Hello, my fellow Jpop-ians.

I'm here to set the record straight. Look away from your computer and out that window for a second. Open the shades now. You are a beautiful plant and you need light to grow. OK, look out on the nearest street or to your neighbor's house. Do you see people? If so, then you are looking at someone who more than likely thinks you are insane. Why? Because you listen to music from a land on the otherside of the globe, in a language you can't (admit it now and it'll hurt less later) understand and you often pay 35$ for one album and even more disturbing, 10$ for one song. If they don't understand you now, NO AMMOUNT of persuasion will change their mind. It's a pretty polarized issue. Get used to it.

It doesn't help that you crave acceptance so badly. That you purposely carry a Jpop CD around with you hoping someone will notice it and "ostracize" you. Or that you put pictures of Jrock stars on your clothing, lockers, rear windows, bedroom walls, next of kin, dogs, cats and that random green haired quiet boy who hangs around the water fountains at the mall across from Hot Topic, who doesn't know any better. We love that you love Jpop. But love can be a many splintered thing. To an "outsider" this behavior registers as "odd" or "psychotic". and let me tell you there are worse things to be than "psychotic" but not many that'll get you less dates with cute people.

Think of it this way, if someone went around pasting pictures of former U.S. President Hopefuls on all their things, John McCain on her notebook, Ross Perot written on her jeans, you'd think it was strange. Your beloved jpop. Can have quite a similar effect on 80% of the population. But guess what. There are now, I would guess, tens of thousands of us out there. And though we're mostly concentrated in big cities, if Evanescence can come from a little town in Arkansas, then I'm guessing jpop fiends are spawning in many little burgs all across the US, Mexico and Canada.

But here's the catch. We're factioned off. I like j-rap, I like j-hiphop, I like j-rock but only angura-kei. Ugh... There are so many categories now I don't know where one ends and the other begins. But I know this: It doesn't matter to them. To all the people who don't listen to Japanese music, ALL your precious genres are JPOP. And JPOP is either A) A bunch of hyper kinetic chipmunks singing offtune in something more similar to Chinese. B) Ken Ishii or DJ Shadow/Honda C) A rip-off of Western artists with no redeeming value of its own. But that's... OhKay... We don't want their approval anyway...Do we?! Until of course, it comes time for, you know, partying and dating and stuff.