How Did You Discover J-Pop? + Your Favorite Artists Now?

[Raiu-Ayu]

I first discovered j-pop (without knowing until much later lol) in 2002 when I got Kingdom Hearts for Christmas I loved Simple & Clean and used to reset the PS2 just so I could watch the intro again It was a year and a half later that I bought Final Fantasy X-2 and found Sweetbox's version of real Emotion and 1000 Words. It was around that time that I'd also gotten my first computer so I went online and found the Japanese version of real Emotion and feel in love with it. I then started listening to Koda Kumi songs before I found other artists.

In the order I discovered them:
KODA KUMI - Ku was the first singer I'd heard sing in Japanese. After I found real Emotion and 1000 no Kotoba I found the COME WITH ME single. I then found an amazing website that had uploaded all her albums up to feel my mind so I downloaded them and became a Kumi fan. I didn't really know much about Kumi until I joined So Into Koda in 2005 and thats when I started to find out about other J-Pop artists.

BoA - Being a Ku I obviously found the meaning of peace. I loved the song and though this I found BoA. At first I didn't like her cuz she was too Western styled but after a while I warmed up to her (thank you QUINCY lol) I listened to more of her songs and started to like her a lot and now I love her (ironic considering she's trying to be mainstream Western style to fit into the American music market lol)

UTADA HIKARU - Utada was technically the first J-Pop artist I heard but that was Simple and Clean so it doesn't count When I found J-Pop I then found Hikari and other Utada songs and started to like them a lot.

KOTANI KINYA - After I joined my first forum I started talking to people on MSN and one of them was a guy who liked the anime Gravitation. He showed it to me and I heard the song Spicy Marmalade. I loved it and so hunted down the Gravitation soundtrack and most of the songs were by Kinya I then found his albums and loved them too but now he's been gone for about 2 years

AYUMI HAMASAKI - I remember this vividly!! I was a fan of a girl on Soundclick called Sou-Hime and she had covered INSPIRE on her music page. So I listened to it and liked it so I found the original version and liked that but I didn't look for more ayu stuff cuz I had kinda been brain-washed by some ayu-haters into thinking she was a total plastic barbie diva. But just after Halloween in 2005 (when Ku announced her 12 singles release ) SIK was talking about Bold & Delicious. So out of curiosity I looked it up and found AHS so I joined Then the forum was all buzzed with the release of (miss)understood coming up and the CDL05-06. So I downloaded it and LOVED EVERY SECOND!!! I found a torrent on JPS with all of ayu's songs so I downloaded like 12GB worth of ayu (including singles, albums, remix albums, remix singles, EVERYTHING!) and I was a devout ayu fan by the end of the week

KAT-TUN - It was though AHS that I found Johnny's and KAT-TUN. At the time I found them Jin was still in America so I though it was just a 5 member group until I read up on them. But I loved their songs (GOLD in particular) and so I started listening to them

TRF - having liked teens on the Startin' / Born To Be... single I looked up TRF and found that I liked them. This was about Halloween. I found their Lif-e-motions album and heard the other singers cover their songs. This is were I found my favoritest ever J-Pop band: AAA

AAA - After I heard CRAZY GONNA CRAZY -meets AAA- on TRF's Lif-e-motions album I looked up AAA. I loved them from the first second I saw them. They were exactly my style of music I really liked the songs like "Q", BLOOD on FIRE and Saikyou Babe (not to mention I am totally in love with Nissy ). My first AAA release was CHEWING GUM in 2006 then Black & White right after (btw Black & White is the only J-Pop single I own ) Ever since I have loved AAA

NEWS - Because I liked KAT-TUN I decided to check out other JE bands but most of them were all too sugar pop for me to like But then I checked out NEWS. At first I totally hated them because their first album touch really turned me off them. But when pacific was about to be released I looked them up again and totally loved their newer songs like Sayaendo and the b-sides Boom! Boom! POWER and Akai Hana. Finally weeeek came along and just blew my mind

Since then I've found lots of other artists the ones I really like being:
Namie Amuro
Hey!Say!JUMP
Gackt
Daichi Miura
TETRA-FANG
UVERworld
Shota Shimizu
w-inds.
TOHOSHINKI
Naifu

And if you read all that good on you lol