A History: Part Two

In my previous instalment, I shared with you the beginnings of my entry into the wide world of Asian popular culture, and the foundations of my current tastes in music.

Continuing on, shall we?

Part Two - Growth

2006-2007: The Otaku Kid who Ventured After Quality. And Armin. 

Notable songs: Hare Hare Yukai (Hirano Aya, Chihara Minori, Goto Yuuko); colorless wind (Aira Yuuki); Why (Aly & Fila Remix) (FKN feat. Jahala); It's True (Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso)

I began my path to becoming an otaku, following most of the latest anime series and grabbing all the latest anison OP/EDs. But nothing had as much a great impact to my otaku thinking as Kyoto Animation did when Suzumiya Haruhi was introduced to anime audiences worldwide - to much critical acclaim, including from myself. It was a hallmark in anime series - a craftily shaped plot structure, characters filled to the brim with both dynamicism and mystery and, more importantly, stellar production values. What better way to top it all off with one of the most influential, and ear-wormy, anison EDs of all time: the classic Hare Hare Yukai. All this pretty much aligned my interests with a highly KyoAni-influenced route, a path littered with immensely high animation quality. And, in the case of Kanon and Clannad, tissues. Of course, it wasn't exclusively KyoAni, with SHAFT-produced series gaining a lot of personal momentum and interest.

Whilst my Japanese music tastes continued to trend towards the anison spectrum, things changed dramatically over in the dance music scene. And indeed, 2007 was the beginning of change. Early 07 didn't see much change: words like "Ibiza Annual" and "Clubbers Guide to..." continued to fill up my iTunes library, but I was moving away from my die-hard "WMA 64kbps only" policies to one accepting of MP3. And Apple. Then came that fateful day, of which I can't fully recall how I managed to stumble upon it. The album was called "A State of Trance 2007, Mixed by Armin van Buuren". Not knowing what it was, I listened to it. 

And I was floored. The most amazing melodical structures, coupled with frantically high-speed, heavyweight bass lines, filled my ears. Over the following few weeks and months, I began to slowly build up my stock in this new world of music called "progressive trance".

By the later stages of 2007, it appeared as if my library of music, and music interests, consisted of two primary domains - anison and vocal/progressive trance. 

2008-2009: The Wide World of Oricon Song Packs

Notable songs: Baby cruising love (Perfume); Step and Go (Arashi); Beauty Hides in the Deep (John O'Callaghan Remix) (The Doppler Effect); Shoujo Meiro de Tsukamaete (@Lantis ver.) (Misato Aki); edge (⊿-mix) (Perfume); Aurora (Nitrous Oxide)

It was mid-late 2007 and early 2008. Friends' tastes changed and suddenly anime was no longer "in vogue" amongst my current peers (actually, it still was, albeit on a reduced scale thanks to adjustments in friend networks at the time). Perhaps, I felt, I needed to "get out" of the anime otaku sphere a little and explore the rest of what Japanese popular culture offered.

I credit whoever uploads those "Oricon Top 20" song packs for kickstarting my exposure into mainstream J-pop. In fact, long before Tokyohive, I was heavily reliant on these Top 20 chart packs (and Wiki/Google of course) in introducing me to a wide variety of J-pop artists that I would not have otherwise known about, or at least reintroducing me to them when (back when I was a bit younger a couple of years ago) I would've simply shrugged them off out of disinterest - Momusu, I'm looking at you.

But it was the very first Top 20 weekly pack (one of the Feb 2008 ones, if I recall correctly) that arguably made the biggest impact in my listening tastes. There was a song there by an artist named Perfume titled "Baby cruising love". So, like most of the other tracks in the pack, I gave it a shot. The feeling was revolutionary to my ears - up until then, I have never heard Japanese electro-pop in this form or style before. Technically speaking, there was nothing groundbreaking per se. But to me, it fuelled my desire not only to find out more about, and follow, Perfume (and Nakata Yasutaka, their producer) but also the entire world of mainstream J-pop.

As that year progressed, I discovered and started to appreciate new artists that I wouldn't have paid attention to previously - for example, Arashi (and the entire Johnny's Ent. family), Morning Musume, Ikimonogakari, Ketsumeishi, Kato Miliyah to name a few. Genres ranging from as diverse as rock to R&B/rap and bubblegum pop in between. It was even through Oricon that I discovered K-pop artists (e.g. KARA, SNSD) who performed in Japanese. Really though, my focus was all on Perfume and the sounds of Shibuya-kei inspired pop.

As the amount of "stock" in trance music increased, I began to wane in my attention of Ministry of Sound label dance music. There was a slowly declining interest in dance/funky house music as, perhaps suggestive of puberty, I began to be more "emotional", "affective", and thus informed my demands in music, of which trance could provide, but not traditional Ministry of Sound funky house/dance music (especially given dance music tastes leaned increasingly all the more towards electro-house). "The Annual" suddenly gave way to "A State of Trance".

One other area that was significant at that time was the fairly niche anison remix market. Historically speaking, the EXIT TRANCE label made the biggest impact with their anison remix albums blending in a fairly bearable mix of hardcore trance, electro-synths and (cover) anison vocals that combined "the best of both worlds" to some extent. Higher quality came in the form of Lantis' own @Lantis own-label anison remix albums, of which I was thoroughly impressed with.

Nevertheless, the entire "anison remix phase" didn't last that long as my interests equilibrated back to a wholly J-pop and trance music portfolio, led by Armin (van Buuren) and Perfume. Which, subsequently, brought me to purchase my very first music album - Perfume's ⊿.

2008-2009: Turning Point - The "Large Girls Choir"

Whilst all the above was going and Perfume started to rapidly gain traction, within one of the Oricon Top 20 charts packs (specifically in a March 2008 one), there was this peculiar little song. It was called "Sakura no Hanabiratachi 2008" by a group called "AKB48". Having the faintest of idea who the heck this "AKB48" group was, I listened to it for the very first few times. My initial impressions were positive, but not in any sustainable way - good, but nothing really memorable (apart from a few relations to real-life at the time regarding graduations and what not but I digress). After all, I was pretty big on Perfume so why bother? And what did I think of the group itself? TV Tropes summed it up best: looking at the cover art, it was along the lines of "a (girls) group with loads and loads of members". I thought it was a giant girls singing group, like a choir. A quick trip to the Wiki corrected my initial understanding. The idea of a girl group with 48 members (and with nothing more than just three letters and two numbers for its name) seemed incredibly excessive and bizarre for my tastes. Needless to say, the song never got too much more than a mere passing interest; the actual group even less.

That was my very first exposure to what was to become an integral part of my current identity as an otaku and idol fan. Obviously I would never have realised until much later in time, as I shall continue recounting.

My next exposure to this "AKB48" thing that year came in the form of two releases - the digital (Napster) release of Baby! Baby! Baby! and Oogoe Diamond. I only largely listened the former once, and subsequently passed over it - the low 128kbps didn't help its cause either. As for Oogoe, for the most part I overlooked it. Even questioned the cover art too - a plain white background with nothing more than a girl shouting? Apart from a few runs in the car stereo, I quickly formed the opinion that it was just cheap and derivative bubblegum pop that never really excited my ears. Whilst I'm nowhere near as critical of Oogoe now (even though I don't currently rank it highly) as I was back then, you can get a grasp of the feeling I felt towards the group: an interesting concept, but nothing exceptional to pull me in and explore further.

Then came 2009. The packs kept rolling out onto the internet. And my interest still didn't go anywhere. First was something from a group called "Watarirouka Hashiritai" with their (what was actually their first) song release, "Hatsukoi Dash". At the time, I never knew they were actually a part of "AKB48". Unfortunately, my first impressions were, admittedly, worse than what I wrote above of Oogoe. Not only did it sound crap (at 128kbps, considering Watarirouka's usual sibilant genki "cute" sound, that's a horrid combination), I brushed it aside, labelling it as "music clearly targeted for kids". The cover art, displaying "these little girls" helped me to throw another nail in the coffin (didn't even bother to research further about those girls either, except for their names... which I quickly forgot soon after). Their later release that year, "Kanpeki Guu~ no ne", did nothing to rectify or change my initial opinion and understanding of them either.

Progressing through the first half of the year, I literally ignored 10-nen Zakura and (the AKB Idoling!!! collaboration) Chuu Shiyouze!, instead choosing to focus on dance/trance music albums, anison (K-ON! gained substantial play around this time) and Perfume. Thus I still never thought highly of this "AKB48" group thing. Yet this "AKB48" group kept popping up in these Oricon Top 20 song packs, making them difficult to simply ignore.

Then came Namida Surprise in the middle of the year. Perfect timing, too, since my birthday was coming up. And hey, I found a song that was actually quite decent-sounding, even before taking into account its lyrical relevance at the time. Not since last year's Sakura no Hanabiratachi was there an AKB48 song that I was fairly positive about. I watched the PV too - found it was colourful and fun. Nothing wrong with that. And, as minor as it was, Murakami Takashi's cover artwork was attractive and quirky enough. Thus, amidst all the Perfume brouhaha (⊿ was released that month) Namida Surprise got a surprisingly high number of play runs.

Nothing really significant happened during the following few months* in terms of my music and anime tastes. Eden of the East and K-ON! were the orders of the day, and my fascination with J-pop, anison and trance music continued unabated.

On the 27th October in 2009, after I woke up in the morning, I went to check what kind of songs were included in the latest Oricon Top 20 charts. I saw yet another song by AKB48, titled "RIVER". I put on my headphones for a preview listen.

This was the defining moment that changed everything and, arguably, the pivotal turning point that really got me hooked into AKB48.

Part 3, the final instalment, continues here.

*Small note: the seasoned AKB48 fan in you would have noticed that they released "Iiwake Maybe" in between Namida Surprise and RIVER. However, I never actually grabbed every single weekly Oricon Top 20 charts pack that has been released; thus that single was skipped during this period. Technically speaking, it wasn't to be until early next year that I first had exposure to the song.