Weekly Japanese Pop Culture Thread (May 21, 2025)

Welcome to The Avocado’s weekly discussion of Japanese pop culture! The first ever Music Awards Japan will be live streaming on YouTube May 21 and May 22. If I wasn’t traveling right now I’d be watching these live1 but I’ll settle for checking them out later. Although, as I wake up today I see the Premiere Ceremony that aired while I was asleep isn’t on YouTube at the moment…hopefully I can find it later!  😢 I found come clips, so I at least got to see Mrs. GREEN APPLE accept their award, but I’m weird and want to watch the whole thing.

The big event I’m really, really looking forward to (and now desperately hoping I can somehow watch) is the Grand Ceremony tonight/tomorrow, which will include the major awards AND performances by some of the nominees!2 I’m surprised by some of the winners already, so the major award winners should be interesting To see the full list of categories and nominees, you can visit the official website. It’s a very strange feeling to want every nominee to win, but for the Album of the Year3 category that’s exactly how I feel! I can’t choose between those five perfect albums. More than just giving out awards, I’m just really excited to see such a big celebration of the music I love! I hope that this can become a new tradition.

And, as always…

What have you been watching/reading/playing/eating/listening to lately?

Happy Wednesday! 🌸