Please CherrySoda I?ve been quite clear about race, the ?last bit? is purely a quip not too be taken seriously, it?s a rant against pop snobbery, in the context of understanding Asian musical culture as a whole, nothing there about racial identify , which is something different entirely.

Amaterasu please tell me you don?t just have these items hanging around the ?home? lol???demons in Diablo?... I will need to look up! Besides they are cost prohibitive, and rattle when you take them into the post office.

Many new and established artists seem to struggle to achieve a level of success in the US music business, and to quote a previous post , In Japan Hikki?s status is that of a mega star, ?Princess of Pop ?, every new release guaranteed to be a huge hit.

Now lets look at the other side of the coin, in the US and also in the UK the cultures have been producing these mega ?Pop Stars? for over 70 years, and comes with an unforgiving public and press, this is a tough music business to become successful in and Hikki could be finding this difficult to handle.

And this is the point, it will take time, hard work, and careful focused publicity and promotion to achieve even moderate success.

I saw an article about Joss Stone who has hit out against her record label over the constant delayed release of her forth coming album, so serious that Joss announced April last year that she would be launching a legal battle to sever the links with EMI.

Joss constantly stresses that it took a tremendous amount to work, with constant rounds of press gigs over a period of years not weeks or months,to become a success in the US (In June Joss offered EMI ?2m from her advance to free from her contract).