The Yasukuni Rap

[Mulboyne]

[YT]snDrZKBZx1Y[/YT]
"Kyoji" by Arei Raise

Japan Focus: The Songs of Nippon and Yasukuni Shrine
...In April 2006, Yasukuni Shrine ran a music competition, inviting people to submit newly composed songs on the theme “Songs that make you love Japan,” as part of an event to commemorate “the end of the Great East Asian War.” Two hundred and thirty one songs were submitted in the three months before the closing date and six songs were ultimately selected by a panel of judges...Following the competition, Yasukuni Shrine produced a CD entitled Nippon no Uta...All the songs on the CD, except for one, composed and sung by a group called Arei Raise, are in the fashionable folk song style...[The] exception is the song entitled Kyoji (Heroic Spirits), a rap song...Here is a full translation of Kyoji...more...

(Lyrics also in the next post. 2007 Mainichi article on the song here and related post by blogger Japan Newbie here)

[Mulboyne]

Those lyrics in full:

Even with those two atomic bombs
You could not burn down our nation, Sir
We overcame that disaster
Japan is great, after all
With few natural resources
With many descendants of talented people
Who overcame the human experiment with nuclear weapons
Let’s learn from the wisdom of our ancestors
With the full experience of the Sino-Japanese, Russo-Japanese, and Great East Asian Holy Wars
The experience of Edo, Meiji, Taisho, Showa and Heisei
This spirit of progress cannot be replaced by anything else
That is our unauthorized intangible cultural asset
Japan’s counterattack will soon be launched
First we must arm our hearts with nuclear arms

People always survive, thanks to the sacrifice of others
But the important thing is what we do with that sacrifice
It has been sixty years since the war ended
It’s now time to respect the spirits of war heroes and the end of the war
Japan’s war was noble and grand, whether it was right or wrong
To fight the enemy, knowing you would be defeated
To fight to win from time to time at the risk of your own life
Our ancestors were not wrong
We just love Japan
We are neither right nor left, we are simply bald headed
We like Japan and the Japanese a lot
Don’t forget our hopes and pride
For a start, raise your voices, you Japanese boys and girls
The spirit of Kamikaze is always with us
Let’s change the way people see “the typical Japanese”
With hip hop scenes

We really love this country
So we want to keep our hearts as gold as our nation is
We Japanese are strong minded, training ourselves day after day
Let’s make our song everlasting
We can get together here whenever we like
Our feelings echo each other
And become a rainbow under the sky of Yasukuni
There are things that we cannot do
Yet there are things that only we can do
Things that even we can do
Let’s keep singing until our voices grow hoarse
Don’t forget what we inherited from our ancestors
Keep them in mind all the time
And pass them on to the next generation
Let’s walk together towards our future

Nippon, A beautiful country
Nippon, The country where the sun rises
Nippon, A magnificent country
Nippon, Nippon, Nippon
Nippon, The country where gods live
Nippon, The country that we love so much
Nippon, Our country
Nippon, Nippon, Nippon

Link again to the whole article here.

[Greji]

Nippon, A beautiful country
Nippon, The country where the sun rises
Nippon, A magnificent country
Nippon, Nippon, Nippon
Nippon, The country where gods live
Nippon, The country that we love so much
Nippon, Our country
Nippon, Nippon, Nippon[/I]

Link again to the whole article here.

Take might take this on tour!

[Blah Pete]

I think they should make this the theme song for the Beijing Olympics.

[Behan]

Nippon, The country where the sun rises
Nippon, A magnificent country
Nippon, Nippon, Nippon
Nippon, The country where gods live


A Japanese graduate student once tried to convince me that the sun really does originate from Japan. The Japanese see it first and then the rest of the world gets to see it.

[Greji]

[I]A Japanese graduate student once tried to convince me that the sun really does originate from Japan. The Japanese see it first and then the rest of the world gets to see it.

You mean it don't?

[Dragonette]

[hundefar]

I didn't know rapmusic belonged to a certain race.

[ttjereth]

I didn't know rapmusic belonged to a certain race.

Now you're just trying to start shit.

[hundefar]

Now you're just trying to start shit.

I don't have anything better to do

[ttjereth]

I don't have anything better to do

You should leave it to the professional trolls; Take, Jack, Charles..

[Takechanpoo]

Patriotism is not one you show in public but one you should keep to the bottom of heart.

[ttjereth]

Patriotism is not one you show in public but one you should keep to the bottom of heart.

Irony

Indicating an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.

[Iraira]

I just know I'm gonna get jumped on for overstating the obvious, but didn't anybody who is NOT an FG notice that a bunch of wannabees doing an uber-patriotic uyoku song while trying desperately to look and sound like another race, another culture with a radically different history is totally ludicrous? Even the video backlighting is designed to make them look black. What's wrong with this picture??

But then again, maybe it will turn out that rap is actually Japanese - some rude Afro-American FGs had brazenly copied and exported the ancient and traditional art form 日]Nihonrapushi[/I]), which has been well-known in Japan for at least 3000 years...

According to VH-1's Inside the Bullshit Music:
The Sugar Hill Gang came to Japan in the early 1970s and stole everything from this up and coming Japanese star Rittle Lichado....the rest is history.

[kamome]

Irony

Indicating an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.

Well spotted, ttj.