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... )

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... )

Akemashite omedetou!  Happy New Year!  Slowly but surely I'm uploading my Best of 2010 posts.  Here's the one for music - hibarisensei.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/best-of-2010-music/

I've changed up the categories so it's taking longer than usual (plus I actually had New Year's Eve plans).  Anyway, I hope 2011, the year of the rabbit, will be good for

This was originally written for Askew.

Immortal by D'espairsRay

To commemorate their tenth anniversary, D’espairsRay has released Immortal. A compilation consisting of handpicked tracks, the album shows the band’s evolution through their eyes. The cover art depicts flowers blooming over a skull-life triumphing over death.

The album opens with the ( Read more... )

In my last entry, I mention compiling songs representative of a stereotypical "J-Goth" for my Goth Stereotypes Party.  This was a lot harder than I expected since I have limited myself to one song per artist (so that the playlist isn't completely biased towards one stereotype).

The songs listed below all come from my own collection.  Therefore, I  ( Read more... )

There's a meme floating around, in which you're supposed to list 10 songs you love beginning with an assigned letter.  kayo_anno  gave me "R", and I decided to turn this into one of Hibari's Hi 8 Countdowns... only it's 8+2 here. At first I couldn't think of many, but once the gears in my head started turning (and I took a peak at my CDs), it was difficult ( Read more... )