My Top 15 Favorite J-pop Songs + An Explanation of What J-pop Is

I know that for a lot of people, it's probably very difficult to only pick one favorite song or to keep a condensed list of top favorites. For today's post however, I thought it would be fun to give a list of my favorite J-pop songs. This idea was inspired by a friend of mine who runs a YouTube channel on subjects like this surrounding Japanese pop culture, and one of the videos he made was on this very topic! 

So before I get into the list, let's just get a quick explanation out of the way here. J-pop originally comes from Japan, and naturally, most music in this one collective group is sung in Japanese. This generally became more widely known and popular because of it being featured in numerous anime. If any of you reading this don't know what anime is, then feel free to browse any old posts of mine to get a better idea of the subject. With all of this said, I hope you enjoy this post and can get some ideas if you're wanting to expand your taste in music- or if you want to become more aware of other mediums in pop culture :) 

1. Mixed Nuts (Spy x Family. Artist name- Official Dige Dandism)

2. Souvenir (Spy x Family. Artist name- Bump of Chicken)

3. Again (Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Artist name- Yui) 

4. Cinderella (Komi Can't Communicate. Artist name- Cidergirl) 

5. Magic (The Promised Neverland. Artist names- Myuk and Eve)

6. Hacking to the Gate (Steins;Gate. Artist name- Kanako Ito)

7. Dakara Hitorijyanai (My Hero Academia. Artist name- Little Glee Monster)

8. Period (Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Artist name- CHEMISTRY)

9. Polaris (My Hero Academia. Artist name- BLUE ENCOUNT)

10. Re:Re: (Erased. Artist name- Asian Kung-Fu Generation)

11. Love Dramatic (Love is War!. Artist name- Masayuki Suzuki)

12. Touch Off (The Promised Neverland. Artist name- UVERworld)

13. Good Morning World! (Dr. Stone. Artist name- Burnout Syndromes)

14. Shinzou wo Sasayego (Attack On Titan. Artist name- Linked Horizon)

15. Sono Chi No Sadame (Jojo's Bizarre Adventures. Artist name- Hiroaki "Tommy" Tominaga)

Style vs. Fashion: How I Decide On & Use Trends

Trendy clothing is NOT the same as fast fashion, but the two can easily coincide with each other since this kind of clothing is normally made to only be worn a few times per season, or per year depending on how you look at it. Before I started embarking on my own personal style journey, I’d say nearly half of the things in my closet were trendy pieces, but the other half of what I was wearing did actually suit me in some way at that point in time. What made my style feel confusing at that time though is that a lot of what I had didn’t have a sense of coherence, and I didn’t stick to a certain color palette either. I just bought whatever I thought was cute, and honestly, having stuck to that method for most of my teenage years (and in my early 20’s) really just put me in a place that felt stagnant half the time, like I didn’t know who I was. 

Being trendy or owning trendy things simply because other people are wearing them is something I’ve learned to ignore and steer clear from for the longest time. However, once I slowed down my shopping habits and really got in touch with what it is I like and don’t like, this has made participating in trends feel less like a stress-filled burden, and more like a fun, hands-on activity that can help complement what’s already in my wardrobe. 

So while I’m not going to be someone who’s preachy and tells you what you can and cannot do, just know that trends in fashion tend to come and go, and get recycled again and again as time passes. Playing with trends is fun, but if all you own is trendy, one-off pieces of clothing that are hard to style, this can cause feelings of overwhelm, stress and eventually, boredom. If I decide that I want to buy something that is trendy, one thing I like to ask myself is how can I style this with my existing clothes in 3 or 5 different ways? Another question to consider is how often will I wear this in the first place?

  

I’d say that the one trend that I’ve gotten into lately is with the color chocolate brown, and this works well because my wardrobe already consists of colors that go well with this color. Brown and black, brown and green, brown and orange, etc… The setup of my wardrobe has an even mix of neutrals and colorful pieces, and so that makes the chocolate brown trend easy to work with for me. The last trend I got into for spring and summer isn’t something that you’d see online a whole lot, but the bohemian style is something I’ve felt drawn to for as long as I can remember. Wide-leg or flared jeans, oversized cardigans, a long, flowy kimono or big statement pieces of jewelry is something I played with quite a bit in the past couple years, and while this trend is still something you’d see in certain outfits I would create, I don’t find it necessary to buy everything just to consider myself a “boho princess” of some sort.  

 

In saying all of this, I hope that talking about this can either give you a different shift in perspective, or at least, give you some insight as to how I use different trends within my own wardrobe. We all carry different style directions within our wardrobe, and while I still believe that fashion shouldn’t contain any hard and fast rules, it really doesn’t hurt to be more mindful about how you perceive and consume fashion. Thank you for stopping by and reading this post!