…they expect to win.

I’ve been listening to the new Perfume album, GAME, almost obsessively on my iPod, and I’ve come to two conclusions.

1) My opinions on this album will not agree with most bloggers in terms of favorite songs, etc. BUT

2) I would love to dress the girls up as school girls and stick them in my high school for a day to see what exactly happens.

Now, the second one is hard to explain, but that’s the GAME I like to envision in my head–like that random short story I read in 9th grade about some crazy bastard “hunting” humans. Could you imagine the Perfume Hunt? Wotas would be all up in that shit. (…Ghetto talk foshizzle).

Anyway, track review.

02. Plastic Smile

Someone out there is gonna kill me already, because Plastic Smile is not one of my favorites off this album. It’s really… cute though. Like, this is a song that embodies all that Perfume is at the moment. It’s cute, techno-y, catchy, and just so goddamn cybersugary that you can imagine it on the freaking Gaia Online boards as an avatar.

I’m not kidding, either. I have it envisioned in my head. It’s so wrong… Yet so right.

03. GAME

I. Love. This. Song. It’s hardcore. It’s… dancey. It’s messy, it’s cyber, it make me think of strobe lights and club-hopping and things that Perfume shouldn’t stand for but also sort of embody, in a sick, twisted sense. I almost can’t hear what the girls are saying, but it makes it seem like they’re embedded in the song.

And in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, “Kashiyuka, you can send me all the spam you want.”

…And I’m not even a lesbian.

Anyway, on the “GAME” I envision. First of all, you need the 3 in school girl outfits. Blazers and mini-skirts preferred. Then, you must stick them in the middle of my school–which is listed as a potentially dangerous school to begin with, so the stakes are a little higher. They need to survive 8 hours in this school without being:

1. kancho-ed (i.e. have someone try to stick their fingers up your ass)
2. felt up
3. hit on by a latino or a rather burly looking ghetto guy who calls you “thang” (…it’s happened)
4. kidnapped and taken to the J Wing (where people have been caught having sex in the middle of the hallway)
5. kidnapped and being tossed from the clock tower
6. sent to The Bureaucrat’s office

Anyway. As a side note, I listened to this song before I took my AP United States History exam last Friday. As a result, I imagined my class taking this test as a montage. In the background, GAME played. This really interfered with remembering what the hell the zoot suit riots were about.

(…Luckily, I remembered before the 55 minutes were up for the multiple choice portion. And I’m glad that apparently Nocchi, A~chan and Kashiyuka helped me get a good grade on the AP test).

07. Ceramic Girl

Ah, the theme to that show, Sumire16!! This is another “Perfume”-y song. I really like it, actually. ♥ It’s pretty catchy in a bizarre way. It’s fast-paced, and it’s hyper. But it’s really happy; it’s something I’d put on to study to, because it feels like it’d put me into a better mood. I actually do use it to study sometimes, but it’s not my favorite study song (that would be, as wrong as it sounds, See You Again by Miley Cyrus).

08. Take me Take me

I do not care that the song is 5+ minutes of “Take me take me.” I don’t give a damn. This is a great song. The fanservice asides, it’s so…

I can’t describe why I like it. But I can see a dance that goes along to this in my head, and it’s like the macarena.

Besides, as far as the whole loop thing goes. It’s fucking techno. What do you expect? Most Daft Punk songs I’ve ever heard are, like, 4 phrases repeated over and over and over in a continual loop. AND WE STILL LIKE THEM? So…

Uh…

I’d take all three of them and hide them under my bed. I’m sure my parents wouldn’t mind.

09. Secret Secret

The opening part puts me off slightly, because I keep thinking “they’re trying to fake me out.” But I like the song quite a bit. There’s something about it that’s quite… alluring?  The “la la”s totally make the opening, I love it.  I mean… the PV was good enough, but the song, alone, is equally enticing.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to finish this entry since goddamn MAY.  MAY, I TELL YOU, MAY.

10. Butterfly

WTF NATURE?  Oh, yes, welcome to Perfumeland, where you play all the nature games you want!  Chase the butterflies, girls, chase them…

Oh, anyway.  The song is really… cute?  It’s not one of my favoritest songs, but, well…  That’s because it’s almost 3 AM and I still have school tomorrow.  The song reminds me… of… some R&B song that just goes up and down the scales.  And it’s bad when Perfume reminds me of crappy American shit.

12. Puppy love

People love this song.  I can’t blame them, it’s actually kind of cute in its way.  But it’s 3 AM, remember?  I’m tired as fuck and just want to get this entry out.  So… Yay Perfume, this is cute, it sounds like it has some instrumentation that’s really interesting blahblahblah.

Goodnight Perfume.  We’ll play again soon.

All of their hard work seems to have paid off:

Perfume’s new album GAME debuted at number 1 on Oricon!!!

Congrats to A~chan, Nocchi, and Kashiyuka ♥

As for the album GAME itself…  I shall have a review soon; life’s hectic (AP practice test after school tomorrow; from 2:30 to 5:30 in the same room *cry*)

Anyway, the album itself, I can say, is flipping awesome.  My favorite track is Take Me Take Me. ♫  So… stay tuned; Monochrome Effect may have had a short hiatus but I’m back ♥

Well, well, well.  According to Tokyograph, he rumoured song Ceramic Girl is a real song, and it’s being used for a drama called “Sumire 16!!”  It’s safe to assume that the song will be released on GAME then; perhaps it will also be a single.  Sumire 16!! premieres on April 13, while GAME is being released on April 16.  Quite interesting.

Even more interesting?  Sumire 16!! stars none other than Tokito Ami.  I guess fate likes to play games with us.

…That totally was NOT a pun, I swear.

Well, okay, so it took me about 5 minutes to verify my kanji-skills (read: nearly nonexistant kanji skills), but I’ve got the tour dates and locations, from Perfume’s official site:

Game Tour: April to May

4/27 ~ Zepp Osaka (Osaka)
4/29 ~ Takamatsu Olive Hall (Takamatsu)
5/1 ~ Club Quattro (Hiroshima)
5/2 ~ Drum Logos (Fukuoka)
5/4 ~ Zepp Tokyo (Tokyo)
5/6 ~ Zepp Nagoya (Nagoya)
5/10 ~ Niigata Lots (Niigata)
5/16 ~ Club Junk Box (Sendai)
5/18 ~ Penny Lane 24 (Sapporo)
5/31 ~ Yokohama Blitz (Yokohama)

It’s interesting to hear that they’ll be playing the Yokohama Blitz, as the last group I remember caring about playing there was Hello! Project.  Go figure!

As previously reported, Perfume will be releasing their first original album on April 16th.  While there is currently no cover, we now have a TITLE:

The album is titled GAME (if you’re like me, you’re thinking Hamasaki Ayumi right now).  There is still no tracklisting that I can find, however, songs from the singles Fan Service [sweet] up to Baby cruising Love/Macaroni are sure to be on there.  In addition to those 6 songs, there are to be 7 new ones, produced by Nakata Yasutaka.

To promote GAME, the girls will be going on tour in 10 cities across Japan.  They’ll be touring from April 27 until May 31.

The current rumor is that there is a song on the GAME album called Ceramic Girl, but I’m not too sure how reliable the rumor is.  Although, I’ve got to admit, Perfume and Pottery might not be a bad match.

And, in other news, Kashiyuka has a new hairdo~~~ ♫  I’ll try to picspam later.

In deciding on a “first post,” I realized… Well, there’s really nothing HUUUUGE going on in Perfume land!  So what are you supposed to do when you need to bs a blog entry?

The same thing you do when you need to bs a DBQ for US History AP!

Perfume is Love.  That’s the tagline of this blog (even though wordpress believes its “Just a kickin’ Perfume blog”).  But why is Perfume “Love”?

That, ladies and gentlemen, would be called the Perfume Effect.  What is the Perfume Effect, you ask?

It’s Perfume innate ability to win over most people through their cuteness, catchy music and the kickass PVs.

Kashiyuka, A~chan and Nocchi have made a splash in the Jpop world, and not many people are too sure why, exactly.  Three girls from Hiroshima who embarked upon an Idol career ended up as the techno sweethearts of Jpop, with catchy singles like Polyrhythm and everyone’s favorite, Electro World.  There’s a lot to the group that people like–afterall, everyone keeps comparing the track Internet Cupid from BUONO!’s debut album to a Perfume song.  That alone says something.

So, let’s look at the things that make Perfume so… well-liked in the blogosphere, and outside it, as well.

#1: Kashiyuka wa kawaii~!!  And so are those other too, I guess.

I’ve always said that H!P’s Country Musume (CowMusu) was made up of some of the least attractive girls in H!P.  Not that they were ALL ugly, or anything, it’s just that they weren’t as pretty.

To that effect, sometimes, Perfume can resemble them.  However, the girls themselves make up for it in this entire aura of adorability.  A~chan and Nocchi are the subjects of the “maybe-kinda-unattractive” claim.  But when put with Kashiyuka, they turn into an adorable little unit.  Besides this, on their own, each girl has the potential to shine.  They’re adorable; besides this, they take possibly the best promotional pictures a trio could take.

This alone makes people go, “Ooh, three cute girls?  Let’s take a quick listen.”

#2: Pretty Catchy Music!

Once a casual listener takes up Perfume, it’s kind of difficult to stop.  Their music is like a drug of some sort.  Every song has something to offer–from the slow-paced but adorable Baby cruising Love to the whispery Valentine’s Day Chocolate Disco.  Their music gets repetitive, but all techno is relatively repetitive.

But the repetition gets their songs stuck in your head.  And once a song is stuck there, you can be sure you’ll be randomly blurting out lyrics left and right–once at a play practice, I randomly got up on the stage, made a peace sign and said “1. 2. 3. 4. ICHI NI TO SAN~! HAI!” for no real reason.  But for some reason, Perfume’s music will make you do silly things like that.  Every song has the capability of getting ingrained into your head.  It sits, waiting for the perfect, most embarassing moment to make itself known–perhaps during a dinner party your mother is throwing, or during a dance class.

Besides this, the catchy-ness of it makes it rather universal.  Even my little sister (the one from the Experiment with the MoMusu) likes Perfume, and has narrowed down the songs she wants to do for her talent show to Mr. Moonlight ~Ai no Big Band, and, surprisingly, Chocolate Disco.  And let me tell you, if she’s doing Chocolate Disco, she’s doing that cute dance.

What dance?

#3: The best PVs possible = Happy Happy Technopop Fans

Why, THIS dance!

The dance for Chocolate Disco is just one great dance that the Perfume girls have given us. Others are Computer City, Polyrhythm, Baby cruising Love, and Electro World. Along with this, they just tend to have GREAT PVs.

The first Perfume PV I had the pleasure of watching was Computer City. It took me one watch to like it. There was something charming about the simplicity of the PV–it wasn’t “cheap” like H!P PVs, or dramatic like AKB48, but it was… charming, in its seizure-inducing way.

Besides that, their accents make it sound like “Computer Shitty” which always makes the typical American giggle to an extent.

Anyway, with their adorable PVs and dances, it’s hard not to like them, right?

Two words: Electro World. This is arguably the best PV Perfume has come out with, because its ORIGINAL. It’s not as completely simple as the other ones, but it makes you go “WOW.” Not every PV can do that–not even the big names. I still watch some Ayu PVs and go, “What the fuck, avex, can’t you do anything right?” The Electro World PV seems to feature a computerized city in the Electro World. The dance features a running motion (a nod to the opening lines, which talk about running).

Also, come on, the tetris scene is just SO cute.

To date, I haven’t found a Perfume PV that I hate. I don’t think there ARE any. Each PV has something different in it to make it stand out–whether its Computer City’s recurring “Perfume” label popping up everywhere, Polyrhythm’s random-as-fuck apple, or Baby cruising Love’s Cum-Ball of Light.

Conclusion

What else can I say at this point? Perfume really is Love. There’s always something about them, that makes you go “WOW~!” There’s always something about them that makes you think “This group is just so awesome.”

And there’s always something that makes you go “Wow, this is what I wish Jpop was like.”

Anyway, I’ll try to find something more to write about Perfume soon. ♥

Did you know that there’s a tragic lack of Perfume blogs?  There is.  This is a travesty.  Seeing as though Perfume is probably my favorite group out there besides Morning Musume, running a Perfume blog aside from MK seemed like a natural step, like evolution or something.

And so, Monochrome Effect has been born.  ♥   For those who don’t know, I’m Kuri, who runs Morning Kuri, the H!P-centric blog.  My favorite member of Perfume is Kashiyuka because of her cute voice and delicate features, and my favorite Perfume song is probably Electro World.  However, Monochrome Effect makes for a better blog title, so, there we are.

As for early news, Fan Service ~Prima Box~ is 9 on Oricon  ♥  Yay~~~  As for tragic news, the Perfume blog is now only available to members of the fanclub.  Boo~~ D:

I could make a mission statement, but that takes about an hour to word eloquently (because it is, essentially, just stating that I’ll fangirl over Perfume at any given point and that I love them and they need more fanblogs because they are just awesome) and I don’t have that time.  But I will say that Perfume (and Kashiyuka) will surely take over the world one day, and at that point I will say: “Told you so.”