It’s rare to celebrate 1st anniversaries, but this is a rare year and until things get better, this will one of my most recent live concerts. A year ago today I went down to Seattle, WA to the Paramount Theater to see BabyMetal, a trio of Japanese girls who combine J-Pop with thrash metal. Imagine the intro to a popular anime mixed with Metallica or Pantera and you’re not far off. I’ve been a huge fan of Japan since the King of the Monsters entered my life in 1998-1999 and have since absorbed a great degree of their pop culture, such as Nintendo, Pokémon, various animes and mangas, the Super Sentai series (the basis for Power Rangers in the west), Ultraman and other things involving superheroes, superheroines and giant monsters. In fact, BabyMetal received a licensed appearance in Super Mario Maker for the Wii U where you can play as them using a Special Mushroom if you beat a downloadable level. They have also opened for American Titans Guns N Roses and Metallica in the East, opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the Southeastern United States and even performed a set with Rob Halford of Judas Priest fame.
The song that convinced me the
group was worth checking out was “KARATE” off their second album, released in
2016. The music video mixed
choreographed air-punching, intense cries and Evanescence-style vocals. The group followed this with several singles
over 2018 and 2019 and soon announced their tour and show, which apparently got
some of their fans from their homeland to come across the Pacific as some
people apparently from Japan sat next to me and we sang along to Metallica’s
“Enter Sandman” on the PA. Other PA
songs included “The Trooper” by Iron Maiden, “Whole Lotta Love” by Led
Zeppelin, “Doctor, Doctor” by UFO and “Cowboys from Hell” by Pantera, which was
contrasted by the audience mostly consisting of college age women. The opening act was The Hu (no, not “The
Who,” The Hu, The Who was playing in Seattle that Saturday at T-Mobile Park) a
Mongolian-based group with intense percussion who would later collaborate with
Papa Roach and Halestorm. Their delivery
made you want to clap along to their intense, driving music, creating a
powerful sound. They had low slung, guttural
vocals about Mongols, Genghis Khan, being a warrior and horseback riding, if I’m
to believe the translations of the song titles Spotify put up and their Western
collaborators’ English lyrics in the collaboration versions of the songs. They were a treat to the ears with how loud
they could be.
BabyMetal was not to be outdone,
with slick choreography, well-styled dance routines, great harmonies and
blistering instrumentals. “KARATE” was
on the set, and their treatment of the semi-recent single “Distortion” was a
treat, showing a wrecked cityscape with a fiery red sky, it reminded me of a
Shinji Higuchi effects-directed Godzilla film (Godzilla 1984, Shin Godzilla). It’s especially reminiscent of the 1984 movie
after the two nuclear missiles collide above Tokyo, spurring awake a slumbering
Godzilla. Higuchi also worked with
Hideaki Anno and Shusuke Kaneko on Neon Genesis Evangelion and the 1995-1999
Gamera movies respectively, so it’s not impossible he had some influence on the
design of the video (in fact, the protagonist of Evangelion, Shinji, is named
after Higuchi).
Side Note: I’ve actually seen two
episodes of Evangelion, and maybe it’s that they were early in the series, but
I liked Asuka’s “the job needs to get done and done right, I don’t have time
for BS” attitude the best of the main characters. The two episodes I saw were where Shinji and
Asuka are tied together to synchronize themselves against a monster than can
become two monsters and Asuka has to wear a thermal suit that makes her look
obese in order to destroy a monster in a volcano’s magma chamber.
Lead singer Su-Metal was a
commanding force on stage, while backup singer/dancer MoaMetal was
adorable. I have a Funko Pop of her, in
fact, and she is my favorite of the current members with her long pigtails, boundless
energy and enthusiasm and slick dance moves.
Yuimetal isn’t a permanent member and was replaced that night with
someone else unnamed (she is currently pursuing a solo career, but it is an
amicable split), but whoever filled her role was very glad to be on stage and
filled her big shoes well, so much so you wouldn’t have guessed these weren’t
the original three. The current world
situation may be tough on the young group, but I hope they will continue
reaching high, the world needs their brand of “kawaii metal” as they term it
(Japanese for ‘cute metal’). Keep
reaching for the heavens, BabyMetal!
There is another side note I wanted
cover about Godzilla 1984 since I didn’t know this until this year, when an
article was published on tohokingdom.com.
It’s not very nice news, it’s rather upsetting and depressing, so you
can skip it, but I really wanted to get this out after finding this fact out. At the end of Godzilla 1984, High Frequency
sound, designed to mimic a reactor Godzilla would seek for a meal, is broadcast
from the rim of the nearly active Mt. Mihara.
This Stratovolcano has an incredibly twisted and dark history in
Japan. The island had a long history of
banishing exiles, and the Mountain was also famous for suicides of desperate
young people, shorn by society. A couple
who met at a Christian fellowship, which wasn’t granted Government Protection in
Japan until 1945, took their lives in a volcano like Mt. Mihara. In a way, it’s a depressing, gut-wrenching,
tear-jerking yet perfect reflection of a quote by Godzilla’s first director,
Ishiro Honda. “Monsters are tragic
beings. They are born too tall, too strong,
too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy.” Meaning that Raymond Burr’s narrative was
completely right in the edit to call Godzilla “that strangely innocent and
tragic monster.”
“These are not monsters, these are
animals, fighting to reclaim a world that was once theirs.”-Dr. Ishiro
Serizawa, Godzilla; King of the Monsters 2019
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