Wota Wonderings 4

I thought this would be a hard one to answer, but I don’t know, it seems quite simple really.

Are You a Shallow Wota

Imagine your favorite idol switched bodies with someone you don’t find “visually pleasing”, would it affect your love for that idol in any way/shape/form?

Umm, yes. Wait, that’s the answer to the second question, not the first. I’d be surprised to find anyone who could honestly say no to that. Though I guess “visually pleasing” can be left pretty open to interpretation. My idol, with the same personality, the same voice, the same dance moves, the same mannerisms… yet stuffed into an unsightly box, would definitely lose some appeal.

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Wota Wonderings 3

After glancing over the questions for this months Wota Wonderings, I quickly came up with the response “No.” But well, that wasn’t going to cut it…

Tie-Ins

The music industry has had many tie-ins with animes and doramas. Of those tie-ins, did one manage to capture your interest and get you hooked on their music? Or, did one manage to change your perspective of a musical act? Did you end up watching the anime or dorama in its entirety or give up once the musical act’s tie-in ceased?

So how’s that formula work out anyway. I had to ponder that for only a short while. The type of tie-in I was thinking about was an artist promoting a product for an anime or a drama. That is, rather than promoting the anime directly. The product in this case however, is the artist/song themselves. A bit quick to jump to the response of no, it didn’t take too long to come up with one of the biggest artist tie-ins that’s grabbed me.
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Wota Wonderings 2

I love you. Did you say you loved me? Tell me if you love me.
You won’t say it. You won’t say it to me? I want you to say it!
Please love me as much as 100 jokes!

All you need is love!

I challenge you to find the best example of idol love. Showcase this “love” as your post for Wota Wonderings #2.

That first little bit of nagaliciousness was brought to you in part by Berryz Koubou’s Gag 100kaibun Aishite Kudasai. The song that introduced me to Berryz, and remains one of my favorites to this day.

My original plan to sing a few love songs has failed. And well, this is by no means the best example of idol love, but it is my love, and it’s all I could come up with with all of life’s other goings on. If I had the time, perhaps I could learn a few dances. Oh what fun that could have been. In the end, I’ve decided to string together a few hiaku to show my “love” and support for Berryz Koubou.
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Wota Wonderings 1

Welcome to Wota Wonderings! We are a group of english-speaking Japanese music bloggers brought together once a month to answer questions posed by johpan. We strive to be creative and entertaining, and we may even shed a bit of new light on interesting musical and cultural topics. Any questions about how we work should be directed to johpan. Don’t forget to check out the other posts from this month at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!

New Year’s Resolutions

If you were someone in the Japanese music industry who could influence a change, what would your New Year’s resolution be?

So over winter break I was having a good long chat with my buddy JMI. Jamie, as she likes to be called, is a big time player in the Japanese music industry, heck you could even say that she is the Japanese music industry, from a female pop vocalist’s perspective anyway. In any case, I rarely get to talk to her anymore since she’s becoming so popular over in Japan and around the world really, so I was glad that were able to both find a little down time to reflect on the past and coming years.

At one point in our reminiscing, Jamie and I switched gears and began rattling off a list of resolutions that we’d like to stick to for the coming year. You know, loose a little weight, kicking off an image change, looking to the future and blah blah blah. We had been batting around quite a few ideas but one of hers really stuck out for me. Jamie was somewhat disappointed with some of her performances over the last year or so. Specifically, she has been releasing a lot of cover songs lately and felt that she was lacking in originality, she wasn’t singing her own voice so to speak.

On that point, I countered by admitting that covers can be fun, but in the end realized that I too was ready to move on. While we must always remember where we started, we must also push forward with great innovation. If I were in Jamie’s shoes, I’d probably have the same feeling. I mean, the list of covers wasn’t too grandiose, but a lot of  other Japanese artists had released cover songs too.

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