This band was formed in 1987. The lead singer is dressed as a literary master from Meiji era. The bass is dressed as a Buddhist monk with white face (white color in Asia is correlated to death or after life) and drummer is dressed as a Yakuza gangster. The lyrics are often very poetic and literary with often using old and ancient words.
@@Guitargate Exactly, "Nin-Gen Issu" (with the "ge" like in "get") means "Human Chair" and is from a short story title by a Japanese writer whose pen name was "Edogawa Rampo" who was a fan of Edgar Allan Poe... Hence the pen name... Ningen Issu grew up listening to Black Sabbath as their main influence. They have a great catalogue, all on Spotify. Over 300 songs spanning over 30 years... My nickname for them are John Lennon, Uncle Fester and Elvis! Love those guys. Amazingly, they are about to start their first ever tour outside of Japan! (Edit: Thanks to @Freyja Kim, made a correction regarding the pronunciation bit at the beginning.)
"what do you search for to find that?" ohhhh buddy. you don't. you hear something like wolf totem or yuve yuve yu by the hu on the radio, search that, let youtube do it's thing and a day or two later it just shows up like magic in your recommended page.
What it all amounts to, is that these guys are one of a kind. After over 35 years in the business they are finally getting the love and recognition they deserve thanks to the internet.
The lead singer looks like he's gonna teach me Kendo, the bass player looks like he's gonna go home and eat babies, and the drummer looks like he'll sell me some ecstasy
judge them from the LIVE show perspective only ! they are REALLY into the LIVE shows. They dont want you to think they are masters and/or legends...they are SHY in that regard. They just want to see HANDS UP in their concerts , thats all
A little explanation about the "sliding". They use elements of Japanese music and instruments like the Japanese Shamisen, a 3 string banjo style stringed instrument, in which the sweeping slide is used quite frequently. They are usually compared to Black Sabbath and classic style hard rock but most westerners will totally miss the Japanese traditional styles and writing in their music. The translation of the lyrics is a little...off. Some Japanese terms, sayings and words just don't have an English translation that would make sense to us as westerners. Btw, they are amazing live. Japan has a lot of great guitarists/artists that the west has no idea exists. I found this through first discovering Babymetal. Thru Babymetal I've discovered so much. Here is a great example of Japanese shamisen. Traditional 3 stringed instrument. It will show the sliding technique used by Ningen Isu (pronounced nin-gen-is, the G is a hard G and the U is very diminished to the point of silence) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MgN_xIHqLUA.html
Another note: Ningen Isu uses a lot of words that are not gonna be used commonly in modern Japanese. A lot of the words they use in this song are, like, antique words. Which makes translation even harder. You essentially need to make the translation Shakespeare-ish.
Ah, a little disappointed, thought you were going to give him a bit of Beni playing the Shamisen, but, even if they are less pleasing to the eye, you can't go wrong with the Yoshida brothers!
This is one of the more interesting reaction videos I’ve seen for this video. Love how you quickly picked up the key, melody, and soloing. Great analysis!
Doesn't surprise me that he is just a bit extra, this band has been rocking out for over 30 years!! Absolutely LOVE the RU-vid algorithm that brought me to this band a few years ago!!! I swear I hear notes of Sabbath, Tool, and Godsmack all throughout this song. I hope you react to some of their others!!!
I stumbled across Ningen Isu about a year ago and fell in love with them. Looked up some info on the band and was surprised to see they've been around for a really long time, since the 80's. I'm disappointed I didn't know about them back then.
Discovered them a few weeks ago due to a seriously fat fingered youtube search. Turns out when I pasted the url to this video of them in Facebook, my cousins wife replied back stating that they went to the high school she went to in Japan. This is my 7-year-olds favorite song right now too.
In my mind (I know I'm wrong btw) you have; Samurai Warrior on vocals and guitar Warrior Monk on bass And 1973 Toyota salesman of the year Tokyo Prefecture on drums. And together, they're metal AF. I absolutely adore these guys.
There’s a ton of great stuff from japan. From all the genres over the years. If it exists in America, it’s in Japan too. Jazz was huge in Japan post WW2 but as the decades went on all the other influences from the western world of music influenced their cultural as well. Heck even Buck Owens has a live from Japan album from 1967. And it’s really good. Anyhooot.... I’d like to see you break down Band-Maid’s song “Blooming”.
Great stuff. Ningen Isu is a hard rock band from northeastern Japan, formed in 1987. Their musical influences include Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Black Sabbath, Budgie and Motörhead. Their lyrics are often based on literary themes and sources, mostly Japanese but also, for example, H.P. Lovecraft. I discovered them from a reaction video two years ago (thanks, Hedgy!) and I'm going to see them play in London in three weeks' time. I'll let you know how this song sounds live! :)
@@shashankiyer5751 They were splendid. It was the last gig I attended and I'm very thankful that Ningen Isu managed to do their European tour before the pandemic shut down live music. The show was a treat, and it's hard to know who enjoyed it more: the audience or the band, who were clearly thrilled to be there. As it happens, they uploaded footage of Heartless Scat so you can get a taste of the show: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MMfTUasxuyA.html
This is band is awesome. First time listening to them because of your video. Definitely gonna stan them now even if they are a group for 30 years now. We are so late.
Thanks for doing this video! I’ve seen a lot of reaction videos to this song, but you’re the first to watch it with a guitar in hand and explain what Shinji Wajima is actually playing. Very cool!
Dude! Thank you! 🙏 - your gut level ability to quickly assess and NAIL a concise summary is un-canny! It was totally a "Buddhist power trio!" but I didn't even know there was "such a thing" you crushed it! I was really impressed watching how you deconstruct this, very informative learning! - how you can transpose alternate tunings to standard without changing tunings! -- I like that the main thing was C# minor penta (progression wise) it's cool to know you can build a song around one main scale / chord -- Your instinct on the melodies through the transitions was awesome to watch....you have a great ear man - fun to watch you work with it -- I love that you talk about what it would take to cover something like this...very cool! I honestly don't know how I came across this...I think it was a RU-vid Music algorithm....I'm going to Japan this year (first time) so I was doing a bunch of research on RU-vid - this just "showed up" in my music stream and I was gobsmacked! I always love a good trio! This is their wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningen_Isu Most of the stuff I found at first was live and strong.
@Aaron P.B. He said "Band Maid : Onset" The guitarist in Band Maid, Kanami, is definitely female. And quite possibly a goddess too. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ofeU87IHqZ8.html (the Onset part is 32 seconds in)
There is a guitar battle video from Japanese TV somewhere on RU-vid with the lead guitarist from Band Maid vs the guitarist from Ningen Isu. The shredding is epic. BAND-MAID KANAMI vs 人間椅子 和嶋慎治 There are two parts.
Someone correct me if I am wrong, Minor pentatonic is the basis of many traditional Japanese music pieces. The traditional flute called the shakuhachi is often tuned in D minor pentatonic for example. I think it is quite natural for them to fall back on it so much.
best discription i can give its a heavy metal band with an elder wheres waldo, a japanese uncle fester & a japanese elvis drummer its insane and i love the gimmick they worked this out for long time
i hear partial nuances of a few japanese scales with the penatonic scale the slides are a common technique in japanese music, this band is fucking awesome my 1st hearing them def gonna research their music more.
Devin Townsend plays in Open C because it made it easier for him to play... It really does make shredding quite a bit more convenient & also awesome at the same time with the low C just chugging behind those cleans.
Glad you're still doing this series! It's super interesting and informative to see you go through these and work out the theory and such as you analyze it. (I'm not at all impatient or upset in asking this) I suggested a couple songs for this last month on the Los Lonely Boys episode, and you said you'd give it a look. Any chance you're still planning on getting to them? If you just haven't got around to it yet, no rush I'm just curious. Also, if you checked them out and just weren't into it that's cool too, no worries. Regardless, keep up the great videos and this series. I'm loving it! :)
Coming a little late to this party, but ... Wajima (guitarist and main writer for Ningen Isu) uses this open tuning for Heartless Scat: C# F# B E G# C#. You mentioned you'd like to hear it live: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GmaTRxAicdc.html
If you liked this reacts to X Japan, Galneryus, Hizaki, Takayoshi Ohmura, Wagakki band, Onmyo-za, The Alfee, L'arc en ciel (or VAMPS), LUNA SEA, a lot of great bands and musician out there in Japan.
"what do you search to find that?" it basically starts like this: -game of thrones: random episode gets recomended: Vikings gets recomended: Heilung Gets recomended: The Hu Gets recomended: Ningen Isu Gets recomended: Baby Metal (topic seems to stop shifting from there) shortcut: Look for Heilung, Alien Weaponry or straight up The Hu
This reminds me of how I learned how to play songs back in the day before youtube tutorials and online tabs. Just put the needle on the record, and try to figure out what the hell is going on. It wasn't always perfect, but I could usually get things a bit closer than the gawdawful tablature that was around.
Ningen Isu (which translates to "The Human Chair") is a Japanese three-piece hard rock/doom metal band from Aomori, Japan. In 1987, the band was formed by Shinji Wajima (Guitar & Vocals) and Kenichi Suzuki (Bass & Vocals), who were classmates in the same high school in Aomori Prefecture in the northern area of Japan.
Thank you so much fun seen you do this reaction. If you could please do GALNERYUS " Hunting for your dream" that would be awesome. Keep up with this great bands!
I highly suggest band-maid if you haven't heard of them. 5 women from Japan who are amazing and their lead guitarist kanami is unbelievable. They have countless great stuff. Onset for an instrumental. Blooming, dice, moratorium, puzzle, secret my lips, domination and many more all worth checking out. They are great especially live
@@Guitargate Since we're talking about Japanese girl groups, give Tricot a go as well. I find them to be quite amazing and their lead guitarist is consistently interesting.
I implore to search for more japanese music since they are a lot more interesting musically. There's a reason Marty Friedman moved to Japan. Glad you've noticed some things Japan music loves (minor pentatonix, melody over structure, minor chords).
Gonin-Ish is another phenomenal band. They where like Japanese Prog metal and the singer sang in a language many do not speak in Japan because is it spiritual and tribal in nature. Amazing music.
