Digging in Delight: A Guide to the D4DJ Albums
Exploring the new albums released this year from six of the D4DJ units
This feature is part of This Side of Japan issue #59. You can return to the main newsletter here.
D4DJ as a multimedia franchise inspires curiosity through its overarching concept that revolves around a series of DJ units formed by students in fictional high schools and universities. There’s an anime, D4DJ First Mix, based on the 2D characters and a rhythm game, D4DJ Groovy Mix, using the franchise’s original tracks as well as cover songs. But me, I follow along for the music, which grabs from a wide spread of EDM styles across the various DJ units.
Personally, D4DJ helped me embrace EDM, specifically the festival-minded, Euro-trance-inspired dance music that emerged at the start of the 2010s—the kind popularized by the likes of Avicii, Swedish House Mafia and 11 Months-era Calvin Harris. More than a few units from the franchise adopts that EDC-friendly stadium-house production wholesale as their sound but presents it in a more idol-pop package, serving EDM similar to how a metal-idol group re-contextualize death metal into something more approachable. The strategy also represents their live shows performed by the voice actresses who play the respective characters: as an outsider looking in, their outdoor concerts resemble an Ultra festival for people (like me) who might not feel too comfortable stepping into an actual Ultra festival.
This year especially brought an abundance of D4DJ music with the franchise releasing full-length albums for six of their DJ units. With the last title for the year finally out, I thought it’s a good opportunity to look back at the 2022 releases. Rather than ranking the albums, or just go through them chronologically, this list will serve as a guide on where to start and which one to pursue next, starting from Photon Maiden. You are obviously welcome to skip around and start anywhere you wish. But for the uninitiated in D4DJ, or J-pop in general, this path might be a more organized route.
4 phenomena by Photon Maiden
*Recommended track: “Akatsuki (Fruits Mix V2)”
Voiced by: Haruki Iwata, Ami Maeshima, Hinata Sato, Risa Tsumugi
While Photon Maiden isn’t the group central to the story of the D4DJ First Mix anime, the unit stands in as a strong, balanced center for the franchise through their music. The four embraces EDM at its most wholesome and sincere: the grand-piano intro, the fuzzy drop and vocal splices that wraps around the synth burst in “We Never Stop” all turns to Porter Robinson as an inspiration, and the tender arrangement is built to maximize the earnestness flowing from the chorus: “We never stop singing / We never stop thinkin’ / We’re with you, so you don’t have to worry / about a new page in your journey.” Other tracks from 4 phenomena shows off edge and technique through more dynamic production tricks, but Photon Maiden’s main weapon is that disarming sincerity delivered through the softest yet most powerful of trance-pop.
Master Peace by Peaky P-Key
*Recommended track: “Let us sing ‘Peaky!’”
Voiced by: Aimi, Reo Kurachi, Moeka Koizumi, Miyu Takagi
Peaky P-Key represents a model of cool within the D4DJ universe by design. The unit’s songs are fueled by the charisma of its center member Kyoko, whose group inspires Rinku, the main protagonist of the D4DJ First Mix anime, to start her own DJ unit Happy Around. Voice actress Aimi might then have big shoes to fill being the voice of an idol-like figure like Kyoko, but oh, does she fill it: I don’t know if anyone else can convincingly deliver the catchphrase “Peaky time” as straight in character as she does. And as a vocalist, she gets to relish in the role as the focal point of both the group and its songs. The tracks often dedicates the space of the chorus to her mighty vocals, giving them the feel of a diva-led EDM anthem. If vocals appeal to you more than party-starting beats, Peaky P-key isn’t a bad place to start.
V.I.P. Lagoon by Merm4id
*Recommended track: “I Will Never Die”
Voiced by: Himari Hazuki, Natsumi Hirajima, Ai Negishi, Mei Okada
Merm4id supplies the loudest and the most brash EDM beats out of all of the units in the franchise. The productions in V.I.P. Lagoon are filled with siren-raid bass lines, thunderous brass riffs and epic trance synths, and they all aim too big a scale to be contained in the live houses often seen in D4DJ music videos. The firepower and the operating scale of Merm4id are far from modest of a first impression to D4DJ, but these qualities also make Merm4id my favorite group from the franchise when purely accounting for the music. Many of their songs like “Floor Killer” and “High tension BPM” are built to hype up the crowd, but they also deliver a song like “I Will Never Die” where they channel their you-only-live-once attitude into something beyond singing and dancing. Backed by an enthralling trance beat, they embody the invincibility as claimed in the title.
HAPIARA HAPIARE HAPIARARE by Happy Around!
*Recommended track: “Happy Music”
Voiced by: Karin Kagami, Haruka Mimura, Yuka Nishio, Kanon Shizaki1
If Happy Around!’s embrace of EDM seems less cohesive than Photon Maiden or Merm4id, it’s a reflection of their position as a group within the D4DJ universe: this is a unit assembled by amateurs striving to reach the heights of other DJ units in the franchise. The scrappy-ness comes through in the restless production that takes cues from denpa-derived idol songs as much as dubstep of the wub-wub variety; here and there, they spike some gabber whoops to turn up the levels even more. What they lack in cool and stature, they make up for in sheer enthusiasm, which is made very clear from the song titles on: “Happy! It’s about to start / Are you ready,” they proclaim in the chorus of “Happy Music.” From music to personality, Happy Around! are naive by design and yet they turn that into their own strength.
Lyrical Anthology by Lyrical Lily
*Recommended track: “Pining for the Moon”
Voiced by: Ruka Fukagawa, Amane Shindo, Hazuki Tanda, Yuzuki Watase
Out of all the DJ units, EDM accounts for the musical identity of Lyrical Lily the least—well, with one exception. The songs collected in Lyrical Anthology resembles more of idol songs with a touch of electro-pop. “Pining for the Moon” and “The Catcher in the Rhyme” in particular just sound like retro idol pop modernized for the EDM generation. The fantasy-steeped concepts also sorts the group’s music closer to the anison realm with a track like “Adventure King!” borrowing its structures as much as tropes: the bridge diverges into an extended dialogue section that indulges more in world-building than musical payoff. Lyrical Lily might not be the strongest execution of the “EDM meets idol” concept behind D4DJ. If you’re seeking a nice collection of anison, though, Lyrical Anthology checks all the boxes.
SHIN-RAI by RONDO
*Recommended track: “Black Lotus”
Voiced by: Tsunko, Rihona Kato, Haruna Momono, Sae Otsuka
RONDO deals mostly in metal music, which seems better fit within the universe of BanG! Dream, another multimedia entertainment franchise led by D4DJ’s home company of Bushiroad. Their album SHIN-RAI may be the last thing you’d look for when seeking anything EDM-adjacent from D4DJ. But if you’re up for symphonic pop-metal regardless of where it comes from, then RONDO should be a treat. “Black Lotus” hangs with the best of seiyuu songs led by fierce riffs backed by stirring string arrangements, and—if I can get indulgent with some Bushiroad talk for a second—it competes in quality with their distant, more baroque siblings of Roselia.
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Shizaki has left the franchise this year. Maiko Irie has replaced her as the voice for the character Rei Togetsu.