Talking to Artists.

I am going to sit here and prattle on about how, as a kid, I liked reading about Van Gogh and Da Vinci best. I felt I could relate to the batshit insane Vincent and Leonardo's intricate sketches of anatomy, machine and strange inventions kind of hooked me. Oh, but then I grew out of it all! Klimt with his collage-like painting became the best after I saw his gaudy but beautiful "Portrait of Mäda Primavesi" and, of course, "The Kiss". I also remember seeing Matisse's "The Snail" from a book a curator of a local print-shop read to us when I was small -- when she said, "Would you have believed it were a snail if I told you that is what it was?" and turned the lazy spiral of torn paper on its side, I could squint and see how Matisse, in his blindness, could feel it was what he said it was.

And then, there was Yosu.

I had been listening to W.T. Snacks' weekly DJ sessions on Midnight Snacks before I got lazy and stopped, when I heard a delightful racket explode out my speakers. Flipping through the track-listing for something with a discernible title and then scrolling down song by song until I found the title, I was greeted by poor wordplay.
The track was "Coy" by the Swedish group LOLI RIPE.

This, arguably, put me on a really bad sweet-tooth for bad music. I quickly gathered up all of the LOLI RIPE albums that could possibly fit onto my tiny 2GB drive and then started listening to their equally as terrible colleagues: people like Goreshit and ISOpussy, and I became, at least, frightfully familiar with a man who enjoys writhing on the floor while screaming about Haruhi Suzumiya.

This man, No. 305, is the manager of UGUnet and its twin sister, AUU. I'd eventually come there, as well, in search of more terrible albums to add to my ever-growing collection. UGU was a real treat for that, too, with everything from Dutch men making Cookie Monster vocals over clips from Japanese cartoons to An album comprised largely of No. 305 talking to himself as he does a playthrough of Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

However, not all of it was crap. OmoideChip was a whole bunch of really great Chiptune covers. Shako-Pani, with his fondness for Squarepusher and Hidamari Sketch, became an artist I watched for. And finally, I heard Kesson Shoujo.

Kesson Shoujo had released an album called "Watashinokoko" on UGU before changing their name to make the album titular after Yosu deemed the name "too cool". At first, all I had was "Watashinoko". I didn't have a whole lot to go around, and most of it was static layered over the fictitious lead singer's storytelling, nevertheless, I bought a few Jewel Cases and promptly clipped out the album art with a self-made tracklisting and passed the album around to a few strangers and friends.

I'd wanted a bit more, though. One album wasn't cutting it for me. I began to dig and dig before I found his first ancient works, mostly ambient, at a seemingly defunct netlable under his old handle of Kesson Shoujo. I got all of them and eagerly stole whatever he uploaded to his page's media player. I began to save the small videos he put up and all the artwork, as well. While it was more rabid fanboying or borderline-stalking, it turned out to be pretty helpful.

Yosu has earned the ire of a friend of mine for his self-sabotage. Yosu deletes everything when he doesn't like the way he's taking Watashinokoko. His Pixiv page is awful empty because he decided he wanted to focus on crayon, his Videos now amount to two, and he doesn't promote any of his old albums because they're not exactly the best.
He'll also do things like pull the original working of Kesson Shoujo's "Watashinokoko" from UGU's board and re-released it as a Touch-Up.

Nevertheless, I began to regard this guy as a mentor or something.
What did I care if he was singing about disabled people and harsh environments?
I actually cared quite a bit, but it's beside the point. I wanted to hear more of this guy.
I thought I might have had a chance or something when I found out he was attending Comitia to pass out an EP and Supplemental. Being fairly out of the loop, I had to look into what and where Comitia was before realizing I wasn't going to Japan. On some odd whim, I figured "I could write this guy."

I wrote Yosu, wishing him luck and explaining I'd been a fan since Kesson Shoujo.
Knowing his frequent focus on the disabled fictitious singer, Lala, I offered him a link to Katawa Shoujo, which I had begun to watch since it got its official page. They had just released the first part of the game and I figured, "Maybe I can get him on common ground or something?"

He gave me the EPs and a reply in fairly well-spoken English:

"Hello! Thanks for your message.
I distributed two Watashinokoko EPs at Comitia88, the festival of comic and creation, a week ago.
If you want, I'll send you mp3 files of that via Yousendit. https://www.yousendit.com/

By the way, I've already heard about Katawa-shojo, it's famous among the Otaku people in Japan, too.
I haven't played it, but the girls appears very lovely:)

Yoss"

I don't know.
Talking with your idol feels great.
It's entirely possible I pissed myself.

I told a few people who laughed saying I had "set the bar low for idolatry", but someone said "Everyone should have a moment like that". It made me think of that scene in "Where the Red Fern Grows" where Billy Coleman chops down a massive tree. He doesn't have too big a purpose for doing so, but he gets it in his mind to clip it. He finally gets it worn enough that it collapses under its own weight and his father says he's proud of him and that "Every boy should have a moment like that".
Everyone should talk to an idol of theirs, even if it's just once.

I'd like to leave with Yosu's third reworking - or fourth, I suppose - of "Disgrace".
The original sound was sampled in the second half of a Kesson Shoujo track called "January" before it was re-polished into "Disgrace". When Kesson Shoujo was re-polished into Watashinokoko, it became several versions of a track called "わたしと歩いていると恥ずかしいの" which roughly translates to "Are you ashamed to walk with me?", the last of which is just below (Until Yosu proves my friend's thoughts on him right and pulls the video for a fifth reworking.)