Musicians ranging from dour European indie bands to obscure free jazz artists have long been able to boast of dedicated fans in Japan, but most can only dream of the popularity that this teenager from the UK has – rather bizarrely – started to generate for herself here in the last year.

Videos of Cruel dancing in her bedroom to the theme tunes of famous manga programmes, while dressed as their lead characters originally struck a chord with some of Japan’s “otaku”, a word often translated as “geek”, when they were picked up from YouTube by a popular Japanese website.

But Cruel’s success is now becoming more mainstream – she regularly features on entertainment news pages – and this week’s release of her latest single (a cover version of an old J-pop favourite) looks set to propel her firmly beyond the streets of the otaku Mecca, Tokyo’s Akihabara district.

Tokuma Japan Communications, the record label that signed the teenager and which is also the home of audio releases connected to animated films made by the feted Studio Ghibli, is marketing Cruel as what it terms a “Next Generation Idol”. 

Indeed, Cruel’s act seems to be tailor-made to slot into the culture of cuteness, or “kawaii”, that tends to dominate parts of contemporary life in Japan – and which most visitors typically find either endearing or highly irritating. 

Tokuma has even enlisted two other western teenagers, dubbed “Cruel Angels”, to make up a pom pom-adorned backing group for the schoolgirl. 

But Cruel sensibly isn’t banking on a long-term music career. “This boom (in my success) will last only about two or three years,” she said in an interview with a Japanese website. “(After that) I want to be a school teacher or work in an art-related job.”

And as for that name? Yes, it is a stage moniker – the teen’ s pals and teachers know her as plain old Rebecca Flint.

Photo credit: Beckii Cruel flanked by her backing group on the cover of her latest single, courtesy of Tokuma Japan Communications

But Susan Boyle, the 48-year-old who swept to fame in Britain and the U.S. after an appearance on reality TV, looks to be genuinely on the cusp of becoming a household name in the suburbs of Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo.

The Scot’s ascent to stardom in the land of cutesy J-pop and traditional enka was given a big boost when she played a key part in the country’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Boyle appeared to wow the audience with her trademark rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables” on NHK’s ”Kouhaku Uta Gassen“, a men versus women singing competition that the state broadcaster has shown on the night of Dec. 31 for 60 years.

Although Boyle looked uncomfortable and awkward amid the sea of sequined waistcoats, sculpted hair and saccharine kids that seem to be some of the main ingredients of this musical battle of the sexes, her lack of glitz and polish will probably be a big plus for her.

Indeed, as I watched the show on TV with my in-laws, a Japanese family from Tokyo, my wife’s dad said approvingly that Boyle is “not flashy” and that this is very much in her favour.

Any viewers unfamiliar with Boyle’s story were filled in by a quick montage before she took to the stage, complete with black and white photos of her childhood, clips from “Britain’s Got Talent” and images of Simon Cowell, one of the judges on that show, in a particularly pantomime villainesque pose.

But for my father-in-law at least, this summary of Boyle’s life was unnecessary as he was already familiar with her back-story thanks to a raft of newspaper articles.

He  said he would like to see more of  “Boyle-san”, something I suspect will happen in 2010.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Japan’s Kansai region, home to the world’s most renowned Zen gardens and some of the country’s finest cuisine, on the other hand, is not generally seen as a tinderbox of religious tension.

But over the last year a series of mysterious attacks on Protestant churches and other facilities have roiled the area, leaving many churchgoers shaken and perplexed.

There have been over 50 such incidents in the last 12 months, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported, all involving fire extinguishers being thrown through the windows of Protestant premises when nobody was inside. Although there haven’t been any injuries, NHK news last week showed parishioners saying the attacks were shocking and unsettling.

Perhaps the most unnerving element of the incidents is that nobody seems to have any idea who’s carrying them out, or why. Although the fact that no attacks on Catholic or Buddhist premises have been recorded has given rise to speculation that religion is likely to be a factor in the events.

The Asahi quoted a professor of criminal psychology at a university in Kansai saying the relatively large area in which the attacks have occurred suggests they are the work of more than one person, adding to fears in the Protestant community that this is not simply the work of a lone perpetrator.

In modern Japan many people take a mix-and-match approach to religion — often favouring Christian-style weddings, Shinto blessings for children and Buddhist funeral — making any incident of possible confrontation over religion all the more noticeable

So while nobody is suggesting the country is about to erupt into sectarian violence, many Japanese people will likely watch with concern how the situation in Kansai develops.