My future Babymetal
I think Tokyo Dome II (or something similarly ambitious) is coming. The reborn Babymetal cannot live in their own domestic shadow.
Babymetal have suddenly reentered the Japanese mainstream, started doing commercially unnecessary domestic festivals, gone back to television and radio, and Amuse is actively pushing The One tee awareness. That looks rather a lot like rebuilding and measuring domestic demand before making a very large bet.
Do it around Su’s 30th. Make it the definitive statement of the current trio, not a nostalgia run. Then stop.
Take a proper hiatus from roughly Su turning 30 until Moa turns 30. Give them nearly two years away from the touring machine whilst quietly building the next season.
Season III: METAL RENAISSANCE (please, Koba, please use this album name 😂).
An album deliberately revisiting the things that made early Babymetal interesting: theatricality, Japanese identity, genre vandalism and proper metal ambition, but made by adults who now know exactly what Babymetal is.
Su, Moa and Momo, for me, must have at least three genuine artistic credits each on a new album. Let's put the “they’re just performers in Koba’s project” criticism to rest. They have whatever support they need to achieve it.
And make the wider artistic credits exhaustive. Babymetal already credit plenty of the people behind the live shows, but go much further. Choreography, staging, live direction, visual design and the other creative work behind the spectacle should be properly documented rather than disappearing into the Babymetal machine.
Visually, give me less sterile sci-fi. Bring back the mad theatrical excess. But, please, no regression into kawaii nostalgia. The attitude should be adult Babymetal: tongue out, huge manic grin, fully aware of how absurd it all is and utterly committed regardless.
Make the album explicitly about helping trigger a new Japanese metal movement. "Saving metal" was one of Babymetal's earliest missions: let's actually attempt this in Japan. Use Babymetal’s position to pull younger bands, musicians and scenes up with them.
Fewer “look who we collaborated with” tracks. Instead, make a genuinely great Japanese metal record first.
Summed up:
The first Babymetal proved this ridiculous thing could exist.
The second proved it could become a global institution.
The third should decide what it actually wants to leave behind.
What are your thoughts? Roast me if you must! 😂