You do have to know the language and the cultural milieu well to get the references in Japanese song lyrics and song titles and band names, especially as these will often dip into traditional culture and folklore, classical literature, and East Asian religion. There's a song by Babymetal whose first line quotes a famous verse from an imperial anthology of poetry dating back 1,000 years, there's a song by Band-Maid whose lyrics allude to the Buddhist Wheel of Life, there's a song by Nemophila whose lyrics evoke the death-poem of a warrior-poet who committed suicide after losing a battle, there's a song by Onmyo-za whose title combines Confucian and Buddhist terms, there's a band that named itself after a spring season-word in haiku poetry, there's a band whose song title is an autumn season-word in haiku poetry, there's a band whose name means "Yin Yang Theater", etc., etc. These are all bands/songs that have been reacted to multiple times on y t. How will non-Japanese fans get these references if the reacters don't know what's going on lyrically-and they may not unless a commenter points it out. Well, there's the music.

I always love your in-depth work on individual songs of course, but it's also great to have someone help pick your brain and help us put it all together at a broader level!

I gladly watched it again. 🙂 Nerding out on Babymetal one of my favorite things to do.

Good to hear a walk-through of Believing is in the making! I always thought that the Fox God lore was a very useful marketing strategy - and as such a stroke of genius; no disrespect meant. You can organise songs around it, especially in a live performance, you give the fans something to get invested in, you always have ideas for stage visuals and the merch and the girls always have a way to dodge questions in an interview they do not want to answer ("Only the Fox God knows."). All very cleverly made and fun for the fans as long as you don't take it too seriously. Having said that: Kitsune up! 🦊 Totally agree regarding Kagerou. By now my favourite BM song.

44:55 Koba walked past me at the Philadelphia show, I wanted to say something like how I love the Music but I got cold feet and assumed he didn't want to be bothered haha.

Thanks for the video from Germany!

love listening to this. i find out all kind of new things. my take on the fox god is this. i had read somewhere that when the girls were told about metal music and the devil horns the girls tried to make them and made the fox sign instead. i truly think this is where the idea of using foxes came from. it was unique to them, the fox sign, and it was fun. every band no matter what they say tries to come up with a gimmick, yes a gimmick, to get people to come and see them. the whole thing was huge experiment at the time so why not have the fox sign instead of devil horns. also it allows the shows to have a theme for the stage design and then they can come up with the quote unquote lore. but no matter what the fox thing works. like you say every song can be interpreted different ways and to me that is what makes a song good. it makes it more personal to me if i feel something in the song even if it is not what was intended.

Well i think it is an interesting questionm what Kobametal was thinking about Megitsume and what he then sucht when the girls modified it into an female empowerment song.

Ha, academic nerd muscles!