Japanese music

[natsumi]

Hey guys!
There is something that I have been curious about for a while. I dunno all of you all's cultural heritages or anythign but I'm guessing that not everyone here is Japanese, or Asian for that matter. But it seems, from the "what are you listening to?" thread and other stuff that some/most of you are into J-pop and other aspects of Japanese culture. So my question is, how did you guys get involved in it? Did you ever go there? If you are not Japanese, how did you get into J-pop and stuff.

Well I'll start the thread.. BSSM came on Cartoon Network, I went online and searched it and found a plethora of sites, this was back when the community was at it's peak (so many nice sites shut down, The Sailor Sanctuary was a personal fav.) Anyway, back on track, so I slowly read about it and started to get interested in Japan. But I never pursued it or anything too much, I don't even know any Japanese bands and I've only read the name Ayumi Hamazaki on a million sites but never listened to her music.. most probably because I'm not Japanese and I don't understand it. Anyway, very recently thanks to the one and only Youtube I got into PGSM and started to like Japanese music and culture more, because I wasn't exposed to it as much in the anime since I've only watched the subbed version (i'm working on the dubbed). So yeah, I don't speak Japanese and am in no way knowledgeable about much in Japan. But, I have just listened to a song by the group Arashi called Love So Sweet and it is really cute and addictive And of course Hiroyuki Mastumoto is another reason to expand my Japnanese knowledge lolz

That was a super long post and if you read it, thanks! You must be bored as well.... So please tell me: Are you or are you not Japanese? Are you into Japanese pop culture? Do you keep up with it? How did it all start then if you do? Hehe thanks!

[Calico]

1) Not.

2) Yes. Otherwise I would probably want to kill myself everyday since I am a japanese studies major.

3) Only music. I don't care for dramas, etc.

4) SM + anime + anime music + Ayumi Hamasaki + omfg the Apocaplypse.

So, yeah. Safe to say that I listen to a whole lot of Japanese music. I listeo to other global music as well, but it's predominantly Japanese. What can I say, I'm a sucker for the language. (It sounds so pretty =) )

[natsumi]

Yeah.. that's exactly the phenonmenon I was trying to understand.. like how we are all drawn to another culture and really want to learn more about it.. and yes Japanese sounds so gorgeous and sweet

[Fujiko]

Well.. first off, I'm Chinese not that that really matters anyway because I live in Australia but Asian languages have always been a bit more in my range of interests than other languages.
Secondly, Sailor Moon was on when I was really young and I'd watch it before going to school every morning but it wasn't until Card Captor Sakura was on TV before I started to actually search about it. (I think that's how it went anyway).

Next thing you know, I'm studying Japanese at school. I'd just changed schools and that was the first year the school learnt Japanese. Yr 5 btw. So .. naturally, I became more interested in the language and because at the same time I was watching anime, I'd look up sites and things.

Somehow, my sister found Marmalade Boy and we tried to read the manga.. that started the manga trend but it didn't go full out until my sister hosted a Japanese student from her school. Still friends now but anyway, she had all these Japanese things and we learnt about Hikaru no Go and Final Fantasy and Japanese music and stuff from her. That got the manga/anime train rolling.

We heard our first ever Japanese music (JPOP.. not anime) from my sister's friend. It was Ayu's concert and then there was also Hirai Ken's music. I was never really into JPOP. Only the famous ones and all of it was sparked by some other form. Only Ayu wasn't.

EG. Utada Hikaru from Kingdom Hearts. (Hikari), YUI from Bleach, Yuna Ito from NANA the movie.. etc. It's weird because I feel like I've been listening to JPOP for ages but when I think about it.. I haven't really at all. It's only been recently. Before I started listening to JPOP it was all anime music like CCS and SM.

I also started watching animanga related musicals such as the Bleach and Prince of Tennis ones. They got me into certain actors (oh and PGSM did too) and so I learnt of other plays and dramas from there. And I listened to that music 24/7 as well.

So that's basically my story. I'm still learning Japanese now and I really want to go to Japan. I've never been before.. even though my school did offer it. My mum didn't let me go.

That was long... sorry. ^^;

[misaki]

I'm Asian and I live in Asia, so I've basically been surrounded by Japanese things (and other Asian things too, of course) my whole life. I grew up on movies like Seven Samurai. XD The first anime I ever watched was like... Doraemon or something. Sailor Moon was also one of my firsts and so was My Neighbour Totoro. I never really was into the whole anime and Japanese music thing though, because I hated listening to music and watching TV as a child. (I was kind of weird, now that I think about it!) I have some Sailor Moon trading cards though! XD I have no idea where I got them from.

I started listening to music by Ayumi Hamasaki, Hikaru Utada, Do As Infinity and Every Little Thing when I was about 10 or 11, but even then, I wasn't really into the whole thing. At that time, I liked those awful boybands like Westlife and Backstreet Boys way more. (No offence to fans XD) Then I met this girl at school who loved to draw anime-style art and I got interested. Slowly, I was introduced to anime like Cardcaptor Sakura (it was showing on TV then) and manga like X and Rurouni Kenshin. It was also during this time that I started listening to bands like X JAPAN and stopped listening to jpop. And I also developed this massive crush on Takuya Kimura. XD

It wasn't long before I started reading Love Hina and other manga and basically getting into the whole anime/manga thing. Then I started to play Final Fantasy (after putting it off for about 4 years) and got interested in Japanese RPGs and stuff. In 2004, I basically stopped reading manga or watching anime, except for, maybe, Death Note and some other series', because I became much more interested in music, more specifically, jrock. I have to blame Malice Mizer for getting me back into the whole jrock thing again.

Now, I'm basically into everything all at once. I've started to listen to some jpop again (like YUI) and I've gone on from Visual Kei jrock to more "normal" ones like AKFG or something. I watch anime or read manga occasionally, if I'm bored. I just don't watch the dramas. Never liked those. They are kind of corny, to me. XD

I'm also learning Japanese, although I don't think I'm that great at it. ^^; I'm really more into the whole culture there now, and the fashion. It's always interesting to read about their strange fetishes, like the whole tentacles thing, and like.. all the strange vending machines and everything. I've been to Japan a few times. It was pretty nice although you do meet the occasional rude person (there was this horrible man who kicked my bag and shouted at me, then complained about "young kids these days") and there's the scary districts with the gigolos and the want-to-be-a-model-aka-porn-star?-people. Oh, and the crowded trains. @_@

I think that was really long and kind of confusing. XD My brain's a little fuzzy so some things may be all jumbled up and weird.

[natsumi]

Fujiko and Misaki, thanks for posting. It is interesting the diversity we have here lol.. but as I can tell from both your posts we all <3 Japan

[seiya]

I'm not Asian as far as I know, but I've been very interested in other cultures since I was a child [identify confusion, thinking I had no ethnicity, which is silly now because I have bloodlines from many places], and Japan/China/Korea/other Asian cultures were no exception.

I like Japanese pop culture as well as it's historical culture . I don't really keep up with any current culture a whole lot, I'm so out of the loop, but if there's something I'm very curious about/obsessed over, I'll probably keep up to date with it.

I hardly remember my first taste of Japanese pop culture. I probably grew up with bits of it while it was becoming popular here - Pokemon, Sailormoon and so on. I also remember when I was very little, I watched a dub of a Christian anime, The Flying House, and I always loved the way it was so different and a lot more appealing than most American cartoons.

I remember some of my first Japanese songs were by Ayumi Hamasaki, from the Rurouni Kenshin anime and from Sera Myuu. I think I can even remember my first Ayu songs exactly - evolution, Dearest "Sentimental euroremix", Naturally "Human Mix" and Free & Easy "Energy extended mix". I also seem to recall, from RuroKen and Sera Myuu, It's Gonna Rain, LINK, Solar Miracle Make Up!, Kokoro Tabanete and of course La Soldier.

And from there I tried real hard to get more Japanese media. That got a lot easier once libraries started carrying manga and YouTube got big. XD I've been listening to Japanese music a long while, though, so I've picked up a lot of Japanese without formal lessons, though I am trying to teach myself now.

^^; That was also long. And not very well time-lined, because I tend to remember details and not dates . . . .

[mochibuni]

Not Japanese, but Korean, but I might as well be white. My best friend, however, is a first generation Taiwanese with a Chinese upbringing, so she would have passed off her music to me sooner or later. I also have a handful of close friends who are Japanese music enthusiasts and occasionally point me in a certain direction, though I could never really get into Johnny's groups since my boy group phase ended almost a decade ago.

My library of Japanese music is limited, and to be honest, it's not something I actively seek out. I do prefer music in English, which is where I do most of my music searching.

How I started listening to it? Generally, I download what I like (or what I think is painfully hilarious). I have a lot of Jdrama and Janime OP and endings. If I like the song well enough, I'll download their other music. However, this has only happened with three artists, so... It also helps that Japan has finally moved away from the horrible 80's electronic and early 90's sugar pop, or at least the rock music has been given more exposure.

And er...everybody wang chung tonight?

[Mousey]

I'm not Japanese; if you want to go zomg!crazy and trace my lineage, I'm actually German. =D So in short, no, lol.

I'm not really into Japanese pop culture ... and the only way I keep up with it is thanks to a certain Calico person. She gets me to download/watch new singles/PVs, so yeah. Don't get me wrong; it's not like I dislike it..... I'm just lazy. I don't even keep up with American pop culture (but that's more by choice than anything else). Japanese culture in general, though, is pretty high on my list.

I started listening to Japanese music via way of anime, naturally. Probably from watching Saturday Anime on the Sci-Fi Channel when I was 10 or 11; in fact, yes, that was exactly how I was first exposed to Japanese music. I ordered my first CD via some old game catalog when I was 12 ... Dragon Ball Z 18 1/2 Special. I still have it and listen to it today. =) We got the internet a year or two later (ZOMG I FEEL OLD) and again, a few years later, I started downloading music. GUESS WHAT KIND. <33

[Megumi]

1) Are you or are you not Japanese?
No. Although I'm very Asian XD.

2) Are you into Japanese pop culture? Do you keep up with it?
Only Music. I have an obssessive addiction to checking my LJ music communities and BT for new releases every day. Less so the BT since I got used to not checking it since BT is too slow in my residence.

3) How did it all start then if you do?
Anime! Somehow. The first actual Jpopper I listened to was probably... Utada Hikaru. My brother downloaded a whole bunch of versions of Fly me to the Moon way back when he watched Evangelion. I was rummaging through his music and liked the singer and looked for more of her music. This was around the time Distance was released =D.