Mirrorcle World

Quick post (ended up being longer with her music videos), some more Asian MK with Ayumi Hamasaki; interestingly blatant, portraying monarch butterflies, the M/W mirror symbolism (also I've posted a while back on that style of W, with two overlapping V's), even the mira/mirror similar sound I've discussed. I've had a quick scan through some of her videos and they seem to have themes worth posting on (i.e. in Rainbow below she chases her self/twin, note the leopard print chairs also).

Interesting that she made her debut with a song called 'Poker Face'.

Ayumi Hamasaki - RAINBOW - 浜崎あゆみ
'Part of Me' [clear MK in the name, as with 'Rainbow', and 'Mirrorcle World' of course, a tonne of blatant ones too like 'Butterfly'] starts off with a reflection and she is made to look like a porcelain Geisha doll, a butterfly is killed by a cricket causing her to fall down too (she is a butterfly yes?), when she's passed out... on comes the snake! (+more)

Ayumi Hamasaki - part of Me -
In this post's title song 'Mirrorcle World', the video is set in Paris with the Eiffel Tower used symbolically (phallic) + she is chased by a bunch of guys and trapped in a phonebox.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Mirrorcle World -
In 'Heaven' some conscious checkerboard symbolism (framed behind her and slowly zoomed out revealing it).

Hamasaki Ayumi - HEAVEN -
Some subliminal checkerboard symbolism in 'Evolution', and obviously it's a narrative of her reality as a 'star' (she also wears leopard-print).

Ayumi Hamasaki - Evolution -

Lots of 'one eye' covering, alter symbolism, pyramid symbolism and general theme of sexual slavery in 'Because of You'.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Because Of You - 浜崎あゆみ
Extremely MK symbolic one here for 'Free and Easy', I don't feel I need to interpret it. Bit annoying that I can't go through them all as I'm sure there is just as much in the rest of them.

Finish with her arguably most blatant video with called 'Alterna', she is even made into a Marionette, a "singing machine" and more overt MK imagery (mannequin/loss of limbs/compartmentalization/etc [the white/albino ((reminding me of Pink's Sober video, see 'Playing with Pink's Delirium' post)) I think symbolizes losing all their personality/"colour" in programming and probably something to do with purity or something]). It starts with a spinning electric fan then onto the usual stuff (I've said before that Asia in particular is insanely overt with it's MK in things like anime [obviously my focus tends to be more on the Western/UK/American side of things due to my location/programming]), I've included a few screen captures (not in order) because this youtube isn't great quality.

Lastly her video for 'Marionette', which portrays exactly what you'd expect; you can pick up on a lot of the stuff if you watch it [they're on a spinning platform and the black/white colours, Satan/Lucifer horned frieze and such] (don't forget to connect the dots; i.e. the monarch butterflies up top combined with all this marionette/puppet/mirror symbolism). She's put out a lot of videos, I think I only looked through a small amount and you'd probably find more stuff if you checked out her others. Had a brief look at some of the other Japanese artists (i.e Kumi Koda) and it's exactly the same over there as it is over here and everywhere else, kind of depressing really how saturated it is across the global media and shows how controlled it is.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Marionette -