Tokyo (AsiaNews/Agencies) – “There are no songs without a message,” said Rina Nishino, a 15-year-old member of protesting pop outfit Seifuku Kojo Iinkai (Uniform improvement committee), at a July 28 news conference in Tokyo at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
The answers the all-girl idol group gave to the foreign press brought comparisons to a young Bob Dylan and his refrain of blowin' in the wind.
An overseas reporter cited Dylan, the American singer-songwriter who sang many protest songs, and asked whether the girl group was trying to change the Japanese pop music world: “We just write lyrics about what's on our mind and then just sing the songs”.
Clad in school uniforms, the members sing not only about problems relating to relationships and school, but also protest against nuclear power and the current batch of new security bills (proposed by Prime minister Shinzo Abe) that have caused so much controversy.
Last month, after they sang “Let’s topple the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) government” in a local event in Yamato, Kanagawa Prefecture, the city authorities retracted its support of the event after receiving complaints.
The unit Seifuku Kojo Iinkai was established in 1992. During the Democratic Party of Japan-led administration, the group blasted the then-government by singing “(Prime Minister Yoshihiko) Noda is terrible, so is (industry minister Yukio) Edano.”