Please taste and enjoy many Japaneese products

July 7, 2015 6:09 PM

Enjoy! Best in translation.
posted by vrakatar (28 comments total)

Can't hold a candle to Babymetal.
posted by Fnarf at 6:26 PM on July 7, 2015 [6 favorites]

I came, I tasted, I enjoyed. Well, I watched the video anyway.
posted by MikeMc at 6:27 PM on July 7, 2015

Can someone please explain to me why I, a person with wide-ranging musical tastes and a vested professional interest in Japanese culture who never the less finds most J-pop and metal to be nearly unlistenable, enjoyed that so much?
posted by Mizu at 6:31 PM on July 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Because he is such a good dancer.
posted by vrakatar at 6:33 PM on July 7, 2015 [5 favorites]

The cross-dressing pro wrestler with the sick dance moves, maybe?
posted by feistycakes at 6:33 PM on July 7, 2015

Maybe it's a boys in pigtails thing. Regardless this must be art because it's making me reexamine myself and the world in which I function.
posted by Mizu at 6:36 PM on July 7, 2015 [6 favorites]

Love the dancing, the tune, and the lyrics are great. \m/
posted by Poldo at 6:38 PM on July 7, 2015

Right on.
posted by vrakatar at 6:38 PM on July 7, 2015

On the topic of art, and gender signifiers, and weird musical things from Japan, I present to you: Violent Onsen Geisha.
posted by idiopath at 6:38 PM on July 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Richard D. James is at it again, I see.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:44 PM on July 7, 2015 [8 favorites]

At the start I thought it was just going to be a one-note joke thing juxtaposing Kawaii "cute-culture" with the death-metal-guy...but then the lyrics are so cynical and the whole thing just seems to get more subversive that it actually became a comment on that culture.
I probably wouldn't listen to an album of it, but as a THING I really like it. And the guy is totally awesome.
posted by chococat at 6:45 PM on July 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

Going to Maine beat me to it.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:46 PM on July 7, 2015

At the start I thought it was just going to be a one-note joke thing juxtaposing Kawaii "cute-culture" with the death-metal-guy...but then the lyrics are so cynical and the whole thing just seems to get more subversive that it actually became a comment on that culture.

Plus there's the additional juxtaposition of the death-metal guy actually being kind of good at the idol thing, what with the dancing and the enthusiasm and all. So basically the expectations for both the idol girls and the metal dude are upended.
posted by chrominance at 6:54 PM on July 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

Here's a good interview with the singer Ladybeard , who also is a wrestler.
posted by Harpocrates at 7:27 PM on July 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

• The trio is composed of crossdressing Australian tarento^ Ladybeard and junior idols^ Kaneko Rie and Kuromiya Rei. They were formed by costume company Clearstone to promote their products.
posted by unliteral at 7:28 PM on July 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

I've heard some sugary J-Pop that actually tries to do those abrupt transitions into Cookie Monster metal without any humor or irony, and the results are usually horrible to my ears.

But echoing comments above, this one is refreshing thanks to an actual sense of humor and some subversive social commentary.
posted by p3t3 at 7:32 PM on July 7, 2015

I think the Buy Made in USA campaigns could learn something from this.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:15 PM on July 7, 2015 [2 favorites]

This was really just great. I am winding down 12 hours of work and carting kids and in the very fucking depths of my midlife crisis and this was my first click and now I'm sitting here wondering where the path of my life split from the path that would have led me to singing absurdist ironic speed metal in drag in Japan. Probably pretty early in life, maybe seven. Yes, that's it. When I picked up clarinet as my first musical instrument to please my mother, I joined cub scouts to please my father, and played chess to please my teacher. I should have been out learning to ride a half pipe, playing video games, and stealing Black Sabbath cassettes. I'll bet this guy never wakes up and thinks "oh god, another day of the same oppressive responsibilities." That's the thing, you listen to what authorities tell you when you're young and it sets you up for the suburbs, and debt, and boredom. Kids need to figure this shit out for themselves early. Before you know it you're 45 and you're a creep for just thinking you could go back to Burning Man. There's just so much creative possibility in the world and you get too old to enjoy it.

I am definitely bringing this video up with my therapist tomorrow.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:07 PM on July 7, 2015 [19 favorites]

Eye Yamtsuka of the Boredoms does a damn good Snagglepuss metal.
posted by idiopath at 9:08 PM on July 7, 2015

God damn I love the Boredoms (another thing I recall from being young) and was thinking how is it we haven't had a post about the Boredoms and of course we have.

Fucking insane, speed metal and frantic pace changes that your brain just cannot get around whirling and throwing you viciously around the club with a rather extreme live show.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:17 PM on July 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

That made me happy.
posted by maryr at 9:19 PM on July 7, 2015

Dance dance devolution!
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:01 PM on July 7, 2015

I snorted when the first time they mentioned LEDs, the lyrics overlay showed the three letters as glowing red, green, and blue
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:21 PM on July 7, 2015

I'm wondering if that's what the two girls had in mind when they signed up for this whole idol thing....
posted by mortimore at 3:25 AM on July 8, 2015

So you guys clearly know more about this....genre/thing than I do. That was 100% awesome in a way that I haven't ever really experienced.

I don't want to go off the deep end and say that my life has changed, but I am somehow happier knowing that something like this exists in the world.
posted by Thistledown at 3:57 AM on July 8, 2015

I found the Japanese pop girls confusing and foreign, but I totally identified with the cross-dressing bearded pigtailed screaming man. I think I will go to Japan to enjoy and taste many Japanese products.
posted by Nelson at 8:07 AM on July 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

So I posted this to my friend-who-digs-Japanese-culture's timeline.

He silently liked it right away. A full half hour after that, he commented:

"ladybeard is my new waifu"
posted by rufb at 10:34 AM on July 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Barney metal

Are we talking Barney Google metal or Barney Fife metal? It's an important distinction.
posted by oheso at 2:55 PM on July 9, 2015