My Favorite J-Pop group Review: Mihimaru GT

Hey there Otakus of all ages, I'm fairly shameless in what I listen to and what I watch. I mean if I get teary eyed by 5 Cm/Sec you can only imagine that my music choices are not exaclty what the kids wold call hip. . . unless possibly if you're from Japan. Basicaly what happened was my host family gave me their computers entire music library, which turned out to be 4 and a half days of japanese music for me to go through. Thas how I discvered Mihimaru GT, I had learned and preformed a class dance to one of thier songs and completely forgot about it until I got my hands on their "Best of" CD. So lets break down exactly how I feel about this band.

There are few if any songs besides 気分上々↑↑ that will give me sucha a strong mixture of joy and nostalgia, this was the song my class danced to for the sports festival day, and as a result it has a permanent place in my heart. Coincidentally the song is also considered their major break that took the band from average success to Stardom. The band is a duet of Miyake and Hiroko, who came from mildly successful singing backgrounds until 2003 when the two got together to form their band. They use the name a a reminder of the joint effort by "Mihi" being a combination of the first two letters (in japanese this would probably be the first hiragana) of each of thier names and "Maru"meaning perfection. I found Miyake infinitely cooler when I learned the GT stood for Gran Turismo, her favorite game.

The actual music is mostly composed by Miyake, since shes credited as being a composer. Their music has a J-Pop/Hip-Hop sound, you may think this standard practice in Japanese music now a days, as is the trend in the US too, but Mihi is a bit different. Most would expect Hiroko to do most of the rapping, which does happen often, but it's not unusual for Miyake to step up to the plate and break it down on her own, her voice takes on a slightly harsher tone when she does, but its not necessarily a bad sound, its appropriate for what she has to do, it's just a strong difference from her singing voice, if anything its closer her natural voice. Nevertheless the two work well together because of the effect the two produce, with their stylistic and tonal differnces, its a unique combo not generally found in J-Pop today.

The instrumental aspect is, as you'd expect, mostly either DJ'd or run with unnammed band members, since most of the music would be hard to reproduce in any other way but technological. This doesn't give them a fake sound like you might expect, it just allows them more liberty with changign their style form song to song, much in the same way RIP Slyme plays with music genres so does Mihi. I can't honestly review this group because no matter what they end up creating I'll probably still listen to it, becasue they're associated with such a monumental and surreal experience for me. Whatever the cas, they wouldn't be popular if peopel didn't like them, so I suggest you give thema try. If you lke them enough I'll burn you some music. ;)



The Song that started it all for me:
気分上々↑↑

A bit slower paced, like an afternoon bike ride through a city feeling:
Love is. . .

Really bringing out stylistic differences (this is another of my favorites):
ツヨクツヨク

This one is just sort of happy:
願 ～negai～

Miyake shows us her rapping skillz:
H.P.S.J. (mihimaru Ball MIX)