Channel-Ai Community Blog - JPop reviews, articles

MIYU Guitar and Vocals DoB: 20/05/1988 Blood Type: B Height: 156cm

MIZUHO Drums and Vocals DoB: 12/12/1986 Blood Type: A Height: 153cm

MAIKO Bass and Vocals DoB: 24/07/1986 Blood Type: O Height: 154cm

TOMOKA Guitar and Vocals DoB: 19/09/1986 Blood Type: O Height: 160cm

TAKAYO Ex-Guitar and Ex-Vocals DoB: 13/06/1985 Blood Type: A Height: 154cm

In 1999, Studio Runtime held an audition in Sapporo for a new type of group that they called a “bandoru” (band+idol, a group that could both dance and play instruments). Initially, 8 members were picked, but that was later shortened to 4: TAKAYO, MIYU, MIZUHO and MAIKO. This became ZONE. The name “ZONE” refers to the group’s goal, starting from the bottom, or “Z” (the last letter in the alphabet), all the way to number one (“ONE”).

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Rika Ishikawa Birthday: January 19th, 1985 Birthplace: Kanagawa Blood type: A

Erika Miyoshi Birthday: November 8th, 1984 Birthplace: Hokkaido Blood type: B

Yui Okada Birthday: December 28th, 1987 Birthplace: Osaka Blood type: A

I’d like to share with you a semi-new group in the Hello! Project: Biyuuden. Biyuuden is made up of 3 girls: Rika Ishikawa, Erika Miyoshi, and Yui Okada. Rika is a former Morning Musume member, while Erika was chosen in a 2003 Hello! Project audition, and Yui was one of the many girls that advanced in the Hello! Project “Egg” Audition.

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Namie Amuro (安室奈美恵) was born at Naha, Okinawa prefecture, on 20th of September 1977. Her parents divorced while she was only a toddler, leaving her mother responsible for bringing up Namie and her 3 siblings all alone. The low funds of the family didn’t prevent Namie from chasing her dreams to be a star. She was attending Okinawa Actors School successfully, despite her having to walk everyday for 2 hours to go and return from the school - her family couldn’t afford public transportation.

At her fifteen, she formed a girl group with some classmates of hers, called “SUPER MONKEY’S”, under TOSHIBA EMI label. At first, their sales were pretty decent but after the 5th single “TRY ME ~私を信じて~” (01/25/1995), the group started having proper recognition at the charts, getting into the top 10 and being invited at 紅白歌合戦 (Kouhaku Uta Gassen), a big annual music show. During that period, the group had already moved in Tokyo and changed its name to “Namie Amuro with SUPER MONKEY’S” with Namie taking the upper hand and the lead role of the group. The two following singles made big success as well, resulting to Avex, through the superstars’ producer Tetsuya Komuro, noticing the band, offering a solo career contract for Namie. The rest of the members regrouped with the name Musical Active eXperience or, simply, MAX.

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Name: Caroline Lufkin
Birthplace: Okinawa
Residence: Los Angeles

I’m sure quite a few of you have heard of Olivia Lufkin, a singer from Avex Trax. Olivia Lufkin is half Japanese and half American and has sung in a variety of styles ranging from rock to ethereal pop and alternative.

Caroline Lufkin is Olivia’s sister who currently resides in the United States and is working on releasing her first release with the company Temporary Residence Limited. Caroline moved around a lot when she was younger since her father was formerly a Marine, though was originally from Okinawa. She graduated from Berklee School of Music in Boston in 2003. Caroline writes her own material, and has a voice not unlike that of Björk. Caroline’s voice has also featured on several advertisments in the Japanese market.

“Where’s My Love” is planned to be her debut single. Produced by Sweden-born Andreas Bjorck, this track is a very soothing and has this unearthly feel to it. The song itself is rather captivating and ethereal especially with the addition of her soft voice. The background music gives you memories of those music boxes and wind chimes. One can also notice how her voice is quite similar to her sister’s, apart from sounding more delicate and less powerful. In this track I believe that Caroline has proved herself as excellent in her fragile vocal abilities as her sister as she subtly controls her singing to express the sorrow and longing in the verse. The result is a composition that swells with novelty and charm.

It has come to my attention that her debut will be on October 25th, according to her MySpace entry.

1. Where’s My Love
2. Where’s My Love (Magical Mix)
3. Time Swells

Locofrank is one of the rock band which formed by three young guys from Osaka - 木下 正行(Vo/Ba)、森 勇介(Gt/Vo) and 笹原 達也(Ds/Cho).

I will call Locofrank as Japanese Greenday, but I am sure they not gonna release any song like Japanese Idiot. Those who love Greenday should give Locofrank a try, I know you will love their songs. Now I only found Japan having lotsa “not that famous” rock bands are really good, just like the doa I introduced to all earlier on. I think they are even better than L’Arc~en~Ciel. Anyway, it’s just my 2 cents and I truly hope this won’t offence any L’Arc~en~Ciel fans.

Shared Time is their new single which released on 25th of August 2005. The official site entitled this as mini album because there included 5 songs. The first song Recall is kinda noisy if you rarely get involve with rock, but this is the song I love most in this mini album. For the second song Share, I hope you guys can concentrate on the vocal because I found Kinoshita san (木下 正行) was trying to play with his vocal and that’s really funny. Besides, I love the melody of guitar. The next song will be Put Feeling Into the Shadow, compare to other songs this song is not that noisy but more likely to be american rock song. If you don’t listen to the lyrics, you may think that’s a song which sang by any US rock band. The 4th song The Ones who Seek is basically similar with the previous songs, so I will not elaborate too much on this and you guys should find this out by your own. The last song OVERJOYED, obviously this song is softer than other songs which means the vocal is fully exposed. From this song, you will see how funny his vocal is but definately I am saying the vocal sucks. You really should try this out in order find out why I think the vocal is funny.

1. Recall
2. Share
3. Put Feeling into the Shadow
4. The Ones who Seek
5. OVERJOYED