Koda Kumi

Koda Kumi's gimmick is that she's a slut.
While most current idols are content to preserve at least a modicum of purported chastity, KK has a tendency to go much further. Watching her, it can be refreshing not to see things dumbed down to the level of a young teenager. Still, this is Japan we're talking about, a nation where 'serious adult female sexuality' is about as acceptable as child porn. (Okay, actually...it's much less acceptable - you can always count on a culture gap to kill analogies). So, Kumi's stripping and grinding has the approximate titillation value of a fifteen year old wearing her big sister's clothes and posing in front of a mirror - you can't take it all that seriously.

First heard about Koda Kumi through the two songs from Final Fantasy X-2 (an underrated game with horribly disappointing 'PERFECT' ending that I spent hours trying to achieve), Real Emotion and 1000 Words. I liked the latter, but wasn't really expecting to hear much from her again since, honestly, the singers of previous Final Fantasy games never really attained mainstream success. Then, I saw her name appearing again, this time for the theme song of Cutie Honey. Thought she was hot, and assumed that the gal's carving a niche for herself by singing theme songs for anime and video games. Maybe she's kinda different from FF9 singer, Emiko Shiratori (of course, she belonged to a different generation, singing for the 70s Winter Olympics and stuff) and FF10 singer, Rikki (actually a folk singer, so probably not aiming for mainstream success) did!

I'm not going to lie to you, I don't think this is in any way Koda Kumi's better singles, and in fact I was a bit surprised that it was so mediocre. The chorus is catchy but the song as a whole is repetitive, and the beats seem predictable and overly flashy and not really creative. Koda Kumi makes a lot of very predictable songs but they all seem to have something interesting about them, and this song just doesn't. Download give it a listen and disagree with me.

Koda Kumi requested a breakdown of Koda Kumi's eye makeup in this picture with MAC products. I found a similar look on MAC's website and here is the above.

Koda Kumi's biggest asset, apart from her, um, assets, is a rich, husky voice. Now, this might not sound that distinctive, but consider that this takes place in the same country where her biggest rival and labelmate, Otsuka Ai*, sings like a squirrel on meth, and women in their late twenties will try to affect a ten year old's pitch and intonations. So, her deeper register, which might even be termed soulful at times, immediately calls her out. Songs like "D.D.D" and "No Tricks" were the closest thing to actual R & B that J-pop had come in ages - you could listen to them without having to 'explain' the voice.

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Koda Kumi also had some nice gimmicks, such as releasing what was essentially a full album (Best Second Session) song-by-song, each with its own single. She's currently 'top of the class' as it were, set to win a number of industry awards again.

JPop Queen Koda Kumi releases a new single with 4 brand new songs! An A-side single with 3(!) B-sides. The maxi single gets the title FREAKY. First pressing includes a hot poster extra as well! The single will be released as a CD version and a CD+DVD version.