Written by 
Ken Miyake, Junichi Okada, and Go Morita
Me? I’m a big fan of music. All music. I’m not tied by genres or what the cool kids are listening to. I know what I like, and that’s what I listen to.
I’m a bit of a Japanese boy band junkie. I’m not ashamed to admit it! Johnny’s groups make me happy. I like their songs. My favourite group is V6, for no reason I can really explain. (shrug) As with many of the larger groups, V6 is split into two sub-groups. Today, I’d like to share the new mini-album from the younger half, Coming Century.
Hello-Goodbye coincides with Coming Century’s first concert tour (outside of the main group) in six years. With seven tracks and three solo tracks from the three members (pictured above), I’d expect to love maybe two, kind of like seven, and totally hate one track. This is how I tend to be with albums. Even singles. The main track will be good, there may be one more that’s kind of okay, and then the rest are nothing too special.
With this mini-album though, five of the songs are excellent, three are pretty good, and the other two are alright, but not really my cup of tea. It’s because I like this album so much that I wanted to share it with you all.
My favourite track has to be “Forget it all”, a driving club track that will definitely make you want to dance. At the risk of making myself sound older than I am, this track is just groovy. Who cares about the lyrics with a chorus like this? Give it a listen.
The title track, “Hello-Goodbye” isn’t as much of a riff on the classic Beatles track as you may imagine from the title. It’s there, but it’s not painful or obtrusive.
Ken Miyake from the "We Are Coming Century Boys" tour pamphlet
The thing I like about this song, besides the sing-a-longability of it, is that it really works well for the voices of the three guys. Let’s face it: Ken has a squeaky voice. In most V6 songs, he’ll get hidden in the harmony, because when he sings alone, it’s very jarring — not because his voice is unpleasant, really, but just the contrast is jarring.
In this track, though, he’s able to feature prominently and it fits. It fits good, boy! The entire album is like this, though. Whoever has been writing their songs lately (in the case of this song, and “Desert Eagle”, which appeared on the V6 Spirit single, that would be Spontania) really has a knack for using his voice well. I appreciate that, and it’s made this mini-album a joy to listen to. Give “Hello-Goodbye” a listen.
Finally, there’s “手のひらのUniverse” (Universe in your Palm). At first I hated it, but it’s grown on me. I think, though, the main reason it grew on me is because I’m a geek. It reminds me of the incidental music from The Fifth Element and BladeRunner, only with vocals added. When I made that connection, suddenly my perceptions shifted and I thought, “Woo, yeah, this is great!” I’m such a geek ._. Anyhoo, give it a listen.
The rest of the songs are worth a listen too. The solos are great (particularly Ken’s “4u” and Okada’s “Shall we Love?”; there’s also “Black-out”, a song sung entirely in English. Admittedly, not great English, but it’s still good, and with great lines like, “God, please make believe the jerky heaven”.
Hello-Goodbye by Coming Century comes in three versions (as is typical for things in Japan): Version A comes with a bonus CD with the solos; Version B comes with a DVD with the PV for “Hello-Goodbye”; Version C comes with three badges (or perhaps the kids prefer to call it “flair” these days). Prices start at 1886yen from Amazon Japan.