Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Kojima Yoshio and his "Sonna No Kankei Ne" dance routine makes Japanese kids go Wild

For the past two months, the kids at my school have been really difficult. Every five minutes, one of them will get up and do some dance and song that involves bending down and making punching motions at the floor. Whenever one kids does it, a few other kids start laughing uncontrollably and then they get up and do it too. I thought it was some song they learned at school or a routine from their drama class until just the other day when I was biking home and saw two high school girls doing the motions and singing the song and laughing hysterically.

So I googled the words to the 'song', which is a Japanese comedy routine with "Sonna no kankei ne" repeated, and by only looking for that phrase, I easily found the comedian called Kojima Yoshio and found out that he's super popular. Look him up on Youtube. He's famous for wearing a speedo and doing this weird little dance. "Sonna no kankei ne" means something like "I don't think it matters" (according to my pitiful Japanese... please correct me if I mis-translated it) and he is so popular with both elementary and high school kids. Here is his real routine from Youtube.
Here is a small example of how popular he is with Japanese teenagers. In this clip, a bunch of schoolgirls do his "Sonna no kankei ne" dance routine. This little guy looks around the same age as the kids I teach here in Tokyo, and this kid has the same amount of energy as mine have. Yoshio Kojima is the cause of total delight for thousands of Japanese children and the cause of total frustration for thousands of parents and teachers. ...but I still think he is kind of funny.

6 comments:

vidaluvsonigiri said...

lolz! I saw this guy performing this dance on one of the japanese shows i downloaded and it really cracked me up. it was really hilarious!

Danielle said...

Normally I get sick of comedians like him too but I really like Kojima Yoshio. I didn't like him at first but he really grew on me. I hope he's able to evolve and sick around. He went to Waseda so he's probably smart enough to figure out a way! :D

Todd said...

My Japanese girlfriend told me that the translation of his catch phrase is better as: That's none of your business, isn't it. She thinks he is funny - but I just think he is crazy. Will his popularity last?

Jason H. said...

Hey - you posted my video clip of my students... Cool! :)

You have an interesting blog - I'm enjoying it.

Cheers,
Jason

Julie said...

Oh man, Jason, I'm glad that doesn't bother you! Please let me know if you want me to take down the video. I just searched for Kojima Yoshio on youtube and so many cute kids versions of the song came up. Your students are pretty adorable.

Hannah said...

the videos you posted were taken down on youtube, but i found another video of kojima yoshio and went nuts. it's been a while since i laughed that hard. i can definitely see why it's so popular in japan, and sort of reminds me of the popularity of the forsaken 'soulja boy' dance.