The Magic is Gone

I love noanowa. I really do. And I mean love them. Maybe not as much as I love my husband, or my puppy, or my family, but at least with the same intensity that I love other sort of not-tangible things, like the Pokemon series and eating strawberries.

But love and hate are like light and dark, like heads and tails, two sides of the same coin. Flipping a coin, or a light switch, is easy, effortless. And for people like me, who sometimes can’t help but think in black and white…

I think you see where I’m going with this.

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More Proof Japan Has Everything You Could Ever Want

Have you ever woken up one morning, blurry-eyed and miserable, and declared “the only thing that could make this morning worth it would be a metal band with a prepubescent female jpop singer and two freaking eight year olds screaming lyrics over top”?

If you have — okay, fuck it, NO ONE has ever asked for such a thing, but god damn it, it exists. Meet BABYMETAL.

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You Need to Be Listening to Goose house. Now.

A quick quiz. Are you currently a fan of Goose house?

If your answer is yes, no need to read this post, unless for some reason you want to see which of their songs and covers are my favorite and then leave a comment gloating about your wonderful taste in music.

If your answer is no, KEEP READING AND DON’T YOU DARE STOP UNTIL I TELL YOU TO.

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It’s Baaaaaaaack

Did you miss me?

Alright, well, some of you may have missed me. Some of you may have no idea who I am, or why I would have been missed, and for you I have written a FAQ! tl;dr: once upon a time, there was a blog named unchained. unchained was a blog about Japanese music written by me, pengie. It was gone, and now it’s back! With the same URL, even!

Alright, whatever. Point is, I’m here to BLOW YOUR MINDS with some blog posts about my favorite Japanese pop, rock, indie, post-rock, and whatever-the-heck-else music. I’m planning to post sporadically, but hopefully for a while; those of you who do remember me probably remember that I was the queen of starting projects I never really finished, but I’m trying to turn over a new leaf now.

I look forward to a hopefully long and awesome series of blog posts on the new and improved unchained! Whether you’re a new reader or a seasoned, uh, pengie veteran (?), thanks for joining me. I welcome your comments, questions, and feedback on this and every one of my posts. Yoroshiku!

Ever Since

Everyone has a song they know by heart. Whether it’s one they chose to know or something that wormed its way into their head — some things on the radio can do that whether you like it or not — there’s always one song, or maybe more, that they know inside and out. It’s one that you know all the words to, one where every beat is predictable and familiar, one where the instruments feel like old friends.

For me, that song is Kanda Sayaka’s “ever since.”

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