J-rock bands: One Ok Rock and Tsubakiya Shijuusou
Rock.
What a wonderful music genre. The up-beat tempo, kept up with the amazing drums. The wonderful guitar and base rifts, and the awesome singer pulling the whole song all together.
Most people, when they think of Japanese music, they either think of those high pitched girls singing (when they aren’t familiar with Japanese music), or J-pop artists, like Utada Hikaru.
So where’s the love with J-rock, a great genre? Well, here I am to give the genre some credit with two great bands that I truly love.
One Ok Rock.
One Ok Rock (stylized as ONE OK ROCK) is a Japanese rock band formed in 2005, composed of four members: Taka, Toru, Ryota, and Tomoya. They originally consisted of fifth member, Alex, but he has left the group since.
The band had various singles that entered the Oricon charts, catapulting them as one of the most promising artists in the Japanese rock scene. They have released four albums as of 2010, and with the success of their latest album Niche Syndrome they solidified their J-rock status in Japan and across the globe.
The band’s name, One Ok Rock, came from “one o’clock,” the time that the band used to practice on weekends. However, noticing that the Japanese language made no distinction between r’s and l’s, they changed “o’clock” to “o’crock” (or “o’krock”) which then was separated to become “ok rock”.[2] -Wikipedia
To be honest, I have only known One Ok Rock for about two weeks. And I can’t get their music out of my head. The singer has a great voice, and the music is wonderful. The majority of their music is upbeat, guaranteed to get you up from your seats to dance, head-bang, and sing along. They have quite a bit of their music videos uploaded on youtube which I recommend you watching. Their music videos are great to watch to. On a side note, when I showed one of their music videos to my sister, she commented how they don’t look like typical Japanese band guys, but instead look American. If you find yourself agreeing with her, mind explaining why to me? XD
But I digress. You will find yourself loving their music. Now, here are some of my top three favourite music videos from them thus far.
No Scared
「完全感覚Dreamer」
Liar
Tsubakiya Shijuusou
Tsubakiya Shijuusou, or Tsubakiya Quartette.
Tsubakiya Shijuusou or Tsubakiya Quartette is a Japanese rock band, which was started in the year 2000, in the city of Sendai, Japan, by Nakada Yuuji. After many changes in the line-up, in 2002 the band settled with Nakada on vocal and guitar, Nagata Takashige on bass and Kodera Ryouta on drums. In 2005, they were joined by guitarist Yasutaka Takurou, and this remains their formation to the present day:
中田裕二 (Nakada Yuuji) – vocal & guitar
安高拓郎 (Yasutaka Takurou) – guitar
永田貴樹 (Nagata Takashige) – bass
So while I’ve only known One Ok Rock for about two weeks, I have been loving Tsubakiya Shijuusou for the past two years. Love, I tell you, LOVE! What got me hooked? Well, the first song I heard from them was their song, “Tetsukazu No Sekai”, which was used in an AMV for USUK Hetalia Related stuff. The leader’s voice is amazing to listen to, the music is excellent of course… above all, for whatever reason I felt like this song was a bit different from the other kind of rock music I have listened to so far, both in English rock bands and Japanese rock bands. It was like it focused less on super up beat, head-banging kind of music and more with emotion and their unique music. That’s just it. I find their music, for whatever reason, unique and different in an awesome way. And I love it.
Like I said, my first song from them was ” Tetsukazu no Sekai”. My second became “Lover”. And from there, it just grew and grew. I highly highly highly recommend giving this band a chance. :3
椿屋四重奏 - 恋わずらい
Tetsukazu no Sekai
Crazy For You
So, after a long time of not posting due to school, here is a post for you all. As for the Anime Spotlight issue, I apologize for missing last month’s (September’s) article. To make up for it, I will do my best to do two this month, one hopefully this coming weekend and one towards the end of the month.
Please let me know if you liked my suggestions and if you want me to do more of these kinds of articles, or if I should expand more with a certain genre. All in all, have fun! 
