ENTER: BABYMETAL (February 2014)

They were the breakthrough band that none of us saw coming, and it all started with an ode to chocolate

Just when you think you’ve seen it all in this game, along come three teenage girls in tutus fronting a heavy metal band wearing kami masks. It could only have come from Japan, and as Babymetal’s Gimme Chocolate!! video began to rack up millions of views on Youtube, it provided the ‘kawaii-metallers’ with their first international breakthrough moment. In just over a year, the band had played Sonisphere festival, sold out the Forum in London and bagged their first Metal Hammer cover. And, of course, they caused certain sections of the metal online community to throw a paddy that is still in full swing five years later.