I'm not sure why, but Youtube was recently suggesting World Order music videos to me, and in a recent bit of late night curiosity, I watched quite a few.
I was vaguely aware of them before: the Japanese "boy" band which shows a deep resolve to sticking to the formula of electro pop with robotic choreography done in public while wearing Japanese business suits. I'll even put up (what I think is) their biggest hit, which is as intensely idiosyncratically modern Japanese as you can get:
Anyway, watching the videos made me curious about the leader of the group - especially as the song credits show that he writes them (sometimes in collaboration). There was something a bit familiar with his odd set of characteristics: a good looking, clean cut man heading a band, writing its thematically unusual songs and heavily into choreography as part of performance; and I realised I was thinking of David Byrne.
Yeah, so I'm coming a couple of decades late to learn about him, but looking up the life story of this guy - Genki Sudo - was quite surprising. While David Byrne is seen as a man of wide ranging interests and talents, he's got nothing on the career path of Genki. He made his name as fighter in that mixed martial arts UFC competition, and was allowed to do over-the-top, theatrical (and somewhat amusing) entrance choreography. I think it makes UFC look a lot less serious than I assumed it was, and a bit like WWF. Here is an (apparently) famous example from 2006:
He went from that to form World Order, whose song titles indicate a strong interest in liberal internationalism, with a cynical attitude towards the American Right. As its most recent example, have a look at this 2018 video, for the sarcastically upbeat anti-Trump song (turn on the captions to see the lyrics) "Let's Start WW3":
The video ends on Genki's long standing slogan "We Are All One" featuring all nation's flags.
And now - Sudo has now left the group to become a politician! Here's his entry on the Japanese Diet website:
His political goals according to this website are:
As a politician, his three main goals is furthering food safety, helping global environment protection and “a foreign policy that involves peaceful and realistic negotiations (translated quote).”
Yep, he's definitely liberal.
Wikipedia says he has also been a successful wrestling coach, and has written 14 books! [David Byrnes has written quite a few books himself, and in another similarity, I see that they have both been married once and divorced. Sudo has no kids, though, apparently.]
Quite the varied career, to put it mildly.
Hope he does well as a politician, anyway. I have no idea whether he is likeable in real life - there are not that many interviews with him around, that I can see. But a pretty interesting character.
Oh - and the title for the post: "genki" means healthy, lively or vigorous, and the Japanese greeting of "genki desu ka" (pretty much "how are you going"?) can be answered "genki" or "genki desu". So I believe. Genki Sudo does seem pretty "genki".
Wikipedia says he has also been a successful wrestling coach, and has written 14 books! [David Byrnes has written quite a few books himself, and in another similarity, I see that they have both been married once and divorced. Sudo has no kids, though, apparently.]
Quite the varied career, to put it mildly.
Hope he does well as a politician, anyway. I have no idea whether he is likeable in real life - there are not that many interviews with him around, that I can see. But a pretty interesting character.
Oh - and the title for the post: "genki" means healthy, lively or vigorous, and the Japanese greeting of "genki desu ka" (pretty much "how are you going"?) can be answered "genki" or "genki desu". So I believe. Genki Sudo does seem pretty "genki".
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