Harajuku Antichrist

The things we do for love. The other day I got a opportunity to get my hands on some import anime soundtracks. There wasn’t anything in the assortment that interested my personally, but there was a nice selection of music from the anime series and live action movie adapted from Ai Yazawa’s Nana, which Maura happens to be a fan of. Shojo (manga aimed at younger females) tends to leave me cold, although I do find the occasional flip through the wife’s copies of Shojo Beat an enlightening experience, not for the comics content but for the fashion and lifestyle features, which read like something out of Seventeen after a crash infusion of facile ex oriente lux exoticism. (The habit western anime fans have of appropriating decontextualized and poorly understood chunks of Japanese culture deserves a book in itself.)

Based on my above stated biases, I’d normally just have kicked the soundtracks over to Maura and left it at that, but seeing as Nana has a punk rawk connection, with one of the two identically named women who give the manga its title being an aspiring punk musician, I was a little curious whether the music would have a bit more kick than the customary j-pop/idol singer material one usually finds on these sorts of albums.

Going over the track listings, I came across this lovely gem of a cover on the Nana Best album and decided to give it a spin. I’m not sure what I expected, but in my wildest dreams did not anticipate what came over my headphones. Here’s a pictorial reenactment of my reaction (French Foreign Legion hat optional):

I think it was in an old issue of the “adult” manga anthology Pulp that I read an interview with Chynna Clugston where she mentions encountering some Japanese youths in Quadrophrenia-perfect mod gear. When she asked them what bands they liked, they responded with “Poison.” (What, you didn’t know that “Unskinny Bop” is a masterpiece of Northern Soul?) The dissonance between fashion and music styles in Japanese pop culture is nothing new, as I have learned though many viewings of 80’s sci-fi anime series where nearly all roads lead to terrible jazz rock or Pink Lady clonage.

I didn’t for a minute think that a series targeting young Japanese women would feature a soundtrack composed of the terrifyingly atonal and extreme sounds I associate with the radical wing of the Japanese punk rock scene, but something a little less Avril and little more Polysics would have been nice. I warned everyone about allowing Hot Topic to spread unchecked, but did they listen to me? Now look what’s happened…

Need something to blot out the pain? How about a speed metal version of the Uchuu Senkan Yamato (aka Space Battleship Yamato, aka Star Blazers) theme?

Animetal - Uchuu Senkan Yamato (from Marathon, 1997) – I’ve been watching the uncut Japanese version of the first Yamato series recently. One difference between the original and the edited for the American market Star Blazers? R2D2-analog IQ-9 didn’t try to peek under Nova’s skirt in Star Blazers. I guess western audiences weren’t into sexual harassment scenes featuring squat comic relief robots in the late 70’s.