YeinJee's Asian blog

Asian Culture, Lifestyle and Entertainment

Japanese Music

Moumoon – It’s Our Time in Paris

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Music video for It’s Our Time by Japanese pop duo Moumoon, released in June 2015. Found this song after blogging about them a couple of months ago.

They shot the MV in Paris when the band held their first solo concert (sold out) in the French capital in May 2015. The song is OK, love the video though… it looks like a beautiful travelogue.

Feels like visiting Europe again after watching this. It has been over a decade since my last trip to the continent. Always thought I would be there again much sooner.

By the way, half of the group name moumoon comes from a French word. “Mou” means soft in French, hence their name can be interpreted as soft moon in English =)

Moumoon, Shooting Star, Assassination Classroom

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Japanese MV for Hello, Shooting Star by pop duo moumoon, released in February 2015. It’s an ending song for popular anime series Assassination Classroom.

I was a fan of moumoon’s Sunshine Girl in 2010. Haven’t heard much from the band since then, but they are probably doing well in their home country. Many Japanese commercials, movies and TV shows have used their songs over the years.

[Read more…] about Moumoon, Shooting Star, Assassination Classroom

ZARD Forever Best: 25th Anniversary

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Medley video for ZARD Forever Best 25th Anniversary. It’s a compilation album in memory of Izumi Sakai, the lead vocalist of Japanese pop rock band Zard who died in 2007.

Izumi Sakai was synonymous with Zard (vice versa) in many people’s point of view because she was the only permanent member in the group while others joined and left regularly. The singer has sold over 37 million records, making her one of the best-selling Japanese pop music artists of all time.

This compilation album feature 52 tracks. Izumi was a prolific lyricist; she wrote the lyrics for all of Zard songs except for two. Many of the songs are soundtracks in Japanese anime and drama series; Jpop fans from that era should be familiar with her works even if they didn’t know much about the singer.

Some of the clips in this video are quite precious and hardly found online. After all, Zard was most famous in the 1990s when internet was not a thing yet. Writing this post with bittersweet memories.

Mitsuhiro Oikawa – Who’s That Guy MV

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Japanese music video for Who’s That Guy by Mitsuhiro Oikawa, theme song for upcoming film Super Hero Taisen GP: Kamen Rider 3, the latest instalment of a pop culture franchise (including TV series, games and toys etc.) which dated back to 1970’s. Oikawa is playing the main protagonist as a masked superhero.

Southern All Stars – Heaven On The Beach

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Music video for Heaven On The Beach by long running Japanese pop rock band Southern All Stars. The MV features cameo appearances of a host of Japanese celebrities, including Natsumi Abe, Kaori Iida, Yuko Nakazawa, members of AKB48, Tamio Okuda, Guts Ishimatsu, Kaela Kimura, Kazuyoshi Saito, Dreams Come True, Ken Hirai, Gen Hoshino, Keiko Masuda and Kazuya Yoshii.