Mr. Children

To the casual American observer, it might seem that most Japanese pop and rock bands (barring extreme noise terrorists like the Boredoms) are somewhere on the axis defined by Shonen Knife and Puffy AmiYumi: from adorably incompetent pop-punk with twee lyrics to sugary Day-Glo bubblegum, all of it proffered by cute girls in miniskirts and bobby socks. However, as the American audience for Japanese ...more