Issue #93: A Kindness Comparable to Nuclear Energy
Highlighting the new Tive album, an Evangelion classic, and buzzing songs from TikTok this quarter
Hi! Welcome to This Side of Japan, a newsletter on Japanese music, new and old. You can check out previous issues here.
I admit that I was pretty bummed during the first week of 2025 when it looked as though my access to TikTok would be cut off for good. The good folks over at Japan will continue to slap together the most outrageous content while shooting unexpected music into the public consciousness, and I’ll be unfortunately left in the dark, unable to watch any of it happening in real time. Then, well, you know what happened.
The app hasn’t stopped minting new J-pop hits from low-profile singer-songwriters to pop giants since the year began. But these past couple of months, I’ve been more fascinated to see young people in Japan interact with music outside of their country that they likely would not have known about had TikTok not introduce them in the form of dance challenges, like reggaeton, dembow and especially pop from other Asian countries like Thailand and Vietnam. Above all, where else will you see your favorite idols imitate Kendrick Lamar’s walk during his Super Bowl Halftime Show?
Here are some of my favorite songs seen on my TikTok feed this quarter.
“Khong Sao Ca” by 7dnight [WM Vietnam / DAT VIET VAC, 2024]
I take delight whenever a non-Korean or Japanese Asian pop song goes viral among idols in the K-pop and J-pop sphere, but also the Japanese citizens of TikTok. So I’ve especially been on board seeing this Vietnamese rap track circulate as a silly dance challenge. The Korean gwenchana hook that starts off the clip going around the app is in itself an interpolation of a pre-existing meme and that’s by design: “Khong Sao Ca” is a product of a Trending Words round in the rapper competition show Rap Viet, where 7dnight constructed the track based off the gwenchana meme. The rapper advanced to the next level thanks to the song while scoring a dance craze with it well after the show had been over.
…from RAP VIET 2024, Tap 10 EP. Listen to it on Spotify.
“Bai Bai FIGHT!” by CANDY TUNE [KAWAII LAB, 2024]
As far as idol goes, the KAWAII LAB groups rule the TikTok landscape at this point, with their success spilling over to the grounds of more terrestrial media. FRUITS ZIPPER continue their takeover of TV and magazines while CUTIE STREET are running not too far behind with their hit “Kawaii Dake Ja Damedesuka?” A proof of their unstoppable power is their ability to drive a B-side like “Bai Bai Fight” to the upper reaches on the app—it’s about to crack 20K in engagement. By itself, the intro part going around seems to satisfy exclusively the fans of CANDY TUNE, built more for a live performance as it literally announces the song itself: “bai bai fight by CANDY TUNE!” Yet everyone’s latching on despite their level of investment with the idols, doing the marching arm-swing choreo like the group. My feed is full of idol groups trying to make their songs happen outside of their core audience, some of the music sounding a lot like this denpa-fueled ball of energy. They would love to have the KAWAII LAB touch.
Kiss Me Pattisier EP is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
“Aisaretai” by Yumcha [YumYum, 2024]
Yumcha’s romance-pop reminds me of Kana Nishino not just with the piano-led slow jams but also the lyrics that peeks inside the mind of a girl, the singer-songwriter wondering aloud, will he like my make-up today? as she preps for a date. While “Aisaretai” similarly unravels her internal monologue, the typically meek singer sounds like a whole different personality with her high from her own pride to the tune of buzzing power-pop chords. “There’s no way that there’s anybody better than me,” she sings the hook as she schemes to steal her crush’s attention. Her vanity turns out to be a white lie to gas herself up, and many others seem to follow suit with countless selfies taken to this song almost as a pick-me-up to convince themselves they are worthy to be the star filmed on the vertical screen.
Listen to it on Spotify.
Before we get into this issue, an announcement: I’m going to take a break publishing until May. I originally had a spring break scheduled as I have in the past couple of years to be taken in April so I can recharge, but I’ve been starting to get behind schedule putting these newsletters together so might as well excuse myself early and recaliberate. Plus, I have a few things I’d like to work on writing wise as I step away from here. I plan to still put together a Monthly Listening as well as the March-April edition for Idol Watch, so you’ll continue to get Japanese music updates from me in your inbox.
We still got this issue of This Side of Japan, though, which brings us a great hardcore-punk album, a classic from the Evangelion films and three singles from the worlds of rap, indie rock and R&B.
Happy listening!
Album of the Week
A Kindness Comparable to Nuclear Energy, and Akirame by Tive [Excelled]
*Recommended track: “A Kindness Comparable to Nuclear Energy” | Listen to it on Spotify
Hajime Saeki screams of love and destruction on the centerpiece to his hardcore band’s new EP, A Kindness Comparable to Nuclear Energy, and Akirame. As the vocalist hums out a hook to calm his nerves, a stormy punk riff swings him along his downward spiral in the title track until it flatlines into nothing but a rubble of reverb. “A kindness comparable to nuclear energy,” goes his final words — a new addition to conclude what was previously released as the “Downward Flower” trilogy in 2022. “Your kindness that can end everything.” The complete decimation of ego via punk damage extends to the full record as the title track clearly draws the line in the sand for Tive: after this EP, there’s no going back to their former selves.
You can track the not-so-distant past version of Tive through “Ayy Ayy Ayy,” a single from last year that now precedes the title track in the EP. The initial stretch there is all about speed and power, Saeki’s titular chant ready to summon a swirling mosh pit. It’s an essence finely distilled in their debut Chibu EP from 2022, with their revved-up punk never letting down throughout its concise 8-minute run aside from the few thickly laid breakdowns. But if the band then would’ve cut out after the first 45 seconds of “Ayy Ayy Ayy” to hurry on to the next, Tive in A Kindness… venture out well after the tank’s reached the bottom to explore what lies beyond the emptiness.
From the total devastation of the title track sprouts Tive’s newer set of tracks. Some of the former fury is there along with the band’s hardcore identity, though the songs also carry hints of an ambition to reach outside of punk. The sludgy breakdown of “Drift Further Away” resemble at once hardcore’s punch to the gut and the guitar-fuzz blizzard of shoegaze, especially with sweet dream-pop vocal harmonies laid over. “And Akirame” also works this cross pollination into an almost reverse metalcore manner, their metallic punk slowly shaking off its sea legs from the droning muck.
The lyrical introspection in A Kindness… answers for Tive’s desire for more depth out of punk beyond pure physical thrill. As Saeki ponders about existence throughout the EP, he often returns to the thought of love and connection as what gives it meaning. Even in the pit-starter “Ayy Ayy Ayy,” the vocalist shouts for love that he doesn’t yet feel fully worthy of receiving back — the chant becoming a kind of a double entendre. “Even if I let go of things I don’t need / love for human touch remains,” he sings in “And Akirame.” Tive eventually return to the throes of hardcore to join the pack after reducing their sound into pure guitar buzz, their life perspective weathered yet clearer.
Singles Club
“OIRAN” by LANA ft. Medusa, E.V.P & IFE [self-released]
LANA having to clutch a can of Red Bull while she lays down a 16 in the video might be a rather small price to pay to get the energy-drink company to fund the production of a great mic-relay-as-song like “OIRAN.” Koshy’s cypher-made beat—a neo-Memphis-type loop driven by gothic keys that brood as they bounce—but also their flip on the immortal “Get Money” hook sets the mood for the four rappers to hang their pop instincts for a second and indulge in straight flex rap. While it’s too structured to convince as the genuine freestyle portrayed via the MV, its strength lies in its sharp curation from its grounding theme down to the sequencing: IFE lands the highlight in my eyes through her flow laying in contrast to those before her, but it’s also a result not possible without the other approaching the song through their own angles.
Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Flafla” by Bonbero; “Charisma” by YZERR ft. LEX & Awich
“Bounce up all the time” by RUNG HYANG [self-released]
Save for a recent Taku Takahashi remix, the temperature in RUNG HYANG’s lounge soul has been set to a cool optimal for a hangout as it bobs along to chill hip-hop breaks, if there are any drums at all. As if she’s got the bug to finally let loose, the singer dial the heat up a notch in “Bounce up all the time” by queuing up the beats of amapiano. The titular chorus hits it on the head as to her intentions here, the wailing hook practially commanding for all hands to be raised to the heavens. Eager as the song gets to moving, the languid atmosphere signature to her adopted dance genre keeps the one-on-one intimacy of RUNG’s usual soul as the music steadily shuffles along.
Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Private” by MALIYA; “U” by YonYon
“Point Nemo” by Yureru Wa Yuurei [self-released]
Yureru Wa Yuurei’s shoe-gazing indie-rock less haunts than it envelops like a warm embrace as it blankets you with woolly reverb and translucent guitar tones. From the sound of their new mnemmeoid EP, the band’s ghostly name instead refers in the second person: “Don’t disappear,” guitarist and vocalist Mako calls out into the void of feedback in the opening track, whose title translates to “dear my ghost.” The EP’s other bookending song, “Point Nemo,” similarly extends a helping hand to a lost soul, yet its ebullient music lends a comfort for their words to ring with tenderness than grave concern. “I can’t hope for a lot these days / just stay there for a little longer,” she softly sings. Wrapped up in such glittering rock, there’s hardly any stress to mind.
mnemmeoid EP is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “End Roll Ga Owattemo” by Moon in June; “CHIAKI” by pear soda
This Week in 1997…
This section is usually dedicated to the Oricon number ones throughout the chart’s history, but for this issue, I’ll write about a hit that did not make it to the very top.
“Tamashii No Refrain” by Yoko Takahashi [Starchild, 1997]
Highest position at #3 during the week of March 3, 1997 | Listen to it on Spotify/YouTube
“Get in the robot, Shinji…”
Perhaps through Major Misato Katsuragi as cypher, viewers like to urge Shinji Ikari, the teenage protagonist of Neon Genesis Evangelion, to snap out of it and pilot the Eva unit to fight against the giant beasts known as Angels. In the Eva is where he can fulfill his purpose as a hero, yet he resists his calling. He shrinks from fear and the threat of death, but also wallows in depression over the meaninglessness of his existence, being nothing other than an instrument of war. No matter how much he protests, he ultimately returns to the robot, where he achieves his greatest epiphany: that despite the struggles, he wants to keep on living.
This act of returning is echoed in Yoko Takahashi’s “Tamashii No Refrain.” “Return to me / before you were born,” Takahashi sings in the chorus. “To the earth you spent your days.” The lyrics seems to speak from Eva itself to offer solace and protection, especially over the harp-led intro that further calls back to the womb-like presence the unit’s cockpit takes on for its teen pilots. While it’s recorded for NGE: Death and Rebirth, which reprises much of the TV series up until its final episodes into a theatrical feature, the song foreshadows the merciless destruction seen in its theatrical follow-up, End of Evangelion, a film that serves as an alternate ending to the main show. As the singer calls out for all of us to go back to the cold dirt, I can’t help but flash back to the latter movie’s climactic scene where the mass extinction event of the Third Impact is underway with every surviving character dissolving into primordial goo.
The music of “Tamashii No Refrain,” too, evokes the image of the scorched Earth in The End of Evangelion. Like the main theme to the TV series, “Zankoku Na Tenshi No Thesis,” the mix of synthetic beats and choral chants that power the epic rock anthem channels the world of the anime where technological warfare meets apocalyptic reckoning. But whereas the former’s triumphant music embodied the bravery of a hero answering to their divine calling, the infernal production of “Tamashii No Refrain” fares far more grim with it fit as theme for charging head-on into a losing war. Funereal strings runs underneath the verses as premonition to its own fall while the dramatic strike of synths ups the anxiety as if to bring acute focus to every last of its fleeting seconds.
But despite being confronted by scenes of impending collapse, Takahashi sings the chorus with unwavering might: “Return to these arms / so we can meet again.” While the gripping music hardly offers a moment of resolve, the singer braves through without an ounce of doubt weighing on her words. She sings about the impending end of the world not with doomed fatalism but full acceptance of it as the inevitable. With Takahashi ready to meet her maker, “Tamashii No Refrain” exudes its own kind of fearlessness —what’s there to fear now but death itself?
“Tamashii No Refrain” brings to mind the big splash of orange during the Third Impact scenes in The End of Evangelion, but also the sense of relief expressed from each character right before they perish, finally undone from their suffering. Along with this sense of faith from Takahashi that the end is part of a greater process comes this moment of peace knowing that this is how she’s supposed to go for good. Fittingly, “Tamashii No Refrain” understands death and (re)birth as two sides of the same coin, where one gives meaning to the other: things have to end for it to ever have began at all. “A miracle will happen / again and again,” Takahashi sings the penultimate lyric. Whether she means life or death, it stands as true.
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