Latest news with #MrsGreenApple
NHK
4 days ago
- NHK
Security firm finds dozens of fake J-pop live-streaming sites
Security company Trend Micro has found at least 30 fake websites posing as live streams by Japanese pop artists in an apparent attempt to steal credit card information. The company conducted research following earlier reports of similar websites impersonating pop idol groups managed by Japanese talent agency Starto Entertainment. The agency on Wednesday announced posts by fraudulent accounts posing as groups it manages were traced to Bangladesh. It said it confirmed the accounts claiming to offer live streams were directing viewers to fake websites to obtain their credit card details. Trend Micro found some other fake websites were impersonating other Japanese pop groups such as Mrs. Green Apple. The firm says its analysis suggests the scam websites were all created using the same website builder. Trend Micro Chief Analyst Motono Kenichiro says if people casually enter their credit card information to see if they can really watch artists' live streams, it could be stolen and possibly used to commit crimes. He urged people to always check official websites before signing up for live-streaming content.
Japan Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
The early bird gets the bangers at this year's Summer Sonic
You'll have to wake up early to catch the heavy-hitters at this year's Summer Sonic. The festival, held simultaneously in Chiba and Osaka, has been sliding marquee names from J-pop and K-pop into earlier slots in recent years, a tactic that draws massive crowds before the temperatures hit their highs. For the 2025 edition, running Aug. 16 and 17, promoter Creativeman is doubling down, offering a new idea of what a summer festival can look like. In Chiba, J-pop provides the wake-up call. On Saturday, boy band SixTones hits the main Marine Stage at 11 a.m., followed by LiSA at noon — where she's sure to perform songs from the mega-popular 'Demon Slayer' series. Sunday starts even bigger: Mrs. Green Apple, arguably Japan's most popular act right now, opens the day, followed by the one-two punch of JO1 and Be:First. Osaka gets its own early-bird exclusives. Saturday kicks off with K-pop group Treasure ahead of BE:First and girl group NiziU, while Sunday morning belongs to Ae! Group, making its Summer Sonic debut. Afternoons still pack firepower. Rap-pop newcomer Hana — whose debut single 'Rose' and ballad 'Blue Jeans' are among the year's biggest hits — takes Chiba's Pacific Stage at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday. On Sunday, neo-idol force Fruits Zipper brings kawaii-charged pop to the Sonic Stage at 12:30 p.m. This scheduling makes for a summer festival loaded with 2025 powerhouses. Meanwhile, official headliners Fall Out Boy and Alicia Keys are sure to stir Millennial nostalgia for summer festivals of the past — even if they feel like echoes of an era built on international imports rather than the country's current pop reality. One foreign act could upend that dynamic. Sunday night's penultimate Marine Stage set comes from aespa, the K-pop group whose sleek, house-infused 'Whiplash' dominated last year. If the crowd's energy holds, it might be the weekend's true main event. Korean artists are well-represented at Summer Sonic this year, with singer-songwriter Woodz and rock band The Rose closing out Saturday on the Pacific Stage. Thai pop gets a rare spotlight via high-energy boy band Bus and balladeer Jeff Satur, giving space to one of the continent's rising music scenes. For spectacle, though, Babymetal will be unbeatable. The metal-meets-idol icons play Saturday night on the Mountain Stage, a week after dropping a new album. Expect the usual mosh pit chaos, followed by The Prodigy's aggressive electronic assault to close the stage for the night. That British electronic act will also appear at Sonicmania, the all-night Makuhari Messe blowout on Friday, arguably the year's most stacked single day of programming. The lineup veers from the theatrical menace of Gesaffelstein to the kinetic beats of Floating Points and genre-twisting newcomer 2hollis. And that's just the overseas contingent. Sonicmania's domestic slate swings from Vocaloid wizard Kikuo and electro-pop veterans Perfume to disorienting rapper Tohji and rave revivalists Minna-no-Kimochi. Summer Sonic offers Japan's mainstream; Sonicmania delivers its experimental fringe — and if you pace yourself on Friday, you can still make the Marine Stage for the morning's pop blitz. For more information, visit
Japan Times
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
Six months into 2025, J-pop is having a full-on identity crisis (and a great time)
The Japanese music industry has spent the first half of 2025 in full-blown celebration mode. There were government-funded concerts in Los Angeles and the splashy Music Awards Japan in Kyoto — both of which offered no shortage of self-congratulatory back-pats for J-pop's steady climb on the global stage. But beneath the revelry, something more interesting is happening: the sound of transition. With the first half of the 2020s now behind us, the big question isn't who's winning, but what comes next. Will the future belong to fantastical rock bands or hip-hop-inspired pop groups? Will the industry lean into AI — or gorge on ... ice cream? As summer sets in, the paths ahead for J-pop are diverging. What role does music even play in a decade as fluid as this one? Awards and accolades are abundant, both at home and abroad. But the real trend of the year so far might be trying to predict the next major shift in the zeitgeist. Top of the J-pops Pop-rock trio Mrs. Green Apple is pretty much inescapable at this point. Even before the year began, Motoki Ohmori, Hiroto Wakai and Ryoka Fujisawa were already the reigning champions of J-pop. After a two-year hiatus starting in 2020 as the group developed its 'phase 2,' Mrs. Green Apple returned with a vengeance, climbing straight back to the top of the domestic pecking order thanks to gospel-tinged ballads 'Soranji' and the musical theater bounce of 'Dance Hall.' Last year's surging rock cut 'Lilac' became the group's largest hit yet. Mrs. Green Apple is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and its grip on Japan has only tightened. Newer releases 'Kusushiki' and 'Darling' have racked up millions of views on YouTube while becoming staples in supermarkets and chain stores nationwide. At time of writing, 15 of the tracks on Spotify Japan's 'Top 50' playlist are by Mrs. Green Apple — five are in the top 10. Sonically and visually, the group's ascent signals a shift in what mainstream J-pop sounds and looks like. The early 2020s were dominated by acts like Yoasobi and Ado — Vocaloid-indebted creators who offered a more realistic (meaning an often more dour) snapshot of modern life, marked by darker lyrics and harsher vocal deliveries. Mrs. Green Apple isn't above getting a little emo, either — for example, 'Bitter Vacances' tackles the grind of modern life — but the group's lens is more optimistic, sometimes to the point of sounding like a motivational coach with a guitar. It's a snapshot of a mainstream in flux. Alongside Mrs. Green Apple, a fresh wave of groups are blending melodic sugar with hip-hop edge. XG, a girl group that sings in English, recently played Tokyo Dome, while fledgling girl group Hana has scored one of the year's biggest breakout hits with the swagger-scented 'Rose.' On the male side, trio Number_i has been building steam behind the slick 'God_i.' While artists such as Ado and Fujii Kaze — representatives of the early 2020s J-pop global breakthrough — go on large world tours, the domestic scene is recalibrating. In today's fractured music landscape, the biggest shifts may not come from who's in the spotlight — but from who's on the edges outside it. Generative hits Japan saw its first AI-generated hit in early 2025 — and naturally, it was a complete joke. Technically, 'Yaju & U' dropped in late 2024, but it only blew up at the start of this year. It was uploaded to the internet by someone calling themselves Mochimochi, but the credited composer is Udio — an AI music program. And yes, you can tell: The strings are clunky, the vocals are uncanny and the whole thing sounds like a computer's idea of either a J-pop track or the long-lost follow-up to Dexys Midnight Runners' 'Come on Eileen.' But hold the sonic critiques, because more importantly, this song works as a chaotic ode to one of Japan's oldest and weirdest memes. The lyrics pay homage to the 2001 adult video 'A Midsummer Night's Lewd Dream' — a relic of early internet culture best known for its terrible acting and glorious absurdity. The AV became meme royalty in Japan. 'Yaju & U' — named after a now-iconic character — continues the legacy with a track that feels like it was coded specifically to go viral. Bonus: There's a goofy TikTok-ready dance to match. 'Yaju & U' dominated Spotify Japan's 'Viral 50' for weeks, marking the biggest moment for generative AI in the country's music sphere to date. While it's tempting to go full-Luddite and condemn this brave new world, the song really reflects our relationship with memes. AI-powered music has flooded the Japanese web as of late, from imitation city pop playlists to goofy geopolitical satire. These songs aren't trying to say anything profound — they exist to rack up likes, shares and shrieks of 'wtf did I just listen to?' Still, that doesn't mean they can't top charts. 'Yaju & U' shows that viral hits don't need a human touch to resonate — just a well-placed punchline and a good beat. It's not the death of music, just the rise of a new kind of background noise. Hot idol summer? The biggest Japanese song to catch fire globally in 2025 is not about rock positivity or bawdy memes. It's about ice cream. Idol trio AiScReam's 'Ai Scream!' unites three performers from the long-running 'Love Live!' media juggernaut for a sugar-rush tribute to frozen desserts — and, naturally, to love. A clip of the group performing a section after the first chorus where each member shouts out an ice cream flavor they like ('but not as much as you!') — hit TikTok like a brain freeze. As these things go, the clip broke out of idol-centric spaces before spilling into the wider corners of the internet, where it was gleefully adopted by users worldwide, especially K-pop performers. Somehow, 'Ai Scream!' ended up as this year's 'Bling-Bang-Bang-Born' — an unlikely J-pop export that turned viral gold. It wasn't built to break the internet, but it did, climbing global streaming charts and becoming a bonafide meme in its own right. That's right, the defining sound of J-pop so far in 2025 is a high-pitched cry of 'choco mint!' This kind of out-of-left-field success isn't a surprise in the 2020s, it simply reflects how most J-pop hits travel now. What is different, though, is the type of group enjoying this success. Yes, we may very well be gearing up for an 'idol summer.' Hyper-cute idol-pop groups — who many resigned to the music history heap of the 2000s and 2010s (remember Morning Musume, Momoiro Clover Z and AKB48?) — are having a moment. While those legacy acts never really went away, they've felt increasingly distant from the road J-pop is on. Not anymore. AiScReam's breakout is just the tip of the strawberry soft-serve cone. Fruits Zipper recently nabbed its first No. 1 on the Oricon Charts with 'Kawaii Te Magic,' while more hyperactive compatriots Cutie Street and Candy Tune are racking up views with a pastel vengeance. A change is in the air — and it's wearing Skittles-colored dresses. But there's something deeper under the kawaii overload. Idol music has long been criticized for its talents' perceived lack of singing and dancing skills, but the draw is the emotional arc. Fans go on a journey with their favorite performers as they stumble, grow and eventually overcome. If 'Yaju & U' imagines a meme-core future churned out at the speed of a Temu delivery, then 'Ai Scream!' suggests a different path — messier, sillier, sweeter and unmistakably human. It's a future you might just want to say 'hai!' to.
