Painfully ‘Japanese Boy’

Here’s some hot news from 1981, depending on how you want to count it. As a meme, the YouTube videos have been bumping around since last spring. But with music this bad, I just have to pass it on to you.

May a present for your Japanophile pain, “Aneka”, singing her Number One hit on the UK singles chart of August 1981, Japanese Boy.


Ok, ok, I’m sure you’ve noticed that “Aneka’s kimono is a more like a Chinese bathrobe, which is folded closed in the manner that is only used for Japanese dead awaiting cremation. Hey, what can you expect for a singer of traditional Scottish songs named Mary Sandeman playing “Aneka”? Most of the props in the music video are faux Chinese not Japanese, which is like putting fake French costumes in a Scottish video. I guess that’s OK because the pentatonic scale used music is fake Chinese too, not Japanese.

This song “Japanese Boy” has become such a woot, that it was featured in the 2002 videogame Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. GTA: Vice City had many other trash artifacts from the 1980s that were used on the soundtrack of fake radio stations can be received on radios in most vehicles in the game.

Better yet, now there are dozens of parodies of “Japanese Boy” on YouTube to enjoy. I’m sort of fond of the following two:

The 18 year kid, danjanth’s/Pookie Productions’ “Japanese Boy”

The almost scary, burlesque strip-show version of Japanese Boy by Penny Whistleton who performs her “Japanesey” fan dance.