Halcali is an all female pop and hip-hop duo from Tokyo. Halca and Yucali have excellent harmony but are too “bubblegum” for my taste. Their album Halcali Bacon was the first album from an all female group to top Japan’s Oricon charts. The duo is remarkably flexible; they have been able to change with the…
Category: Culture
High and Mighty Color
High and Mighty Color started as a Metallica cover band and worked their way up to fame until they broke apart in 2010. Honestly, I didn’t know Japan had Metallica cover bands. The band started in Okinawa like many other bands. American and Japanese music traditions mix and swirl on that island apparently. (Perhaps to…
Cure
When starting this Japanese horror project I did a bit of research into what films were considered the very best of the genre. Several top ten lists later I noticed one name besides Ringu, Ju-On, and Audition kept cropping up: Cure. So naturally I wanted to watch it, but for whatever reason it took me…
Hatsune Miku – Vocaloid
Hatsune Miku is computer software made in Japan that can produce singing by just typing in lyrics and a melody. Technically the backbone of the Hatsune Miku is Yamaha’s vocaloid software. Vocaloid even has released albums. The singer is known as Hatsune Miku and is an anime girl around the age of 16. Yeah, that…
Home Made Kazoku
Home Made Kazoku ( in English it’s “Home Made Family”) is a feel-good hip hop group from Japan. Now normally I can’t stand hip-hop, but this group has uplifting beats and lyrics that makes me smile. The group isn’t anywhere close to the American (c)rap that just talks about ehem “bitches, bling, and guns.” Home…
Okami
Okami is currently my favorite video game. I don’t mean to sound fickle, I’m not. Okami has been at the top of my list for almost two years, for a few reasons. #1. I am a graphic oriented person. I like pretty pictures and Okami happens to have stunning graphics. The world is artistically rendered…