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music (Page 42)

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Sailor Moon. Since the series’ start as a manga comic serial in Kodanhsa’s Nakayoshi anthology, its team of planetary-themed, pleated skirt-wearing protectors of humanity have appeared in five seasons of televised anime, three theatrical features, a live action TV drama, and numerous video game adaptations.

Sailor Moon also inspired a live-action stage musical, with 27 variations and over 800 performances during its 12-year run that ended in 2005. As part of the franchise’s 20th anniversary festivities, a new version of the musical is set to open this fall, and producers have just announced the starring cast.

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We send a team to take part in the qualifying round of the Air Guitar World Championships 2013

The annual Air Guitar World Championships held in Oulu, Northern Finland celebrates the beloved guitar without actually using them. Instead, participants channel all the energy, attitude, and athleticism of playing rock guitar into their invisible air guitar while performing on stage.

With the 18th championships being held in August this year, RocketNews24 has assembled our finest imaginary guitarists, Stardust Sato and Fantastic Hatori, to represent us. However, the two must first face the qualifying round. Find out if they made the cut after the break.

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Heavy Industry without the Heavy Equipment

Here at RocketNews24, we like to bring you the latest and greatest, whether it’s (potentially) killer mechs or adorable new fonts! But sometimes it’s nice to take a moment to appreciate the beauty of raw human ingenuity. Read More

The two boys seen above are Aldrich Lloyd Taloding and James Walter Bucong from the Philippines.  Their video having been uploaded to YouTube about a week ago is already nearing one million views and comments such as “Freaking beautiful!” and “I got goosebumps.”

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Ginza’s David Bowie Café Now Open and in Full Funky Swing

As reported here on RocketNews24, a special, limited-time-only café in honour of legendary British rock star David Bowie opened on March 18 this year. Keen to see if the real thing was as far out as the earlier press release, our reporter headed down to Ginza, Tokyo to check it out.

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Creepy Robotic Cat Ear Maker Neurowear Releases Mindreading Headphones That Play Music Based on Your Mood

Are you tired of combing through iTunes or Pandora in search of the perfect song? Well you’re in luck! Now your headphones can read your mind and select the exact playlist to suit your mood.

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Floor Space Oddity: David Bowie Café to Open in Ginza for Month of March

Now that everyone has probably sobered up from last year’s Rolling Stones and Suntory collaboration, a new rock legend is bringing a slightly classier offering to Japan.

For just a few weeks of March, in Ginza, Tokyo you can enjoy the sights, sounds, and tastes of the Thin White Duke – David Bowie.

To promote The Next Day – his first album in 10 years – Sony will be converting part of their building into the David Bowie Café with a special selection of food and décor.

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A chart surface on the Internet recently titled: 100 American College Music Majors Analyze Japanese Musical Talent and the Relationship with the Number of Members.

How exactly this information came together is unknown, but the name suggests that 100 American music students were surveyed about several Japanese music acts past and present. Those results were then plotted against the number of members in each band.

The results certainly do suggest that there is a correlation between the number of members in a music act and the perceived crappiness of said act. So lets examine this more deeply with some samples and a translated version of the chart above.

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Korea’s chart-topping boyband BIGBANG has been cited in Korean high school music textbooks as an example of plagiarism.

The above image was taken by a second year high school student moments after she received the book. She then uploaded it to Twitter where it has since shocked many Korean Internet users.

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Proving once again that Gloria Estefan was right and that the rhythm is gonna get you, Japanese DJ Kazuhiro Abo’s fantastic video shows a 10-minute session he did during visit to a kindergarten as part of a workshop appropriately titled “Kids and Music”. Although it takes the little ones a while to get moving at first, once they’re all up on their feet they’re bouncing and spinning around as only kids can do.

The full cute, chaotic video after the jump.

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Japanese Teacher Suspended for Hugging Students While Singing to Them

When I was a junior high school student my music teacher used to jab a meter stick into my gut while I played Mary Had a Little Lamb on the trumpet.  Good times.

Still, that guy could win teacher of the year next to a 55 year-old man who was suspended from his Shonan Ward high school in Kanagawa Prefecture for inappropriate behavior with some female students.

How inappropriate? For starters, he composed an original love ballad.

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Sony Unveils New Walkman for Swimmers– Light, Sturdy and on Sale for Under $170 this February

If you’re of the sporty persuasion and wish that you could take your tunes to the pool without having a funny-looking contraption strapped to your goggles or having your earphones fall out every other stroke, Sony’s newest addition to the Walkman series will definitely be of interest.

Scheduled for a February 16 release in Japan, the new NWD-W270 series features a compact, lightweight design and boasts 4GB of onboard storage space. Plenty of delicious images and details after the break.

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【Video】 These Japanese Dolls Are Creepy, but They Sure Can Dance

Most humanoid robots are made to look either as lifelike as possible, or as machine-like as possible; that is, similar to the robots we know from science fiction.

After seeing the “Dancing Dolls” made by YouTube user RozenZebet, we have a feeling we know why: anything in between would be absolutely terrifying.

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After three years of waiting and months of promotional tie-ins, Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo finally debuted in theaters across Japan at midnight tonight.

To get fans pumped up for the long-awaited release (as if they weren’t enough already), Nippon Television Network aired both of the previous Rebuild of Evangelion movies over the past two Fridays— Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone on November 9 and Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance last night— and topped it off with a special treat by broadcasting the first six minutes and 36 seconds of Evangelion 3.0 after the ending credits of last night’s showing.

We are pleased to bring you those six minutes and 36 seconds, as well as the newly-released music video for Sakura Nagashi, the Evangelion 3.0 theme by Utada Hikaru, below.

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  • Nov 16, 2012

Musical Magic! From 2-Dimensional Notes to Real Music With the Swipe of a Scanner

Music undeniably plays a huge part in our lives. We’re constantly surrounded by it, and I’m sure there are many of you who would say you simply couldn’t live without music. But when you think about it, isn’t it fascinating that all the music you’re so used to hearing comes down to some circles and dots and squiggles drawn on rows of five parallel lines? For those of us not musically inclined, these notes and symbols may seem like a baffling code, but now, there’s an amazing device that instantly transforms these notes into actual music!

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As of 1 October this year, knowingly downloading copyrighted music and video in Japan became punishable by up to two years in prison and a 2 million yen (US$25,000) penalty.

The law was passed in June after the Japanese music industry, the second largest in the world after the US, reported continued financial losses, with analysts suggesting that just one in 10 downloads were legal.

Since the law came into effect, there have certainly been some changes, and many internet users have become reluctant to click that download button for fear of receiving a hefty fine, meaning that the law has been a success in a way.

According to a recent statistical survey, however, since the law was passed, sales of music in Japan have continued to fall and consumers are actually showing less interest in music than ever before…

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Cool Japanese Music Video Brings Back 8-Bit Google Maps…Kinda

Remember Google’s 8-bit Google Maps April Fools’ prank from earlier this year?

Japanese four-piece all-female rock band, Negoto, have taken the idea to the next level by integrating their new music video with an 8-bit map of Tokyo so that it tracks the singer’s location as she goes on a grand adventure across the city.

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Your Japanese TV Commercial Favourites, All Under One Funky Beat

I think I’ve just found my new favourite YouTube channel.

Thanks to a tip-off from an awesome RocketNews24 reader, I’ve discovered Eclectic Method; audio-visual remix masters and providers of horribly funky beats, whether the sampled videos were intended for musical enjoyment or not.

The video that pulled me in, however, was the group’s fantastic Japanese TV commercial remix…

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Cassette to iPod Converter Helps ‘80s Kids Keep Their Tape Collection Alive

We all love new technology, but when the arrival of a new generation of hardware signals the end of another, it can be kind of sad.

Vinyl will always be considered classic, but VHS and audio cassettes have sadly gone the way of the dinosaurs, with MiniDiscs (remember them?), and maybe one day CDs, soon to follow.

While CD quality sound is universally recognised as being superior to MP3 music, and despite MiniDiscs still hanging on in Japan years after the west turned its back on them, highly compressed MP3 is fast becoming the format of choice for millions of people, meaning that more and more of our once-loved possessions are relegated to sitting on the shelf or in a desk drawer somewhere.

So what are we to do with those Backstreet Boys cassettes? What fate awaits forgotten Bon Jovi tapes that rattle around the glove-box of a car whose stereo no longer has a tape deck? Are we destined never again to hear their muffled warbles and grainy beats?

Help is at hand!

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You Can Only Listen to This Song Once In Your Life

To promote their new album Meeteen (ミーティン), quirky pop-rock ensemble Dainari><Konari (Greater Than >< Less Than) released a highly exclusive song online.  In fact, it’s so exclusive that once you listen to it it will remain locked forever.

Full of questions I embarked on this journey, worried that the song may be so catchy that I’d go crazy if unable to hear it again.

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