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BerryzCelebration wrote:Yeah I was going to bring that up too. Manatsu and the twins basically lived near each other in Chiba (?) since they were little. But I'm not sure Yukaren was raised in Japan like the others were? I'm not sure where Sakura or Naomi lived in Japan.

As far as I know Yukaren and Sakura are the two born in Japan (of the original five, it was only Sakura); in Ota and Oizumi, Gunma respectively.
(Isn't her name Mutsumi? )

Oh crap I'm thinking of Babyraids JAPAN (Their ace's name is Manatsu). I never knew that Sakura was born in Japan. That's surprising, I thought she was born in Brazil like all of the others. I guess not.

Well, even living in Japan, it's pretty obvious right now anyone who isn't 100% Japanese is going to have a hard time getting through the idol door (As an aside, I think the fact 100% Japanese Miki even lived in America for 8 years may hurt her popularity, but that's another conversation) and the lazy looking way foreign LOOKING acts generally are aren't helping. With Linda III Sei, there is some enthusiasm there, but the dancing is sloppy - they aren't even in sync, they just kind do the moves and hope the other girls follow but each time each girl is a half second before or after the other. The movements aren't sharp at all and its like watching a cover group do it instead of the actual band.

I would love to see a group like that really dig in and try.

I don't mean to sound nitpicky or rude (I agree with most of the stuff you said anout LIS's dancing), but you're kind of stating a lot of problems that are common among idol groups in Japan (foreign acts or not). You're probably more used to the mainstream idol groups, who are fortunate enough to be under big companies which means they get more "professional" idol training. Not every group is lucky enough to have that. Yeah, when you are deprived of opportunities like that, you should be pushing yourself even harder to get better but even then... It doesn't always work out like that. Now if LIS worked with the staff/teachers of Hello! Project or something, you'd probably see a change in the way they perform overall.

I don't watch Amateur idol groups, true. Because I don't like watching Amateurs. There's always a bit of no polish to all idol groups (Even H!P groups to start) but when the acts never get any better you wonder if they really want to be popular or not. One can't say that AKB is known for their dancing, but the group is at the very least in sync and sharper with their movements. It's not about C-ute levels of perfection here, and the training to be more in sync and be sharper in the movements wouldn't even be radical. It's dancing basics. To be honest, even the Ladybaby girls above were doing a better job there. I mean, it's pretty easy to tell even the ones who try are the more popular groups - Up Up girls for example are the Indie Queens and no one can really accuse them of being lazy.

But just so I couldn't be accused of doing my research I went and looked at some indie idols:
Meltia - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N3a4zwUaDs - in sync, movements are sharp.
Piiiin - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnYsn66Snv0 - movements sharp, generally in sync except for a few exceptions.
PPanashie☆a - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew24zn7CD0M - movements are sharp mostly, in sync.

Generally most of the videos I found of different idol groups were passable in the dancing department.

While most Non-Japanese acts tend to be very reminiscent of Coconuts Musume's first single.
I mean... do we all remember Beckii Cruel's big debut:



Yeah.

I don't have anything against Non-Japanese trying to break into the market - I even bought that Beckii Cruel single above to support the attempt - but man, it bothers me they don't really seem to try that hard.

(BTW I have the same problem with Japanese trying to break into the American market. Hikaru Utada changing her style "for the reasons" once she got an American record deal still bothers me. "You're easy breezy and I'm Japanese-y?" COME ON HIKKI)

I'm totally agreeing with you on this. But I think with foreign groups, they just don't have the "materials" needed to become great idols. I mean, most (if not all) are already unpopular in Japan because they're not Japanese, and most end up being with a lesser known company with teachers who probably don't push them as much as bigger companies do. Like Coconuts Musume was lucky enough to improve towards the end of their short career because Up Front Promotion has tons of good teachers who are willing to push the girls to their full capacity, and their able to get teachers like these to work with them (example: Sugai). That's part of the reason why, despite being an indies group, Up Up Girls are so well rounded as a group. All of them had at least a year of training, and they have really good choreographers that work with them (vocally, they're decent but they don't have any stand out singers like most H!P groups now do).

That's partially the reason why Japanese artists are so.... "different" when it comes to the American Market (like Utada Hikaru, as you pointed out). The Japanese music industry (well idols) is based on cuteness, at least a decent singing voice, dancing talent and a lot of energy. The America music industry is more mature songs and beautiful/strong voices. There's not a lot of dancing and energy that goes into this, which is why when foreigners (whose respective country might follow the same style as the American music industry) come into Japan for an idol career, they look so weird. When they turned on their music channel at home, they most likely didn't see what you'd normally see in JPop Idols (formation dances, tons of cutesy, group costumes, etc).

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm trying to force you to love foreign Jpop groups. You're completely entitled to your opinion and I respect it, I'm just putting my own opinion in here lol.

I am watching WOWOW Rock in Japan day 1 broadcast, and god I cannot stand the voice of Silent Siren lead singer. I know about their existent but did not know that their style is this pop/idol/anime-ish. That squeaky voice. They are good performers though.

Also, this group http://tokyogirlsupdate.com/kiyoshi-ryu ... 35032.html. WTH. LOL.

Just popping in to say, that AKB and Linda San Sei's dancing are about on par with eachother. AKB is pretty horrible with choreo lol especially at their height (around 2010-2012ish). With members being pushed everywhere, it's like they didnt have time to learn dances properly so choreo is all over the place. Watching any live appearance or concert will show you that lol it looks nicer in PVs because they can afford the fancy angles/editting, but yeah their dancing is bad. Linda can at least pass with bad dancing since they dont have as many resources as AKB does tho.

Another day, another Hashimoto Kanna CM.

I don't get it. Her smile is not appealing at all.