English Songs by Japanese artists
 

Anyone else taking serious notice of this? Looks like some Japanese artists/idols who started their careers in the anime industry as seiyuus are possibly starting to break into the global market by singing all-english music (as in Genuine English, not Engrish). So far I only heard 3 such songs (two from School Rumble Second Semester, performed, in the anime, by Ichijo Karen [but from what I heard, not Ichijo's actual seiyuu]; one performed by the seiyuu of Sailor Moon's Sailor Venus/Aino Minako and titled "Cross My Heart"; all of them sound pretty good though). How many other such tracks are there and who are doing them, and just how good are they? Then I'll go hunting for their CD's if possible.

Abit unclear about your post.Just seiyuu ? Singers also applied ?
I think riefu is good at it.She's a singer who sang the bleach ending song,Life is like a boat.I'm not so enjoyed with her music video though.

[edited:grammar mistakes,thanks for pointing me out =D]

melody. is one who is fluent (then again she's from Hawaii), she has an English version of "Close your Eyes" in her latest album.

Lia (one of the I've singers) is also worth noting as she's released a couple of all English tracks.

Also, Maaya of course with her Wolf's Rain Ending.

I don't really know what you mean..but I know a japanese pop group
(BEAT CRUSADERS) that sing their song only in english....you may have heard their song(Bleach 4th opening or Beck opening)

@Crusaders

I love Tonight, Tonight, Tonight but... It's in Engrish.

Japan should be banned from using english.

It's like giving a little kid a gun...

-Tofu

AGREED. English songs by the Japanese, more often than not, blow chunks. Witness: all of Utada Hikaru's fucking English album. Absolutely embarrassingly atrocious.

Lols, seriously? I think they mostly sing songs in English because of Japanese infautation with American culture...

Yeah..Beat Crusaders sing their song in english...have to admit very bad english....

Hmm i dont mind it. Hyde's voice really is rubbish though i meant i dont like any songs on his album ROENTGEN. Soz if that offended anyone lol

I love Gackt Though lol.

thank you very much i think japanese song is the best

Hyde-san should have keep singing in Japanese, his voice sounds so much better that way! :) I don't mind some words in English, but the entire song in English is too much...http://www.digital-soul-drift.de/chi...inkusagi14.gif

I don't really mind Hyde's english stuff (has Roentgen and 666), heck it's alot better than Gackts! ("Feel the fire" anyone? sorry if I offended anyone, but his english on that song is godawful.) But with certain Japanese artists that try to do songs in english it becomes somewhat distracting and takes away from the song. In certain instances I find it cute when they use random english words, but sometimes it's annoying. Artists like Crystal Kay, Utada Hikaru, Fake?, m-flo, BoA (yeah I know she's korean but she sings and is promoted in Japan as well.) do it very effectively and have a good grasp of the language so then it's not too bad.

Hyde is not perfect in English, but you can actually tell what the hell he is trying to sing unlike Crusader. Beat Crusade sucks like hell at it. They should not be singing in Engish at all. Ruin all their songs in my opinion.

Oh... the person who sang in .hack//sign can sing English pretty well. I liked all the songs in that series and you can hear everything quite clearly.

Radwimps' English is pretty good too. You can hear the accent at times but it's pretty good still.

Monkey Majik has perfect English because it's a band made by 2 Canadian guys and 2 Japanese guys.

The songs in Beat Crusaders single that includes the Beck's opening theme cannot be considered as examples of broken-English song. At least for me they do not sound bad.

But if the Japanese wants to make a name of themselves in the international arena, they would either stick to high quality traditional songs or soft-songs. Since there are many rock bands out there that are mostly better than the Japanese bands, if they use that genre it will be highly difficult for them to compete with what is already there. Considering rock actually there are not many bands/singers that are widely appreciated and come from non-English spoken countries (a few Swedish/German/Dutch/etc. - I do not include underground/or some highly different rock genres here). They should follow the example of Celine Dion/Abba.

Anyway, as long as they do not care about America, Japanese singers can become successful in Europe that is more open to different genres than US, using a more traditional style (language/music). In that case, they do not have to force themselves to sing English too.

That's a generalization. There are some Japanese singers with great English skills.

And there'd be some little kids who wouldn't blow their best friends' faces off but it still doesn't make it a good idea :D

-Tofu

That's because Ichijo's song was actually sung by Lia, who actually spent most of her teenage years in the U.S. and would later travel around big cities in America and the UK as gospel and choir vocals.

Fukami Rika frequently travels abroad. Also, she has an American hypnotherapy degree from attending a school in the U.S. way before she became a seiyuu.

It annoys me in like an anime if the song is sang in english and it has like "heavy accent" and it just sounds bad but if they sing it "well" I don't mind. But anyways it's just as funny listening to an american person speaking japanese if they have "accent".

It's not the accent that's the problem, it's the lyrics. Unless they were penned by a native speaker, they're probably bad. Have you listened to any of the tracks off Utada's English album? It's like being raped in the ear.