Hello Project, AKB48 and J-pop's explosion

YankeeOtaku’s latest blog ratings and news

Combined performing units of C-ute and Berryz Kobo, foreground, along with Morning Musume, sing “All for One,” a classic Hello Project anthem, during a huge concert Jan. 27 at Yokohama Arena.

Over the past 18 months, it has been my extraordinary experience to discover the vast universe of Japanese popular music, and to see just how that seismic combination of sound, motion and color has blessed Asia and will soon grace the entire globe.

But this inevitable transformation is not happening without friction and more than token resistance from the West. Ironically, J-pop and J-rock borrows generously from almost every era of American popular sound – blues and jazz from the 1920s-30s-40s, big-band sounds of the 1940s-50s, English pop rock, Motown sound, folk, disco and even classical.

Berryz Kobo, formed in 2004 as a junior group to Morning Musume, are shown performing in a packed-out concert on April 1, 2007, at Saitama Super Arena, Japan.

Yet, J-pop’s sound remains penetratingly unique. It is dominated by Tokyo’s so-called “boy bands” and “girlie pop-rock” groups, which are surging into prominence, but not without severe criticism from the Western pop music industry – despite J-pop’s creative roots being buried deeply in the West, specifically the US.

Dramatic marketing synergies are being created. The singers are trend-setters in food, fashion, cosmetics, tourism, fine dining and have spurred a huge influx in air travel and hotel use all around Japan’s major metroplexes – Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka in particular.

C-ute, formed in 2005 as a second junior group to Morning Musume, is a major pacesetter in teen fashion in Japan.

My research focus over the past 18 months has centered around a small segment of J-pop, the all-female company Hello! Project and its attendant units – flagship Morning Musume, junior groups Berryz Kobo and °C-ute, a training unit called the Eggs, and finally an academy in Tokyo without the shadow of Tokyo Tower in which students as young as 6 audition and begin training in a performing-arts discipline that defies description.

AKB48 entertains in July 2007 in Tokyo. Like Hello Project groups, AKB48 is attracting a rapidly growing fan base.

Secondarily, another movement that takes full commercial advantage of the never-ending, iconic legend of the Japanese schoolgirl uniform involves a smaller company, Office 48, which runs a number of high-octane music clubs in Tokyo. Among Office 48’s properties is the eighth floor of the old, classic Don Quijote Hotel in the heart of Tokyo’s Akihabara District. There, nightly, an excellent group of singers known as AKB48 stage live performances before a slowly growing and devoted fan base at a compact but explosive venue, the AKB48 Theater.

It is a marvelous universe, this J-pop phenomenon. I am thrilled to have discovered this treasure and to learn about its infinite possibilities.

This is Rad signing off – for now.