Dancemania EX × Trance Paradise

Gal Mama Euro Best
Release Date: 12/30/09
Price: 1900 yen

J-Euro fever continues as Victor becomes the latest label to jump on the bandwagon. A “Gal Mama” is apparently a young woman in her 20s who has a baby as a fashion accessory. Examples include Rumi Itabashi (cover model for Natasu Monogatari 2009 and Wa Euro Best 1 and 2), Tsubasa Masuwaka, and Momoeri. The CD is being billed as one that both parent and child can dance to. No track list yet, but I can’t imagine Rumi not being on it. Victor have licensed from Akiba Koubou again, so I’d expect AK tracks plus some repeats from Buchiage Parance and Speed Anime M@ster.

Pre-order at CDJapan.

Trance Rave Best XIX
Release Date: 12/16/09
Price: 1900 yen

One of the longest-running trance series in Japan returns this December with the release of Trance Rave Best #19. DJ Kaya will once again be doing the mixing.

Pre-order at CDJapan.

Koakuma Magic #2
Release Date: 11/25/09
Price: 1900 yen

Koakuma Ageha is a Japanese fashion magazine, similar to egg. They’ve collaborated with various labels in the past to release compilations like Koakuma Trance (Universal), Koakuma Musee Trance (Quake), and Koakuma Magic (Victor). If it isn’t immediately obvious, this will be a sequel to Koakuma Magic, which was mostly eurobeat with a touch of trance. No real announced tracks yet, though they have released a list of models who will be singing some new tracks. Otherwise I’d expect repeats from Buchiage Parance 10.

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Men’s Egg Night -M10- (Men’s Egg Soukan 10 Shuunen Kinen)
Release Date: 9/30/09
Price: 1900 yen

Originally scheduled for release on August 26, this special CD commemorating the 10th anniversary of men’s egg magazine will finally be released on September 30. The early track list was pretty much all psychedelic trance, but the final list is mostly repeats from the Trance Rave Best series as well as licenses from Exit Trance.

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Buchiage Parance 10*Special (CD+DVD)
Release Date: 9/23/09
Price: 2848 yen

The good news is that they changed the title to something a little more intelligible. The bad news is that the track list is mostly licenses from Exit Trance and Super Anime Remix, along with some repeats from Speed Anime M@ster. There are no actual repeats from previous Buchiage releases or even Euro! Panic, yet the list still looks rather stale. It doesn’t even have a new Kei song 🙁

The DVD has a surprising number of tracks, though I don’t know how many of them are ParaPara routines.

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Buchiage Parance #10th Best (CD+DVD)
Release Date: 9/23/09
Price: 2848 yen

The 10th release in the long-running Buchiage Parance/Trance series has a strangely perplexing title. Placing a # sign in front of an ordinal just strikes me as bizarrely redundant. Then again, this is the country that gave us Super Anime Remix Super Best. I really hope this isn’t another Best release, though, since they already released one shortly after Buchiage Trance #6. CDJapan’s description does mention that it’ll be a mix of best hits and new songs. Let’s just hope it’s more of the latter. #9 had mostly Akiba Koubou songs, and I’d expect this one to have those as well as Euro Panic! repeats.

The series has sold over 1,000,000 copies over the past few years, but sales have declined recently. With Wa Euro Best selling well, however, the appetite for Euro may be on the rise once again and we could see another surprise hit on our hands.

Pre-order at CDJapan. Amazon Japan also have it for only 2,452 yen.

Shinjuku Disco Hits 2 (Gotouchi Disco Ura Shinjuku)
Release Date: 9/16/09
Price: 2190 yen

Update! This release has been postponed indefinitely.

Another release in the “Gotouchi Disco” series. This one focuses on disco songs famous in the lower part of Shinjuku. Apparently they like early 80s stuff more than 70s disco.

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Men’s Egg Night ~Soukan 10 Shuunen Kinen Best!!~
Release Date: 8/26/09
Price: 1900 yen

A special CD release to commemorate the 10th anniversary of, umm… something. It’s either the 10th anniversary of the men’s egg magazine (the male counterpart of the egg magazine mentioned yesterday), or the 10th anniversary of men’s egg Night, a trance party. Victor has released a few men’s egg compilations in the past, but they usually featured music from Trance Rave Best. This one seems to be more focused on psychedelic trance, however.

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Buchiage Parance #9 (Haishin Gentei Mix)
Release Date: 7/8/09
Price: 1905 yen

Victor Japan aren’t usually known for putting their albums up for download, so this comes as a bit of a surprise. The track list is mostly the same as the physical release, except with 5 tracks omitted (Caramelldansen and a few Zipang tracks, so no big loss). It’s unknown if the downloads will be of full versions or if it’ll be another non-stop mix. I’m crossing my fingers for full versions; the 2 bad techno mix of “Iteza” is 2 good.

Edit: It looks like the digital release has been canceled. 🙁

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Speed Anime M@ster ~Anison Master~*
Release Date: 6/24/09
Price: 1900 yen

This came out a few days ago, but for those still on the fence, someone has uploaded an album medley to YouTube. A different brand of euro than usual, but there’s some mighty fine hyper techno near the end. All of the art you see in the video is included in the booklet, by the way.

The list above below isn’t quite complete, as it turns out. Apparently there are three secret bonus tracks.

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Trance Rave Best XVIII
Release Date: 6/24/09
Price: 1900 yen

Mostly Quake repeats. In fact, track 7 already appeared on TRB 17!

That said, Victor made good on their promise to include original tracks from Japanese DJs. We’ve got a new, original Delaction track as well a new track from Los Hermanos. The previously unknown DJ Kenny also makes his TRB debut.

Really good stuff. I hope we get to hear more from DJ Kenny in the future.

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Speed Anime M@ster ~Anison Master~*
Release Date: 6/24/09
Price: 1900 yen

Formerly known as “Super Anime Beat,” the title has since changed to “Speed Anime M@ster.” Nothing on the early list made it to the final one, and it looks like Quake’s artists may not involved. Additionally, Akiba Koubou will be contributing quite a few tracks. So, basically, none of the details I mentioned for “Super Anime Beat” ended up being true. Damn you, Victor.

Despite the name change it does look like eurobeat is still the primary focus. Kei finally returns to Victor compilations with two new eurobeat covers. As mentioned, some tracks are licensed from Akiba Koubou, but they haven’t been repeated too extensively. I’m not entirely sure who produced the other tracks, but the artists are, umm, “idols.”

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Super Anime Beat
Release Date: 6/24/09
Price: 1900 yen

When I first saw the title I thought Avex was finally jumping on the anime bandwagon. It turns out, however, that this is actually a Victor release (although Avex do have an anime release coming out soon). At first I was afraid that it would just be a collection of Quake repeats, but it appears that this will feature brand new eurobeat covers. Surprisingly, the covers will be done by the very same Quake artists who have contributed to the Speed Anime Trance Best series! I’m just glad it’s not Akiba Koubou again.

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Trance Rave Best XVII
Release Date: 6/24/09
Price: 1900 yen

Trance Rave Best used to have exclusive tracks, but lately they’ve been full of nothing but Quake repeats. Supposedly this latest volume will include original songs from Japanese DJs. I’ll believe it when I see it, though. Scheduled artists include Cascada and Infected Mushroom, while DJ Kaya will once again be mixing.

Pre-order at CDJapan

Buchiage Parance #9
Release Date: 3/25/09
Price: 2848 yen

No Euro Panic! repeats! All right, that’s not entirely true because there are a few on the DVD. Surprisingly, however, the CD appears to be mostly new songs and remixes from Akiba Koubou. A few of the tracks are even labeled as 9LoveJ remixes, so it seems that 9LoveJ are involved with this release.

Other tracks include the obligatory “Ponyo” and “Caramelldansen” from Quake. There are also a few songs from artists known as L-mode and Stylish Heart. I’ve never heard of them, nor could I find any further information on them.

The DVD mostly has tracks from Zipang along with the aforementioned Euro Panic! repeats.

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