Music video: Virtual boy band ARP are ready to "Burn it up" [Miku Hatsune has entered the chat]

Every now and then I'll listen to a certain J-Pop song or watch a certain video and think to myself 'Imagine trying to explain this to somebody'. ARP just made me do that. I just about got to a point where I felt I could explain Miku Hatsune . Then this.

My dumb ass really thought this was a trailer for Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight. And with that, if I had to explain this so somebody who really had zero interest in the nuances of J-Pop, I'd just tell them 'They're a video game music band'.

This isn't an animated version of a music video for a boy band. This IS the damn boy band. ARP are an animated boy band. With 11,000 followers on Twitter, a whole ass Instagram account showing their day-to-day antics and live shows already held, they ain't playin'.

Boy bands are still big money in Japan. EXILE stay releasing music, sub groups, dis group, dat group and topping the charts. And Johnny's & Associates built a whole empire with them; several of whom still hold power and relevance to this day. Arashi continue to break records when they drop music. Yamashita Tomohisa stays booked and busy off the back of NEWS. SMAP have been fixtures in Japanese pop culture for decades and Takuya Kimura ain't never not doing something. Speaking of video games, there's a Yakuza spin-off which has Kimura's likeness used for its main character, who. he also voices.

Boy band longevity in Japan is real.

A virtual band of sorts is an interesting prospect. A large part of marketing groups in Japan is to strike that balance between making people forget that the group members are actually human beings, because they are performers and their purpose is to entertain YOU. But to remind everybody every now and then that these ARE actually human beings, so that fans care can see themselves with them. The latter can't be done with a virtual band, but even so, it's something that's being mimicked regardless.

It'd be easy to dismiss the premise of ARP as stupid. But music is entertainment, and a music artist being AR, Virtual and fictional still falls under that. And I have to admit, I don't hate the song and like the music video. Setting that shit in the middle of Shibuya's Scramble crossing = Namie's impact.