By Brigid Flanagan

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:: Brigid highlights a handful of rock songs sung in English that feature Japanese

:: March 5, 2026

:: “Oh boy, I can’t wait to listen to David Bowie’s 1980 studio album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps),” you say, pressing play on the first track: “It’s No Game (Pt. 1).” There’s a few seconds of tape being wound and played before the song starts. And then a Japanese woman is speaking into your headphones.

Some time later, you’re listening to My Chemical Romance’s 2010 album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (because none of these people have heard of what I like to call “short album titles”). It’s going great, you’ve just listened to the interlude track, you’re about halfway through, then on the next song, “Party Poison,” a Japanese woman is speaking to you again.

I don’t know about you, but I feel like we’re approaching a pattern here.

I’ll start by saying that this isn’t actually a pattern, since it’s only two songs. That’s not a pattern by definition. But it’s interesting enough that I still wanted to look into things. The women featured on each track are Japanese actress Michi Hirota on “It’s No Game” and Eri (“a friend of a friend”)  on “Party Poison.” 

It’s easy to find info on why exactly Bowie chose to include Hirota’s vocals — he was looking for a strong female vocalist in order to, as he said, “break down a particular type of sexist attitude about women.” 

“‘Japanese girl’ typifies it, where everyone pictures them as a geisha girl, very sweet, demure and non-thinking,” Bowie said. “When in fact that’s the absolute opposite of what women are like…I wanted to caricature that attitude by having a very forceful Japanese voice on it.”

Notably, Hirota speaks her lines using the masculine personal pronoun of ore, which you’d almost never hear a woman use normally — it’s very self-asserting, and catches you off guard. So I can safely say the song succeeds in challenging sexist ideas through her presence. But why was Bowie so invested in the rights of women in Japan, specifically?

Bowie had a long-standing fascination with Japanese culture. His Ziggy Stardust persona is heavily influenced by kabuki theater, in its striking makeup and outfits and movements In 1980 he starred in a commercial for Crystal Jun Rock Sake, a Japanese brand drink, with his song “Crystal Japan” playing in the background. It’s a surreal ad, and I highly recommend watching. 

In turn, Bowie has had a lot of influence on Japanese pop culture, too: Ziggy Stardust’s androgynous style helped to define the “bishounen” archetype of 1970s shoujo manga, which is still going strong today. David Bowie is easily in my top five weeaboos of all time.

As for “Party Poison,” not exactly a popular track but famous in my heart, there’s an interview you can find on YouTube where Gerard Way briefly explained Eri’s inclusion on the song. Her appearances are apparently what saved the song from being scrapped, breathing new life into it; Way cited Bowie as an influence on the decision (though he gets the song wrong, mentioning “Low” instead of “It’s No Game”), and said, “That was the bit that made it feel futuristic and new, you know? And that was amazing to me once that was on there.”

Danger Days is a rock opera that depicts post-apocalyptic California in the year 2019 (which was far away at the time!) as the Killjoys, a band of vigilantes, fight an evil corporation. It makes perfect sense that Way would want to incorporate futuristic elements into the album, but it’s interesting that he specifically considers the Japanese language to be one of those futuristic elements. Isn’t it?

Another question: has anyone here heard of techno-orientalism?

Techno-orientalism is the use of Asian aesthetics in science fiction, dystopia, or cyberpunk media that takes place in a technological future. If you’ve read any cyberpunk novels or played any cyberpunk games, or maybe watched Blade Runner 2049, you should be familiar. 

Asia is portrayed as this hyper-technological and culturally alien place. Any association you may have with Japan and futuristic settings is very much a direct result of this trope. In a concept album that engages so heavily with the cyberpunk genre, it’s no surprise that it makes an appearance. Gerard Way, please pick up the phone. We have Edward Said on the line.

The use of Japanese in both of these songs is somewhat odd, but I think they add something significant. “Party Poison” was so memorable to me on my first listen because of the opening lines by Eri, which add a lot of energy to the song, and “It’s No Game” just immediately pulls you in with Hirota’s powerful voice. 

While we’re on the topic of female Japanese vocalists in rock music, you don’t have to settle for a few sections of David Bowie or My Chemical Romance’s discography — go onto your music streaming site of choice, type “Muzai Moratorium” (or 無罪モラトリアム if that doesn’t get you results), and listen to Sheena Ringo’s 1999 debut album. It’s awesome. I love Sheena Ringo. You should love Sheena Ringo too.

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