So, occasionally I'll be in a mood for some Japanese dance music, and there's a good reason why. Allow me to explain:
This is Nami Tamaki's Heroine, and it is full of exactly what appeals to me about the genre. It's not just dance music, but dance music done in the way the Japanese do it. It's different, somehow packed with a lot more energy and more variety in the dynamics than the stuff we get here. And, I think the gap between our cultures has a lot to do with it.
We, as decadent westerners, live in a culture where the very idea of lifestyle, of individuality is sold to us; and what better way to wind down after a week of your boring eight-till-five factory job, then to get ridiculously inebriated and dance the troubles away, surrounded by the opposite sex in a darkened room? Indeed, many people I know base their entire week around their Friday nights, and our advertisements, even our music reflect this.
In opposition, we have the Japanese culture, more focused on honour and success than trifling pursuits in one's spare time. Indeed, there is not a lot of personal expression in the east, and as human creatures (No matter the nationality), we need to express ourselves in whichever manner we can. But not in public, not in the working week, not around others. It's a very insular culture, so is there any wonder we'd get things like the wacky gameshows, freaky "cartoons" and music like this, packed with more energy than an average club-goer here would rather hear, in favour of generic, homogenous, easily-mixable six-minute dronefests.
Nami Tamaki is far from homogenous. I've been listening to a lot of her stuff recently, and it's a whole balanced diet of dance, techno, rock, RnB and even ballads. Okay, she hasn't got the angelic voice of, say, Ayumi Hamasaki - but that's for a post when I'm not in such a Nami Tamaki mood. 
