Asu he no KIZUNA], isn’t released until May 27th, but you can currently hear it as the opening to the anime series Valkryia Chronicles, or a short clip in the commercial for the single above. You can also find more videos of her performing and singing thanks to the YouTube fan user HIMEKAMediaArchive. While some may denounce her as an anime song artist and less “legit” than someone in the business without the anime tie-ins (Here’s looking at you, Raid!) – it’s what she wanted to do, and she made it. She sounds great doing it, too – her stage moniker, HIMEKA, doesn’t have an actual meaning beyond being the name of a character she once wrote, but you could easily substitute the characters 姫歌 (princess+song) and it wouldn’t be far off from the image she’s got now. Hint, hint to her marketers.
While this is obviously belated – congratulations, Ms. St. Onge! Or HIMEKA, as may be the case now. Girls with a similar dream are no doubt waiting for you to wow the world. You’ve wowed me already, at the least.
Since resurfacing at the tail end of 2008, after being missing for much of the aforementioned year, you may or may not have noticed that I’ve been trying to keep at least a weekly schedule, even if the update days are as random as a PMSing woman’s mood swings.
Alas, this week the PMSing woman decided to go off on a spree. Shopping spree, killing spree, I’m not actually sure what. She may have just decided to kick back in a comfy armchair with a Fuzzy Navel or five and watch a marathon of Nathan Fillion shows. (Castle is rather prone to reruns on her screen.)
So in her stead, here is an apology from her browbeaten husband to those of you who – for whatever insane reason – do enjoy my writing. He offers you my two recent articles on Pleasure Principled, Ray’s latest project in the Japanese music blogging world. You can choose from my dislike of pairings – with a nod to the Nissy x Misako pairing in particular – or my perhaps-more-than like of Saitou Ryuusei – though I’ve yet to completely understand the appeal of Hey! Say! VOLTRON JUMP.
And while you’re there, you may find you like the works of the other contributors too. So much that you may forget about the PMSing woman and leave her for less angry pastures – but please don’t. We’ll be back next week. Hopefully.
If you don’t know this by now, Raid and I are big fans of Urata Naoya. We were waiting for the release of his solo album, TURN OVER, for ages. Since it was announced that he’d be working on a solo project, at least.
Somewhere along the way, it went totally wrong, and based on the web reactions (for example, Brett over at Kurayami Monogatari and Noah at stylejapan), there are definitely people out there who love it. Us, on the other hand? We’re not entirely impressed. Or maybe that’s just me. Raid’s the one you want for lines like “OMGAH THIS SUCKS”, after all.
Something I’ve noticed during my stint in various fandoms is that people are loyal. If they obsessively like something, then they will support anything related to it, no matter how distantly related it is. For example, when the music of ORANGE RANGE’s KIRIKIRIMAI was used in the Fantastic Four movie’s motorbike stunt scene, there was a huge buzz. Never mind that not a second of the vocals showed up, or that it wouldn’t be on the soundtrack. It was in the movie! People went to watch the movie for that reason alone!
Not me. I don’t have the attention span to stick with fandoms to the point of micromanagement. You see, somehow, over the course of the two weeks in which I kept the Music Station episode on which both Arashi and Tohoshinki/DBSK/”SCREW THIS NAMING SCHEME, SM, I GIVE UP” appeared to promote and perform their latest singles, I ended up becoming a definite fan of the latter. There are dreams, there is the knowing of songs without really looking up the lyrics (and this is really harder because the Tohorangers still have accents, and I only listen to their Japanese releases of yet), and there is the looking up of variety appearances.
Honestly, I only have the attention span for one #-member boyband at a time. The instant I became a fan of V6, any consideration for NEWS was immediately shoved out of my head – KAT-TUN was never in the running. Kanjani8 used to not get any love because NEWS was also formerly 8 members, and they still don’t because AAA now also has 7 members. Tackey & Tsubasa don’t have a chance against KinKi, and while I tried to get into SMAP and TOKIO a lot more than I currently am – which is still saying something – they never could surpass Arashi. (Luckily for w-inds., there are few, if any other, 3-member boybands in Japan.) But somehow, the Tohorangers (perhaps due in part to my nicknaming them the “Tohorangers”) are edging their way in there.
And so it is only appropriate that the single I next review is their 23rd, どうして君を好きになってしまったんだろう? [Doushite Kimi wo Suki ni Natte Shimattan darou?] At least they were kind enough to provide a song to help explain my feelings.
