BANQUET - Music Videos
In the ongoing series of 'Kira blabbers on about BANQUET'...
I will be talking about the music videos available on YouTube today.
As a small heads up, some of the BANQUET music videos are available with English subs :)
We'll go chronologically for this introduction. I will put some anecdotes about the songs into this post - for those who are interested in them or some behind the scenes stuff.
PRICELESS SUMMER
While it is the first MV of the group, it is not the first original song they had or performed (the first one was Shall We Dance). It is however the first song where all members held a microphone instead of just the two lead vocals (Yusuke/Kaito). So this is a very special song to the group and the fans.
Other random fun fact, Yuma said his hair has not been short ever since that MV. XD
DON'T LOOK BACK
I really like this MV visually. Also the lyrics. The song made us all emotional considering the recent announcement of BANQUET going from 5 to 4 members. It's a bit of a pick me up song for me, when I need things to be a bit more quiet and comforting rather than energizing.
SHOOTING STAR
They filmed shooting star on a hot summer day and were all dying in their outfits. It was shot in Yokohama and while they loved the locations, yeah it was hot. Yasupon (back than WhiteA and now OWV) was involved in the shooting of this MV as well overseeing some camera work and choreo.
I cam to like Shooting Star a lot more after I subtitled it (alas the subs are not up on YT because of some kind of bug... we're trying to figure it out but no promises ^^;; if you want them I can put the subs up separately...). Why you say, so the 'gap' between the MV visuals and the lyrics are what made me like the song a lot more and I started to view it in a different light.
Like, it's the 'charai' song if you look at it but if you listen to the lyrics they're actually pretty deep.
Toshi and Gaku selected the outfits for the MV. Toshi said the trickiest thing about selecting mixed outfits like these is to make the 2 vocalists stand out but yet not really stand out. Do you think he succeeded?
CAMPFIRE
Is an MV that a lot of fans took part in as extras. It is thus a very special song to both the fans and the group as it is the first one of this kind. An MV that was created with and for the fans.
Random fact about the MV, Yuma talked about how difficult it was to drive the car at a speed that would look good in the video but would also not be too fast for the camera vehicle that was driving next to them.
Campfire has English subs available!
TRUE LOVE
The first studio only MV. It was actually intended to be a dance rehearsal video or test only but it turned out so well the group decided to release it as an MV.
I like the video due to that very nature. It's different from the other ones and it is very, very simple but the simplicity is what makes it stand out and what makes it nice, I think. You can focus on them properly.
True Love has English subs available.
たからもの (TAKARAMONO)
The first song BANQUET released that has a Japanese instead of an English title. Also the first song they released in the 'post pandemic' period (aka after the state of emergency was lifted in Japan).
The MV feaures JUNYA from WhiteA. It is also the first BANQUET MV that is a 'story type' video.
They shot it in Yokohama in one day and had to fight against wind and rain and what not but they were all very satisfied with the result. The song is a tie up with the MyRyoute Yokohama Navi App.
I like the mood of this song :)
Yusuke said he might like this song the best out of the BANQUET songs so far, although he likes other songs, too. He said he definitely likes the outfits the best, though. Toshi picked the outfits for the most part, along with a professional stylist.
Toshi also did the choreography for this song.
This song was the song fans helped to crowdfund in the summer MixChannel challenge. The crowdfunding also included other milestones for the group, such as LINE stamps and then an Ad Truck, that drove around Shibuya, Harajuku and Shinjuku for a week around the time the single was released.
The song and the PV are the most "BANQUET like" among all the songs and MVs they released so far because it includes a bunch of inside jokes and just highlights the boys' characters and personalities.
Kaito and Toshi did the choreography for the song. Toshi and a stylist chose the outfits, although the members made some small changes after some initial tests (Yuma was supposed to wear at hat but they scrapped that and then Yuma's oversized t-shirt was way too big so he had to wear something underneath).
The main inside jokes or gimmicks in the song are:
まじかようぇい！
This catchphrase was conned by Gaku and it has become a trademark of BANQUE (they even made it into a t-shirt recently). Every BANQUET live starts with one member (determined by rock/paper/scissors) telling an anecdote about some kind of unbelievable or surprising/shocking occurrence and then the rest of the group goes "maji kayo way!" lol It's a little hard to explain, I guess.
西尾先生
Nishio-sensei was one of the teachers in Yusuke's and Toshi's high school, who had a rather unique voice and way of talking and imitating him has been something that has delighted a lot of fans, so he made it into the MV lol. He also sometimes appears as the announcer before BANQUET events XD Toshi said he had to record it a bazillion times because it's harder to do it in the studio and make it sound good on tape than to just do it in front of people or during streaming.
３、２、１いらっしゃせぇー！
This is the BANQUET catchphrase for their YouTube videos. It is in accordance with their group theme of "BANQUET", "PARTY" and "OMOTENASHI" as this is derived from the customary welcome call you hear when you walk into a shop/restaurant or join a party in Japan. The phrase is made complete by Yuma's "pop" sound which is supposed to be a cork popping.
Kaito cross-dressing
Kaito didn't cross-dress for the first time here. His cross-dressing has been a thing in many of the YouTube videos and he even has female alter-egos (Kaiko = name is pretty obvious, just his name as a 'girl version' lol and Tapiko = Kaito's mole on his nose is nicknamed 'Tapioka', so Tapiko...yeah don't ask).
According to the other members, Kaito doesn't really care much about how he does his hair or make up when he does it for himself but he puts a lot of effort and thought into it when he's cross dressing (he shaved properly for this! lol).
Okay, these were the MVs.
I will talk more about other BANQUET videos in a separate post!
Thanks for reading :)
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