Weekly moe: Denpa-kei
December 4, 2007
Denpa-kei is a certain genre of music, used in anime, hentai and games. It’s often very cute, explicit and sometimes a bit off-putting, depending on who you ask. All in all, it’s very very moe! ☆
Artists include Cotton Panties, IOSYS, KIRIKO and KOTOKO.
The music often uses squeaky female voices that have sometimes been pitch-shifted to sound more anime-like. Some of the voice actors actually can make those strange childish voices without the technology, which is quite amazing.
The beat is mostly of electronic type, and I’m not really sure how they do live shows (oh, they have live shows!) but it must be some kind of playback. Now, since the music is featured in hentai and hentai games, it’s also explicit. That includes lyrics about sex, taboos and, uh, cotton panties. The thing is though, the music has to stay on a certain level of innocence, since it’s targeted against the moe audience. References to school uniforms and other things associated with minors are many times used to make that connection.
Denpa-kei can also be quite funny, if you get all the references. Take IOSYS for an example.
IOSYS often makes music with and about the different Touhou characters, including their quirks, their fans and the things that happen in the games and that people recognize. This is all very funny for those that understands the references, but can be quite confusing for those that are not into Touhou.
What I like about denpa-kei are the videos that the fans make. Here is one example, “Miko Miku Nasu”:
If you still are wondering what denpa-kei is, just listen to this that I mixed with love:
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Here’s also a video with music from KOTOKO:
Related posts:
- denpa-kei: Swedish music, French video?
- Weekly moe: The fang
- Weekly moe: Os-tan
- Weekly moe: Tsundere
- GTA + Touhou
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May 4th, 2008 at 20:14
Thanks for the article. I like your mix, but I’d like to know which songs were used.
Bit of shameless promotion; I started a blog late last year with Denpa-kei being the sole focus. Thought you’d be interested, so here it is:
http://denpanosekai.blogspot.com/
May 4th, 2008 at 20:23
1. Angel Tai ― Galaxy Bang! Bang!
2. Cotton Panties ― My Sweet Honey Biscuit!
3. I forgot what this was
4. I think it was iosys – antehymn
5. Forgot
6. Forgot.
They were mostly from a “Best of Denpa-kei” collection that I found.
December 30th, 2009 at 16:18
[...] no idea what denpa is, but it’s the theme of Quake’s latest Exit Trance series. Moe Mania suggests that “Denpa-kei is a certain genre of music, used in anime, hentai and games. It’s [...]
June 15th, 2010 at 22:57
you should pay attention to such artists like MOSAIC.WAV, U, とろ美, 桃井はるこ.