In Japan, openly negative reviews are more or less taboo. Number Girl/Crypt City's Kentaro Nakao told me in an interview, "The worst review I ever had was on an info card in [CD rental store] Tsutaya. It wasn't exactly bad: it just read, 'I have no idea what's going on here.'"
So confused or ironic comments from minimum-wage CD store employees aside, there are basically two kinds of Japanese music reviews. The first type are the little mini-reviews that feature in fashion or general culture magazines. These are basically copied directly from press releases by overworked or lazy writers who have no particular knowledge of or interest in music – check through a few different magazines and you'll see the exact same wording come up again and again. These reviews are essentially worthless. They're little advertisements designed to teach readers the cultural accessories they need to go with their new outfits.
The other type are the sort that appear in music magazines like Rockin' On Japan, and these are worth paying a little bit more attention to. On the surface, they're not that different from the reviews in fashion magazines – short, descriptive reviews that don't analyse the music in any critical way – but they also provide insight into the way rock music business in Japan operates.
When it started out in the 1970s, Rockin' On was a genuinely revolutionary magazine. It covered new Western rock bands like King Crimson and Led Zeppelin, which people simply couldn't get detailed information about from more mainstream sources. Rockin' On also carried important debates about the internal politics of music and the direction it should take. Even in the 1970s, however, compromises were being made in the music press, and the idea that labels could pay to feature their bands took hold pretty early in the industry's history. As the 1970s wore on, sponsorship money and industry power increasingly compromised the newly formed music press' neutrality, with only the fiercely independent Rock Magazine really standing out from its more industry-influenced rivals. In 1986, Rockin' On split off its foreign and Japanese music coverage into separate publications, and the sister magazine Rockin' On Japan came about. This domestically-focused version of the magazine, along with two annual musical events it hosts — the Rock in Japan Festival every August and the Count Down Japan festival every December – makes Rockin' On Japan a leading forum through which new Japanese rock can get noticed. This position, particularly after the closure of many rival music magazines in the 2000s, means that Japanese labels have little choice but to suck up to Rockin' On Japan in return for coverage in their magazine and consideration for its festival lineups. At the same time, magazines like Rockin' On are left entirely dependent on industry money to maintain their business model.
That's not to say that good journalism doesn't sometimes happen in Japan, but there are obvious conflicts of interest within the music media. Journalists are unable to write honestly about music and readers subsequently can't believe a word they read. Meanwhile, many labels hate the magazines and can't wait for the system of payment for coverage to crash and burn.
Martin, Ian F.. Quit Your Band! Musical Notes from the Japanese Underground . Awai Books.