atmospherium said:

Crayon Pop are finally back with a new batch of cool and quirky songs. The video for "FM" will surely result in more "Momoclo ripoff" charges, but forget that and listen to the song. It's one of their best, a return to the pre-"Bar Bar Bar" sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tna90t2je-4

Humm.. Momokuro didn't invent the color code for its members, but there is a obvious influence from MCZ on Crayon Pop. I wouldn't go as far as calling it rip-off, but the similarities are too obvious to say coincidence.
Too bad be cause Crayon Pop has some good songs and interesting choreographies, and they strike me as hard workers, but blame their management for not coming up with something less suspicious

Finally found the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious song by Dempagumi (and Hyadin's) It's everything I imagined and more, I laughed from beginning to end.
http://oogoediamondd.tumblr.com/post/114935641838/inc-supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Paco said:

Aiai on the cover?

at: 6:08 ,,,

That's new "IDOL AND READ 003"

It was earlier this year, when Karin Maruyama's appearance on Idol Station popped up on the H!O tracker, that I learned about her for the first time. Since elementary school she had been battling cancer. It then was last Saturday when I read the sad news about her death. Karin passed away on May 22, 2015 at the age of 21:

http://tokyogirlsupdate.com/karin-maruyama-goodbye-20150546238.html

Due to her physical condition she had to stop and restart her activities many times, but that didn't keep her from going after her dream of being an idol. Even after she got the diagnosis in October 2014 that the cancer had spread to her lungs she didn't give up and instead launched a successful crowd-funding campaign to finally release her first single "Eternal Summer". When she wasn't able to dance anymore due to her poor physical health she performed while sitting down. And even when her lungs had already been damaged by cancer she still did her best to sing her songs as best as she could.

She was a strong person.

I wanted to share her story with you, so I included some more info below, as well as 3 videos which show a bit of Karin's life and acitivities.

From http://tokyogirlsupdate.com/karin-maruyama-eternal-summer-20150338250.html:

"Karin Maruyama was born on August 2, 1993 in Koriyama City, Fukushima, Japan. When she was in elementary school, it was discovered that she had a malignant brain tumor and underwent several surgeries during that time. Karin was the student council president and was asked to give the speech as the graduate representative at her high school. Three days after the graduation ceremony, she was in the hospital for her 3rd surgery with her 4th several weeks after. Undeterred, she applied for several idol auditions from the hospital and caught the attention of an agency.

In 2012 she was selected as a semifinalist in Kodansha’s MISS iD 2013 audition, alongside Haruka Oba (drop) and Ayana Kinoshita (Sunmyu~) and had her first performance in December of the same year. However, Karin entered the hospital for her 5th surgery in February of 2013 and was forced to halt her activities. She restarted a few months later in April but was again sidelined by her 6th surgery that June. Karin held her first solo concert that September and famous composer CHEEBOW wrote “Eternal Summer” for her. Plans were set in motion for Karin to have a second concert that December but it was cancelled due to her 7th and most recent surgery. In October of 2014, it was discovered that some of the cancer cells from her brain tumor had migrated to her lungs through her bloodstream.

Despite all these setbacks, Karin set up a successful crowdfunding campaign on campfire where she doubled her goal and her first single “Eternal Summer” went on sale on February 28, 2015 and shortly after the MV for the song was released."

Arudo said:

I saw this on Tokyo Girls Update as well.
I think that if you needed a proof about how amazing a human being can be, Karin would be a great example.
Really, really sad history.
What I think is the real deal here: Most people that are not into the idol world can't understand how much of an impact idols can make. Regardless of her condition she was able to make people smile when she performed.

Normally I don't get too sentimental about this topics, but damn this was really hard to write down.

An amazing example of the human will to live and live fully.
I'm just coming off of surgery here a few days ago and I can't imagine where she found the strength to fight back against her cancer seeing as how weak it makes you.
Very inspirational.
Thanks for the share! :)

^ That was awesome. I was waiting for them to finally release something, I wasn't dissapointed. The guy seem like such a cool dude and the girls are great too. They have a lot of chemistry together, it's definitely fun to watch. I'll keep an eye on them.

My issue with Deathrabbits has always been the visuals, the girls are too young (one in particular) and the guy is detached from them. They're on my list of music to check without watching their videos, because when I do I always feel that it's too compartmentalized, like the guy has his parts and the girls their parts but they arent really together.

I love DEATH RABBITS, but I can understand what you both say. Especially Emi (?) looks very young - and small.
I am listening to LADYBABY on repeat for 2 days now, and I like it every time more, it seems. ;-)
And the Rolly guitar solo is nice (and first I thought Rei with the guitar was a joke, but she has or had a band called BRATS (?) and can play guitar ...).

Well, people see them as BM-clones because they don't know anything about idol music, IMO. In my opinion there was a lot of experimenting with music genres in the idol scene since ... loooong ago. Even rock (like Buono!), funk, jazz and so on.
And I can remember a lot of fan mixes and cover versions from Morning Musume in a metal way, dated back to years like 2006 or so. So at least the fans were earlier with this ... ;-)

Like:

or:



Rei's Band: http://brats.tk/

EDIT: My "problem" with Babymetal was from the start, that they are too bound in this one genre. That's why I seldom listen to their whole album, I am simply bored. In smaller doses I love it. But in general I love idol music because they are mostly not bound like this. Bound in style but not in a genre.

i haven't listened to it in forever because i've been listening to the same 12 songs or whatever for 2+ years. they seriously need to release something new.

and yeah, to repeat what i said before, a lot of western babymetal fans are quick to dismiss other acts as clones, primarily because they don't listen to jpop/idol music and don't realize that just because they're probably the biggest examples of that style, it doesn't mean they were the first or only act.