The day has finally arrive folks! As of March 1st 2023, SG5 or Sailor Guardians 5 are officially debuted! As someone who has been following them a bit more then obsessively since their soft launch back in June 2022. On top of having followed the girls in their additional units for years prior to this: I have a LOT of thoughts. Especially since the reaction to their debut has been huge with a lot of mixed opinions. Before diving into my thoughts about the debut song itself, I do feel the need to revisit what I’ve said before.
Let’s first talk of the facts about SG5 so everyone is on the same page. SG5 is the first and only official collaboration unit between Sailor Moon with Naoko Takeuchi’s approval, LDH Entertainment, and Three Six Zero a global management firm. The members consist of Rui – who represents Sailor Moon, Sayaka who represents Sailor Mercury, Miyuu who represents Sailor Venus, Ruri who represents Sailor Mars, and Kaede who represents Sailor Juipter. Their goal is to export Japanese music overseas which is a lofty one, so as I said previously – we’ll have to wait and see on that.
I also need to be incredibly clear on a personal level – I am super biased in favor of SG5. I love iScream, which is Rui’s group in Japan. I love Happiness, which is Sayaka, Miyuu, Ruri and Kaede’s group in Japan. Even with their soft launch videos from anime conventions, I was always inclined to like them and follow them to any and all endeavors they pursue. If you’re curious about my thoughts about the unit pre-debut do check out this post here, scroll towards the bottom. However, I think I’m mature enough where I can be supportive but critical about them as a unit.
Their pre-debut in summer of 2022, to waiting seven months afterwards for an official release was a choice. They had a few scattered posts on their Instagram and of all things an appearance on the Youtube channel Fuse doing ASMR, but nothing really concrete activity-wise. It was admittedly a very odd choice. Given the activities that groups Happiness and iScream were doing in Japan not completely unexpected, but still odd.
I do wish that they had been a bit more consistent with social media updates on Twitter and Instagram. Something as simple as updating once a week with a rotating schedule of the members would have sufficed. That’s just my opinion though. The mystique of a group that has such a huge tie-in, and rarely updates unless they have something to actually say worked out well enough. The mid-February sudden updated artist photos and then “…… 11 days to go :)” certainly got me hyped.
So once the clock ran out, we got the teaser for none other than “Firetruck”. Shortly followed by the full music video which is below!
Talking about the beat, it’s a fairly unique one. It leans more into the mechanical side of a firetruck with the metallic feel to it, coupled with an engine revving to start it. I’m glad that it went this direction instead of a dreaded siren or something. It’s admittedly, borderline annoying but at the same time catchy and distinct. You know “Firetruck” is playing within five seconds of the start.
Lyrically, even by ear I was really impressed with English to Japanese and back is fairly cohesive. As someone who understands both, it flows well, and is linguistically solid. I’m a little disappointed that the best they could come up with for the chorus was “I need a firetruck, to cool down the fire”. Seriously? The Japanese bars are way better structured and have more bite to them, I wish it had been workshopped more. That might have been the place to put in a nod to the English dub of Sailor Moon or something. It’s not bad in any sense I just wish it went harder since it’s the chorus after all.
Vocally, I had originally noted that their voices were “a little too cohesive” since I was going off just the Spotify song and my, truly, blown out speakers and dying headphones. Upon watching the music video and really noting when people came in or not… there’s a bit of a problem. The entire song, with limited exceptions is sung by Rui. It’s clear that the ad-libs and chorused lines of various verses have the other members contributing. Verse three (Big boy, big truck) in particular is started by Kaede, transitioned back to Rui, handed back over to Kaede (Big bands, big bucks), and finished by Rui.
On pure face value, putting my ideas and feelings aside – it’s not a great look. There’s five members of this group, and it’s seemingly being pulled by the center of the group with little contribution from the others. Like why even bother with having five of them, if only one and a half members get to contribute? It’s a bit disappointing especially when you consider this was a very common practice at LDH Entertainment specifically, up until around 2018/2019. It just feels like the effort wasn’t put in to make a more diverse debut song where all members contributed equally. And in the absolute worse interpretation – it looks like the other members weren’t ready to debut vocally. Which – officially switching to my opinion now, I don’t think is true.
I did go back and listen through their pre-debut performances of “Firetruck” to compare, and there are a few things to note. The first is that in live performances, it’s much more obvious that the chorus was sung jointly between all five members. Secondly, the original Rui + Kaede formula was always there, just between pre-debut and studio version they cleaned up and made some minor adjustments. I’m not sure why the joint chorus was scrapped for the studio version, but the choice was made so now we’re here. My personal theory is that “Firetruck” will have a lot of variations in live performances, with members stepping in to do certain verses or even ad-libbing as they grow more confident, instead of just Rui and Kaede.
Talking about the video itself – I really appreciate how Sailor Moon was referenced but not outright stated. The opening poses, color co-ordination, the re-occurring rose and moon motifs, as well as the dance set were perfect. The final touch of having nearly the entire MV with a lo-fi filter to give it a VHS feel was a welcome addition without being overbearing.
The girls’ choreography looks a bit different from their live versions, but it’s clean and sharp to make those Japanese bars pop. Much like my comments about studio verses live vocals, I do anticipate choreography variations between live performances since that is an LDH staple. Their outfits are sleek and cohesive, digging into the Y2K aesthetic but still feelings like a proper MV styling verses just “clothes” if you know what I mean.
My final thoughts on the song, are a bit muddled. “Firetruck” is not my new favorite song, by any means. I’m not going to force myself to like it, but I will admit it has genuinely grown on my since it’s release. I can only hope that from the other previewed tracks “Moonlight Densetsu” “Lettuce”, and “Too Much” we get more of Sayaka, Miyuu, Kaede, and of course Ruri!! Also fingers crossed that the wait isn’t too long… I will die if we only get releases every seven months.
That being said, drop me your thoughts, feelings, opinions about SG5 and “Firetruck” down below. I desperately need more people to talk to about them. As always, see you next post and please support them officially via the links below!!
Official Links to stay Update on all things SG5
Website / Youtube / Spotify / Itunes / Amazon Music / TikTok / Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / LDH Entertainment Profile
Member’s Official Accounts!
Sayaka: Instagram
Ruri: Instagram
Miyuu: Instagram
Ruri: Instagram
P.S. Please follow Happiness and iScream‘s activities to hear and watch them perform even more!
Phoenix Talks Pop Culture Japan 
I am so glad to finally hear your thoughts on SG5! This is an excellent post. I love how you give the full backgrounds of the members and break down the song’s composition.
Also, when you told me that the vocalists’ “girl crush” style is an element of K-pop, it gave me a newfound concern that SG5 is trying to emulate K-pop. I love Japanese music, and this just didn’t sound right to me. Let us both pray the group improves I suppose!
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Thank you so much! I was a little worried it came off too gushy but I’m glad I pulled it off.
I mean “girl crush” isn’t exactly a Kpop idea, there are groups in Japan (Happiness actually!) that have it as well as in the West (Scary/Sporty Spice). It’s not unexpected that SG5 is taking notes from Kpop, but I agree I want them to make it on their own merits. It’s only their first song, so hopefully future follow-ups are more to our liking!
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Was waiting for this! So tbh, I hated the song 😂 Like , I really really dislike it. When watching their live performance on YouTube, I also hated it so maybe that’s why I can’t get into it. Same thing for the video, just not doing it for me. Buuut…..I loved the outfits of the girls and I’m still going to follow them 🙂
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That’s totally fair. For me my first impression was a totally stronger “this isn’t for me” too. Plus it’s a really polarizing song in general – like it does get annoying to hear.
Fingers crossed that a follow up is more to our liking!!
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