How were you introduced into Japanese Music?
 

I'm guessing some people got introduced to Japanese Music in different ways, via friends or just randomly finding a song on YouTube.

I got into Japanese music by trying to find a song called Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence for a friend at the time by Ryuichi Sakamoto on YouTube. At the time I couldn't remember the exact name, but YouTube showed me FYI from Utada. Heard that song, then found out about her japanese songs. Listened to them, loved them then listened to some Japanese radio stations and Japanese stations on Last.fm. Then found some more singers I like. My interest in Japanese music just started to get bigger and bigger. =D

Well, I've had an interest in Japan since I was like 10 years old.
I didn't know much about Japan back then, but I knew I loved the sound of Japanese.
A couple of years later (I think I was 12) I started playing a game called "Shougun: Total War" on the PC, and after that I started looking up more things about Japanese culture and music online (56k modem, oh yeaah!).
There was something about the koto and shamisen that I couldn't get enough of.
After some time (a year? two years? not sure..) I found the Yoshida Brothers. They play awesome shamisen music with western influences, and I really liked what I heard.
Time passed, but I stopped doing research/looking for new bands (for some strange reason), and the only japanese band I really listened to at that point was Gazette. I did listen to a few other songs by other bands as well, but that's about it.
In late 2006 I Injured my knee, got depressed, and spent most of my time in front of the PC, and in early 2007 I thought "hmm, maybe I should give anime a try..." and I did. I haven't watched a lot of anime the last couple of years, but I've still watched over 4000 episodes, and during that time I found lots of great bands.
This has been one of my favourite songs for years now. I love the hip-hop/ska-core sound, and the vid is sooo funny!

Shounan no Kaze - Saboten

Asian Kung Fu Generation was my first J-rock group. I wanted to know who sung my favorite Naruto theme, So I say there and looked through the credits and found their name. I did the same when I found out about Jinn, Orange Range, Flow, Maximum Hormone, Nightmare, and many others.

Gosh, it was so long ago I can't even remember how I got into it anymore . . . I think I first got into Japanese music via films and anime, and - if I remember rightly - it was most likely Battle Royale that did it, because I adored the song "Shizukana Hibi no Kaidan wo" by Dragon Ash. I know I had a lot of Morning Musume at the time too, but I can't remember how I found them, I think it was via a site when searching for this one song, and a few random downloads came up, and they were one of them.

After that I did what Demitrichan did, which is watch anime like Naruto or Death Note and go 'damn, I love this song!' - which is how I ended up with albums by Maximum the Hormone, Rie Fu and Nightmare. Since then I've found dozens of artists, and I'd say 90% of my digital music is Japanese. Oddly if you asked me how I got into English music I could tell you right away, but for some reason Japanese is a bit of a blur XD

Puffy Ami Yumi was the first group I ever heard contrary to what I sad earlier

I don't really listen to Japanese music, but my actual introduction to it started with my introduction to Japanese (pop) culture itself. I was curious about a few things and one of them was music, so I just YouTubed something like "popular Japanese music." Morning Musume and AAA came up. I didn't like the music, but there was an amusing novelty of seeing cute Japanese girls dancing around singing god awful stuff. So I searched and searched and couldn't find anything I actually liked until I've finally settled on Capsule as a really cool electronica group.

Granted, I treat Japanese music just as fairly as other music. I don't really listed to a whole lot of music anyway, and normally I can't like more than a couple of songs from any given artist, so my iPod is full of singles. But there's something about Japanese music doesn't really appeal to me though. I'm not into the poppy stuff, and anything that might be considered rock or whatever I'd rather just listen to in English so I can at least understand and appreciate the lyrics. I'm sure Japanese rock has some really powerful stuff, but I don't find fun in forcing myself to try and like stuff I don't understand most of.

I was a kid back then, I love watching Rurouni Kenshin, and my first J-rock music was 1/3 Junjou na Kanjou by Siam Shade, then I started searching for more like Fourth Avenue Cafe and that's how I discovered L'Arc~en~Ciel. The rest was history. :D

EDIT:

Not to forget the Voltes V theme song.... ahhhh, pure nostalgia.

I always watched anime, till be 9 years I watched anime, sometimes liked anime musics, but never gave great importance. One day I saw a X Japan image on internet and their visual caused me a lot of curiosity, so I begin to search things about they, of course, I heard their musics and it caused to me very interest to japanese music. After that, I started to give more importance to the anime music and this made me know more artists and grow up my affection to j-music.

I really started listening after looking up images for my daughter and seeing visual kei mentioned. There were a few musicians mentioned in an article so I googled and liked. Before that it was mainly music from games and shows we looked for (a minor obsession with Persona 3 soundtrack)

I always liked anime theme songs (Bluebird by Ikimonogakari and Closer by Joe Inoue were my favourites), and when I got my first ipod I wanted to look for them on itunes. The only one I found was Ready Steady Go by L'Arc~en~Ciel and I thought the cover of that cd (Smile) looked cool so I went to check out more by them. Then I expanded to other artists.

For me it started when I began watching anime (so long ago that I can't even remember when that started). I always found myself singing along. I espcially loved the endingcredits song for Vampire Knight and looked it up. It was Still Doll by Kanon Wakeshima. I got on iTunes, found a bunch of her songs and then bought a bunch more from similar artists. Now, most of my iPod consists of Japanese music. :)

Well, like most people, always watched anime, stuff like Pokemon, the obvious stuff that most people in England and the western world had on TV. There's other stuff but that's like the most obvious.

But, yh. Lol.

My friend about 3 or more years ago told me he listens to Japanese Rock, and I laughed at him.
Then yhh, i started listening to J-Rock, I think it was when I started using Japan Forum, or sometime before.

But anyway, it's fabulous. I love it!

:pinkclap:

I've been into Anime for a long time and liked a lot of the songs I heard but I never properly pursued it until a few years back. Persona 3 helped a great deal and then around the same time I was looking up Harajuku when hANGRY & ANGRY caught my eye. I started taking a more active interest and began self educating myself with JMusic, my youtube is full of cool bands now. I love how diverse the music is :D

through a Japanese drama called Glass slipper...*sigh* when I was little...loved JDrama/music since then.

My first post ^_^
I've watched anime since I was like 10, at first the things that were easily accessible like Pokémon, Sailor moon and so on. Then I started to look up a bit less known anime series and stumbled upon Sexy Commando gaiden. (reeeally awesome show if you like flipped out anime =) Anyways, first time I watched the first episode I instantly fell in love with the intro song, which is the song Romace by Penicillin. After that I got addicted to visual kei and I still am today ^_^.

While I was living in Japan my girlfriend introduced me to the "Music Station" tv show. She is a big Utada Hikaru, Misia and Southern All Stars fan.
Anyway I grew to love it. Now I'm back in Oz I download the Oricon charts and pick out the songs I like, usually J-Rock, Enka, some love songs and a bit of J-Rap thrown in. It's such a wonderful mix of genres that I never get sick of it.

Well, I got to admit that it all started with anime. I wanted to know more of Japan. And with my interest in music I went looking for some Japanese rock music. After a while I came across the band "One Ok Rock". I liked their music and I also went looking for some other genres, like punkrock, but also metal. I don't really know many groups, but I like the bands and groups I do know :D

I'm pretty sure my friend just told me to listen to Hyde. He was he favorite, so I started looking for other and just listened to Gackt for the longest time. Until I realized that the one random song I had no Idea where it came from for almost five years was Diru, and yeah. They are still my favorite J-rock/metal/whatever the hell they are band to date.

I've certainly heard a lot of Japanese music via my interest in Anime and Japanese films but nothing really grabbed me. I like to see live shows before I know if I really like a band so it's been hard for me to get into a lot of Japanese bands, so few tour the U.S. and I tend to be into more Alt/Indie/Punk stuff.

The first band that got to me was Shonen Knife in the early 90s, my roommate at the time introduced me to them. Around that time I was listening to Cibo Matto too, they put on a great live show. I also liked Ex-girl after hearing them open for Siouxsie & the Banshees.

In the last few years I've been going to the Japan Nite tour that comes through SF and I've seen a lot of great bands. From the live shows I've liked TsuShiMaMiRe, Red Bacteria Vacuum, Lolita no. 18, Josy and Hystoic Vein. I might go with a friend to see Guitar Wolf next month.

There's a New York based band I've been listening to called Asobi Seksu which is a two piece band, the female half of the group Yuki Chikudate is from Japan.

I had to think for a while on this one. I recall first hearing koto and shamisen sometime in childhood and thinking it was pretty and calming, but I rarely was interested in either quality at the time.:p

But I just remembered the song I sang all through the summer of 1963 ..... Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakamoto! Unfortunately it was a one-hit-wonder and the English version was awful. But the Japanese version hit the top 10 of Billboard that June and I knew the lyrics long before that.:D

Then there was this slight gap of about 40 years before I discovered Keisho Ohno and a livelier shamisen. After that, volunteering as a sound tech/DJ introduced me to the soundtracks for anime - some I like, and a lot I don't care for..... same as in any other genre.

Pretty much Guitar -> Miyavi -> J-Rock

I got to know Japanese Musik, when I found in "wikipedia" a list of japanese Bands...I tried one or two and then I found the Band "Flow" and I really like their music! One of my favourite songs is "Snowflake"^^

Nanashi

I blame my friends
 

I got into Japanese music my freshmen year of college when my new friends introduced it to me. 3 years later I still remember the first song I ever heard, it was Speedmaster by Gackt. Now I own, what some of my friends say is, an excessive amount of JRock music. I'm hooked for life :D

<3 <3 InuYasha !
 

InuYasha is like the one of the best anime series I've come across to date. It's funny and the plot is good. Nice love story.

Hyde - Words of Love
But because I am a Christian, a lot of Metal conflicts with the beliefs obviously e.g. views on the devil and stuff like that.

Gackt <3
 

Gackt is amazing! <3

Ah I love Flow too =D One of my first J-rock bands and still one of my favorites ;) I like Snowflake too, though my favorites are "Word of the Voice" & "Phantom" (along with many others)

I was introduced to Japanese music through the anime on Adult Swim in '05-'06, I had recently bought a metal DDR pad and downloaded StepMania. Most of the songs available are anime themes so I started listening to the music in anime more objectively to find songs I wanted to play on SM. The first songs I remember really like were the themes for Eureka Seven (specifically "Days" by Flow among others). I expanded my song library and taste in Japanese music simultaneously ;) And even though I've grown out of anime I still really like J-music. :D

Oh, cool! *listening to the songs*
*-*
Wow <3 "Word of the Voice" is fantastic! And with an English lyrics I understand everything! *-*
Love this song!

(I opened a threat about Flow, do you want to post the songs there, StonerPenguin?)

Nanashi

Haha, okay Nanashi :D I will. Glad you like the songs~

It all started with Kinki Kids and Matsuda Seiko. There was this song by the latter "Missing you" that caught my attention at Tower Records and also "愛されるより 愛したい" by the former while I was watching channel NHK.

I bought my first Japanese mini cd single by Kinki kids in 1997 when I was still only a boy. I still have the cd single with me.

Then Ozaki Yutaka came along, again, it was during when I was watching NHK. It was 1998, and I have no idea he had already passed away in 1992because it showed that he was singing live at a concert. And it didn't help that there were "new" albums by him like Missing Boy (1997), Osaka Stadium on August 25 in 1985 (1998), Artery & Vein - The Very Best of Yutaka Ozaki (1999) . I only found out more about him in early 1999 when I first started using the internet.

There were also groups like Pool bit boys and Da Pump who I really liked back then. The latter is still active albeit 3 out of the 4 original members had left.

I'm Chinese and I always listen to Chinese music. However, a lot of Chinese songs are actually Japanese covers. Of course, most Chinese people don't know this. So imagine my surprise when I hear that some of my favorite Chinese songs aren't Chinese at all....they're actually Japanese songs.

That was what got me interested in Japanese in general really.

You can find a lot of these songs on youtube, it's fun to listen to both versions.

YouTube - 真夏の果実 / SOUTHERN ALL STARS

YouTube - 張學友 - 每天愛你多一些


YouTube - 真情流露/张学友

YouTube - 旅姿六人衆/サザンオールスターズ


YouTube - 王菲 - [容易受伤的女人]

YouTube - 中島みゆき　　ルージュ

I think I got into tokusatsu and anime songs and then I found someone on YouTube that uploaded the weekly charts and,as they say,the rest is history.

I was introduced into Japanese music by animes really. First one was when I was 12 and it was The real folk blues. About 2 years after that I got into j-rock and thats where my music interests have stayed <3

I was looking for more "trance/techno" type of music trying to get away from "nu-metal" and came upon ayu's "M" the techno version I guess its called and got more interested in japanese music ever since listening to that and her original then I heard Gackt's Mind Forest song and it was game over after that lol

Well, the first Japanese Music I can remember listening to was Puffy Amiyumi, from both Hihi Puffy Amiyumi and Teen Titans. Also my older sister introduced me to most of the Japanese music I like. She Introduced me to: Kanon Wakeshima, Vocaloid, An Cafe, Plastic Tree, and V(Neu). And Also I discovered new music through various anime -- Ikimono Gakari and Akeboshi from Naruto. And I found Malice Mizer from Kanon Wakeshima.

I saw some pictures of Miyavi at some friend's profile, and then I went on Youtube and searched on him, and I thought he was really cool so I started listening a lot to him. Later on, I found An Cafe too, and they are my absolute favorite band now (or, they've been for 4-5 years) :D

The first Japanese song I heard was Heart of Sword by T.M. Revolution in the ending theme to Rurouni Kenshin. I had just discovered Toonami (which, by the way, I miss a lot), and I started watching anime. I didn't really get into Japanese music until I heard Ready! Steady! Go! by L'Arc~en~ciel in the opening Fullmetal Alchemist theme. I started actively listening to Japanese music when I first heard Riraito by Asian Kung-Fu Generation as the last opening theme to Fullmetal Alchemist.

Unfortunately, Ajikan was the only Japanese band I knew of, and I literally listened to nothing but them for the next 2-3 years. One day, my friend linked me to Num-Ami-Dabutz by Number Girl on YouTube. I didn't really like them at first, but I listened to some of their other work and now they're my favorite band. I eventually heard about Zazen Boys through the same friend and I even went to a Zazen Boys concert in New York after Comic-Con with him and some other friends.

More recently, I've started listening to the Kimonos. I didn't even know Mukai was in the band at first. If I had known, I would have started listening sooner.

My friend also introduced me to エレファントカシマシ (another favorite band of mine) and THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT (I don't listen to them that much, but they're okay.) Some other bands I like are L'Arc~en~ciel, Daft Punk, and a few songs by Yoko Kanno.

To be honest, mostly through DDR. God, I love Perfume. <3

I was watching tokyo tv and an old show called bento beatbox was on and played many jrock bands. Also another show on azn tv was callde pop japan tv.