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Floating Room’s Upcoming EP “Shima”
Floating Room was recently featured in an NPR article for 11 Oregon Artists to Watch in 2021 and this little bit got me really excited: Floating Room is set to release an EP called Shima on Famous Class Records in November. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002272360/11-oregon-artists-to-watch-in-2021 I’m looking forward to listening to Shima and I have so many questions about it…
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RED SOUL’s Three New Singles
Hip-hop group RED SOUL (from Kadena 🤗) released three new singles on June 2nd. The singles are Noguni Sokan, FAIYĀ, and MY DREAM, and they have the full version of FAIYĀ up on their YouTube channel. I hope they’ll have a video up of Noguni Sokan which is the single I’m most interested in listening…
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5th Elements 10th Anniversary
Vocal duo 5 Elements (A-RA and YU) is celebrating their 10th anniversary with the release of a new album THE BEST which features 15 tracks — including the song below (Minami no Shima e Dekakeyou) with sanshin by Maeda Hideyuki. The new album also features the song Party which was written by Daizou from the…
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Murasaki Mura Ryukyu Kingdom Theme Park
From May 23rd to June 30th 2021, Murasaki Mura is offering free admission to its Ryukyu Kingdom theme park while actually being temporarily closed due to the emergency declaration for Okinawa. Sounds like a great opportunity for picture-taking like @Okinawanderer.
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OR’s NAOTO & HIROKI Contributes to 7ORDER’s 1st Major Single Release
ORANGE RANGE‘s guitarist NAOTO and vocalist (mid-range) HIROKI provided the music and lyrics to the 1st major single (double A-side) for J-pop group 7ORDER. The song is titled “SUMMER sama-sama” and is coupled with the single “Ame ga hajimari no aizu” and set to be released on July 7th. It’s great to see the OR…
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7th Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival Logo & Slogan Contest
Showcase your creativity and earn fame and money by submitting a logo and/or a slogan for next year’s 7th Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival! The application deadline is Friday, July 9, 2021, and the winner(s) will be announced in late August (subject to change). As the slogan can be emailed and multiple entries are being accepted, I’ll…
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Miyazato Rira to Graduate from AKB48
Surprised? Yes, there actually is (soon to be was) an AKB48 (a popular idol group in Japan) member from Okinawa, Miyazato Rira. She is part of Team 8 (there are 5 teams in total named A, K, B, 4, and 8) which was formed in 2014 and was formed to represent one of the 47…
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Aragaki Yui’s Marriage Announcement
Japanese Twitter was abuzz with news of popular actress Aragaki Yui’s sudden announcement that she will be marrying actor/musician Hoshino Gen. The pair appeared on the drama The Full-Time Wife Escapist in 2016 (which aired on Hawaii’s Kiku TV) which is interesting as it was about a fake married couple that grew to have true…
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7th World Uchinanchu Festival
The 7th World Uchinanchu Festival has a date set! It will take place in 2022 from October 31st to November 3rd (note the website counts October 30th as the Festival eve). The “World Uchinanchu Festival” honors the achievements of Okinawan people from all over the world, recognises the great value of the community heritage of…
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May 15th
If you follow Japanese Twitter, you may have noticed a few hashtags (like this one #沖縄本土復帰記念日) and tweets leading up to May 15th which marked the 49th year of Okinawa returning to Japan (Okinawa reversion 祖国復帰 and 本土復帰 is also used). NHK Okinawa also hosted a 5-episode special series to commemorate the date. The hashtag…
Karakui 