Invitation to the Official Centaku Media Discord Server

This is your invitation to join a small community of fellow readers, listeners, and viewers of the Centaku Media circle, or as I would like to begin calling, the: Centaku Nation. We now have an official Discord server that has been a few years in the making, and here’s what you can expect by joining the server.

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Music Spotlight: All You Wanted to Know About AKB48

The past decade has been dominated by many K-Pop acts–PSY, to BIGBANG, to BLACKPINK, to BTS. Elsewhere, in Japan, the idol industry has been dominated by Japan’s largest girl group, AKB48. They have had more than a dozen songs sitting on top of Japan’s Oricon charts in the several years since their debut. However, their popularity has dipped in the past few years. In this post, a non-AKB48 fan talks about another non-AKB48 fan covering a video that chronicles their rise to fame.

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Music Spotlight: Jang Geun Suk’s “Let Me Cry” and “Amagoi” (雨恋)

Back in late 2011, I wrote a Music Spotlight post (FKA “Ni-Ongaku Spotlight”) highlighting a song released by South Korean actor Jang Geun Suk. At the time of writing he was the most desired actor Japanese fans wanted to see in the midst of the Korean Wave in Japan, trending above even AKB48, and performing at a sold out concert at the Tokyo Dome.

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Music Spotlight: Mai Kuraki – Stepping Out

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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Music Spotlight: Top 5 Favorite Anime Opening & Ending Themes

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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Music Spotlight: Jang Geun Suk’s “Crazy Crazy Crazy”

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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Centaku Media Journal: Episode #06

As we finally catch a break from all the excitement in the previous two episodes, we talk about the Life-sized Freedom Gundam being built in China, a mysterious Dragon Quest title to be announced in Shonen Jump, and fans of a globally popular (and probably obvious) K-Pop group appear to be defending their group a little too much. Sanjo-chan also talks about the results of the Community Poll for the next anime series to watch for a future podcast episode.

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Centaku Media Journal: Episode #05

Gamers got their share of new game and product announcements in the last episode. Now, anime fans get their time in the spotlight following the announcements from Anime Expo Lite and FunimationCon. Sanjo-chan also talks about the shutdown of Twitch competitor Mixer, BLACKPINK’s recording breaking comeback, and the controversy surrounding former NEWS member Yuya Tegoshi.

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