DUL7 wrote:
Sure, they are influenced more and more nowadays by their label and mainstream media; they ARE a pop band. But you can see from their performances the attitude, the feeling of enjoying the music and rocking out. It's not over-exaggerating, it's not forced. It comes out naturally. Now THAT is rock.

And then add to the fact that they are all cute, adorable, not to mention very hot, you got the complete package that is SCANDAL. Oh, I forgot to mention (but we all know this) that their songs are good. Awesome good. ^___^

Those were exactly the words that I was looking for - they were a COMPLETE PACKAGE right down from the get-go. We got the absolutely awesome music that you were talking about; we got real talent that made the music so; we got the looks that we both went gaga for; we got the natural stage presence we both seem to watch out for in any band; we got almost everything in between. The only possible thing that was left for me to do after having watched that vid were two things - I had to listen to more songs, and I had to spread the word about them, pronto.

And I also agree with that downside that they're becoming more mainstream by the years; some people call this as some sort of a "maturity move" having been pondered upon by the band members among themselves. I would still seldomly doubt it, though, and would rather kiddingly attribute it to an occultic lodge called Sony Music and their capitalistic warlocks and witches - just like what guys like them did to Beiber, Gaga, SNSD, etc., but that's just my opinion; the former could be true, and if that's the case, I might really consider acting on some things as a listener in effect of several potential career-killing factors that I wrote here. They never forced anything to us; fans can't force anything to them; we just simply liked them, and we'll dislike them when a certain day comes.

Note: When we say "mainstream", it could be either a good thing or a bad thing. Mainstream (the bad thing) is when an artist runs after the popular audience - and leaves people like me. Mainstream (the good thing), on the other hand, is when the popular audience runs after the artist - and people like me ride along with them.

But I gotta say, they were every rock nerd's dream band. We have yet to see another thing like this on stage. I swear if either one of them would do a guitar flip or do a "Pete-Wentzy" type of performance in a live show, and if Rina would start using double-pedals in their music, they're stuck in my hall of fame forever.

Spoiler:

Its funny how everyone thought Mami to be a emo serious girl... darn Shoujo S photo shoot...
@tsdiokno
For SCANDAL to do screamo and play like Bullet for my valentine is abit too extreme cause they are a pop rock band and not a heavy rock band. But I'd love to see Haru do screamo, Mami to do epic guitar solos and Rina to use a double pedal! .clap.
I think Rina is learning to use a double pedal from the AM2 interview thats what she said...

The band : My first impression was that they were a really energetic, cute and unique band! I began to love their music the first minute I heard it~
Haruna: My first impression on her is that she is an energetic guitar player, with really nice voice^^
Tomomi: I had doubts with her first... I was like 'lol.. what's up with her chipmunk voice?' but then after watching more of their mv's, listening to their music more often I realised what an amazing bass player she is, and how much energy she brings to the band. And as time went on I began to love her voice. She was the one who gave me inspiration to try out the bass guitar. She is now my favourite member hehe love you Tomomi!
Mami: My first impression on her was wow, amazing guitarist! seems like a shy mysterious emo girl~
Rina: : My first impression on her was seems like a quiet, drummer girl in the background
These were only my first impressions of them! I think completely different of them now (how they are all so amazing) ^_^

well, I first knew them from namida no regret PV, so my first impression is somehow not that accurate.

The band : They reminds me of my high school band dream to which is to be famous (we disband due to internal struggle). Looking at them is like looking a dream come true (in the PV they wore uniform so I assume they are high school band).

Haruna: She have a unique and deep voice, she's good and pretty. after I saw their interviews I saw her more mature and somehow I began to like her personality, she's also a shy girl.

Tomomi: She's gorgeous somewhat a mysterious type, I love her looks and hair. but after hearing her voices in other songs, I thought "she have a cute voice i love girl with that kind of voice" and after I saw their interviews, I fall in love with her. ( I would love to spoil her if I ever had the chance to). she's a free spirited girl who do everything that she loves to do and enjoy every moment of it, and she smiles a lot too, behind her cheerfulness she's wise and hard worker. I really love her personality. she's just loveable.

Mami : She's mysterious and serious. she's beautiful and her guitar is very good.after their interviews, I start to see her as she's a free spirited girl, work hard type and wise.I think she's the most responsible among them and will make a good wife. I liked her a lot for her inspiring and encouraging words.

Rina : at first I notice that she's cute and shy type, typical feminine woman. After their firs interview I start to notice she got excited easily and she's talkative. She looks mature but she's also a free spirited girl.

for me 4 of them are really great, they are able to do what they love to do and enjoy it. truly an inspiring band.

bleachnlife wrote:Its funny how everyone thought Mami to be a emo serious girl... darn Shoujo S photo shoot...
@tsdiokno
For SCANDAL to do screamo and play like Bullet for my valentine is abit too extreme cause they are a pop rock band and not a heavy rock band. But I'd love to see Haru do screamo, Mami to do epic guitar solos and Rina to use a double pedal! .clap.
I think Rina is learning to use a double pedal from the AM2 interview thats what she said...

But they were already going there (except for the screamo part). Mami was doing some awesome solos, Tomo and Haru were already rocking hard, Rina's a fourth of a way in to being the female Japanese version of......

Aaron Gillespie?!

XD Hahaha!

Hehe... Yah... that was too far. I could imagine though... I'll definitely dig them just as much as I think you would when they go hardcore! :-D

@topic I forgot to do the individuals...

Tomo & Mami: Didn't care that much. Tomo was headbangy and chipmunky, mami was stationary and reserved... didn't give that much attention..

Rina: was smiley... [a really hard thing for me to keep while playing the drums - id usually bite my lips, mimic the drum sound with my mouth to get it out of my head and in to the drumheads, or groan and gnash at some parts - it's hard to make my playing the best i could possibly make it when I still have to think about keeping a constant smile in my face - haha! i only smile when i remember having to do it several times in a song - "you keep that smile on your face, tim... oops! here comes that reeeeeally complicated fill... DON'T YOU DARE THROW OUT THAT SMILE, DEMMMIT!!!" XD] rina looked like, for me, a stereotypical japanese girl next door. and she had a mic but i was waiting for her to actually sing.

Haru: Tough looking... boyish... not trying to be a Jap cutie or sumnthn. always had that let's-get-it-on, ready-to-kick-it attitude, i'm-gonna-give-you-a-rocking-show, i-don't-care-about-looking-cute look in her eyes... didn't smile that much... i liked it alot, specially during the not-2011 beauteen-era Mezamashi lives, even though I didn't know any of the songs back then. (ended up finding out later on that she's exactly the opposite, she acted cuter and cuter and more feminine by the vids XD) loved the way she spoke in that performance....

this where it gets creepy... I had a thing (good) with THE TEETH! the fudging TEETH! next to the elf ears.... were the TEETH. hahahahah! XD okay...

this is embarassing now....

fudge... XD

Haruna - have a cool deep voice

Mami - cool guitarist , serious girl

Rina - cool drummer with a beautiful smile

Tomomi - have a unique voice

@tsdiokno
You noticed the teeth eh.
Crooked teeth are considered lucky in Japan which is why you see so many Japanese girls that still have them, I think it is kawaii myself !

Scandal have more punk roots than pop, it was the school uniform that made them stand out from the crowd.
But here are my first impressions from "Doll".

Haruna.Very much the eldest and in an idol band she would be the 'Captain'.
I find her a bit scary, I would not want to upset her and she is not a great guitar player.
But I find her attractive in an 'Elfin' kind of way and her strong voice adds a huge amount to to the band.
I also feel she is a little shy with strangers.

Mami. An underated member of the band.
I was not impressed by her guitar skills in the early days and worry about a player who has to look down at their fingers all the time.
But she has become a very strong player ( But she still has problems hitting the notes when she sings ! )
I think she is another shy girl like Haruna, her skirt always used to be longer than the other girls in the early days.
In the right clothes she could be really pretty.

Rina I was impressed by her drum playing right from the start, she is very strong for such a fragile looking girl but slender is natural for Japanese girls.
With her constant smile I thought perhaps she was a bit slow like many drummers at first, but her blogs have made me realise that is not true !
She seems more outgoing than Haruna and Mami and more like Tomomi.

Tomomi This is hard because I must try to forget she is my favourite but I cannot imagine Scandal without her !
The small girl with the huge Fender bass caught my eye straight away and then she sang !
My son says her voice makes him want to 'Tear his ears off', but I could listen to her all day and as a bass player I know she can really play !

Some members will get upset because I have talked about their looks but they are a girl band and people will look at them as girls.
I have seen some Japanese girl bands where you could mistake them for men, you would never have that problem with Scandal, they are 4 attractive girls.

tonymiller wrote:@tsdiokno
You noticed the teeth eh.
Crooked teeth are considered lucky in Japan which is why you see so many Japanese girls that still have them, I think it is kawaii myself !

Scandal have more punk roots than pop, it was the school uniform that made them stand out from the crowd.
But here are my first impressions from "Doll"...

Rina I was impressed by her drum playing right from the start, she is very strong for such a fragile looking girl but slender is natural for Japanese girls.
With her constant smile I thought perhaps she was a bit slow like many drummers at first, but her blogs have made me realise that is not true !
She seems more outgoing than Haruna and Mami and more like Tomomi......

Some members will get upset because I have talked about their looks but they are a girl band and people will look at them as girls.
I have seen some Japanese girl bands where you could mistake them for men, you would never have that problem with Scandal, they are 4 attractive girls.

@teeth: you know... after i noticed it (from the PRIDE PV close-ups), i instantly googled for the right term to describe it just to be sure (since I wasn't really used to describing female dental features in English) (apparently, yes, "crooked") and wrote on my FB wall something like this "CROOKED TEETH and ELF EARS are the new SEXY!" LOL!

@punk roots: I know, right? they had some garage rock, SKA, indie, punk thingy going on back then. i thought they were really going after that. BEST SCANDAL really sounded great... best album for me.

@drums: you are hurting me with the TRUTH! XD I'm gulity. I'm a bit slow. haha! i'd love to see rina do better (faster, 'round-the-kit) fills, though. but ironically i use some of hers 'too. (then, I "cobus"/butcher SCANDAL songs on drums XD)
i don't know if the simplicity of her drumming could be attributed to a minimalistic creative less-is-more philosphy (@seleneusagi was right... Rina really reminded me of Ringo Starr of the Beatles with the way she writes her parts...) or she might just still be learning a lot of new stuff.
but i like tomomi's the-more-the-merrier philosophy better (high five! tony!). she is SICK!

@looks: true! really true. girls that LOOK LIKE girls

The BAND: well, their name sounds kinda awful to me...but I slowly began to notice that they are talented girls.

SASAZAKI MAMI: She looks so silent and serious to me, but her voice, even though deep and low is very FANTASTIC
OGAWA TOMOMI: Umm... I'm so amused with her chimpmunkish voic, but her face was not that appealing to me, but now, I liked it. Its like heart-shaped or something
HARUNA ONO: KAWAII!! She was the only one I knew with a bunny teeth, but still looks cute, in fact, this is what makes her cuter.
SUZUKI RINA: VERY APPEALING! She's way there in the back, but she was amazing to me.

The band: Well, they all looked alike, cant tell which is which


Haruna: Mature, serious and easily angered. well i was right about mature and serious, but about easily angered, i was wrong, dead wrong. Found out she's pretty fun, cool, and cute. I was never bothered of her teeth though.


Mami: Mysterious, always serious, no fun time and a "cant get along with girl". Well i was wrong about mysterious, no fun time and "cant get along with girl". About the "always serious" thing, yes she is serious, but not always, I mean look at her. she is a very fun and awesome person. I love her guitar skills, and i like her cheeks, i'd love to pinch them. .pinch.


Rina: The most fun person, the oldest and i thought she was the tallest. I was wrong about "the oldest" and the "tallest" thing, found out she was the youngest member in the band i came to like her cause of her "i dont want to lose" attittude. Shes pretty serious about her drumming skills, and look at her now, she developed it well.


Tomomi: The youngest member(cause you know, of her voice XD), a serious yet the most fun one to be with. I really thought she was the youngest cause of her chipmunk like voice XD which happens to be the cutest voice i ever heard and which also happens to be the thing i loved about her. She and Mami are the most fun people i saw in their band. Always goofing around, playing and stuffs

The band : The first I ever saw or heard of Scandal was a live clip of Shunkan Sentimental... I was totally blown away! These girls knew how to rock and would blow any Australian band I have seen off the stage!

Haruna: Good front person for the group... great stage pressence... this is a girl to watch whatever band she's in!

Tomomi: Liked her voice over Haruna's but that's just personal preference.... Haruna has the more commercial rock voice.... saw (and still see) Tomo as the 'wild child' of the group...

Mami: BRILLIANT lead guitarist.... excellent on stage... enjoys the crowd!

Rina: : The MOST beautiful woman I have EVER seen! And.... Is a REAL drummer providing not just a back beat, but is a driving force to, and therefore is the backbone of, the band. Scandal wouldn't be Scandal without Rina! Love her vocals almost as much as Tomo's (as I said personal preference)....yet seems so quiet and unassuming in private moments caught on camera... and that's kinda sexy too!

The Band: They're awesome! The music is entertaining, the PV is very nice. I was never attracted to music band like that before. They are the first musicians that I seriously admire :D They're even not that much older than me. Unfortunatey I was unable to differ the members at first

Haru and Tomo: I got mixed up between both of them. At first I thought Tomo's voice was Haru's and vice versa. Despite that, I think their voices are awesome and realy fit one another

Mami: at first I thought she was a serious lady. Boy, was I wrong. She's very funny and awesome esp. combined with Tomo

Rina: my only spot on guess on Scandal. She's the youngest and very persistent. That I really like.
Very like.

Never actually bothered about looks until a couple of months lol but I admit, all of them are very beautiful

Hard to describe.... But, it has a different atmosphere (of course a positive one)

u no wat fam, im bear ashamed 2 say this but my first impression was Piff, but i swear not its not even like that, i no there well sick and have hard tracks and defo well cute

This video was my first impression of SCANDAL:

Spoiler:

Do not judge me for what I'm about to say...

First thing I really noticed was Mami. She look like a real-life version of Samus Aran from the Metroid game series.

My eyes were pretty much glued to Mami and her uniquely designed guitar.

Then the bass blew me away, because it sounds so complex yet so simple. It made me want to be able to play bass at her level.

I actually thought Haru was a lot older than she was, because her hair style made her look older, in my opinion.

When Timo started singing. I was like "...what the heck? Chipmunk voice" but I thought it blended really well with Haru's deeper husky voice. It took a little while to get used to her voice

When I saw Rina, I thought she was the one that was the most into the music.

I actually kept replaying the part where Mami's eyes get all big because It thought it was kinda funny.

I kept going back to youtube for 2 weeks straight just to watch that video over and over again and listen to the song.

anyway, my first impression was a little weird, but that made me like the band even more. When I first heard Harukaze, I was thinking to myself "This is the kind of music I have been looking for"

The 2nd vid I watched was Cute - SCANDAL

Spoiler:

After watching this, I didn't think they were the same band, because they looked totally different, but this song did the trick. Since then, I've been a huge fan of SCANDAL. It only really took me 1 song to like the band.

Then I started listening to their older music all the way up to Harukaze. I have to say I didn't like Doll and Shoujo S at first, but after a few listens, I was hooked.

the band: wow,with that school uniforms really looked awesome .wow.
haruna:she was for me the most sexy ...and because has an appearance of captain really like it
tomomi: kawaii!!
mami: a powerful guitarrist
rina:a really fun girl (in their first live she smiled all the time ) just like this

3 Years Ago when my friend first introduced Scandal to me ... and honestly .... I got shocked when I learned that they sang Shoujo S since I'm a fan of Bleach back then...

My friend recommended me Sakura Goodbye and Koi Moyou but I find those songs just OK back then so my first impression with them is that they're just an OK band and I prefer Stereopony/Chatmonchy/YUI than them...

That was my impression of them until I heard Sayonara My Friend last year that made me change my impression of them

First song I ever heard from them was Shunkan Sentimental (thanks to FMAB). The guitar intro stood out and the song was decent but it wasn't mind blowingly good that I had to check out more of the band's songs

So after taking one look at them:



and after listening to Shunkan, I just deemed them a heavy rock band. Which was good and all but I'm more of a alt rock guy myself. So I left it at that...until a month ago.

Since Shunkan Sentimental was pretty much 99% Haruna, I only thought of her. I thought her to be very alpha-female-ish, if that makes any sense

yoshinator54 wrote:This video was my first impression of SCANDAL:

Spoiler:

Do not judge me for what I'm about to say...

First thing I really noticed was Mami. She look like a real-life version of Samus Aran from the Metroid game series.

My eyes were pretty much glued to Mami and her uniquely designed guitar.

Then the bass blew me away, because it sounds so complex yet so simple. It made me want to be able to play bass at her level.

I actually thought Haru was a lot older than she was, because her hair style made her look older, in my opinion.

When Timo started singing. I was like "...what the heck? Chipmunk voice" but I thought it blended really well with Haru's deeper husky voice. It took a little while to get used to her voice

When I saw Rina, I thought she was the one that was the most into the music.

I actually kept replaying the part where Mami's eyes get all big because It thought it was kinda funny.

I kept going back to youtube for 2 weeks straight just to watch that video over and over again and listen to the song.

anyway, my first impression was a little weird, but that made me like the band even more. When I first heard Harukaze, I was thinking to myself "This is the kind of music I have been looking for"

The 2nd vid I watched was Cute - SCANDAL

Spoiler:

After watching this, I didn't think they were the same band, because they looked totally different, but this song did the trick. Since then, I've been a huge fan of SCANDAL. It only really took me 1 song to like the band.

Then I started listening to their older music all the way up to Harukaze. I have to say I didn't like Doll and Shoujo S at first, but after a few listens, I was hooked.

Interesting to see a SCANDAL first impression of their current style/image. And now that you mention it, MAMI could be a good Samus Aran cosplayer. ^^

I already posted my first impression of the band here and I wonder what would my impression be if I had only discovered them now instead of back then from their "seifuku days".

first impressions to all of them: COOL

Well... Like Yoshi SCANDAL - Harukaze is the first video of SCANDAL that I've seen !

The first time I see Haruna I say "Oh my god, is it possible to be so beautiful like that ? .nosebleed. ", after see the video, I though she is the leader, and I was right, but I though this was her who take decisions for the major times, but here I was wrong.

When I see Mami, I say myself "Wow a Japanese Blond girl with blue eyes, it's impossible ! .wtf. " x) For me she was the mysterious girl who don't speak often, I was totally wrong, but I tough she was very good at guitar (at this time I didn't know a lot of things about music), and I was right !

Rina... Well it was easy to say "she is the younger", in this video she looked enjoy play drums so muuuch, "Wow, she is so cute, this smile *-* ", I though because she is the younger, she didn't have a lot of rights for take decisions about the band, I was wrong, but I though even if she is the younger I saw in her eyes she is very clever, I was right .love.

Tomomi is my best mistake, I though she was the most shy of this band "This Voice ! .omg. " because in this video you can't clearly see her face, but at this time I did'nt play Bass I said "Wow, her bass is beautiful and she looks very good !" I was right .happy.

Conclusion : Well 1/2 right xD