Idol Watch #25: March/April 2025
Rounding up the best idol songs from the past two months, featuring =LOVE, lonlium, REIRIE and more, plus a best idol songs list as recently polled by idols
Hi! Welcome to Idol Watch, a bi-monthly companion newsletter to This Side of Japan that’s all about Japanese idols! You can check out past editions here.
For its latest broadcast in April, TV program Professional Rankings put together a countdown of the 30 best idol songs of all time as voted by the idols themselves. The show tapped nearly 200 names across the eras, from today’s buzzed-about acts like FRUITS ZIPPER to Showa veterans like Yu Hayami, to cast their picks. Care to guess which song came on top?
You can check out the full list as a text list here.
This around-30s writer likes to yap about how Aya Matsuura is the greatest idol of my lifetime yet I was admittedly a little surprised to see “Momoiro Kataomoi” rank number one. It only takes a brief scanning of the full list — which I will provide in a separate column along with no. 31–40 as shared as an in-between segment — that the results lean toward what’s in the library of twentysomething idols working today with last year’s viral hits by Cho Tokimeki Sendenbu and the KAWAII LAB acts ranking pretty high among minted classics. Matsuura graduated right around the time a lot of these 25-and-under idols entered their preteens, some of them barely born when “Momoiro Kataomoi” introduced the idol image of Matsuura to the public, so it’s impressive to see she’s remembered fondly even by the youngest generation.
Matsuura also stands as a damn good median for this list. Released in 2002, “Momoiro Kataomoi” sits in almost equal distance between the poll’s oldest voted single, 1980’s “Aoi Sangosho,” and the newest from 2024. I suspect her songs showed up in a lot of the ballots, racking up points in aggregate, and ranking among the top especially by the late millennials, like known Hello! Project superfan Yuki Kashiwagi and Matsuura’s former groupmates Maki Goto and Miki Fujimoto, the latter who wrote in “Momoiro” as her number one.
“Hatsukoi Cider” by Buono! (2012), ranked no. 2
Had the show just asked for the opinion of today’s idols, who skew 30 and under, I am confident the number-one spot would instead go to the song that ended up at number two: Buono!’s “Hatsukoi Cider.” That 2010s Hello! Project classic won the top spot when another music program NaiNai Music polled performers at 2024’s Tokyo Idol Festival for a similar list of best idol songs. What sets this song apart from preceding classics is how it’s held up in the canon almost exclusively through the adoration of the idols themselves. During the segment on “Hatsukoi Cider,” Nogizaka46 alumna Sayuri Matsumura was shocked to hear how the staff interviewing her had no knowledge of the song, and the single continues to divide the heads from the normies. You either regard it as the pinnacle of Heisei-era idol music, maybe even aspire to become an idol through the trio, or have never heard of it all.
Aside from the high praise of “Hatsukoi Cider,” the voices of the younger idols were most represented through the 2020s titles, some of which are barely a year old since their release. It’s also what invited some vitriol after the list spread around on social media. Not long after the show aired, I saw tweets lamenting how idol music today have become creatively shallow compared to the days of AKB48, Morning Musume and Momoiro Clover Z — whose songs all rank in the top 10. Though the subject was often unnamed, you can deduce these people are talking about a song like CUTIE STREET’s “Kawaii Dake Ja Damedesuka?” from how they’re not so enthused about how the songs are not much more than tools to gain attention on a platform like TikTok.
“Kawaii Dake Ja Damedesuka?” by CUTIE STREET, ranked no. 21
These songs are truly on the verge of oversaturation especially if your feed is already geared to bring idol-related media: there has yet been a day I don’t hear a KAWAII LAB song within in a few scrolls. But this list also goes to show these hits are enjoyed by today’s idols as more than a part of a trend, and with sincere appreciation of them as an idol song. Discussing the list’s number three, FRUITS ZIPPER’s “Watashi No Ichiban Kawaii Tokoro” — arguably the song that set off the haters of today’s idol music— more than a few of the voters praised just how the song says what it wants to say without a need for it to be clever or poetic. What can seem as artless to others, it can be a new kind of voice and style unafraid to disregard what’s considered artful.
The discussion inspired by all of these songs in this list remind that idols are idol fans too. They got into their profession by looking up to somebody in the scene after all, and they get excited about the music from the perspective of a fan as much as a performer. These newer, self-referential hits like from the KAWAII LAB acts seem especially geared to captivate idols, who understands both sides of the idol-fan relationship as the worshiped and the worshiper.
Which makes the appearance of =LOVE’s “Zettai Idol Yamenaide” in the top 10 the most vindicating result from this list. The song is a meta-commentary about the minutia of idol fandom recounted by your favorite idol’s favorite idols, exploring in particular how the experience comes with an expiration date. =LOVE are well aware of the narrative arcs and subtext animating the “happily never after fairy tale” that is the idol-fan experience not only because they are the actors making them all come to life but they’ve also felt it all from following their favorites as fans too. It’s only appropriate such a song is voted high in a list that’s made for and by participants in the scene today.
And here are the songs I enjoyed from March and April!
“Chotokkyu Tousouchuu” by =LOVE [Sony]
If the orthodox arrangement of “Chotokkyu Tousouchuu” resembles a textbook idol song, firing off with loud brass and dempa synths, it only accurately brings the lyrics to life—what’s a more appropriate sound for a song about the deep devotion of an idol than the very music on constant rotation by her obsessive fans? While the racing beats give the adrenaline rush from the possibility of catching your oshi in real life, “Chotokkyu Tousouchuu” digs deeper than the average oshikatsu anthem through =LOVE’s understanding of the often unrequited love behind the idol-fan dynamic. “Another day seeing you go past,” they sing poignantly, their gestures unreciprocated. Yet it’s these countless failed gestures that make the smallest responses back seem so life-changing.
Tokubechu Shite / Koibito Ijou, Suki Miman is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Sekai De Ichiban Idol” by Cho Tokimeki Sendenbu; “Kamisama No Iuto-ri!” by Not Equal Me
“Marionette” by REIRIE [AnyMind]
The newest iteration of this ever-inseparable duo, Rei Kuromiya and Rie Kaneko, has been settling into an electro-pop style full of frenzied drops and frantic rhythms as their main sound. Which makes the smooth Nu Jack Swing of “Marionette” quite the outlier in the duo’s new Twinning Fate EP, especially when sandwiched between songs built out of d’n’b breaks and scrambled hyperpop. REIRIE cozy up to the slick funk, though, as if this has always been their style; they seem at home even more in the music video as they rock together to the warm groove. While the chillness of “Marionette” provides a nice balm from the sugar highs of their electropop, it also wouldn’t hurt if REIRIE decided to pursue this kind of path again.
Twinning Fate EP is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Aimi” by fishbowl; “JUMP” by UN1CON
“Tookumade” by lonlium [ARTSOUND]
Punk rock has provided a satisfying release valve for lonlium and their social-outcast melancholy, yet the maudlin post-hardcore in “Tookumade” doesn’t give so easy an emotional release. Bummed-out guitars cast a cloud of doubt over the music as the group retreats inward, their sighing lyrics dotted with deeper ellipses. “With you, we can probably go even farther…,” the idols sing. Backed by the all-for-one enthusiasm of punk, these same words would’ve been shouted words of affirmation to another in their past songs. But in the gloom of “Tookumade,” lonlium seems to be held back from fully holding onto their faith.
Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Full Metal Attitude” by airattic; “Ningen Pyramid” by yumegiwa last girl
“Tejoo Wo Kowase!” by AsIs [self-released]
A moodiness reminiscent of early Keyakizaka’s looms in the songs of AsIs—perhaps a product from frequent collaborator BugBear, the duo who composed “Silent Majority” and “Fukyowaon.” A peppering of funk brass and jazz-rock noodling uplift the group in “Tejoo Wo Kowase!” from their stern demeanor. There remains in them a disdain against big society that also echoes the former Sakamichi group during their heyday. “From this birdcage rhetoric / we can’t see the great sky,” AsIs sing in the titular chorus, “these rusted handcuffs / break it!” But the vibrant groove dispels any sense of doom, brightening their lyrics about going against the impossible with cheery optimism.
Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Mirai Wa Kaeteikerukara” by Sukiiro Drop
“You’ll Never Walk Alone” by YOUR ADVISORY BOARD [SOPHORI FIELD COMPANY]
Though YOUR ADVISORY BOARD don’t explicitly tie themselves to any specific genre, more than a few elements of rave have cropped up in their music since their debut last year. Rubbery electro bass lines, piano stabs and jungle breaks gradually build into big-room synth-pop that’s perpetually peaking. “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is the group’s most purposeful with their aesthetics thus far, honing in on the subtext of community attached to their chosen style of electronic dance music. “I’m going to create a world here / where everyone can be themselves,” the idols declare in the titular chorus as the starry synth-pop shines like a lighthouse providing a signal for lost souls.
Listen to it on Spotify.
“Slow Motion” by kikirayray [Southernmost Track’s]
A breezy EP filled with seaside funk and balmy indie-rock, kikirayray’s Comeback To arrives maybe too early in the calendar year with summer being months away. In the EP’s “Slow Motion,” the idols long for a little more than sunshine. “It hurts, it hurts / these screaming memories,” they sigh over ragged, bummed-out guitars—the closest in sound to the math rock usually brought by Southernmost Track’s out of the whole EP. “From the deep, I scream for you.” While the songs might find more suitable weather later on, the yearning in the music hit more poignant with kikirayray dreaming for warmer climes and better situations.
Comeback To EP is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
“Majestic Baby” by BELLRING GIRLS HEART [Lonesome Record]
BELLRING GIRLS HEART’s “Majestic Baby” embodies the macabre of the group’s original line-up but with a harder sound and a darker mood, all rendered in a better quality—what one would hope to hear from the new generation of the Crow Girls since the franchise’s relaunch in 2023. The muddy blues-rock of their initial years intensifies into shreds of nu-metal, the maudlin pianos further heightening the Gothic feel. And the idols wallow in their melancholy throughout, trying to visualize the days after the tears and heartbreak. Back in 2013, there was a naivete to their songs of love and murder; here, they sound purposeful than ever, channeling their brewing emotions with the exact intensity as they feel them.
Majestic Baby is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
“DDF” by Koutei Camera Girl Veirs [Tapestok]
The latest Koutei Camera Girl unit began its re-re-boot last year by adapting the franchise’s rave-meets-hip-hop style to today’s club-rap as if to catch up for the lost time. But they quickly steer course in “DDF,” now shifting reverse to revisit their roots. The frenzied acid-techno production leaps back to the peaking dance beats backing Drei, or the initial rave fusion experimented in the original KouteCa formation. As the track restlessly pumps along, the idols slips naturally into the builds and drops, like it’s just another night out in the club. “I had a dream last night, they said the only option are to dance or not to dance,” they comment at one point. “DDF” is just the continuation.
Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Sotsugyo” by XUDAN
And Let’s Hear It from the Boys! March/April Favorites from Male Idols
Genin Wa Jibun Ni Aru - “LLL”
ICEx - “Risokyo”
King & Prince - “marble”
M!LK - “E jan”
MAZZEL - “King Kila Game”
Travis Japan - “Say I do”
Sandaime J SOUL BROTHERS - “What Is Your Secret?”
SUPER EIGHT - “BUCHI I GOT IT”
WOLF HOWL HARMONY - “BAKUON”
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