Sunday, December 21, 2014

Top Idol things of 2014

So, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and make a list of my favorite idol-y things from this year. This is not a review, if I did a review it would be horrible. This is just a reflection of what I enjoyed over this year.

I should note, there are some groups that I really like that are hard to keep track of. It's tough to figure out when their songs came out, especially if there is basically no information on them online outside of twitter and random YouTube videos. As such, a lot of this list is comprised of more well-known idol groups.

Favorite A-sides (Singles)

I didn't feel like explaining why I like each song because it would get pretty repetitive.

01. BiS - STUPiG

 


 

02. Tokyo Girls' Style - Partition Love

 

 

 

03. Dempagumi.inc - Sakura Apparition

 


 

04. Berryz Koubou - Romance wo Katatte

 


 

05. pla2me - Plastic 2 Mercy

 


 

06. Juice=Juice - Senobi

 


 

07. Morning Musume - What is LOVE?

 


 

08. E-Girls - Diamond Only

 


 

09. Morning Musume - Toki wo Koe, Sora wo Koe

 


 

10. Especia - Adventure wa Giniro ni

 


 



Favorite B-sides/Album Tracks/other

 

01. Especia - Abyss 

 


 

02. Especia - No1 Sweeper

 


 

03. Especia - FOOLISH

 


 

04. Kamen Joshi - Marine Road

 


 

05. AKB48 - Hajimete no Drive

 


 

06. Especia - BayBlues

 


 

07. Guso Drop - Level

 


 

08. Especia - Kurukana

 


 

09. Aither - Fireworks ~Senkou Hanabi~

 


 

10. E-Girls - Fancy Baby

 


 

11. AKB48 - Ambulance

 


 

12. Aither - 1 carat star

 


 

13. Especia - Mount Up

 



 

 14. HKT48 - Oboete Kudasai

 


 

15. Armorgirls - A!Chu A!Chu

 



Groups that made an impact on me

Time for actual thought.

1. Aither

2014 was a wild ride for me as an Aither fan. I must have unknowingly used up all of my luck for that year what with them coming to America! Seeing Misaki in person was just amazing and really showed me what having an oshi is all about. It made me reconsider my enjoyment of the groups and idols I followed at the time, which led to me losing most of my interest in the ***48 groups outside of my favorites. Earlier I was worried about how I would move on after their disbandment, but now that it's a little over a week away I think that I'll be fine. I want to meet Misaki again, but it's more important to me that she does what makes her comfortable.

2. Alice Project/Kamen Joshi

I had known of AP before 2014, but it was only in the second half of 2014 that I really got into them. I watched a bunch of their live performances and was really impressed by one girl, Amaki Jun. As a result I started following her pretty closely and fell in love with most of Alice Project. I would consider them my favorite group now with Aither disbanding.

3. Morning Musume

I decided to watch one of their concerts on a whim when someone I know streamed it and was blown away by their performance level. I watched more of their concerts, then some of their TV shows, then I read the blogs of the members I was interested in...I was pretty caught up in it for a good month or two, lol. At this point I've settled down a bit and mostly just follow Harunan, and Daaishi to a lesser extent. That's gonna change with 12th gen though! Miki is the cutest. So happy she knows English.

4. BiS

Well, not so much BiS but what happened after BiS. Pla2me and Tentenko's solo release (that's technically 2015 but whatever!) are both looking great. I'm excited to see where Billie Idol goes as well.

5. Especia

Especia continues to put out music that matches my tastes perfectly. I'm happy they're getting a major debut, but I think the members are nervous about it and it's making me feel a bit uneasy about the whole thing...


My "Kami7"

Looking back on this year, these 7 idols were the ones that I paid the most attention to and cared the most about.

01. Misaki (Aither)

 

 

02. Amaki Jun (Armorgirls)

 

 

03. Ayaka (Flare la Mode Ace)

 

 

04. Wakita Monari (Especia)

 

 

05. Iikubo Haruna (Morning Musume)

 

 

06. Iwasa Misaki (AKB48)

 

 

07. Tashima Meru (HKT48)

 

 



Looking forward to seeing more of in 2015

01. Nonaka Miki (Morning Musume)
02. Miyamoto Karin (Juice=Juice)
03. Maeda Natsumi (OZ)