Review Summary: Ka-Ka-Ka-Kawaii!!!
Japanese pop culture tends to value style over substance. From candy-colored anime fights to the sickeningly sweet hooks of factory-produced J-pop hits, there seems to be a consistent focus across the board on bold aesthetics rather than nuance. In his review of Takashi Murakami’s pop-art film
Jellyfish Eyes, critic Glen Helfand described this trend by writing that “the Japanese see fewer distinctions between high art and popular forms, like manga, that Westerners view as lesser mediums. In their culture, highly polished surfaces and technical proficiency are valued more than concepts.”
If that all sounds rather familiar, it’s probably because Western cultures value the exact same things. Although we might not consider Justin Bieber and The Chainsmokers to be “high art,” a simple glance at the U.S. Billboard charts reveals a fascination with the artificial rivaling that of Japan. It’s clear that Kero Kero Bonito realize this. Hailing from England and featuring a Japanese-born singer, KKB’s music fuses the pop clichés and tropes of both hemispheres. This level of ironic self-awareness often results in a sort of tongue-in-cheek humor: Their debut album,
Intro Bonito, began with a Zelda-esque melody that was quickly drowned out by the sound of de-tuned air horns. Thankfully, KKB’s sophomore record,
Bonito Generation, largely ditches the excess cheese that defined their meme-pop debut. While the band still keeps a foot firmly planted in internet culture (“Try Me” sounds just like the creativity song from
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared), these millennial references now serve to further illustrate the album’s themes instead of merely functioning as cheap jokes.
As opposed to KKB’s flitting, aimless debut,
Bonito Generation has a much more tangible through line: it details the thrilling, confusing transition from childhood to adulthood, and primarily serves as a coming-of-age story for Sarah Midori Perry, the band’s lead singer. This story’s plot, however, is hardly linear, as the album focuses on individual vignettes rather than an overarching narrative. The songs on this record are anything but anthemic, with many opting instead to take a small-scale approach and focus on day-to-day tasks such as relaxing (“Break”), taking selfies (“Picture This”), waking up (the aptly titled “Waking Up”), and getting a song stuck in your head (the ultra-meta “Heard a Song,” which, unsurprisingly, is the album’s catchiest tune). Though these topics might appear rather dull and insipid, there’s something remarkably charming about a pop album that totally forgoes overused topics like sex and heartbreak. By placing these oddball lyrics alongside such cliché song structures, KKB ends up subverting pop conventions and defying listeners’ expectations.
The band’s focus on simple topics is emblematic of the Japanese art principle of
ma. Hayao Miyazaki, the famed director of such films as
Spirited Away and
My Neighbor Totoro once described
ma as “intentional emptiness.” He went on to explain that “if you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it’s just busyness. But if you take a moment, then that tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension.” Many of Miyazaki’s films feature such moments to flesh out the characters and their world rather than advance the plot. In
Bonito Generation, KKB apply the same principle. The record is structured perfectly, with plenty of breathing space and just enough emotional cues for the listener to fill in all the narrative gaps. On the surface, “Hey Parents” reads as a short message from Perry to her mother and father, but the lyrics imply a broader picture of post-childhood anxiety as she sings that “time’s running out and I don’t know why.” Similarly, the cutesy lullaby lyrics of “Fish Bowl” (“but when you find the ocean, how will you know where to go?”) serve as an allegory for the lack of direction many people feel after leaving school. (Perhaps this is why “Fish Bowl" is placed directly after “Graduation” in the tracklist).
By exploring these confusing and depressing emotions in such an upbeat, sugar-coated fashion, KKB manage to subvert expectations yet again. As Helfand writes in his
Jellyfish Eyes essay, “
kawaii functions as a means of putting a happy face on something troubling.” While most genuine J-pop carries this rule out to an extreme degree (i.e., Kyary Pamyu Pamyu joyfully singing about an alien invasion), KKB hold firmly to their cross-cultural roots and reject Japan’s more absurd
kawaii stylings in favor of a subtle, grounded approach.
Musically, the group takes cues from a variety of places. The twinkling keyboards and airy synths of “Heard a Song” are reminiscent of “Call Me Maybe” and other feel-good summer jams, while “Big City” features sliding tones and bells that wouldn’t sound out of place on a
Mario Kart soundtrack. Other tracks (“Lipslap” and “Trampoline”) are more club-friendly cuts filled with wonky bass in the spirit of UK acts like Disclosure. Perry shouldn’t get all the credit for the band’s success- although she provides oodles of personality, bandmates Gus Lobban and Jamie Bulled really bring their musical A game to this record. The sheer variety of sounds that KKB manages to pull off is a feat in and of itself, and their sonic palette has definitely expanded and improved since
Intro Bonito.
With
Bonito Generation, KKB have created a cheeky and touching snapshot of young adult life, while simultaneously maturing as a band. In a time when both Western pop and J-pop seem to have reached the pinnacle of glistening hollowness, Kero Kero Bonito have fused them together, taking the most artificial type of music and making it remarkably sincere.
)
