I think Kyo’s ARCHE Budokan outfit was inspired by this instead
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Yeah, that makes sense too.
Either way, it all comes back to “I 100% don’t believe Die or Diru to by Nazi sympathizers of ANY stripe, and y’all goyim can just tell anybody else who has an issue, that your friendly Jewish forum denizen still ranks them as their number 1 favorite band of all time.”
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Kyo singing from the perspective of a baby being aborted doesn’t necessarily mean he’s anti-abortion. Consider what other perspectives he’s wrote from: Tsumi to Batsu, Karasu (a lot of Kisou actually).
For the most part he’s telling stories.
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Dumbing down a topic as complex as abortion to “Kyo sings about (or from the POV of) a baby that’s being aborted against its will so he’s anti-abortion” is kinda short-sighted anyway.
In the same way that saying Die is a Nazi or far-right or whatever because of his attire from 24 years ago.
But count on Westerners to force their Western-centric views on ethics and morality on Japanese people and their culture, and then be offended when they don’t conform to those views.
Kinda like that meme where the wojak tries to put a square block into a round hole lul
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That‘s what I was trying to say. You did a whole lot better at this.
In the end I think, if there‘s the same topic with the same perspective over and over again that might reflect the opinion of the one writing the lyrics. But if not it really just might be a story.
About cultural aspects … as much as I think that results in partly different views of course I don‘t think this can be an excuse (or how to call it) on everything not by now with enough possibilities of getting a broader knowledge on things.
…but mazohyst is from 1999?
What you’re basically saying is “Kyo (allegedly) being anti-abortion in 1999 is wrong because there are enough learning possibilities in 2022”.
Nope, that‘s why I was saying I don‘t judge what‘s his view on it as long as it‘s just this one song because that‘s too little to say it reflects his personal view on the topic.
It’s getting real r/visualkei in here. Try to refrain from interpreting an artistic story from over 20 years ago in today’s context.
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I don’t think it’s the lack of education. I’d assume that he knew who the Nazis/SS were and what they did and that he was wearing an SS uniform.
Just like Sid Vicious (who was very much not a Nazi whatsoever) wearing a swastika t-shirt and knowing what it stands for, they wanted to provoke at any cost. I think it’s rather the ignorance of caring that it could insult people or be disrespectful, especially considering that this was in the late 90s.
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Did we really do?
To me it was different and I was doing differently for sure. Sorry if it did seem this way because that’s nothing I ever said or assumed. I didn’t wonder about maybe more lyrics that might give some insight. From the comments after this I assume there hadn’t been anything. And that’s why I neither assumed anything about 20 years ago nor do I think it’s Kyo’s view now, because I simply don’t know about it.
Agreed. Even ignoring lyrics, at this point they’ve all visited concentration camps and put out some sort of message about them during one EU tour or another. If there was ever anything more to it than aesthetic, it seems well resolved.
Separately, I really don’t see anything problematic about the abortion imagery of Mazohyst. Regardless of where someone stands, the decision and process of abortion is awful to go through and not something I imagine most people arrive at lightly. I take the song more as an exploration of those types of emotions than an explicit anti-abortion stance. And of course there’s a big difference between having a personal sentiment and wanting to enforce that sentiment on others as law.
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As I’m not a Japanese person or know in detail how their cultural views on abortions are, I always simply took mazohyst as a song that paints the point of view of an unborn child that experiences an abortion.
I mean, of course it doesn’t represent reality (babies apparently only gain consciousness around five months after being born), so I never took it as a commentary by Kyo on the practice of abortion per se.
Just a “what if” kinda thing. Same as with all his other lyrics. Songs like mazohyst, Maggots, Tsumi to Batsu etc. are for shock value.
Kyo isn’t putting his personal opinions into those songs. He has the more melodramatic songs for that. And R to the Core, of course. x)
Which is why the whole “Kyo is anti-abortion” stance always struck me as kind of strange.
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Are we talking about music or politics here? Jeeezuzzz.
What’s wrong with interpreting song lyrics?
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Nothing, but when it comes to this song and given how touchy the topic is…maybe this is that one time we don’t go there. We don’t have the lyrics for the new one and the old one has been discussed to death. I don’t think there’s anything new to glean from it.
I was speaking generally, not to you in particular. I’ve seen topics like this beat to death at a much less sophisticated level on that subreddit, where people try to make judgements on an artist’s current beliefs based off actions from two decades ago because it’s new to them. I don’t want to go down that road again here, especially with the old set of lyrics. It’s a grotesque story about a touchy topic that doesn’t sit right with a lot of people but I don’t think it’s deeper than that. Trying to draw conclusions and parallels that aren’t there is peak high school Literature class to me where the teacher is dead set on convincing the class the blue drapes are a metaphor for depression. Sometimes the drapes are just blue.
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I agree with you on it doesn‘t make any sense to try to judge by only old lyrics.
To me the old version was new. I knew the title but as mentioned I didn‘t listen to lots of their old stuff before so I knew the new version first.
That‘s why the explanations (or discussions and rather assumptions) also were new to me yet I don‘t think it‘s a reason to immediately conclude with a full knowledge of a person‘s opinion. I see why you feared that might happen even though I didn‘t have the feeling that was about to happen and that‘s why I didn‘t feel fine with what you said. I guess I misinterpreted that and am sorry for this.
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No problem! It is always good to ask!
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Quite honestly, I’m not sure I want to know the lyrics for the new Mazohyst. Has nothing to do with the subject matter, I’m just wondering if Kyo removed a lot of the more interesting nuances from the original lyrics like he did with Tsumi to Batsu 2011. I mean the original Tsumi wasn’t exactly obtuse, but the remake went as far as namedropping a convicted sex offender in the lyrics (which oddly enough was one of the many lines omitted from the censored version)
To be fair, a lot of music is political, especially rock music. Even Diru, while not often suuuuper openly political, have had tinges here and there - notably, like I said above, I interpret ‘The IIID Empire’ to be pretty blatantly anti-authoritarian, and the band even made some kind of direct statements against the government around 10 years ago.
Like, if mods don’t want us to talk politics at all that’s fine, I get that. But I think the question of “is this music or politics” misses how much the two topics are intertwined.
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