Their music is saccharine sweet, an extension of Japan’s kawaii or cute culture ... Japan currently has about 300 aidoru girl pop groups. The biggest is Tokyo-based AKB48 from Akihabara ...

In the sinister basement laboratory where they concoct new musical genres, they really hit the motherlode this year when they came up with “Cute Metal ... in large groups with ever-shifting ...

While we’ll never advocate for girl groups to drop the empowering anthems ... s ‘Salute’ is a good case in point). Similarly, a cute and feminine concept can also be executed without it ...

But, just as it would be problematic to expect women to be girly and cute 24/7, it’s just as ... In our prescription of one set attitude to modern girl groups, we overlook these artists ...