eeep! i have been working on this gosh darn picture of Izumi for THREE WEEKS!!!! She just would not let me draw her! i tried and i tried to make a pen and ink like the rest but she was all "Whatever you, I should be in color!" So i fixed her little red wagon. I made her REALLY colorful. Izumi would mostly likely never be caught dead in such colors, but the clothes work. She is difficult to draw because her style is all over the place. I thought she'd be easy, she came to me before the Gyaru did, but she appeared with dark skin and white blonde hair. This is because she is dark and menacing and is very much on the Visual Kei scene, which is another music scene/fashion trend in Japan. It's what Miyavi was before he went solo, it's what Blood, that goth/industrial band i saw in Boston, is. Visual Kei is usually a style reserved for androgenous men, and when girls dress like it it's generally considered Goth Lolita. But they too, bleach their hair and wear insanely elaborate costumes that are goth mixed with punk. So usually Izumi would wear more black and if there were a color involved, let it be red. But here Izumi's gonna go half gyaru because as i stated earlier today, i can't get them outta my head.
So Izumi is the bitch of the pack. She isn't mean, really, she just doesn't care at all what you think of her or about your opinions. She will argue with you at the drop of a hat, but her arguements are very frustrating because you know right away, you can never win this. Izumi is studying to become a lawyer. She is very anti-social and a huge RPG nerd, when she is emersed in one of these games, the other girls may go for weeks without hearing from her. But when she comes out to play, she can get them into any club and she is a great singer so karaoke is one of her favorite past times. She also can drink most of the other girls (save Sachi, that darn westerner) under the table. Sachi is terrified of Izumi for the most part and thinks Izumi doesn't like her because she is not Japanese. This is false, Izumi doesn't dislike Sachi at all, she doesn't care either way. Aside from disappearing into video games, Izumi frequents the countryside to visit her Grandmother and sing enka songs for her. Izumi is a skilled cook and will make you a 3 course meal (at least) if you catch her at home when she's not playing video games.
i apologize for the color pencil. it's all i have till i get a decent paint program.
Big smile now! This is my Halloween costume. It's February now, but i want to share these pics and the influences for them because the 'Gyaru' is on my mind all the time lately. Gyaru is a Japanese fashion trend amongst teenage to early 20's girls, they have very dark tans (Ganguro= very dark tan & usually pastel or white make-up down the nose and under the eyes, these girls are...somethin'!) and dye their hair to more Western colors like blonde or auburn. Gals often put colored streaks in their hair to symbolize their moods and some wear colored contacts or these super weird ones which make their whole iris black, this is to make them appear more cartoonish. The Gal is attempting to look like an over-the-top California girl. And right now in Japan this craze is pretty big, i saw these girls more frequently than any other of the stand out trends in Japan (ie: Goth-Lolita)
Before I went to Japan, i had discovered the J-pop artist Sifow. She has this hilarious video that opens with her in a tanning bed and she goes on to sing of 'LOVE & PEACE' (the name of the song) with the help of her body guards, two giant black body builders in little gold speed-o's(sorry for bad spelling!). So i became obsessed with her and music like her's and realized all this fashion and style, and the sped up euro-beats were all the language of the wonderful and very not mysterious Gyaru, which is simply the word 'Gal' phonetically sounded out in Japanese. The pic on the top is Sifow with the para-para pop group Gyaruru, which i came to find out Sifow actually put together and produced, she really is quite talented.
Also, i have to mention the other band that opened for Blood, called 'echostream'. They were an interesting little number, female vocals & percussion,then a guy on keyboards,electronic percussion and guitar. The sound was pretty shoe-gazie, but it was really nice, a nice change for an opener for one of these bands. Last year it was a horrendous goth/industrial band called Absynth(which is so bad we all blocked them out and it takes an hour to recall their name and then none of us actually can and we have to look it up online). So anyway, last year's unfortuante choice made echostream all the better. except they played 'creep' by Radiohead. a song i never needed to hear again. but oh well, a pretty Japanese girl with a great voice almost made the song tolerable! When echostream played, i had a much better spot, it was before the little blonde bitches pushed me out of the way and stepped on me with their giant platforms. i might add that the blondies stood where i was, they fought me tooth & nail for that spot and then they left when the headlining band started playing. and so i hate them. BUT, i did get some nice shots of echostream while i had that coveted spot
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below us now is Miyavi,
the Japanese guitar-spaz sensation. He is the inspiration for the earlier posted picture of Sachi, he is long and thin and oh so enticing. He is always contorting in pics like in this one, and his features are so feminine, he is easilly turned into a woman. Hence this drawing of Megumi. Megumi does not normally dress like this. I had Miyavi on the brain and she just kind of, popped out in his homage. She usually wears 70's jogging shorts/short shorts and a skinny T-shirt with some catchy engrish phrase on it like, "SPRINGTIME HAP
PY" or "MAKE LOVE". She is the coolest of the cool kids. Megumi is rocking the indie-tronic underground in Tokyo and planning a move to the States once she's saved enough money. She is constantly writing and recording sounds around her, being heavilly influenced by the found sound movement of electronic greats, like Matmos and Felix Kubin. But she doesn't do field recordings, no no, there is ALWAYS a beat. She likes to sing too and writes mostly ridiculous lyrics no one understands (like the title of this blog, though ONE of you understands, Laurie). Megumi also has a dark and disturbing obsession with Japanese pop star Moritaka Chisato and sometimes cosplays as her when she is playing a show. Megumi is happy and she is content, she is the event planner for the group, and she's the only one who's got a boyfriend at this point (whom i can't name because he's only just arrived in my brain), thusly making her the envy of all her friends...although not really, just Sachi. Tomiko doesn't know what 'envy' is, Yuki and Megumi's dispostions are very similar, the only thing Yuki is envious of is that Megumi has is a man who loves her. Then there's the 'yet to be written about' Izumi who would never be envious of anyone for anything, ever. But Sachi has a huge crush on Megumi and rarely speaks to her because she doesn't want Megumi to know, Sachi doesn't think this would do much for their friendship. Sachi and Megumi only begin to bond when Megumi's little sister Haruka is shuttled to Tokyo to live with them because she's gone gyaru(gal) and their parents don't know how to fix it.
Since hitomi is what i eat,breathe and think i wanted to share my glorious Christmas present with all of you, er..all 3 of you that read this. it's a box set of all Her Majesty's music videos, singles and a live concert for her most recent declaration of awesome-ness (her most recent album 'Love Concent' rivals Chris Clark's 'Body Riddle', Clinic's 'Visitations' and Ayumi Hamasaki's '(miss)understood' for my number 1 album of 2006). She inspires every piece of art i've created lately and she is always in my head, her music dragged me through the worst time in my life and i will always be grateful. i know, cheesy,eh? well, cram it. this song was my favorite song by her for a long time and it still is one of them. It's from many years ago so it's got some serious contenders by this point. But i wanted to share this beautiful video and song, its about how when you are gone, when her world is shattered and empty, there is still her love for you. and that love floats her to the surface, over and over and cannot fail. i think this is a beautiful, no matter how romantic, thought, and i want to live my life this way. the idea of love that i cling to and worship is the basis for the entire 'Japanic' storyline and the reason i can go on day after day. So this song kinda makes me want to kill myself, but in a good way...i hope you like it! (don't worry, you don't have to like it as much as i do...i may actually be her number 1 fan in the States)
i think i will probably upload more of her videos too because i can. She's got SO many great songs that not nearly enough people know about, her popularity ain't what it used to be in Japan and it never was in America. But she's one of the most original J-pop artists in that she doesn't copy what's popular in the west, she has done her own thing for a long time and yes, of course she's been influenced by other cultures and music, she loves 80's pop as much as the next girl...but aside from the influence everyone knows about, which would be Madonna, whom she admires as a business woman and a human being...yeah, it's questionable, i know, but get a load of the rest of the influences she's sighted over the years : Bjork, the Soft Pink Truth (which is Drew Daniel from Matmos along with friends who include one of the Blechtum kids),Chicks on Speed (hitomi really likes electronic glitches and weirdness),Kings of Convenience (Indie-tronic folk right?), the Underwolves, International Pony,Hotel Costes & Grand National (the last 4 i have no knowledge of, but considering her other tastes, i bet they rule)...and lastly, i found the one other person on the planet who owns AND recommends the Minotaur Shock album besides me! it really is a great little record of indie-tronic flava'. you go out there and you find it. i bet it's all of $2 at your local used CD shop.....OR..online...
but i'm for supporting the artist and our innate need for THINGS. go buy the actual CD if you're gonna get it, ok? ok. so there's hitomi, fashion icon, as fashionably challenged as she may appear, model of extraordinarily jagged proportions and a beacon of hope for the future of pop music. She cranks Chicks on Speed while her peers long to be JUST LIKE BRITNEY. i hope this helps you understand my love and adoration for her, even if just a little.
and i guess that's all for the next couple of minutes. i kind of have a back log of crap i want to write about so hopefully i can write more in the next few days. i know you're just aching to hear more. yeah that's right. aching.
Tomiko! this is Tomiko! she is the space cadet of the crew, one of Yuki's oldest friends. Tomiko is very uh...distracted! She is by no means dumb, but she has a habit of literally wandering off while you're talking to her. She really does live primarily on Planet Tomiko, a land that no one but her could ever fully grasp. She loves Ayumi Hamasaki and para para music and belongs to several dance troops. She thinks, eats and breathes dance, but when she's not thinking, eating or breathing, she loves baseball and may appear to be somewhat of a tom boy. She is pictured here in very fashionable fatigues, waving to greet you, even though she'll almost immediately forget who you are! please forgive her, she doesn't mean it.
