Nihon Break Kogyo Co’s company song smashed into the Oricon, one of (Japan’s) most influential music charts, on Dec 29. It is the first time that a “shaka,” or corporate anthem, has made the charts, according to Oricon Inc, a major Tokyo music information provider…
Unlike the stiff, propaganda-like nature of regular Japanese corporate anthems, the up-tempo rock tune, written and performed by a Nihon Break Kogyo demolition worker, sounds like themes from old Japanese animated films featuring superheroes.
But the humorous lyrics reflect the pure corporate anthem spirit of promoting the company — “We will destroy houses! We will destroy bridges! We will destroy buildings! To the east, to the west — Run, Run, Nihon Break Kogyo!”
I believe that I am the first person in history to point out that Japanese culture can appear somewhat baffling.
{ 22 comments }
Kieran Healy 03.10.04 at 1:25 am
This would never happen in the U.S. Now, what was the name of that Budweiser Dog again?
John Quiggin 03.10.04 at 2:25 am
As Japan goes today, the world will go tomorrow. Anyone for for karaoke?
vert galant 03.10.04 at 2:45 am
Nope, you’re not the first, the folks who put together that Eurocentric trash LOST IN TRANSLATION beat you to it.
JX 03.10.04 at 3:24 am
My circle of friends here in New York is comprised mostly of former expats in Japan (some Japanese, some non-Japanese Asian, some white and one of Tiger Woods level multiraciality) and they didn’t like “Lost in Translation.” Not because they found it racist, but because they’d heard all the jokes 100 times before.
Sven 03.10.04 at 6:16 am
Wait a minute. Demolition man. Corporate jingles as pop tunes. Where have I seen this before? Next you’ll be telling us that “all restaurants are Taco Bell” over there.
cl 03.10.04 at 6:48 am
All hail vert galant, who it appears has personally rendered the subjective-in-art OBSOLETE! No longer will we need to look at creative works which emerge from (I can hardly bear to type this) a “point” of “view”. In this cowardly new world of expression, no one need fear treading to the local multiplex or museum because they risk assault from some “individual’s” particular sensibility…
Guess that renders this blogging thing unnecessary, dunnit?
Keith M Ellis 03.10.04 at 7:48 am
Maybe Vert was being ironic? I enjoyed LiT; I didn’t find it bigoted. For the movie to have been western chauvinistic, it would have needed to take a ridicuing or patronising stance on the Japanese mileau it presented. I don’t think it did.
To be fair, however, it should be noted that any depiction of a somewhat-mythologized yet alien culture by someone not deeply familiar with it runs a heavy risk of confusing verite with cliche. Even so, one can still usually tell the difference between that and clear bigotry. Or, at least, I can.
andrew 03.10.04 at 10:03 am
Do they find us ‘scrutable?
John Isbell 03.10.04 at 11:15 am
My old girlfriend is Chinese American, and helps to run our East Asian Studies program and working on ethnic identity. She loved Lost In Translation, and she’s not really Eurotrash. Mind you, she is Chinese.
OTOH she hated hated hated Pearl Harbor. And she cringed at The Last Samurai.
John Isbell 03.10.04 at 11:20 am
That last comment was edited to produce bad syntax.
Graham 03.10.04 at 12:16 pm
Heh. Flash thingy accompanying the song.
jimbo 03.10.04 at 2:24 pm
OTOH she hated hated hated Pearl Harbor. And she cringed at The Last Samurai.
Yeah, but that probably has more to do with the fact that both those movies sucked than any “racial” reason…
When I see the few Japanese TV shows we get over here, I always wonder: does this not make sense because it’s an alien culture, or is “not making sense” part of the culture?
WillieStyle 03.10.04 at 2:30 pm
Don’t mean to be impolitic here, but suggesting that a movie about Japan isn’t bigoted because a Chinese American liked it, is like saying a movie about France isn’t unfair because it’s loved in Texas.
Of course this says nothing about the merits of LiT or your old girl friend; just that the anecdote is hardly compelling.
Morvern Callar 03.10.04 at 2:55 pm
Funny that, I was more interested in the characters and the story and the acting than how Japan was portrayed in Lost In Translation. Maybe I missed the point of watching movies…
nolo 03.10.04 at 4:03 pm
I think the only way for anyone to derive a real answer to the question is to spend some time playing “Sonic the Hedgehog,” and trying to figure out just WTF is up with the Chao.
Gamer 03.10.04 at 6:06 pm
Am I the only one here who is trying to put those lyrics to the tune of “Go, Go, Godzilla”?
I think I’ll go slink off to my nerd hovel now.
Matt Weiner 03.10.04 at 7:07 pm
I’d like to remind you all of “I’d Like to Teach the World To Sing,” by the New Seekers, which was a Coke jingle with the words slightly altered. See Robert Christgau’s classic review. I’m just barely too young to remember it from then–they actually made us sing that song in elementary school.
The Japanese song sounds like it has better lyrics, though.
Morvern Callar 03.10.04 at 9:37 pm
Ah, yes, that Coca Cola song has got to be the most famous instance – and don’t forget the spin-offs, legal ones included:
The song’s melody was later used as the basis of the song Shakermaker by the rock group Oasis. They were successfully sued for the unlicensed use by The New Seekers and had to pay out $A500,000 (Australian dollars).
Morvern Callar 03.10.04 at 9:40 pm
…they actually made us sing that song in elementary school.
Same here!
Charles 03.10.04 at 11:17 pm
Dammit, I’ve had that nihon bureeku kougyou song stuck in my head ever since I heard it. I usually like Eurobeat JPop better than other types, but the English Eurobeat version isn’t the one stuck in my head, it’s the Japanese version.
And everyone quit carping about Lost in Translation. It’s SUPPOSED to be eurocentric, it’s about eurocentric gaijin doing dumb stuff in Japan.
Adam Rice 03.11.04 at 6:13 am
As Jeremy Irons, portraying Claus von Bulow, said in Reversal of Fortune (responding to the observation that he is a very strange man), “You have no idea.”
HP 03.12.04 at 6:07 am
Hmm… Just watched the flash. I don’t find it baffling at all. I kind of see it as a passive-aggressive slam on the whole corporate anthem thing. There’s something playfully ludicrous about turning your corporate anthem into an homage to Ultra-Man and Power Rangers. And therein lies the appeal to the average Japanese listener.
Personally I think you risk underestimating the capacity of the Japanese to respond to the subversive quality, because we’re blinded by this whole “Japan is reflexively conformist” stereotype. I mean, 1000+ years of rigidly enforced conformity gives a culture plenty of practice in subtle subversion.
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