✩ MIZKAI ✩

You know what's fun? I'll tell you what's fun. Declaring your eternal, undying love to a musical artist of a genre you once said you'd never, ever like is fun.

Meet Mizkai.


"Mizkai begun life as a Petri-dish of sugar solution in a secret laboratory nestled somewhere in the quaint British countryside.
A life-form created from a chemical compound recovered from the furthest reaches of space, destined to one day awaken and brainwash the populace with cute hypnotic lo-fi soundscapes using archaic handheld consoles."

Mizkai is a UK based artist who specialises in chiptune. Whilst it's not a genre for everyone Mizkai brings something to it that I quite haven't experienced whilst listening to other chiptune artists: she brings fun. In an array of sparkles and a fashion style that's in your face she brings down beats that I didn't even know a Gameboy was capable of making.

Seriously if music on the games were like this years ago we'd have all been hooked. Imagine our parents trying to pry the consoles from us. Oh, the horror.


Mizkai is fortunate enough to have played in various places throughout Europe ranging from the UK to Belgium. It's easy to see why. With her psychedelic and fun beats pounding in your head it's easy to let go and just have fun dancing complete nonsense. Who cares if you look like a idiot at her gigs? Hey, the guy dancing next to you is probably going wilder than you are!

If an artist is able to inject their personality and fun into their work then they're definitely worth watching. Gone are the days of playing tragic solos on the violins! It's a new, electronic age now.


Even if chiptune isn't your thing I'd still recommend at least giving the girl behind the music a sliver of your time. Mizkai produces her own handmade accessories that are seriously adorable. Or full of attitude. Even both.

She also does chiptune remixes of Kyarypamyupamyu. It's something that you probably didn't know you wanted.


Links
Mizkai @ Bandcamp
Mizkai @ Facebook
Mizkai @ Twitter

Musical Gyaru

Today we're going to look at gyaru who have made a point of showcasing their love of musical chairs.

...Okay, I jest. Lame joke!

Today we're going to take a look at gyaru who have decided to dabble in music and launch a singing careers for themselves.


First up we have...

Milky Bunny ~ Tsubasa Masuwaka



To any gyaru, it definitely won't be a surprise to see Tsubasa on this list!

Tsubasa Masuwaka first debuted as a musician a few years ago with Magic to Love, a song released to coincide with the release of a perfume of the same name which Tsubasa was promoting at the time.

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Whilst some people consider Magic to Love to be her official debut, it seems as though Tsubasa didn't share that thought.

Tsubasa re-debuted under the name of Milky Bunny last year with the song Bunny Days which went to #12 on the Oricon Charts. Not too shabby for a debut single!

Milky Bunny then went on to release no shape of love, her first digital single, in which the lyrics were written by Tsubasa herself on 9th November 2011. She then followed this up by Zurui yo.../I Wish on 11th January 2012. I Wish was used as the opening to the anime of Fairy Tail.

This was followed by Milk Shake SOS on 29th February 2012 and her self-titled debut album followed on March 21st 2012.



Rina Sakurai (Sakurina)



Rina Sakurai, the popular Koakuma Ageha model, has also tried her hand in the world of music.

She first released her debut single Angel on 18th April 2008. The single failed to chart on Oricon and seemed to put an end to her short-lived singing career.

Until she re-debuted under a new name, of course.

Under the nickname Rina, she re-debuted with Gray Zone on 22nd December 2010. The song was first released digitally in 20 countries before the physical copy dropped. The single charted at #158 on Oricon's charts.



sifow



sifow, real name Shiho Fujita, was a fairly popular gyaru back in her day. Her popularity grew because of her GALRevo campaign but reached overseas with her musical debut.

After taking part in numerous collaboration albums, sifow finally debuted as a indie artist, allowing downloads from her website. After having a fairly good response, avex signed her up and released her first mini-album, & YOU REVO on 15th February 2006.

The album charted at #281 on Oricon's charts.



She then released her debut single, CLOVER which was then followed by her LOVE & PEACE single. The album CLARITY followed on 13th September 2006.

After this, she released the singles Carat, RULE and Natsu Hanabi followed by the album Love Spell. The album failed to chart on Oricon's charts.

After the release of Love Spell she announced she was going on hiatus.



Juliet



Juliet are a three member gyaru group who debuted in August 2009 with their single Natsu Love. The group is made up of gyaru who go by the names of Hami, Maiko and Yumi.

Natsu Love was their first single which peaked at #24 on the Oricon charts. The song peaked at #1 on the Recochoku Ringtone Charts.

The song was released in collaboration with the Popteen model Komori Jun.



Juliet often have a 'seasons' theme with their music and have released a song for every season! In addition they have been moderately successful and have released three albums; Love, Real and Shibuya.



Yumachi & Aina/Shibuya GAL's



Yumachi (Yuma Takahashi) and Aina (Tanaka) are two egg models who are pretty familiar in the gyaru music scene.

Debuting with I Love... they followed up with their debut album, QUEEN, all the way back in August 2010. It was just after the release of this album they announced their new musical venture: a super gyaru group.



To be more specific, a gyaru group based off the AKB48 format. That's right; 48 all singing, all dancing gyaru. The members also act as models.

They released their debut single Ouenka! Agepoyo~ in August 2010. They also promoted with the group at Tsukicon in Finland the very same year!




Other Gyaru-esque Muscians

Jamosa

Playz (actually, these are a gyaru-o group!

Kana Nishino

Tsuji Nozomi (tenatively. After she left Morning Musume she became gyaru and was supposed to join Gyaruru but left due to her pregnancy)

Gyaruru

Instagram!

For an app that I didn't quite like at first I'm surprised at how much I use Instagram. It's sort of fun and some of the filters are really nice!

If you guys want to follow me, my username is claranee.


I painted my nails last week and over a week later they've only just started to chip. I'm impressed! They're not the neatest as I had to improvise with a dotting tool as mine never arrived in time and I had been wanting to do pink and white polka dots all week. I used... a Nintendo DS stylus instead hahaha.


My man came to visit me last weekend and we went to the beach. It was awful weather though when we got there so we only stayed there for an hour and left. This park is just opposite the fairground there, it's a HUGE park seriously.


We went back into town where it was sunny wtf. I tried this outfit on but in the end I didn't buy it. It reminded me a little too much of Tifa from Final Fantasy and I felt a little ridiculous. Plus it showed off too much tummy for me and I don't wanna have to constantly breathe in when wearing it haha.


Guess what I was doing yesterday~ (psst, the answer is reviews!). My lower lashes were being a pain to put on so in the end I gave up. Stupid annoying eyelashes.



Something that I noticed last week was that mini, a Japanese model, had finally released her debut album! I'm really, really excited because I had liked her singles and then apparently the album was cancelled, but in the end they released it. It's really good; I think some of you might like it!

Check out Hardcore Punin Sosu below~



Do you guys have Instagram? If so comment with your username so I can follow you!

Merry Christmas (Eve)

Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, or however you want to say it in your language. Although it's still Christmas Eve in the UK, in some countries it will now be Christmas. I hope Santa gives you everything you've asked for if you're on his nice list. If not.. well, you can always try again next year? Haha.

Be sure to eat lots of Christmas dinner and lots of cake and I just genuinely hope you all have a nice time. It's been a long winter so far so it's nice to have a day like this to look forward to.

The pictures I've attached are some of what I've bought for other people. I wonder what's inside them~

We Found Love... ❤

It's December! I remember that this time last year on my old blog I tried to blog every day. Maybe I'll try and do that this year too!

On Sunday I went to see Rihanna live in concert. I've had the tickets for almost a year now and I was so excited!

My code for the night:



Playsuit: Liz Lisa (replica!)
Belt: eBay
Usamimi: New Look
Shoes: New Look
Ring: Versace
Stockings: eBay

I know you're probably thinking, "huh, those are stockings?!" I bought them online and it turns out they're so huge that they're bunched around the top of my legs. I didn't expect that to be honest haha...
I honestly wanted something comfortable and light since I knew it was going to get warm and my poor feet would have died if I had worn heels. Therefore, I chose flat shoes.



Camwhore~ I was trying to get a good picture of my make-up but it never seems to show up well! I look a little like Snow White in this picture haha.

I also tried again to get a picture of my eye make-up but my hooded eyes and inability to use my camera properly made it come out bad.

I wore my eyelashes on the corner of my eyes.

I took plenty of pictures but Twitter doesn't want me to see them so I can't post them here. Maybe some other time? Rihanna herself was amazing and the crowd reaction was phenomenal. She can really, really sing! I won't be happy if someone tries to tell me that she can't sing in the future because she really can!

Dance like a Ballerina~

This is a bit of a lazy post. I recently fell in love with a half Japanese, half American singer named MAA back around the time her Monkey Kingdom album was released. Once upon a time MAA was the lead singer of MarBell, but then became a solo artist after the group disbanded. MAA goes for a 'witchy' sort of image which is really intriguing.

She's recently released her first full length studio album which is called (I kid you not) BUBBLEMAN ENGINE.



The cover is a little provocative! As you can guess she's a very... kooky sort of person. That's not a bad thing though; it works perfectly for MAA. Some of my favourite song titles on the album include 'no bra sleepwalk' and 'F.B.;' if you're wondering that stands for Favourite Bitches. One of the song titles on her Monkey City album that stands out is 'Virgin Killer Santa'. With the sound she goes for it works perfectly!

MAA isn't full out kooky though. Some of her songs touch on the more serious, such as OKay and Hangover Payback whereas some are straight out peppy such as Ballerina Brain System. She's definitely an artist to check out!

Passport~

Yesterday, I went out to get a passport photo taken! I'm going away to Disneyland for my birthday in February and my current passport expires the day before I fly so I needed to go and get some new photos taken. Normally, I would've just thrown on some jeans and a vest top but since it's now officially autumn, I wanted to be able to wear one or two of my summer favourites one last time!

So, this is what I wore:



Dress: Lipsy
Headband: New Look
Shoes: Priceless Shoes lmfao
Bracelet: Primark
Ring: Primark

I really love this dress from Lipsy~ I had a very similar one but I only got to wear it twice and it ripped 'cos it was super cheap. This one wasn't and it's lasted a lot longer too! Normally I 'grunge' it up a little by adding a black belt and boots but I was confident it wouldn't rain so I could wear those shoes. It felt really nice being all girly!

Those shoes are actually my 'comfy' pair of shoes. Alas, they gave me blisters this time. :(

I sort of toned down my make because it's for a passport photo and I'm sure they wouldn't want ginormous lashes and panda eyes and a face full of blush. I meant to take some photos but I didn't have time since I was running a little late! The photos are rofl hilarious, I'm literally going o___O when I was trying to look pretty! Alas, I now have another hideous passport photo to follow me about hahahaha.

Since I never scanned any of those photos from it, have a look at this. My legs are so bendy, like rubber bands lmao!



So weird!

Let's finish this song with my current jam. Wired Life by Meisa Kuroki. She's fierce~

What I'm Listening To!

I'll get back to my regularly scheduled posts soon, promise! I've a little time to kill and decided to go on a whim.

So, what am I listening to this month? I've really liked a lot of the J-pop releases and I'm very excited about some upcoming releases. I'm extremely excited about Ayumi Hamasaki's new mini album, FIVE. I really can't wait to listen! I'm also looking forward to AKB48's 'Flying Get'.
Kyary also released her album, it's really cute! PONPONPON and Cherry Bonbon are my favourites!

Whilst I'm waiting for that I have SDN48's MIN MIN MIN single to tide me over.
I don't know why but I really do love SDN48, and I've been able to listen to every one of their singles.



Speaking of AKB48 and SDN48, I've been really into DiVA, one of the AKB sub units. It has my favourite member of AKB which is most likely why I really love this unit. They released their latest single, Cry, this month.



I've also re-discovered my love for Natalia Kills. I'm not sure why but I absolutely adore her and can listen to her album over and over again without being bored! I've been listening to it a lot, especially 'Free'.



I'm just kinda wishing Will.I.Am wasn't in this, oh well.

What have you all been listening to?

sifow : What has she been up to?

I know she's pretty old news now but have you heard of sifow? She's a really inspirational gyaru!



Her real name is Shiho Fujita although she commonly goes by the name of sifow. I was introduced to her through her music back in 2006, around the release of LOVE&PEACE. She started up her own company aged 19 after realising that gyaru, especially ganguro gyaru, were getting a bad press and simply wanted to improve the image of them. Her online blog proved to be really popular and she even had a music career for awhile, although she didn't really chart on Oricon.



After the release of her album Love Spell in 2007 she announced she would be going on a hiatus so that she could open a school for gyaru. She'd been talking about opening the school in her GAL REVOlog all the way back in 2005 so it was most likely one of her dreams. This school was going to teach gyaru about I.T., the music industry and the entertainment industry in general. I was under the impression the school would be opening in 2010 although by the sound of things it hasn't opened it's doors yet.

But sifow hasn't been sitting doing nothing. She's currently working on the NoGal project, aka the Farm Gal project.



As a lot of Japan's food is imported and there are a lot of abandoned fields in Japan, sifow realised that Japan had to stop relying on other people and produce food for themselves. She set up the NoGal project after buying a rice farm and encouraging other gyaru to join her. Yes, that does mean leaving behind Shibuya 109 to go work on a rice farm. Not entirely glamorous, is it? That's why she collaborated with various clothing brands to provide affordable, stylish and practical clothing for gyaru to wear. She also gives lectures on agricultural subjects to gyaru and gyaru mamas!

Her farm appears to be mainly a rice farm, and she produces her own brand of rice which she promotes with her fellow gyaru. The name? Shibuya Rice, of course. The packaging even features a big, sparkly image of Hachiko.



Whilst sifows GAL REVOlog hasn't been updated in some time, she has moved to ameblo and her blog can be seen here! I really do recommend checking her out, she's really inspirational! I've really missed her since she went on hiatus so I did some research and found out what she's been up to lately. :)

Kyarypamyupamyu

I apologise for the lateness of this post! I'm sure everyone's heard of Kyarypamyupamyu, right? Or at least people who follow the music scene will have!

Who is Kyarypamyupamyu?



Kyary's your everyday, average 18 year old Japanese girl. Or not. She debuted in KERA magazine all the way back in 2009 and she's had a quick rise to fame with a mini album and a book both due to be released this month. She's not gyaru but she definitely has an interesting style.

Also, Kyary pulls the most hilarious faces.



I discovered her through the announcement of her debut album, Moshi Moshi Harajuku and what really caught my attention was how long her name was! The now infamous video for PONPONPON came out and with it she topped the iTunes charts in several countries. The video for PONPONPON is very crazy, but really fun. When it first came out I decided I wanted to see it when I was drunk.

Moshi Moshi Haraujuku is scheduled to be released on 17th August and it's produced by Yasutaka Nakata from capsule.

However, this isn't the only release by Kyary this month! She's also releasing a book called Oh! My! God! Harajuku Girl which is released on 4th August, aka tomorrow.



As PONPONPON had an international release via iTunes, please support Kyary!

Kyary's Blog