Love – Love.It (a J!-ENT World Groove Album Review)

1. MAGIC
2. STARLIGHT
3. MOONLIGHT
4. RED EYE
5. White Choco
6. LOVEのテーマ

DVD: Region 2, 4:3, Duration: 13 minutes

1. Magic
2. White Choco
3. LOVEのテーマ

In Japan, a common occurrence with pop stars who want to dwelve into different types of music, either form another band or unit or they take on an alter ego. And for avex music artist Ai Otsuka, she has taken an alter ego of a bunny rabbit named “Love” (Ai in Japanese means “love”).

Love made its music debut back in April 2007 with the the song “Love no Theme” and followed up with the single later that year with “White choco” which was used for the anime film “Oshare Majo: Love and Berry Shiawase no Maho”.

The music for Love is quite different from Ai Otsuka’s music which tends to fluctuate between rock, happy pop and romantic ballads. With Love, you get music that is more happy pop/synth driven tracks that is similar to music by popular Vocaloid character Miku Hatsune and vocodor effects are applied to the voice to give the sound a more digital virtual character type of musical feel.

The opening track “MAGIC” features a mild two-step style of synth pop track, while the second track “STARLIGHT” features more deep grooves but both are fun and happy pop tracks.

The third track “MOONLIGHT” features a more drum-beat driven track and features a more slower-paced style of track that transitions to an upbeat track. But a pretty cool track!

The fourth track “RED EYE” is a slower-paced track that utilizes a good amount of experimentation to the overall music from deep bass grooves, keyboards and synth brass.

The fifth track “White choco” is the theme song to “”Oshare Majo: Love and Berry Shiawase no Maho” and is a faster pace track that is very Japanese candy pop, sugary and cute but overall a cute second single from Love.

The sixth and final track features Love’s first single “Love no Theme” (Love Theme), a digital pop track and is a more vocal/synth driven track.

The version I’m reviewing comes with a CD and a DVD. Included are three music videos presented in 4:3 and region 2 (this will not play in regular DVD players except all-region players and computers via software such as VLC).

“MAGIC” is a music video that features the bunny silhouette to Love and use of the character and the word “Love” and a lot of circles and bars being draw on the screen. A vibrant, colorful music video but something that you would see more on the opening credits of a TV show. So, overall not a major music video.

“White Choco” features a hand drawn” animated music video of a plant in which claws are picking up dough and molding it into a bunny rabbit candy dunked into chocolate.

“Love no Theme” features a CG-driven music video with plenty of CG-rendered Love bunny rabbits.

The CD insert features the lyrics for the six songs and the production credits. Also, included is a mini insert promoting LOVE on mobile, Love ear muffs and the mini-album.

Overall, I can see many Ai Otsuka fans picking this album up to hear a different style of music coming from the vocalist. But for non-Ai fans, unless you really dig the character LOVE or enjoy a song from the album, it all comes down to your personal taste. I dig the tracks because it’s Ai’s alter ego but she’s singing to music that is synth pop driven but more in a digital idol type of way. Granted, it’s for a bunny character but it’s a cute concept.

As for the CD and the CD+DVD version, there is no real reason to get the DVD version as the music videos are not that great. But if you are an Ai completest, I can understand one wanting to get the CD+DVD version but it’s important to note that she does not show up in any of the music videos, this release is pretty much all about the rabbit and Ai’s alter ego as Love.

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