Line #26 Creator/KenjiSawada


1	%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.
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3	[[quoteright:335:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2886648589_61afb588fc_4373.jpg]]
4	[[caption-width-right:335:Sir Loreal Julie of Peacock Hill, ladies and gents.]]
5	[[quoteright:268:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1450208_639145642793451_1479220923_n_4656.jpg]]
6	[[caption-width-right:268:Kenji Sawada as of 2013 at the first Tigers Reunion Concert, performing "Love Only For You" with the audience swooning like teenagers no doubt.]]
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8	Kenji "Julie" Sawada (born June 25, 1948) is a Japanese musician, actor and composer, best known to Americans for being in ''Film/MishimaALifeInFourChapters''. His claim to fame among Japanese is perhaps, according to many, such as {{SMAP}}, with planting the seeds of the VisualKei movement. His manner of dress when he performed, his heavy use of makeup, and his tendency to not seperate his stage personality from his real one are all traits later adopted by most VisualKei groups. After the breakup of Music/TheTigers, Sawada formed the SuperGroup PYG, bringing together many of his former rivals as musicians and churning out three albums. He later began a very successful solo career and became apt to a Japanese Music/DavidBowie, acting in many roles to this day.
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10	[[JustForFun/IThoughtThatWas Probably not related to]] the [[Music/TaijiSawada bassist]] of X and Loudness.
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12	[[folder: Tropes describing Kenji Sawada]]
13	%%* AlterEgoActing: Somewhat of a type 3.
14	* AntiLoveSong: "Toki no Sugi Yuku Mama Ni" can be interpreted as the singer lamenting over an extremely toxic relationship.
15	* BreakupBreakout: After the Tigers broke up, Sawada launched a successful solo career, acted in many movies, picking up the moniker "Japan's David Bowie", and pretty much singlehandedly began what became the VisualKei movement of music/fashion. Not bad huh?
16	* BreakupSong: "LONELY WOLF", "Forbidden Love" (About longing for a woman who has long left him), "Pari ni Hitori".
17	* BSODSong: "The 6th Melancholy", an angry rant on fame and the toll it takes on an individual.
18	%%* CampStraight
19	* ConceptAlbum: The Tigers 1968 album ''Human Renascence'' was the first use of the trope in Japan. Julie's solo career had him have more than one has well, with ''Onnatachiyo'' being a RockOpera retelling ''Literature/TheTaleOfGenji'' and ''JULIE II'' being themed around sea travel.
20	* CreativeDifferences: The reason PYG disbanded. Hagiwara's bad boy lawbreaker personality is well known in Japan to not be a mere act, and this clashed with Kenji Sawada's extremely "boy-next-door" image he had at the time.
21	* CreatorBreakdown: A lot of Sawada's early 80s material can be interpreted as this, with "Rokubanne no Yuutsu", his BSOD song, seemingly being a rant on his feelings about fame, and seemingly having a much more eccentric manner of dress and stage persona.
22	%%* CrucifiedHeroShot: Most performances of Ikutusuka no Bamen.
23	* CunningLinguist: Speaks Japanese, French, Italian and English fluently.
24	%%* DudeLooksLikeALady: ESPECIALLY in the early 80s.
25	* DyeHard: His hair has ranged from hot pink, to blonde, to orange. However his hair greyed very early (in his late 40s, early 50s) from dying it so much.
26	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: ''JULIE I'' and ''Julie II'' are about as far away from the proto-Visual Kei pop rock and New Wave Sawada is mainly known for, having a sound one can liken to Barry Manilow or other easy listening, and almost none of the songs in these two albums have been included in Sawada's later years, with "Yurusenai Ai" being rearranged to fit more with Sawada's later style in TheEighties then dropped from his setlist after 1991, and almost all of the other songs from these two albums being forgotten.
27	* FountainOfExpies: Unlike the numerous hide clones however, the trend of Kenji Sawada emulators in the late 70s quickly died overnight.
28	* GenreShift: Went thru many. Like David Bowie, his shifts reflect that of popular music in the country he came from as a whole was like at the time. Going by the Julie Special GreatestHits alone, he went thru EasyListening, PowerPop, SynthPop, {{New Wave\|Music}}, and in the late seventies, early eighties thru a proto VisualKei period, with the album ''S/T/R/I/P/P/E/R'' featuring heavily distorted, blazing guitar and bass and very sexualized lyrics, and after the 90s, his output almost became Music/BruceSpringsteen like, with a greater focus on traditional pop-rock anthems, and a much more tame, almost socially aware feel to the lyrics.
29	* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Both Sawada and The Tigers have a significant following in Europe, China, and to a much lesser extent North America.
30	* GriefSong: From PYG, "Flower, Sun, Rain", "The Days Already Past" (grief over past loves) "No Longer On The Earth" and "Jeff" the latter a grief song directed towards a dog. His later solo career brings "Nageki no Tenshi" a song which deals with the process of grief itself, as well as "Illusion of Love" which is a song grieving over lost love.
31	* HoYay: Had a very subtext-laden photoshoot with Kazuya Yoshi of Yellow Monkey.
32	* IAmTheBand: He largely carried his band The Tigers's success on his shoulders.
33	* IntercourseWithYou: ''STRIPPER'', the title is self-explanatory, and the first live of it actually [[TooSexyForThisTimeslot moved to watershed hours]] for NHK's 1981 New Years Eve show.
34	* InternationalCoproduction: ''JULIE'', ''JULIE II'', ''JULIE III'', ''JULIE VI: ARU SEISHUN'' were all coproductions between Kenji Sawada & Takayuki Inoue Band (Japan) and Olympic Sound Studios (UK).
35	* ImpossiblyCoolClothes: Sawada is a master of this. Look at his 2008 concert where he performs in an Indian chief outfit, for instance, or his outfit in the PV for "The 6th Melancholy"!
36	* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: ''Julie III: Julie Recital'', Sawada's first live album is out of print and sells at very high premiums, as do all three of Julie's {{AOR}} albums done with Co-Colo, and to add insult to injury, virtually no songs from the album are floating around in digital form minus the single "Coal and diamonds" and a live performance of "Adagio of Sorrow" and "Namimuto"
37	* LeadBassist: Again, Ittoku Kishibe, who is lifelong friends with Sawada, and composed numerous songs for him as well as writing lyrics, and his bassplaying under PYG was noticed by John Paul Jones when PYG covered "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You"
38	* LargeHam: He ALWAYS chews the scenery, just watch him in ''Film/SamuraiReincarnation'' for a great example.
39	* LongRunner: First solo album was released in April 1969, his latest solo single was released spring 2013, and his latest studio album was released March '14.
40	* MrFanservice: And how! Had several nude photoshoots in the 80s....
41	* NewWaveMusic: Sawada's main genre from the mid-late 1970s until the 1990s.
42	* NewRomantic: His mid-late 80s output, with his androgyny up to eleven, and a new backing band, Co-Colo, who included rather dark sounding string passages in addition to the synthesizers and guitar-drum-bass Sawada had become so accustomed to.
43	* NewSoundAlbum: A better list, in chronological order:
44	** Easy listening in the vein of Barry Manilow (''Julie''-''Julie III'')
45	** A revisitation of the psychedelic rock sound PYG had done with the original members of that band (''Julie IV'')
46	** Symphonic Rock (''Julie VI'')
47	** Glam Rock (''Jewel Julie'', ''Itsukana no Baman'', ''And Now I Feast on a Grand Banquet'', ''The Fugitive Ai no Troubador'')
48	** New Wave (''Bad Tuning'', ''TOKIO'', ''STRIPPER'')
49	** Synthpop/New Romantic (''NON-POLICY, ''MISCAST'', ''Onna-tachiyo'', ''A WONDERFUL TIME'')
50	** {{Main/AOR}}-(''A Grand Ballet with Co-COLO'')
51	** TinPanAlley (''A Saint in Night'')
52	** HardRock- His late 90s output with Jazzmaster.
53	** AltRock- His 2000s-TheNewTens albums mostly have shades of poppier alt-rock.
54	* OnceOriginalNowCommon: To most people today, Kenji "Julie" Sawada's antics onstage seem mundane in the age of artists like Music/MaliceMizer, Music/DirEnGrey and the like, but at the time he was in his prime years (1975-1982), Sawada's onstage antics on songs like "STRIPPER" were considered darlingly sexual and flamboyant, and producer/bandmate Kunihiko Kase's invention of the term "Visual" to describe Sawada's onstage costuming and persona. This later was taken by Music/AtsushiSakurai and Music/YoshikiHayashi and turned further into the VisualKei movement.
55	* PeripheryDemographic: Ever since VisualKei became more popular internationally, he seems to have gained a significant fanbase crossing over from bands like Buck-Tick, GLAY and X Japan, all of which have members who have professed to have Sawada as one of their influences (Sakurai Atsushi even covered two of Julie's songs and seems to style his vocal mannerisms after him, and GLAYs vocalist has covered "Toki no Sugiyuku Mama ni")
56	* PowerBallad: Ikutsuka no bamen is the most prominent example of Sawada's ballads.
57	* PuttingOnTheReich: like Gackt and Music/MaliceMizer, has been photographed in Third Reichesque outfits.
58	* ProtestSong: "F.A.P.P" against nuclear power.
59	* RevolvingDoorLineup: Most of Julies backing bands have been replaced within 5 years.
60	* ScrewedByTheLawyers: Sawada currently cannot rerelease any of the albums he did with Co-CoLo due to the band being considered an independent entity. This also explains why nothing from his two studio albums with them has shown up in his solo setlist after the 1990s.
61	%%* SelfTitledAlbum: Several.
62	* SexyGrandpa: Still has legions of fangirls to this day despite advanced age.
63	* SingerNamedrop: "Julie My Love" in "Hoshizora no Romance"
64	%%* SingerSongwriter
65	* ShoutOut: Jules "Julie" Deane in Literature/{{Neuromancer}}, an effete, androgynous smuggler in Japan who seems to be based on Kenji's persona.
66	* Atsushi Sakurai of Music/BuckTick cites Kenji Sawada as an influence upon the band's look.
67	* SympathyForTheDevil: A LOT of the characters he plays tend to be evil guys with tragic pasts and bishie looks, Ryo from Akuma no Youna Aitsu, Shiro Amakusa....
68	* SynthPop: His early eighties work, specifically ''Onnatachiyo'' and ''Non-Policy'' which had Sawada in full on Mr. Fanservice mode once again on the cover and featured mostly synthesized instruments and Sawada's voice reverberating through layers of synthesizers.
69	* TheBandMinusTheFace: Sort of. After PYG split, most of the members including Tigers bassist Ittoku "Sally" Kishibe became Julie's backing band, the Takayuki Inoue Band until 1977, when he replaced them.
70	* UnbuiltTrope: Not only the costuming and makeup, but the very onstage act of VisualKei vocalists can be traced to Sawada. Just watch any of his live performances and you'll see the same type of behavior later made famous internationally by vocalists such as Music/ToshimitsuDeyama of Music/XJapan, such as wildly expressive gesticulating and even outright showing sadness or other emotions onstage.
71	* VillainProtagonist: Tends to play these, and his natural charisma and good looks result in his characters becoming a DracoInLeatherPants more often than not.
72	* VocalEvolution: Over time, his vocal register has deepened significantly, but not to the point where his older hits are unsingable.
73	* VisualKei: Essentially went into the territory fashionwise in the 90s, with his makeup and clothing in the mid-90s making him resemble Music/HidetoMatsumoto to some degree.
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Context Creator / KenjiSawada