What? Did Su-metal have a recording career before Babymetal? Are you kidding me? Nope, looks like she was part of a band called Karen Girl´s in 2008-2009, a J-pop group signed by the Amuse Talent Agency. They released music that was part of an Anime on television called Zettai Karen Children (or Psychic Squad) for 51 episodes between April 6 2008 and March 29 2009. The group broke up on March 31 when the show was cancelled. The first single, “Over The Future” was the main theme of the show. Released on June 25 2008 it reached # 17 in the charts. A second single, “My Wings” followed on November 26 that reached # 26. A full album called “Fly To The Future” came out on February 25 2009 and this charted at # 19.
If you listen to this group you can tell that you have ideas that would surface in Babymetal later on present, like the more childlike backing vocals. The dance moves are there too, but is probably a feature of the J-pop scene. Su-metal (or Suzuka Nakamoto) was only 11 when this was going on. When the group ended she and Ayami Muto went on to be part of the new Idol group Sakura Gakuin that was formed by the same talent agency (later to launch Babymetal) and Yuika Shimo joined another Idol group called Maboroshi Love.
There is a very touching story here too. When Yui Mizuno (Yuimetal) was in third grade, one of her parents were in critical condition at the hospital and being too young to be in the intensive care unit she had to wait outside and the people at the hospital suggested that she listened to her favourite music. That was the Karen Girl´s and Yui would sit there when she visited the hospital and listen to their music. She has later said in interviews that the music helped her through this period and once the crisis was over she told her family that she wanted to sing and dance like the Karen Girl´s. And here is the twist, on August 2 2010, when she auditioned for Sakura Gakuin with Moa Kikuchi (Moametal) they performed “Over The Future” and got the job, both of them. Yui was 11 (as was Moa) and she must have been stunned to be in the same class as Suzuka (Sumetal). Soon, one of the projects in the Sakura Gakuin group was to cover Metal, a genre none of the girls were familiar with, and the rest is history. When Babymetal performed “Over The Future” at the Legend D concert at the Akasaka Blitz show in Tokyo on December 20 2012 it was a dream come true for Yui and a very important moment for them as a unit. The concert was released on October 19 2013 on the “Legend I, D, Z Apocalypse” DVD (# 7 in the charts). I feel that Babymetal could rerecord this song and make it part of the next album.
You can find the old videos on YouTube.
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