The closing of Purple SKY was sad, but as one door shut, another opened. I have become a writer for JRock247 and NekoPOP. Now that doesn't mean I will stop writing about music here, but the reviews, interviews, and live reports will go up on those sites. Please check them out. You can also follow our updates on various social media websites.

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Once upon a time, a Tumblr named fuckyeah1990s decided to list what it considered the "Top 10 alt-girls of the 90s". The post created a lot of outrage due to the absence of women of color, and Tumblr user grrlyman responded with the post "Top alternative women of color of the 90s". It was nice to see one Asian woman on the list, but I thought that ( Read more... )

If you haven't seen them already, my Anime Matsuri interviews are up on purple SKY.  I asked FLOW about their reaction to the fan Q&A, which featured some personal and some bizarre questions.  It's something that I shouldn't be surprised by after all the Q&As I've sat in on, but I always get caught off-guard by something either really bold or ( Read more... )

Last year, I did a countdown of my top love songs by female vocalists. I had intended to follow up with a White Day counterpart, but then the earthquake happened. Now I'm hoping that this belated White Day special will cheer everyone up just a tiny bit. I've tried to stick to my original guidelines of no covers and no songs about lost loves and ( Read more... )

Two months ago, I wrote a post about the portrayal of Snow White in anime and manga. I had decided to follow it up with a music post like I did with Alice in Wonderland before I got caught up with year-end recaps and other posts. Now that I've got time on my hands again, I can now present my list, the rankings for which are based on both the music ( Read more... )

The K-pop invasion continued in 2011, but it could not topple the AKB48's dominance. 2010's artist of the year managed to claim all top 5 slots in the Oricon rankings for best-selling singles. Despite this, the past year brought in some fresh faces as well as familiar ones who have decided to portray themselves in a different light. We also bid ( Read more... )

There was a Tumblr meme where you had to search for a keyword in your music library and name the first song that pops up. I thought I would do it with Japanese titles, which turned out to be harder than expected. It seems that while American song titles use a lot of the same keywords, Japanese ones don't. Or maybe you just don't see these ( Read more... )

I reviewed exist†trace's latest album, The Last Daybreak.  You can check it out over at Purple Sky, which has links on where you can find their music.

It has been a while since I've updated with earthquake and tsunami relief information. The news in America has all but ceased coverage, and life in some areas have returned to normal. However, rebuilding entire towns takes years so this post serves a dual purpose of showing that every little bit does count for something and of keeping you updated ( Read more... )

Here's the last of my unpublished A-kon 21 articles for Askew: the Seikima II press conference. My colleague Mai Koua Thao and I were both present, but we split up our reports such that she wrote about the concert from the previous night while I did the press conference.

To celebrate their 25th anniversary, heavy metal band Seikima II reunited and ( Read more... )