I was watching “Pop Japan” on the International Channel the other day…
There is a J-pop star called Tommy Heavenly6– sort of girl pop-punk. Sort of looks like Avril Levigne would if she was Japanese. Pretty, little, too serious, a very clean approach to punk.
There is also a J-pop star called Tommy February6– more of a dance music style. She looks more geeky too, with horn-rimmed glasses, and in her video cheerleaders shout the chorus.
Except they are the same person. Marketed as two different musical acts.
I wonder if they will have separate tours?
If someone has a paper to write on symbolism in pop culture, this one pretty much writes itself!
If you are feeling ambitious you could order them from Amazon.co.jp (the Japanese Amazon site)- note even if your Japanese isn’t that good you could translate the text in every page with WWWJDIC or Excite. As they say, “messy, but effective.”
Also very time consuming.
An alternative: I have been getting all my J-pop from Kinokuniya, a bookstore in San Jose and San Francisco, which also has Tokyo and I think New York branches. They don’t speak very good English there, but I have convinced them to order things for me before, over the phone, and entirely in English, because my rudimentary Japanese was just confusing them.
I myself purchased both Tommy Heavenly6 and Tommy February6 singles from YesAsia (http://www.yesasia.com)
You can also try CD Japan (http://www.cdjapan.com), either place has around the same prices, but I prefer YesAsia because they take paypal payments in US $$ 😉
And in my opinion Tomoko’s work is best in The Brilliant Green.
And to further confuse matters on the subject, there is also the group Tommys Angels, which are produced by Tomoko, and she wrote their lyrics.
They consist of four Japanese schoolgirls in cheerleading uniforms 😉