DJ Baku DHARMA DANCE

At midnight tonight (Japan time, in like, 1 hour) DJ Baku’s new album, DHARMA DANCE will be available on HearJapan. Be sure to check out a music video from the music video at the HearJapan link, and on YouTube as well.

The album is released April 5th all over Japan, but if you can’t wait until the brick and morter shops open up in the morning you can snag it via HearJapan as soon as the calendar day changes.

I went to a DJ Baku live event in Tokyo last year and had a great time. I’m no music critic, but he’s just everywhere. High energy and intense stuff.

If you haven’t already, check out the music video embedded at the bottom of the HearJapan site. [youtube link to the same video] It’s really, really, cool.

I got some free time. Let’s learn from the video.

In the video there is a marionette who obviously represents a Japanese salaryman. He is holding a giant HANKO, a stamp that is used in place of a signature for documents in Japan. In traditional Japanese companies, many levels of HANKO can be required to complete important (or even no so important) tasks.

The stamps have different Kanji with varying meanings throughout the video. Here they all are, with my interpretations. Once you know the Kanji, watch the video again. It makes it even better.

働ヶ- Work! (commnd form of the verb, playing with characters by using the katakana small け)

マダマダ - Still more! (with the nuance of, you’re not done yet)

忙 - Busy!

押せ - Stamp it! (literally push, but same verb is used to “push” stamps)

死ヌマデ - Until you die! (or, until death)

押シエ - Stamp it!

あれ? - Huh? What?

苦 - Agonizing! or Arduous. Painstaking. (from くるしい, mentally and physically strenuous)

ナイ - Nothing (the negative, oposite of HAI)

疲 - Exhausted (つかれた)

イヤダ - I don’t like it (stronger nuance though, maybe you could say, horrible. Or intolerable.)

辞 - Quit

不要 - Unnecessary

操 - Manipulate (from あやつる, great with the marionette!)

破壊 - Destruction

制御 - Control

不能 - Impotent, incapable

金 - Money

糸 - Strings (literally, thread)

最高 - Awesome! (the best. This appears next to a pictre of the album jacket.)

攻撃 - Attack

And then, he completely collapses. Poor Japanese salarymen. Mechanical stamp pushers. Overworked… Occasionally overworked until they die… Karoushi.

It’s getting better though…

- Harvey

Koda Kumi - Erokawaii

Every year an organization called U-CAN awards prizes to the most popular new Japanese vocabulary of the year.

The contest is called 流行語大賞 (ryuukougo daishou) and from 2006 one of the words was EROKAKKOI (エロカッコイイ) and the variant EROKAWAII (エロカワイイ) which were made popular by the smash-hit JPOP artist, Koda Kumi.

Surprisingly, you can actually buy Koda Kumi music on Amazon which I find is strange because there are so few Japanese artists who have their music available through the Amazon US store…

Can anyone reading this from outside of Japan tell me if they had even heard of Koda Kumi? I’m curious…

Apparently she made her break with the album Real Emotion which had songs featured in Final Fantasy X-2 on Playstation 2. One of her most popular albums is BEST ~ first things ~.

Anyway, back to the language… EROKAWAII and EROKAKKOII.

The term “ERO” comes from the English word, “Erotic”, and more or less has the same meaning. “Kawaii” is the Japanese term for “Cute”.

The combined term “Erokawaii” was first made popular when used to refer to Koda Kumi’s performance apparel, which included high amounts of skin exposure (think Britney Spears), yet with a uniquely sophisticated, yet undeniably cute style.

Similarly, the term Kakkoii in Japanese means “cool”, and EROKAKKOII has a type of “erotic cool” meaning. When used with Erokokkoii or Erokawaii, the normally negative nuance of EROI is significantly reduced, so young people will normally not have any negative intension when using this term to describe others.

A Japanese explanation of EROKAWAII and EROKAKKOII are here!

Whew…

Technorati Tags: Koda Kumi, Japanese, j-pop

Japanese Music - HIFANA

I rarely post about music, but this is hot!

HIFANA - PV on YouTube

Check out the HIFANA official website as well.
A couple of Japanese art school graduates turned DJ’s. This song has a distinctive Okinawa flavor. Check it out!

If you purchase their CD, it comes with a DVD with tons of videos. This is good stuff.

- Harvey

ParaPara Dance on YouTube

Has everyone hear heard of “Para Para”? Here is a video on YouTube featuring a popular parapara dance instructional video.
Parapara was a type of… “dance”… popular in Japan about one year before I went to study Japanese at Nanzan University in Nagoya so many years ago. Around the time I arrived in Nagoya, my Japanese friends were telling me it was going out of style.

Parapara was mainly done in clubs, by mostly girls, but guys also join in sometimes. The more skillful parapara dancers would climb up on a small stage in front of the club (or a big stage, depends on the club!) and do their parapara dance to the music. These parapara girls would have big hair (extensions), tall boots, and short skirts.
The motions for each parapara song are predetermined, and must be memorized. If you miss a step, you’re not cool. You can purchase tapes and DVD’s in stores to learn the moves for each song, and need to stay updated as new songs are released. Occasionally I would see girls and guys outside in front of department store windows at night, using them as mirrors to practice their steps.

Again, Parapara is pretty much dead now in Japan, my unprofessional guess would put it at about the same level as break dancing in the states. Some people do it, and are pretty hardcore about it, but it is not at all mainstream.

Break dancing is cooler. A bit more… how do you say… Originality between dancers.

- Harvey