Junior High Japanese Rock? 五五七二三二〇 (Go Go Nana Ni San Ni Rei)

Japanese music can be pretty good. J-Pop may be a bit different from American pop like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, but it's fun and peppy.

I'm more of a rock guy. Queen, Bon Jovi, and Aerosmith are all favorites. There's something special about women handling an instrument though, and the latest Japanese rock group has eight of them.

There are five guitarists and three drummers in  五五七二三二〇 (pronounced Go Go Nana Ni San Ni Rei, literally 5572320). Their first music video, above, just got released today, and it's a loud hard rocking song with a catchy chorus, titled 半世紀優等生(Half a Century Honor Student). 

The thing to keep in mind here is that these are all junior high school students, which puts them all at 13-15 years old. 

The full version of the music video, above, starts off like a scene from the end of a movie about junior high school, with a peaceful piano solo ... then the girls show up in the school's field with giant inflatable hearts and dead bunnies (?!) and the rocking begins.

The chorus is simple but catchy, and there isn't very much singing going on, with more spoken-word lyricizing occuring. It's still fun.

About 2/3rds through the video, we are introduced to the members of the group in a way that reminds me of Sin City or similar movies.

Then, everyone eats cookies. I don't understand the lyrics so I don't get the symbolism, if any. But the imagery is similar to that used during the piano solo. And there is a reason they are eating cookies.

There's a lot of slowed down high speed film cuts too, which look pretty cool. The song ends with a very anime-ish tsundere yell and everyone stops playing.

Female rockers aren't very common, especially in Japan. 五五七二三二〇 definitely has produced-pop feel to it, but the music itself is loud and hard. I'm certainly enjoying it! I've listened to the song a few times today as I've been writing this article. As for the names and stories of the girls involved, that is being kept a secret because, as their promotional website says, they want to focus on musical and academic activities.

So, about those cookies. If you look at the promotional group image near the top of my post, you'll notice a package of coconut sable cookies and images of the cookies scattered around the group. The translation is a little hard to fully understand, but it appears that the group was put together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the cookies.

I'm sure the film-like clips of the girls eating cookies are going to be used in commercials in the near future if they aren't already, and this may be all we see from this group. But who knows, there may be a follow-up this summer (hopefully with more singing included). The single will be available on iTunes (worldwide, it seems) on March 25th.

I should note that I was "introduced" to this band by the band's publicist, though I'm not receiving any compensation of any kind for this post.