Tonight I took on ‘Gyaru‘ culture, a false promise of a movie, KCON updates and the best hits! Join me in the latest episode of What the Bop?! for the latest in Asian entertainment!
Listen to the episode here:
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News:
Fairies release music video for latest single, ‘Bangin’ which will be featured on their upcoming studio album ‘Jukebox’ to be released June 20th.
King&Prince, Johnny&Associates’ latest boy band have set a new record for record sales with their debut single, ‘Cinderella girl’ with 577,000 copies sold. This is the biggest sales record for a debut this decade since KAT-TUN with ‘Real Face’ when they sold 574,000 copies in March of 2006.
The single is also the theme song to the drama, ‘Hana Nochi Hare ~Next Season,’ which also stars band member Hirano Sho.
Their anan (a popular Japanese magazine) cover edition, which came out the same day as their debut, sold out, which prompted a reprint. This is only the second time this has happened in the magazine’s history, the first time being back in January of 2010 for Sakurai Sho from Arashi
Morning Musume 18 will be holding a concert in Mexico City! The concert will take place on November 10th, 2018 at the Countess Plaza, as a part of their ‘Morning Musume Tanjou 20 Shuunen Kinen Concert Tour 2018 Haru ~We are MORNING MUSUME~ Final’ tour. There are three ticket tiers, and I about had a heart attack when I read the prices.
From $890, $1,600, $3,200 for the most expensive ticket. The tickets are being handled by ticketmaster and will go on sale June 16th.
Thelma Aoyama celebrates Gyaru culture in her latest music video, ‘Sekai no Chuushin ~We Are The World~’ which is also paired up with ParaPara dance, which is also a part of the Gyaru culture. There are 50 Gyaru models in her music video, including members of Black Diamond, a Gyaru circle often referred to as the “top gal unit”. The video also features a cameo from YouTuber kemio, DJ Alisa Ueno, comedian Koriki Choshu, and a special namedrop for OG Gyaru influencer Namie Amuro.
‘Gyaru’ is the Japanese transliteration for ‘gal,’ and it’s a culture of subcultures if you will in Japan that was extremely popular in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.
I actually have a book explaining a lot of Japanese styles for women, which ranges from the 1960’s-2007. It’s pretty interesting. It’s titled, ‘Japanese School Girl Inferno: Tokyo Teen Fashion Subculture Handbook.’ It was given to me by a friend of mine back in Junior college. It’s really insightful if you’re into this sort of thing. And luckily it comes in handy today.
Some of the Gyaru fashions you’ll notice in the music video are Banba, Manba, and Gonguro.
So my excitement of the re-emergence of a classic Japanese sub-culture aside, this new track, ‘Sekai no Chuushin ~We Are the World~’ will be appearing on Thelma’s latest upcoming album, ‘Highschool Gal,’ to be released on July 25th.
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The first two artist updates have been announced for KCON LA. They are Chungah and Wanna One. Yeah. Wanna One twice in a row. And I get to see them twice in one year. Oh great. At least I have Minhyun from Nu’Est to look forward to, right? They’re hardworking, but they’re just not my cup of tea.
Park Bo Gum and Song Hye Kyo are considering lead roles for the drama ‘Boyfriend.’ If accepted, filming will begin in a few weeks and it will begin airing near the end of this year. The two are actually good friends and Park participated in Song’s wedding.
Seungri of BIGBANG is the new model for the Korean version of the dating app Tinder, literally no one is surprised he’s a bit of a playboy and we love him for it. It’s a well known fact in the fandom and in the industry, this was going to happen sooner or later.
YG wants to give BI, Mino, and Kang Seung Yoon solos, oh and BlackPink’s comeback is being pushed back to June. LeeHi *technically hasn’t done any studio work since her OST since ‘Golden Slumber‘ back in February (ish) and lord knows what Suhyun of AKMU is doing. She’s SUPPOSED to be doing solo activities I mean, they could be doing Hi-Suhyun, their sub-unit but that seems to be too difficult. I don’t know I’m not a professional.
Anyway, backing away from my bitterness, let’s get back to stuff, like AOA, SHINee, Pristin all released their music videos in the past few days and you should look at them and appreciate them.
Ms. ThugBear 