Asian Kung-Fu Generation

Having been a twinkie ("yellow on the outside, white on the inside") and a hardcore Anglophile for most of my life, I've never really been a big fan of J-pop/rock. But the last time I was in Japan, which was in 2004, I kept seeing this music video by a band that sounded, well, not too bad. In fact, the song was pretty catchy and by the time I came home, I had bought the single and album by them. I suppose I liked them because they weren't vacuous like a lot of j-pop idols or Johnny's boy bands, but not overly dramatic and flashy like the visual-kei bands.

Asian Kung-Fu Generation was born in 1996, when dummer Kiyoshi Ijichi, guitarist Kensuke Kita, bassist Takahiro Yamada and singer Masafumi Goto met in college. They seem to be influenced by British and American indie bands, which probably explains why I like them. In fact, there's even a song off their 2nd album that I could swear was by a band called Weezer, but whatever. On their website they describe their sound as: "Weezer-ish sound a la japonaise. Emotional Sense and Literary Rock."

If there are any anime fans out there, you might recognize them from Fullmetal Alchemist and Naruto. For 'Rewrite' I decided to use the cover art for the single since I'm quite fond of the artist who does their cover art, Yusuke Nakamura.

So far AKG have released 5 albums, and a slew of singles. Also available are 2 compilations which include tracks by bands such as Ash, the Rentals, Silver Sun and Dogs Die in Hot Cars, along with other Japanese bands that I admit I am not familiar with. Their later releases seem to showcase a mellower "Aji-kan" (the Japanese sure love abbreviating names), but I've yet to get my hands on their latest CD. Discography can be found here, but it's all in Japanese. (The English version is not complete.)

I'm presenting some of their more popular songs, 'Rewrite' from Fullmetal Alchemist, 電波塔 (Denpato "Radio Tower") from 君繋ファイブエム (Kimi Tsunagi Five M), 遙か彼方 (Haruka kanata, which translates to something like "very very far off") from Naruto, and the video for 君という花 (Kimi to iu hana "Flower called 'you'"). If there is any interest I will translate the lyrics and post them.

Ja, mata ne!
Maggie.
[ e-mail: maggie@weheartmusic.com ]