Japan: My Soundtrack (Music)
If you are uninterested in Japanese music, I recommend turning around right now. Because all you are gonna get here is Japanese music. Well, the first one is Japanese, but I think it is in Italian, so… there is that. The music will feature a variety of styles, to show just how disjointed my brain is.
Music is one of my safe spaces. I’m not musically gifted, but I find music to be really comforting. As such, I made a soundtrack for my trip. Even though I was always afraid of my phone’s battery dying, I tried to reserve a little bit of that battery life to shove some music into my earholes! It was a rather eclectic mix that I cam up with. There was some Nobuo Uematsu, some Hanabie, a little Babymetal, a little Mary’s Blood, a dash of Ho-Kago Tea Time, a pinch of kessoku band, and a heavy helping of Franchouchou. Those last three are notable for not being real bands, rather they are bands that exist in anime. More specifically, they are bands that three separate animes are based around.
Ho-Kago Tea Time is from an anime named K-On. Kessoku band is from Bocchi the Rock. Franchouchou are from Zombieland Saga. With that in mind, I decided I would share some of the music that I listened to during the trip.
First, my favorite song by Nobuo Uematsu. From Final Fantasy 6 in the long long ago. Named Aria de Mezzo Carattere.
Yes, it’s an opera! And it is damned beautiful. This is a far cry from the original one that came out of the SNES back in the mid 90’s. For this version they have a actual vocals.
Shall we contrast that with some Hanabie, an all-girl Japanese Metal band. This one is called “Pardon Me, I have to Go Now” or conversely “Osaki Ni Shitsurei Shimasu.
A major contrast to the Uematsu piece, wouldn’t you say?
What I really want to do here, is show some of the contrasting styles from this play list. Since I feel like Babymetal and Mary’s Blood really mirror this in the whole “Japanese Metal” aspect, I thought I would move on to Ho-Kago Tea Time.
As mentioned earlier Ho-Kago Tea Time is from an anime called K-On. The show follows a group of girls through their high school life, as members of a band formed from a school club. Ho-Kago Tea Time translates to “After School Tea Time” which if you ever watch the anime, is a very appropriate name for them. Their style really runs all over the place, so I’m gonna go with a kinda pop-rock tune called “Go! Go! Maniac”
This is one of the ones that shows up frequently for some reason. I feel like no matter how many times I hit shuffle on the playlist this showed up as one of the first 10. Granted the playlist is only about 160 songs give or take, but I find it odd that this one shows up so frequently. I also recommend “Listen!!” and “Don’t Say ‘Lazy’ Both of those songs were used for ending themes to the anime, while the song I shared is an opener.
Kessoku band is pretty much the entire focus of Bocchi the Rock. This anime focuses on a girl with extreme social anxiety, that wants to join a band, and somehow manages to do so despite her anxiety. You may recall I mentioned this particular band when I circled back to my post “Hitoribocchi Tokyo” So, I honestly think the only choice to post here would be “Hitoribocchi Tokyo”.
So back to Bocchi the Rock. Bocchi is the nickname the band members give to the lead character (Bocchi is the pink one). The character’s name is actually Hitori. Anyway. As I said in the previous post, this song title translates to “Lonely Tokyo”. And as a little aside, Kessoku band is a sort of joke. Kessoku means unity, and a kessoku band is effectively a zip tie.
The final band I will force upon you is Franchouchou. Franchouchou are the focal point of the anime “Zombieland Saga”. The entire premise of the show focuses on a group of 7 zombies that form an idol group. It’s goofy, and can be downright stupid, but I have watched the series at least dozen or two times. I think the show really won me over from the first scene, which kinda hits like a runaway truck. For this particular group, I want to share a song that doesn’t utilize all 7 members. It has been the number one most played song on my playlist for… 6 or 7 months now? I absolutely love to jam out to this one. It’s called Geckou Survive, translated to “Furious Survive” it is more of a rock song.
I had to make sure I got a version of the song with the drum solo at the beginning. I figure this is one of those songs you will either love or hate. Oddly, this is the song didn’t want to let me embed this in the post with code, it insisted on using a link. So you might have to go to YouTube for this one. Link here if the above doesn’t work.
So, there you have it. A slice of what I listened to when Japan was getting to be a little too much for me. I used more Japan to deal with Japan! Of note with the last song, one of my side adventures in Japan was actually inspired by that anime. My time in Kuratsu and Kashima was made to see some of the sights from the anime. Check out the images in the Kuratsu/Kashima post to see those particular comparisons.
Now, I think I’m gonna listen to Gekkou Survive again.
