BABYMETAL - KARATE - Therapist Reacts

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:+1::+1:Awesome MV with a great message!! This was my introduction to BABYMETAL. :fox_face: :vulcan_salute::heart:

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Ohhh seems like I’m first here hehe, so glad to see you reacting to more BABYMETAL! :fox_face::metal: I’m sure the others will give you a lot of info about them, I’m terrible at that lol.

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Welcome to the Foxhole and BabyMetal journey.:fox_face::metal::fire:
Nice to see you’re back to start your BM journey and with another song, especially for a therapist to analyze, i guess.

BabyMetal is a Japanese metal dance unit created in 2010 under another Jpop/Jrock group called Sakura Gakuin, they had 11 and 12 years old when started this and become independent after 2013, they created their own genre called kawaii-metal (kawaii means cute, hence the voices of the girls) mixing Jpop with metal sound and different subgenres along with many more rhythms. Their name is a reference to a new genre and not related to their ages or “baby” faces, is a pun intended play words with “heavy-metal” which sounds similar to “baby-metal”.
They are:
SuMetal lead vocalist, now 25, next week she’ll get 26.
MoaMetal scream and dance, now 24.
YuiMetal scream and dance, former member since 2018.
MomoMetal scream and dance, she’s 20 and is the new official member since April 1st recently.
None of them are related.
After 2018 you’ll see backup dancers performing along with them but none of them are official members, they don’t sing, only dance, but that status change recently like i said.

About this song:
“Karate” is one of their stronger weapons along with “Road Of Resistance” from 2nd album “Metal Resistance” released in 2016. It’s an uplifting song about keep fighting besides the obstacles, and if you take a closer look at the end you’ll see in the eyes of their rivals that they’re fighting against no other than themselves.

Some fans also find anime vibes on BabyMetal songs, the only other song I could find with anime vibes besides this one and “Divine Attack - Shingeki”, is “Syncopation” another banger.
They watched several footage before making this song, one of those were “Karate Kid” old movie, that’s why you see MoaMetal catching a bug, that’s a reference to the movie, after this she become the bug catcher expert when traveling on live tour lol. The bats and the concrete blocks testing strength is another infamous Karate reference.
Btw just in case, the band playing behind in this MV are hired actors, they got their own set of musicians when performing live called Kami Band, they’re not always the same musicians but currently this year they’ve been playing with a westerners band unlike early era after 2012 when they had a Japanese band.

If you enjoy and like this song then another nice recommendation to witness a different and unique version is Karate live at Download Festival 2016, is even more epic with the rain and the crowd singing along with them, trust me. You can find a clip safe to react at “kitsune6001” channel with a short interview in the intro.

They got a nice setlist of uplifting songs for you to check it out, here’s some of my next suggestion with this theme:

  • Road Of Resistance live in Japan official live MV.
  • Megitsune official MV
  • Ijime, Dame, Zettai live at Sonisphere 2014 official.

I’m gonna leave in my next comment where to get clips safe to react if YT allows me to do it.
Thanks for sharing this and see you next time. :fox_face::metal::heart:

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Great reaction. ‘Karate’ was the lead single for their second album released 2016. As you clearly understood, it is about fighting adversity, when life knocks you down and everything seems too hard so you’re hurt and crying, its about standing up and fighting on, helping each other through the hard times. They used karate to illustrate this as it is a Japanese martial art and reflects their culture (they hoped people would take an interest in that too) - and like the song it is also about always moving forwards.

In this case the video shows very well what the song is about through the visuals as well. The figures in white were the girls all along and they were conjuring up their own inner demons to fight against. They beat the first, the second knocked them down but they got up to eventually defeat themselves (did you notice the reflections of each of the girls in their own eyes when the masks shattered and it was revealed as them? Not many people spot that).

They did watch a lot of martial arts movies to get ideas for the choreo as they wanted it to look as authentic as possible. Moa catching the fly was a nod to Mr Miyagi in The Karate Kid. Mr Miyagi may have used chop sticks (and it may have taken him two or three films before he caught one), Moa caught her fly with her eyes closed - first time … and of course she didn’t kill it, Moa is known as the Angel of Love for a reason and she wouldn’t hurt a fly.

This song and video won 2 awards. “Best Metal Video in MTV Video Music Awards Japan 2016” and “Best Metal Song in 6th Annual Loudwire Music Awards”.

You have a lot more BABYMETAL songs with similarly positive messages to discover. Try ‘Ijime, Dame, Zettai’ (Bullying, No More, Forever) live at Sonisphere 2014 in the UK.:metal::fox_face::metal:

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:tomato::skull::tomato:
:metal:t3::fox_face::metal:t3:
Ossu !! Ossu !!

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SEE. THEM. LIVE. The Fox God does not disappoint.

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I second Grington300’s suggestion. Ijime Dame Zettai live at Sonisphere 2014.

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Can’t wait until she reacts to Head Banger Legend of 1997 or Road of Resistance Live in Japan

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Since you say you are a therapist, I will confide a little about myself, I had struggled with my relationship with my parents, especially my father (who died six years ago), I was weak-minded and had difficulty communicating with people, and struggled with living in society until much later in life.
Simple pop songs like ‘Let’s face our difficulties together with our friends’, they are a staple of Japanese idol songs for young people (Recently, though, there have been some idol songs about the negative aspects of youth…). But I find those boring. The great thing about this Karate MV, it is that at the end it expresses that ‘the enemy is always inside you’. This is a favorite saying of the Japanese, I trust. This is what makes it definitely different from other Japanese idol pop songs…
One another, ‘to lose is not to die’. It might be also a Japanese way of saying that no matter how many times we fail, we will eventually get back on our feet…

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Su-metal’s, the lead singer, older sister Himeka Nakamoto was dealing with bi-polar disorder around the time this came out. I have always wondered if that influenced this song. My mom had bi-polar disorder, and this song always resonated with me for that reason. We’ll never know, but this song and Rondo of Nightmare always seemed to be influenced by depression to me.

Himeka is now a mental health counselor by the way.

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I think my favorite part of the visual symbolism is Moa catching the fly. She doesn’t kill it. She catches, looks at it, and then lets it go. Into a swarm that she is demonstrably unbothered by. It gets me every time. :metal::fox_face::metal:

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It would be better if you paused to comment, instead of missing so many things in the video. There is A LOT that you missed because you were talking and not watching. You completely missed the symbolism of the 3 white figures, maybe THE most important message. Do you even have an idea what they represent? No, because you didn’t even actually see them…

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:zap: :skull: :two_hearts: / :ghost: :ghost: :ghost:
There’s a good reason this was the featured single from the second album. : )
They made a lot of friends by playing a bunch of metal festivals, and this song converted quite a few.
As is usually the case, the riffs are even heavier live.
Like a lot of BABYMETAL songs, this one has a positive message about facing life’s challenges.
They watched a lot of martial arts movies when they were creating the dance routine for this song, along with their choreographer MIKIKO.
It seems like you might have missed the visual clues to the identity of their three adversaries.
That’s worth rewinding the video for.

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Tales of destinies Tokyo dome pleaseeeeeee…

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I was waiting for this Thanks.

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Its time for the trilogy of light and their beautiful message

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Please react to All Fucked Up by The Amity Affliction and Drown by bring me the horizon. Fare warning All Fucked Up music video will make you cry.

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It’s so refreshing to see someone looking at the criminally under appreciated lyrics… Can’t wait till you check out Road of Resistance, Brand New Day, and Megitsune. :grin::metal::fox_face::metal:

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Nice reaction, I recommend their song “ijime, dame, zettai” is an anti bullying song. React to the live version :slight_smile:

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