J-idol girl group Niji No Conquistador release their Halloween ditty “Boku wa Kimi Dake no Obake-chan”

A Japanese idol girl group has released a Halloween themed single for the season of Oogie Boogie. And I’m glad somebody bothered to. Because nowhere near enough artists bother to release shit for Halloween. I’ve always found it odd that more of these idol acts do not release more themed songs, because its so on brand and they can get away with it more than most.

HENNYWAY.

Not AKB100 have thrown their Halloween song into the ring, and...it’s not good. But it’s a Halloween song, so ‘Fuck it’.

Niji No Conquistador have a similar setup to the likes of AKB3000; a type of fantasy league J-pop group. Members are part of different teams. The teams are often tiered according to popularity and ability. Members rotate. Their whole thing is being young, ‘girly’, dressing up, with a sprinkle of over-sexualisation; the latter of which is just...

Lawd.

In the early days of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s career, the music was pretty much a soundtrack for all of the brand related stuff she was doing. It was a side gig which became a main gig due to how popular she and it became. And I think it’s a similar thing with Niji No Conquistador. They are a bunch of girls who each have their own creative preferences and endeavours; cosplay, choreography, illustrating, voice acting. So releasing music and shooting music videos gives them a channel to funnel and present these things in a form which is easily marketable.

I have never been big on these types of idol groups. The music is never particularly good. And the way in which they are marketed and who they are marketed to is often problematic as all hell. And the whole Minami Minegishi scandal really shed a light on how members of these groups are treated, the restrictions they are placed under for the sake of public image, and the lengths they feel they must go to in order to ‘atone’. I hope for the sake of the girls in Niji No Conquistador that their experiences are different, but...

Lawd.

The way Perfume very easily coulda ended up being a group like this. They dodged bullets like Neo.