Morning MUsume. D:

Most of my exposure to the usual Japanese artists comes from anime. Most of the songs specifically mentioned in this thread are from anime.

As far as Gackt goes, I'm kinda diggin' how he's totally cool with the whole kids/nerds demographic. He's done a several songs recently specifically for anime and games (including a cover of the Gundam franchise's most legendary song for a major Gundam video game), he sung two songs for the last Kamen Rider show... in fact he's going to be 'acting' as the main character in an upcoming, high-profile anime.

I haven't really heard much of his stuff outside games/anime, though. I quite liked one of his most recent tracks, Setsugekka, which was used for Samurai Warriors 3. It also featured instrumentalists from other fairly big J-Rock bands like Nightmare and Duel Jewel, so it was a pretty big collaboration. He uses his voice in a way I hadn't heard him use it before.

I didn't really mean to make this post about Gackt :P he just has my respeck for being all into the otaku stuff.

I never really got much into VizKei, and most of the bands whose songs I liked are decidedly contemporary. I've gotten into folks like AKFG and Beat Crusaders (mentioned before), and others like Sukima Switch, Base Ball Bear, Sambomaster, Kimaguren, Bivattchee...

There are a few groups/artists that I do pay more attention to following, though. First is probably Ikimonogakari. When I first heard Hanabi come out of my speakers at the end of Bleach (I think it started the same episode that Beat Crusaders' "Tonight Tonight Tonight" did) I was stunned. Their singer has remained one of my favourite singing voices out of Japan since then.
One of my favourite voices overall is Maaya Sakamoto. Never really made it huge outside of the anime circle. She tends to do mostly 'easy listening' kinds of stuff when she sings, and she's quite the prolific actor--voice acting in anime and otherwise. She had a big concert just a few weeks ago, celebrating both her 30th birthday and her 15th anniversary of being in show business. I really wanted to go. Totally love her.

I'm a fan of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9vfC4qnKzwPerfume[/URL], though that one is definitely less about the vocal performance, and more about the groove factor/entertaining dance moves. I can certainly tolerate them more than the groups like AKB48 and Morning Musume (too many people, too young).