/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>39793794
It's them electromagnetic waves.
This is now a denpa thread.

>>10184822
There are few people here who know more about that but I'll do what I can. I'll tell you what purists argue.

Many people (not only here but in Japan too) think that "Denpa song" is just cute music. Of course many songs are cute, but the "cuteness" alone isn't what constitutes "denpa".

First, you have to know where the "Denpa" term come from. (TL Note: Denpa means Radio waves)

It all starts when a crazy guy in Japan in the '80s got high and started killing people. When he was asked why he did it he said his mind was being controlled by radio waves (denpa). Shit got famous and people adopted the term "denpa-kei" to refer to people who heard voices, saw shit, thought they could communicate through telepathy, were delusional, creepy or just batshit insane.

At that time the Japanese metal band KING-SHOW (Kinniku Shoujo Tachi, known mostly for Kenji Ohtsuki) made songs that referenced this incident (like 妄想の男[1]) and later the whole "denpa-kei" personality (like HAPPY ICE CREAM[2], a song about a guy who saw dead girls walking around him and mocking him), so this is probably the first example of "denpa songs".

Later "denpa" was also applied to literary works like, for example the popular Welcome to the NHK. As you may know it's about a delusional guy who thinks he's being targeted by a huge conspiration, or Chaos;Head which is about people being controlled by radio waves and telepathy.

As you can see the background behind all of it is darker than you may have thought.