Few Japanese artists have ridden the global anime boom as hard as m.o.v.e. With anime soundtracks increasingly being used as a vehicle to launch Japanese artists overseas, the three-piece dance-pop group has been involved several tie-ups, the most high profile of which have been providing the theme songs to the anime series and movie of the same name, "Initial D." m.o.v.e are made up of songwriter/producer t-kimura, vocalist yuri and rapper MOTSU. Too "rap" to be labeled J-pop and too "J-pop" to be considered an authentic rap act, a typical m.o.v.e song, if there is such a thing, pits Yuri's high-pitched vocals against t-kimura's techno-rock backing and will often feature a cameo from MC MOTSU, in a mixture of English and Japanese. t-kimura started his music career in the pop duo Favorite Blue in the mid-1990s. After two underachieving albums, the group split, although record label Avex Trax kept faith with... read more