Your Homicidols Weekender #507

Featured Image: SoboRESONICA. This edition of The Weekender is brought to you from Los Angeles where we are on location for the US debut of JIEMEI. They kicked off their US tour last night with a mini live at Asayoru Maid Cafe. The venue serves as a cornerstone of the local idol scene and has become a stop for many unit passing through town. JIEMEI performed a handful of songs in maid uniforms before switching into yukata for a powerful acoustic set. I am now convinced that the acoustic version of "Autophilia" should be the default arrangement moving forward.

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Let’s Get Ready for JIEMEI

Just over four years ago, JIEMEI were born from Nagoya’s vibrant chika idol scene where everything is louder and infused with a punk swagger. Later this week, they arrive in the United States as one of the genre's most compelling live acts, bringing their compelling blend of alt-rock, emotional vocals, and unrelenting performance to American audiences for the first time.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #506

Featured Image: LOST IN LOVE. The annual Tokyo Idol Festival is happening right now and, for the first time in four years, we have not dubbed it FXXK TIF Weekend. The reason behind the softening of the Homicidols heart is that the event organizers finally, explicitly, opened up ticket sales to overseas fans. I still haven't come around completely and put "Attending TIF" back on my bucket list for two main reasons:

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Your Homicidols Weekender #505

Featured image: NARUKAMI. It's hot and humid, so I'm going to keep the preamble short and find some AC. The Oshiloss Corner is back but still in abbreviated form, which is good news for us. It must be too hot for Manager-san to fire all but the worst offenders.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #504

Featured image: yubiningyou. Idol summer rolls on and we have a dearth of summer MVs to share this week. Since our focus here is on the alternative side of idol, there's not a swimsuit to be found among them, but a couple feature visits to the beach. Also, for what I believe is the first time in 504 Weekenders, we have no Oshiloss to report. If I had an unpaid intern, I would have them go through the last 503 editions to double check but, if I recall correctly, we almost had an oshiloss-free week one other time and it was spoiled by word of a last minute graduation.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #503

Featured image: PassCode. It was a fantastic week for loud idol. One of our most legendary units was given a moment in the mainstream spotlight, some furious new releases from perennial favorites dropped, and we got a blast of heartsick nostalgia as some old live clips of one this site's most beloved former units surfaced out of nowhere. But first:

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Your Homicidols Weekender #502

Featured image: Mazari. It has been a turbulent week, especially for those of us in Los Angeles for what was supposed to be the US debut of You'll Melt More! later today at Anime Expo. As you may have heard, the foundational chika idol unit ran into some issues at US customs, and had to immediately head back to Japan and cancel all scheduled appearances.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #501

Featured image: Antithese. This week we are coming to you from Los Angeles where we will be spending some time with YURAPICO and catching next weekend's US debut of You'll Melt More! My first order of business in LA was delivering a shipment of t-shirts and other goods to YURAPICO as Homicidols has, once again, teamed up to design her US tour merch. This time it is an original design from Kerriepico.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #500

Featured Image: REIRIE. 500 Weekenders published over the course of 500 weeks. If you do the math, it works out to just over nine-and-a-half years. That is nearly a decade of spending Friday nights digging through the dark, chaotic, endlessly weird and wonderful corners of the alternative, indie, and underground idol scene to deliver this synopsis each Saturday morning. When The Weekender first started, groups were disbanding and re-emerging in new formations and under new names faster than we could keep track of, and most of the MVs were live performance clips and badly lit dance videos that looked and sounded like they were shot on a toaster.

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Homicidols Best of 2026 (so far)

Every year around this time, we round up what we feel have been the best alternative, indie, and underground idol EP, singles, MV, and albums of the year so far. It's usually and easy and enjoyable job, but something was very different this year. 2026 has been an utterly relentless avalanche of incredible releases that's placed us in a state of perpetual sensory overload. The sheer volume of top-tier music dropped over the last six months has turned what used to be a pleasant afternoon's task of casually identifying what's "best" into a grueling weeks-long comparative analysis.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #499

Featured image: Ringwanderung. Summer rolls on with a flurry of activity and overseas idol events, including: pinponpanpon are back in the US and causing mayhem. Today they are in Chicago for Summersmash. They have also announced an unofficial Anime Expo after party in LA for July 3rd.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #498

Featured Image: diig. As we ease into summer, things are starting to move at a slower pace. We didn't see a ton of new releases this week, but what was delivered was decidedly good. We did get some some huge news on the overseas live front (just below) as well as well as in the Oshifound Corner, so be sure to read all the way to the bottom. First up:

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Your Homicidols Weekender #497

Banner image: ki.o.ku. It's the last Weekender of May and it seems like Idol Summer is off to a slow start this year. Usually, by now, the summer MV season has been officially kicked off (typically by a bikini-clad Niji no Conquistador) and we have begun the annual hunt for the Song of the Summer. Instead, it was left up to freshman unit ki.o.ku to get the ball rolling with their MV featuring a pensive trip to the beach with their bedroom furniture (see below). We appreciate them picking up the slack for their seniors.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #496

Banner image: Shihatsu-Machi Underground. Whew! Just four posts away from hitting 500 consecutive Saturdays of Weekenders, the streak was almost broken this morning. I am traveling for my niece's Junior High School graduation (this whole preamble was supposed to be about the stark difference between these graduations of joy versus the devastating ennui of idol graduations we are typically subjected to). Unfortunately, the wifi at the Airbnb was not working last night so I was faced with the prospect of trying to ccompose this post on my phone or breaking our 496 week-long streak.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #495

Banner Image: MADOROMI. Maybe something's in the water? This week saw a lot of releases incorporating more mature themes than usual. There's murder, suicide, disturbing imagery, lots of skin, and idols gazing into each others eyes like they are more than friends. On the MPAA spectrum, we are definitely closer to the R side of the ratings scale than PG-13. Basically, be careful pursuing this edition of the Weekender at work.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #494

Banner Image: PSYCHOdelic. It was a pretty normal week in the world of underground, alt, and indie idol which, upon reflection, made me sad since it was also the week of ASP's last live. When Watanabe announced the end of WACK and dissolution of all of it's groups over the course of 2026, I assumed we would be in for 12 raucous months of noisy endings. Instead, a little over four months into the year, the members of ASP are deleting their social media accounts and vanishing with a whisper.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #493

Banner image: NARUKAMI. I am on the road this week and compiling the Weekender on a cranky laptop with sticky keys and an ailing monitor. Please take any random typos or errors as reassurance that the compilation of The Weekender is one of the few remaining recurrent, web-based features yet to be turned over to AI. We here at Homicidols dot com still deliver 100% fully organic written content via a vintage hybrid parallel processing system known as the human brain. Enjoy the imperfection.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #492

Banner image: Jiemei. Welcome back to another week in the idol trenches. As we know, there's not a lot of money in chika idol these days, so I doubt any of you arrived here expecting a slew of high-budget, narrative-driven cinematic MVs this week. This is good! Because almost every single music video that dropped in the last seven days is a performance, dance, or live MV. So, this week's theme is all about the "authentic" live idol experience and/or demonstrations that our favorite units can, in fact, move in sync.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #491

Banner image: RAY. I've mentioned it just recently, but I'm compelled to say it again: 2026 is a banner year for extraordinary new music. Throughout each year, I keep a running playlist for potential Song of the Year candidates so I can refer to it come November/December for awards nomination season. It currently has 71 entries, and we're not even halfway through the year. This is all a good thing, except it makes the life of an amateur idol blogger more difficult. This week was no different, so let's get to it, but first:

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Your Homicidols Weekender #490

Banner image: CHEMICAL X. The last few weeks have been a bit rough as I'm working six-days a week while watching my Twitter feed full of friends enjoying the cherry blossoms in Japan or attending lives in adjacent states that I can't currently escape to. The only upside is that I've been too tired to focus on my jealousy. Anyway, I need to stop whining and get back to work while living vicariously through you lucky souls heading out to idol lives this weekend. Keep posting for the rest of us!

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Your Homicidols Weekender #489

Banner image: Quubi x YOLOZ. The first Weekender of April is always a difficult task due to the struggle of sorting the April Fools Day pranks from the more serious releases. Since around half of the idol units that we cover display glimmers of insanity on a regular basis, it's hard to know just when they're joking. Now that April 1st is firmly in the rear view mirror, let's get down to the serious business of idol:

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Your Idol April Fools Day 2026 Round Up

Banner image: Sengoku. Idol April Fools Day is the third biggest holiday on the idol calendar (next to Idol Halloween and Idol X-Mas). While its still April 1st in the west, the day has already come and gone in Japan. So, while you hide from cringey co-workers, annoying family members, and all of their corny pranks, enjoy this collection of the more creative April Fools Day stunts pulled off by idols this year.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #488

Banner image: SICXXX. Everyone must be distracted by cherry blossoms and forgot to upload any MVs this week. Its weird. With a few notable exceptions, there's a dearth of new music videos to share. We still have plenty of intriguing new music and heartbreaking oshiloss news, so we are not lacking for content. Oh yeah! The WACK auditioned camp happened this week as well. We saved that bit of meh for the end.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #487

Banner image: XINXIN. It's been a rough slog through March, especially on the Oshiloss front. I'm also stuck at work for the foreseeable future with no time off to travel to see any idol lives. This means I will need to live vicariously through others so, for anyone who makes it out see idols, be sure to let us know what the rest of us missed over on the Homicidols Discord server.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #486

Banner image: BNSI. I'm hanging out in Vegas this weekend, so I'm going to keep the preamble short: welcome to your 486th consecutive weekly digest of chika idol news, releases, disbandments, and unexpected revivals.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #485

I haven't really touched on it yet, but 2026 so far has been a monster of a year for new music. The sheer quantity of high quality releases has been difficult to keep up with. I will try to synthesize it all in a post soon but, for now, I'm just trying to categorize it all into overstuffed playlists.

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Zenbu Kimi no Sei da. Speaks of their Global Embrace

Zenbu Kimi no Sei da. is currently half-way through the European leg of their 10th anniversary "ZO-HEN-SHIN-SHOKU AI-rosion TOUR,” an ambitious, open-ended, global undertaking that has expanded to over 100 shows across all 47 Japanese prefectures and 15 countries.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #484

Banner image: THE ORCHESTRA TOKYO. We've now had back-to-back weeks of seriously bad news on the oshiloss front. At least the latest trend is to announce the unit's disbandment and reboot dates at the same time. I appreciate this innovation as embedding hope in disappointment this way helps alleviate the need for the most severe therapies.

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Your Homicidols Weekender #483

Banner Image: Astrain. This was a great week for new releases but we did get some disappointing news on the oshiloss front. Let's start with the good stuff:

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Your Homicidols Weekender #482

Banner image: PIGGS. Happy Valentine's Day!! Go buy a box of chocolates for your oshi and then eat them yourself since they don't accept edible gifts from wota. While enjoying your bons bons, we got a lot to go over this week, so let's dive in:

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