OMG! Real Life Ritsuko Tainaka!

Sorry for the lack of updates, folks.  Work has been crazy busy this past month… which, of course, gets in the way of non-work activities such as anime and podcasting.  But since the money that it generates goes towards paying for said anime and podcasting gear, well, it’s a necessary evil that must be endured, I suppose. 

Anyway, I should have some time this week to record.  But in the meantime, I found something amazingly cool to help tide you over until I release the next episode.

K-ON!, which I wrote about earlier, is taking the Internet world by storm.  If you haven’t watched it yet, you really oughtta.  It’s fun, plain and simple, and there are some decent musical pieces in the show. What’s even cooler is that, if anecdotal reports and forum postings are to be believed, it’s helping to spur a movement among the youth in Japan (and perhaps the rest of the world as well) to take up music.  Which, in a word, is awesome.  This is partially helped by the fact that certain of the various K-ON! soundtracks include songbooks with the CD, as well as versions of certain songs minus guitar/bass/drum/etc. tracks (so, in other words, making it easier to play along with the songs using your instrument of choice).  Anyway, a quick search of the YouTubes will net you quite a few amateur performers looking to show off their mad leet musical skillz.  Obviously their talent level (or lack thereof) will vary wildly.  And caution is advised for other reasons as well — let’s just say that, in some (many?) of these videos, all is not what it appears (or, in the slang that the cool kids use these days, “It’s a trap!“).

One video that definitely does NOT fall into any of the above caution categories is this video from Senri Kawaguchi, a 12 year old(!!!) Japanese drummer.  (Jeez, think back to when you were 12… what were you doing?  Kinda makes you feel lame doesn’t it?)  Anyway here in this video she does a fantastic rendition of the drum part to the K-ON! ED “Don’t say ‘lazy’.” I doubt Ritsu herself could have done any better.  (And if you don’t know who that is — dude, you’ve gotta watch K-ON!)

Anyway, here’s the video, in all its awesomeness.

J-List is a peaceful island of Japanese pop culture for you

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

1. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve found ourselves the real-life Ritsuko Tainaka
2. The K-On! School is Real!