My J-Pop Collection 2017

This year I added quite a few new albums and singles to my Japanese Pop collection. 2017 was the year I started getting into collecting albums from E-girls and Dream Ami. This month I finally got the last Dream Ami single I was missing to complete my singles collection! Besides those artists, I got a few new albums from some of my favourite groups such as After School and KARA. I got very lucky and managed to get a set of Girls Talk and two Super Girl albums extremely cheap from a seller in Japan. I was so happy when I found them as they are hard to come across, especially the limited edition ones. Here is a photo of my J-Pop collection at the end of 2017. These are all the physical single and albums I have, I have a lot of musically digitally as well.

The albums in my collection include:

• KARA - Girls Talk - Type C (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Super Girl - Type C (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Super Girl - Type A CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Girls Forever - Type A CD+DVD (Taiwan Edition)
• KARA - Best Girls - Type C 2CD's (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Mamma Mia! - Type A CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• KARA - Girl's Story - CD+DVD (Taiwan First Press Limited Edition)
• AFTERSCHOOL - Bang! - Type C CD Only
• AFTERSCHOOL - Diva - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• AFTERSCHOOL - Heaven - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• AFTERSCHOOL - Lady Luck/Dilly Dally - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition
• AFTERSCHOOL - Dress To Kill - CD+DVD+Photobook (Taiwan First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - RaRiRuRe - CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - Dancing All Night - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - Crayon Pop - CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• Crayon Pop - Pop!Pop!Pop! - CD+DVD (First Press Limited Edition)
• AOA - Runway - Type C CD+DVD (Taiwan First Press Limited Edition)
• Kyary Pamyu Pamyu  - PAMYUPAMYU Revolution (Hong Kong Edition)
• Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - Pika Pika Fantajin (Australian Edition)
• CocoSori - Itoshi no Mermaid - Type B
• Pungdeng-E - Pungdeng-E 1st Japanese Album Ppi Ppi Ppa Ppa
• Orange Caramel - Lipstick/Lum no Love Song - CD Only (First Press Limited Edition)
• Orange Caramel - ORANGE CARAMEL - CD+DVD (Hong Kong Edition)
• Orange Caramel - Yasashii Akuma - CD+Photobook (Taiwan Edition)
• E-girls - Lesson 1 - CD+DVD+Photobook (Taiwan Limited Edition)
• E-girls - E.G. Time - CD+DVD (Taiwan Edition)
• Dream Ami - Dress wo Nuida Cinderella - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Try Everything - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Lovefool - Sukidatte Itte - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Hayaku Aitai - CD Only
• Dream Ami - Kimi no Tonari - CD Only

Kara makes up the largest part of my collection and they were the first k-pop group I got into many years ago when I first started listening to the genre. I'm hoping to collect the last album I'm missing which is Fantastic Girls next year. I have a number of After School and Orange Caramel (After School's subunit) singles and albums, but I have some more in digital form and haven't got the physical ones yet. Dress To Kill was a great buy that I found this year. I brought the Taiwan edition which was about $40 cheaper than the Japan edition of the exact same CD+DVD+Photobook edition.

KARA Collection

AFTERSCHOOL Collection

Orange Caramel Collection

When buying J-Pop singles, I usually get the CD Only edition as it comes with the instrumentals and occasionally bonus tracks. Plus they are always the cheaper edition to buy. With albums, I try to get the DVD edition and occasionally the photobook as well if it comes in the same edition. However these editions often are extremely expensive or out of print. I often buy the Taiwan edition of albums as it is a cheaper price than the Japanese versions and comes with the same content (sometimes more!). I recently got the Taiwan edition of the E-girls album Lesson 1 and it was a good buy as it came with the CD plus a DVD of the music videos and a 64 page photobook. I also have the Taiwan edition of E.G. Time which came with the CD and DVD of the music videos. This year I managed to collect all the singles from Dream Ami who is my favourite solo artist. The covers of her singles are just gorgeous, I just can't pick which one is my number one favourite. I did not buy her recent album though as it was quite expensive for how many songs I didn't own (was only missing four which were new ones), so I just brought the seperate songs on iTunes. I'm hoping maybe one day to find the CD+DVD+Photobook edition cheap second hand if I ever go to Japan.

E-girls Collection

Dream Ami Collection

Here are a bunch of other albums not yet pictured in my collection. As you can see I'm a big Crayon Pop fan and I have all their Japanese singles and albums. I got the CD+DVD versions of all of them except Dancing All Night as when I was ordering it, I only had enough Japanese Yen to get the CD Only version. But that's no issue as I love how gangsta they look on the cover. The exclusive Japan Only covers of RaRiRuRe were amazing, but I could never find where to buy them. With the Kyary Pamyu Pamyu albums, I don't actually own the actual Japanese versions. One is the Hong Kong version which I brought years ago and was the first J-Pop album I brought online (I didn't really know what I was doing back then). The other is the Australian version that was sold in JB HiFi a while ago and is no different to other versions, just branded as the Australian version. The last photo shows the three last ones in my collection and some of my favourites. The AOA album was one I got this year and is an amazing album, all the tracks are great! The CocoSori one was a pain to get as it was a Tower Records exclusive and Pungdeng-E is one of my favourites for it's awesome track listing.

Crayon Pop Collection

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu Collection

AOA, CocoSori & Pungdeng-E

There are quite a few albums and singles on my wishlist to find next year. I made quite a dent in my collection this year, but there's still a few I'm missing. So here's my wishlist for J-Pop albums for 2018:

• E-girls - Colorful Pop CD+DVD+Photobook Taiwan Edition (last E-girls album I need)
• E-girls - E.G. Crazy (I have this digitally but would love to find the 2CD+3DVD edition cheap secondhand somewhere)
• E-girls - Diamond Only CD Only (I love this song and would like to get the instrumental version) 
• E-girls - Pink Champagne CD Only (contains some of the best songs and I bet the instrumentals sound amazing)
• AOA - Ace Of Angels CD+ DVD (to finish off my AOA album collection)
• Orange Caramel - Yasashii Akuma CD Only (for the instrumentals of course)
• AFTERSCHOOL - Shh CD Only (last single I need from their later releases)
• KARA - Fantastic Girls (Type B if I can find it as it's the last one I need)
• Twice - One More Time (I really like this song, but if Twice releases a full Japanese album I'd get that instead)
• T-ARA - Queen Of Pops (2CD Edition - I've been after this album for years but never seen it for a good price that will ship to my location)

All the albums and singles listed were purchased from a variety of stores. Most came from YesAsia or Amazon Japan. Some were brought by friends in Japan or on eBay. Now eBay may sound scary to buy albums from, but I've had a lot of luck using it and found some great bargains. If you would like more information on buying albums and singles online, I've reviewed a number of online and local stores in a guide here. I have also reviewed a few of the albums listed and these can be found at the links below:

• Dream Ami - Lovefool - Sukidatte Itte
• AFTERSCHOOL - Dress To Kill
• Pungdeng-E - 1st Japanese Album Ppippippappa