This is a throwback post from December 2012 featuring Mai Kuraki (倉木麻衣). This a refresher for me after discovering her album again from a vendor several years ago at MTAC Omega, and getting lost in the Hallyu Wave. Returning to my J-Pop roots, I talked about what makes her different from a similar artist in her genre.
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I originally drafted this article years ago for the old blog, finding the original .txt file in the depths of my Dropbox folders. This is a list, in no particular order, of my Top 5 Favorite Anime Opening and Ending Theme Songs.
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I’m a sucker for music from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. But I also adore the music from Sega in general. I don’t know what it is about it that makes their music magical. It’s not a 90s thing, but the jonesing for even modern SEGA Sound Team sounds is strong.
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I normally cover songs you may not have heard of before, or rather ones that fall in the indie spectrum, and general obscurity. But this one is a good candidate for those who have just gotten into K-Pop, especially in the current BTS era (or Generation 3, for a veteran such as myself–more to come in another post). One of my favorite K-Pop groups is BIGBANG, which I’ve followed since their debut, and one of the members is Taeyang who released one of his memorable solo singles of his career in 2009.
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Back in October 2019, I finally got the chance to travel to Seoul, Korea, for my very first out of country trip. While we were there, we checked out the COEX Aquarium, located in the COEX Starfield Mall in Gangnam (also where the SMTOWN store is located at the time). I was told to check this place out, and we weren’t disappointed!
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Many of you are probably into, or at least heard of, the latest K-pop acts such as BTS, TWICE, BLACKPINK, and Stray Kids. But there is Yang Joon Il (Hangul: 양준일), a solo artist who made his debut at the very beginning of the 1990s, and who was largely ignored by the Korean media because of his approach to the norms of the era.
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Note: The following was written in November 2011, and it was originally for Jang Geun Suk’s single, “Let Me Cry”. In the time following the original publication of the post, he released his full album, “Just Crazy”, which includes Let Me Cry. However, for republication, I am going to include “Crazy Crazy Crazy” to highlight his aforementioned first album, released in 2012.
I wanted to talk about a popular Korean Wave actor who trends above all the others in Japan (in before AKB48) and had a sold out concert at the Tokyo Dome. His name is Jang Geun Suk (also written as Jang Keun Suk), who rose to fame after starring in the 2009 Korean drama, You’re Beautiful, and had a cameo appearance in the Japanese adaptation of YAB, Ikemen Desu Ne.
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YG Future Strategy Office is a Netflix Original Series from 2018 that starred former BIGBANG member, Seungri. It’s not a traditional Korean Drama in terms of standards, but a mock reality show. Showing behind the scenes of the maknae’s attempts to improve YG Entertainment’s global domination.
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