Can you guess this song in katakana?
Originally uploaded by nofrills.
The funniest part of the show is "Studio Jirifu スタジオ・ジリフ". The name is a parody of the name of the worldly famous animation studio of course. Jifiru is 字リフ in Japanese - 字 is "letters/characters", and リフ is "riff" (guitar riffs). They show "riffs" from three songs in katakana (without any music) and the Team Fujiyama and the guests compete how many songs they can recognise from these katakana-ised riffs. After they name a correct song, they do some air-guitar thingy on stage to the music. The winner gets a special golden skull. Very rock'n'roll.
Tonight, the first song was this (can you guess?), the second was Jimmy Page's famous riff in Immigrant Song (Led Zeppelin) and the third was Black or White by Michael Jackson. These aren't so difficult, are they? But I'd put the Immigrant Song as ドッドドダドッド instead of ドッドダドドッド. Doesn't make much difference, though.
Once Marty explained (or complained) how it was difficult for a native English speaker to tell the song because the way we (Japanese) apply 字 is very different. This is only a fun quiz in a fun rock music show, but linguistically interesting.
The choice of the songs depends on the guests' favourite kind of music. The other day with a Japanese actor on the guest, progressive rock tunes were selected because the actor is a King Crimson enthusiast. (It was difficult!) Tonight's guests, the Triceratops, are in their thirties (Michael Jackson was the king when they were students), and rock musicians (familiar with rock classics like Jimi and Led Zep).
About this show (my description):
flickr.com/photos/nofrills/399643975/
ROCK FUJIYAMA:
www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/fujiyama/
