You’re doing them a disservice by not including who they are! These girls are high school students. They are the Tomioka High School Dance Club from Tomioka High School in Osaka. They went viral in Japan when they got runner up in the “All-Japan High School Super Cup Dance-Off” held as part of Yokohama’s summer of dance this summer (August 2017). You’ll know Yokohama’s summers of dance from the regular mass Pikachu dances you see on social media each summer.
They’ve blown up since then. The promotional video they made at the school has more than 30 million views. They’ve been on tons of TV shows, including performances with Oginome Yoko, the original singer of the song (Dancing Hero (Eat You Up)) that they remixed for their dance.
This dance routine was riffing off the comedian Hirano Nora and actually includes some of her comedy catch phrases in the remix. (They even got her to join them eventually!) For the uninitiated, one of the most accessible forms of comedy in modern Japanese pop culture are comedians like this who create outlandish SNL type characters and then appear on one or more shows regularly as that character. Hirano Nora’s gimmick is that she’s a woman from the height of Japan’s “bubble economy” era in the 80′s when there were tons of newly wealthy yuppies. This is why the remix is called “Bubbly Dance”. (Compare her to similar comedy character Blouson Chiemi whose gimmick is that she’s a modern, man eating career woman.)
These girls deserve all the fame they’re getting. You can read about them in the Asahi Shinbun and also check out this piece on Akane, their 25 year old coach via Japan Forward.
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