Rebellious Girls
The Japanese music label Wack, itself belonging to the J-pop giant Avex, is famous for its eccentric groups, among them BiSH, EMPiRE, and Gang Parade. Founded in 2014 by Junnosuke Watanabe, the company declared a clear mission: To offer a proper stage to artists who are a little more experimental, a little stranger, and not immediately comfortable inside conventional idol frameworks. Crucially, that support doesn’t mean indifference to results. Even while foregrounding otherness and odd textures, Wack aims its performers toward success and plans their activities with that outcome in mind. The label’s identity sits between provocation and pragmatism, pairing freedom to try unusual ideas with careful presentation and smart promotion so that unorthodox performers can still reach large audiences across Japan.
ASP is one of Wack’s newer workhorses, arriving at a moment when the label has to reorient after the breakup of the exceptional unit BiSH. To keep up in Japan’s fiercely competitive music market, the group now opens itself even more to alternative directions, trying approaches that are off to the side of mainstream idol pop while still jostling for attention. Their first album bore a telling, tone-setting title Anal Sex Penis, which makes plain how seriously they take themselves: Not at all. The provocation operates like a wink and a shrug, announcing a willingness to poke at taboos and to laugh at expectations, even as the underlying aim, to succeed within that crowded field, remains in view. From the outset, the band signaled that irreverence was part of their method.
The lineup, Yumeka Nowkana, Nameless, Mog Ryan, Matilder Twins, Wonker Twins, CCCCCC, and Riontown, cheerfully kicks at the fixed rules laid down by their predecessors, especially in live performances, where expectations are treated with irreverence. Yet they never completely hide what they are at heart: A cast pop-punk band full of shy girls who from time to time prefer to strike quieter, more reflective notes, like in I Won’t Let You Go, my personal favorite. That mix of brashness and modesty, of noise and pause, shapes ASP’s character. Precisely this seemingly paradoxical spectrum sets them apart from the competition and gives them an unusual opportunity to extend their otherwise rather short half-life, in contrast to the countless peers whose momentum fades quickly in the same crowded, fast-moving idol environment. It keeps curiosity alive while allowing growth without abandoning their origin.