During the last couple of years Japan’s pop girlgroup scene went through a rather drastic change, with nearly all groups from the former generation disbanding and new ones taking their place. This change also affected LDH, one of the country’s major agencies, that disbanded all three of its groups (Dream, Flower and Happiness) and even their all-star hitmaker, E-Girls (that was made up mostly of girls from those three other groups). That was a pretty bad time for anyone for a preference for non-idol J-Pop girl groups, but shortly afterwards new groups started to pop up all over the place. In 2021 LDH debuted iScream and in 2023 they started a strange new “SailorMoon meets J-Pop” project called SG5, which consisted of one girl from iScream and four formerly in Happiness. In 2024 SG5 dropped the Sailor Moon part, changed its name to f5ve and started to release a string of excellent singles, leading up to Sequence 01, their first full album, out in May, 2025.

And Happiness kind of “surving” this way was pretty good news, as with their modern, mostly uptempo tunes they were easily the best of LDH’s former bunch (I mean, seriously, just listen to Chao Chao, one of their last songs). And I always had a feeling that they had an international appeal, that they never even tried to utilize. And then it turns out that’s just what f4ve aims to do. This time LDH’s aim was to put together a group for the international market, and for this they teamed up with US hitmaker pop producer BloodPop®, signing him up as the group’s main songwriter and executive-producer and also bringing people like Hudson Mohawke and frequent Charli XCX collaborator A. G. Cook on board. They went for a mixture of very hip, very modern hyperpop and more classic J-Pop and the result was above expectations.

After a short intro Sequence 01 opens with Underground, one of the album’s best tunes, which is just what the title suggests: a dance track that, with its wild tempo and strange chorus feels a lot more like something you would come across at some underground party and not on a regular J-Pop album. After this bombastic start they switch to somewhat more typical pop tunes, with the likes of Lettuce, UFO and Magic Trick, but even these twist and turn the generic pop formula around enough to stay interesting and then we got ones like the cool, hip-hop infused Suger Free Venom (featuring US pop star Kesha) and the hard-hitting Firetruck thrown into the mix. The latter is probably the point where they get closest to what some would think of as “K-Pop sound” (if there is such a thing, as they mostly just follow international pop trends in Korea anyways), but while with some other recent J-Pop groups, we often have a feeling that they are trying to copy K-Pop acts to gain popularity, here it is never the case and f5ve clearly follows if own path.

There are a couple of somewhat lesser tracks, like Television or Jump, but even with those, Sequence 01 is easily an outstandingly strong pop album, in a huge part due to its diversity and its willingness to break new grounds with the unique mixture of Japanese and international music trends. And with a huge chunk of the mainstream J-Pop scene nowadays being somewhat stale, with all those idols and mild, soft pop tunes filling the charts, it really needed the breath of fresh air that f5ve’s debut provided.

And while the original edition with its 11 tracks is already a very solid release, there was an extended edition called Sequence 01.5 released in November, which has even more to offer. It has three additional songs that are a bit of a letdown (they are not bad or anything, just a lot more generic than any of their previous material), however it comes with a bonus album full of remixes. Some of these were already available on EPs and singles, but most are new and they take the album’s tracks to new directions and in many cases, also take them to a whole new level as well.

There are 15 remixes altogether and while the quality is somewhat uneven, there are several outstanding ones, including: The remix of UFO that turns to upbeat pop tune into a massive club banger. The Underground remix featuring Starkids, a superb underground pop group, that did a lot to make Eurobeat cool again. TeddyLoid‘s deliciously chaotic take on the same track (which is better than most of the stuff I have heard from him in recent years). Umru‘s version of Firetruck that turns that tune into an over-the-top noisy mess of the best kind. The quite unusual remix of Sugar Free Venom by UK’s Finn Keane, another frequent collaborator of Charli XCX and HANAtruly‘s rework of I Choose You, which turns that song into a very tacky and syrupy guilty pleasure trip. And of course, there is also the one and only Shinichi Osawa‘s remix of Bow Chika Wow Wow and even he went pretty insane with that one, making it quite obvious that turning the songs into radio friendly tunes was not at all a requirement here and everyone could just cut loose and go wild.

Which is the opposite of what we often have with Japanese agencies and labels, that prefer to play safe. Sequence 01 is truly the kind of forward thinking stuff that mainstream J-Pop needs more of. But the question is: did they manage to catch the attention of local audiences? From what I know, so far not really, but afterall, that was not even the goal and they definitely made some waves internationally. Around the time of the album’s release the group was featured on sites like Billboard and Dazed, with interviews and their stream count on Youtube and Spotify is also decent (tho not too stellar). I hope that the recent release of the extended edition and its physical release early 2026 will give the group another push as they definitely deserve the attention and success.

f5ve: Sequence 01
2025.05.05 / LDH Records
digital, cd, vinyl, cassette

101.Initiate Sequence 01
102.Underground
103.Magic Clock
104.UFO
105.Firetruck
106.Lettuce
107.Sugar Free Venom feat. Kesha
108.Television
109.Bow Chika Wow Wow
110.Jump
111.リア女 (Real Girl)

Sequence 01.5 (Dreaming of the 2nd 1st Impact – Consequences of Fate Redux)
2025.11.14 / LDH Records
digital (cd, vinyl coming early 2026)

112.Wish
113.Snowman
114.I Choose You
201.UFO (Dorian Electra & Count Baldor Remix)
202.Underground (DJ CHARI x French Cries Remix) feat. STARKIDS
203.Underground (YAGI EXHIBITION’s MINI 4WD Remix)
204.Underground (TeddyLoid Remix)
205.Underground (Doss Remix)
206.Magic Clock (The Deep & kimj Remix)
207.Sugar Free Venom feat. Kesha (Finn Keane Remix)
208.Firetruck (umru Remix)
209.Bow Chika Wow Wow (Shinichi Osawa Remix)
210.Television (Kyundesu Remix) feat. N ², Aisho Nakajima, sheidA, Yohji Igarashi
211.Jump (m-flo Remix)
212.Lettuce (8-bit Version)
213.Wish (Himera’s Shooting Star Remix)
214.I Choose You (HANAtruly Remix)
215.Snowman (Hannah Diamond Remix)