B-RAP Highschool This segment began some time in 2002, and is still continuing. The "B" in B-RAP stands for Black, Boy, and Beginner. The idea behind the segment was to discover the "best" of young Japanese rappers. Or, if you couldn't get the best rappers, at least get the most amusing ones. This segment started appearing almost weekly on Gakkou e Ikou!, impressive because the core rappers would appear with a new rap every time. They were even visited by ex-SPEED artist Imai Eriko, the infamous Komuro Tetsuya, and even Will Smith and Quentin Tarentino. All were quite polite, considering... Quentin just seemed to find the entire thing hysterical in its quirkiness. As the series progressed, all of the rappers slowly left the show until, really, the show became about funny parody songs. THE RAPPERS Anko the KANCREW Every single B-RAP Highschool segment simply HAS to start out with Anko the KANCREW (taken from the Japanese rap group Kick the Can Crew). This group of three guys never shows any sort of emotion whatsoever, and they have a great formula going on. They start off with some semi-vocal percussion, have the actual rap in the middle, and end with a rousing call-and-reponse of "yeah c'mon, yeah c'mon". Basically, their lyrics consist entirely of strange "yo' momma" insults (such as "your mother is very oily"). Their targets of the insults have been everything from "your teacher" to "your big brother" to "your pet dog". It's so remarkably strange, you have to love them. MC Swannie MC Swannie is actually an African-American guy who can't speak Japanese fluently. He doesn't really rap, so much as recite some "Useful Japanese Phrases". Even better, each phrase is illustrated with a very well-drawn crayon picture. However, these Japanese phrases... no one can figure out how the heck he learned them, or when you'd use most of them. For example, two of my favorites so far have been, "Omae, shippo haiteru zo" ("Dude, you've got a tail") and "Mite kudasai, gorufu yaki desu" ("Look, I have a golf tan."). I have no idea when one would hear these sentences spoken by anyone, but it still makes me laugh. Julian & Fujii-san Fujii-san shocked everyone when he first came on. He's a middle aged guy who does improvized "rap". Only, it's not so much "rapping", as it is talking incredibly quickly while babbling about random topics. The only thing that surprised V6 more, was when Julian showed up a week later, saying that he and Fujii-san had the same rapping style. The basic difference is that while Fujii-san talks pretty much normally, if really quickly, Julian is really laid back and ends up sounding like a poetry reading. And so the two began a series of segment where they'd perform their strange improvized "rap-offs" on various topics, with Julian starting the rap followed by a counter-rap by Fujii-san. Too strange. RHYMA HOLIKS RHYMA HOLIKS is a group of three young guys (later just two) who have the goal of making raps for people who don't like rap. Therefore, they write raps about popular Japanese movies, TV shows, or anime, using scarily cool techno-rap versions of the instrumental theme songs in the background. So far, raps have included the movies like "Godzilla", sentai series like "Ultraman" and "Kamen Rider", and dramas like "Midou Koumon". However, most have been anime, ranging from "Lupin III" and "Ashita no Joe" to "Doraemon" and "Sazae-san". I know it sounds really strange and incredibly cheesy, but RHYMA HOLIKS are actually probably the best rappers to ever appear on the segment. They have incredible rhythm, style, lyrics, and flow. They really impress all of the visiting guests, and V6 always relaxes when they see RHYMA HOLIKS. They're just so amazing; their Nausicaa rap was seriously one of the coolest things I've ever heard in my life. Even besides the fact that both Inocchi and Nagano started shrieking, "I love Nausicaa~!" like little kids. Smile Yagizawa Smile desperately wants to be a "pop rapper", preferably part of a Johnny's group like Arashi or V6. The biggest problem is... he doesn't rap. He plasters a HUGE smile on his face, and then flings himself around, "dancing" to medleys of songs like Hamasaki Ayumi's "Boys & Girls" or V6's "Music for the People". His dances are crap, none of the songs even have rap in them, and every time a V6 song starts up, Go looks ready to shoot himself. The closest Smile ever gets to rapping is when he shouts "YEA~!" or "COME ON~!" in the middle of his dances, or when he goes into dramatic monologues (i.e. an Ultraman Tiga monologue during "Take Me Higher" or a Neverland monologue during "Dasenai Tegami"). It ruined both shows for me, I swear. Co. Keio Keio is one of the very top universities in Japan, and Co. Keio is a history major there. All of his raps are basically lessons to teach young kids about history, with historical facts, dates, and asides filled with "fun facts". Sounds boring? Well, Ken described him best when he said that Co. Keio is an "NHK no oniisan", or one of the super-happy young people who works on an educational kiddy show on the NHK television network. Co. Keio is so remarkably personable, and does his entire rap as if performing for a group of elementary school students... no matter WHO he's actually performing to. His raps have covered basically the entire history of Japan, with other raps focusing on China, Europe, the U.S.A., and the French Revolution, although he did devote one special rap to math, and did a series on English vocab. Co. Keio is a favorite with all ages, who spend the rap either laughing at his clever "fun facts" or listening raptly to learn about history. His lyrics are incredibly well done, especially how he works in dates (it's a complicated Japanese number game... write me if you honestly want to know how the phrase iya na kuni will forever remind me of the French Revolution). And since he's a Keio University student, Co. Keio is incredibly intelligent, and was even able to discuss "MIB" with Will Smith in pretty impressive English. Besides, anyone who can work Roosevelt and Nixon into a rap deserves kudos. Hardcore Hardcore... never actually performed. Basically, his entire "act" involves sitting in chair, dressed like a wanna-be gangsta rapper, and acting, well, "hard core". It's pretty much a lot of "yo" and "hya" and random grunts, with some English thrown in for good measure. After a while of acting "hard core", Hardcore would always be carted off by some helpful staff member. Despite his oddness, I quite liked him. Some favorite moments included Hardcore getting Okada-kun to give "props" to Chiba (suburban Tokyo), constantly ticking off Sakamoto-kun by calling him misoji (thirty-year-old), and introducing his "homie", Mr. Panic (a wide-eyed, trembling Chihuahua) to even the odds. Hy-sterical. Nanshiki globe Basically meaning "Softball globe" or something similar, Nanshiki globe is the most infamous group in the B-RAP. Their entire act is a parody of the hot singing group "globe" and their old single "Love Again". The group is made up of female singer Koike (for globe's Keiko) and male rapper Park Manther (for globe's Mark Panther). But instead of being a normal song about love, it's a song about a guy (Park) who keeps chasing after girls and getting into stupid situations. For example, "On a date with her in Shibuya/A naked man came by/I decided to protect her/So I got naked, too~!" or "Every morning at 8 a.m./She's in the third train car from the front/It's our sweet time together/That's right, I'm a stalker~!" While Park does his insane raps, Koike tries to stay cool as she sings the main chorus, "Aho da na" (You're such a moron). To make things worse, or better depending, Park "dances" in the background the whole time. The basic effect is that of someone having a seizure while Koike attempts to sing. It's so incredibly strange, but SO funny at the same. Nanshiki is probably the most famous group of the B-RAP performers. To celebrate Komuro Tetsuya's marriage to Keiko, V6 crashed their post-wedding party and had Nanshiki globe perform for the REAL globe. Komuro-san seemed slightly embarrassed, but Keiko and Mark Panther got a kick out of it, so all was well. Utada Michiko Believe it or not, but this female duo is a wanna-be Nanshiki globe. Done to Utada Hikaru's single "traveling", the two girls dress up as a tour bus guide and a bus driver. The Tour Bus Guide sings a song outlining where you're going, what route you're taking, and what you should see along the way (i.e. "Go straight two blocks, then right" and "On your left is the Disneyland Castle"). The Bus Driver "dances" in time to the music and shouts random phrases every once in a while. It's rather strange... Musia Yet another non-rapper in the B-RAP group. Musia, taken from the Japanese diva Misia, is a guy who dresses in a sleek, all-black outfit and wails his way through various diva songs. Initially, he slaughtered only Misia songs, but after getting clobbered by angry Misia fans, Musia went on to prove that he can slaughter songs by any diva out there. He eventually created his own "intro rap" ("M to the U to the SIA, MUSIA, vegetarian~!") to fit in more. Really painful, but hysterically funny. Nagano-kun apparently even had a dream about him: Sakamoto-kun went nutty over his crappy performances and shot Musia before a Gakkou e Ikou! segment. B-but at least Nagano-kun dreamed about you at all... John Lenoso John Lennon, I am SO sorry. The characters for "n" and "so" look almost exactly the same in katakana, so "Lenoso" looks almost exactly like "Lennon". Lenoso sing a parody version of "Imagine", only the lyrics are "things that kinda have no meaning"... stuff like "(TV show) Wara-wara ("Laugh-Laugh") isn't funny" or "There're too many (female idol group) Morning Musume members". It's odd, but pretty amusing. Chige & Kalbi As part of the new wave of parody song performers, "Chigekal" as they're called are a take-off of the massively popular Japanese duo Chage & Aska and their even bigger hit "YAH YAH YAH". Chige's lyrics ask strange questions, like "Have you ever been waiting on the train platform, and the train comes from the other direction?" or "Have you ever confused Hana*Hana and Kiroro?" (Both are piano playing female duos, and YES, I confuse them constantly.) Kalbi's lines give you practical advice on what to do, like, "When you're taking medicine, you shouldn't drink tea, but have water instead." The lyrics are always hysterically funny, clever, and easy to understand. The two guys are pretty amusing as well, even if they don't seem to know Chage & Aska all that well. V6 was almost offended when these two performed for the first time and screwed up the "YAH YAH YAH" famous hand gesture. Oops... Kishi-Dan Their name loosely translates to "Knight Men", and despite all of the weird things on this segment, they are perhaps the hardest to explain. With their song "One Knight Carnival", they are a parody of, um, Kishidan and their single "One Night Carnival." According to them, they are both hosts (suave males hired to entertain female customers at bars and clubs), with Dai-san (to the right) being the elder guiding figure for Shou-san (to the left). During the performance, Shou-san sings a bit and performs a very serious, energetic para-para dance. Dai-san faces the back calmly, turning around only to say things that prove his "suave manliness", like, "I'll call you later tonight" or "Even when I look at my yearbook, I don't get nostalgic". Now, for the most mysterious part of it all: Shou-san's a bad singer and dancer, and Dai-san isn't all that suave, but they're so confident that they end up being extremely masculine and cool. How's THAT for weird? Back | TV Index