'I Like Orange Juice!' Piko Taro releases new single

If I had watched that while drinking some of my favorite alcoholic beverage, (ALOT) it might be funny, but it just doesnt go with morning coffee!

I think one of the challenges with becoming successful (if I can call it that) is that fewer and fewer people around you are willing to say 'no' to your bad ideas or provide the constructive criticism that led to your initial success. How anybody could have thought this new song was good enough to release is beyond comprehension. At least pineapple pen was catchy.

He seems like a shoo-in for the opening ceremony of 2020 Olympics showcasing "cutting edge" J-culture.

I would like to know his inspiration. Perhaps, seeing his kids' boredom in English lessons, he tried to make study more fun(ky), and came up with this. It's funny - good for him!

The word "hilarious" has obviously undergone semantic shift.

Thank you piko taro your talent is truly impressing. meanwhile in Korea wherever you go you can actually meet random people willing to exchange a real conversation in english, without making jokes, silly faces or stuttering/sweating when you ask something, their english is so natural that you simply go on with the conversation even if you speak the local language. In Japan you have to tell the person to stop, that you can speak proper japanese, because their english is unbearable. Many people are afraid of speaking it because 1.they don't want to draw attention to themselves. 2.english is just another joke

My EARS!!!!

Sad to see him go down this path tbh, the guy is pretty funny in real life. He should've just stopped after the ppap song.

Take a look at the hilarious clip below.

no thanks, I've got a life.

"Orange juice" "Orange"? I'm pretty sure that this is a veiled reference to Trump.

My 11 year old son, just listened to the song with me, he said, 'well that sucks more than his first song' haha

You know orange juice is good and all but when will guava juice finally get its props?

People outside Japan will have no way of knowing that this was a driving force behind Pikotaro's initial popularity.

Actually, the driving force behind the song's popularity was Justin Bieber posting a link to it when it was still entirely unknown. That's when it blew up.

@jpnguy,

He was just a lucky guy who hit it big because PPAP went viral. Nothing more nothing less. A lot of things go viral on the internet but it's more of a one hit wonder. Look at this new video. I'm sure it's not going to catch on. How many viral videos succeed the second time. Even musicians that made a big hit disappears into obscurity to which people refer to them as one hit wonder. People are fickle and I'm glad that he had his 5 minutes of fame but to push this into cultural reactions between different countries is just overblown in my opinion. When the fad is hot, they're in the limelight, no matter where you're from.

Yeah Yumster pretty much got it there. The odds of this song getting anything more than a single view from curious people (like it got from me) are pretty limited. This song is going nowhere.

Very well written jpn_guy, the thing is... at least in Japan, English is just a joke and foreigners, a rare specimen that you want to fit in the center of your picture to advertise your business, show to friends, etc... Plus as you said, the education in this place, that makes english so hard to learn. I love languages, have been studying a dozen, but one day I got an english book used in j-schools to have a read, just out of curiosity. How come you get an ENGLISH book and have a page full of kanji, complicated formulas and a single Phrase in english on the middle of the page?? You go to the next page and more formulas, charts, explanations, with japanese taking up well more than 4/5 of every single page. That was unbearable to read for 10 minutes.

And yes, koreans are not fluent in english, they have their accent, stop sometimes to think and translate a word or 2 but at least they make the effort to go on and the conversation flows. That what I was trying to say with "natural". And as someone pointed out before, it all seems like there is an order from above to keep serious english out of the pure Yamato tv:

Where are the role models who kids at school can look at and say "cool, she can speak English. I want to be like her"? Why isn't it acceptable to speak a bit of English and appear intelligent? Look at the shows that get the movie stars / musicians / sportspeople on when they are in Japan promoting there new movie etc. The 'talent' in the studio are full of 'halfs' who can speak English - for example Becky. Why do they have Becky sitting quietly at the back and the host interviewing in Japanese with a translator helping? Just get Becky to do the interview in English and subtitle it, or get Becky to translate it herself.

Much like Gangnam Style's follow up, this will be a flop I guess. novelty songs and one hit wonders never reproduce their prior success.

But just to clarify - when I said 'driving force behind its popularity' I meant its original popularity in Japan before Bieber noticed it. The overseas explosion was post-Bieber intervention, but PPAP already had quite a lot of views in Japan pre-Bieber, which is why it came to his attention.

I have no idea how Bieber heard of it, but at the time when he posted it, I remember reading it only had a few thousand hits. He posted it, and it got millions.

So I don't think it had popularity even in Japan before that point.

Japanese children need to eat more fruit. And speak English. Like heavy rotation (AKB), pen apple was a brilliant song. But how many other AKB songs do you listen to in your head when you ride your bicycle?

He was front and center for NHK's Kohaku Utagasen (New Year's music special) until they cut him off for the news break LMFAO

What was his inspiration for this hmmmm....

This song will be recycled into an advertisement just as that ridiculous pineapple song was recycled for a mobile phone carrier ad. It's not funny, clever or entertaining. It's just stupid garbage!

In all seriousness...

PikoTaro should give up being a "tarento"/comedian and focus on writing material for little kids to learn English. Short little ditties focused on a phrase...great for the 3-4 year old crowd! Especially when paired with his odd dancing, he would be a hit on Japanese Sesame Street, right? (Or for you older folks...Hodge Podge Station.)

NEEEEXT!

Good luck to him milking his unexpected fame.

This is far too long at over a full minute. Five seconds would have been plenty...

its over dude, get a new schtick

I think even Justin Bieber will pass on him this time. Yuck.

Piko Taro

who?

I think the derivation of this whole act went something like this. Let's dress an ageing man in ridiculous, brightly-patterned clothes and have him dance around a bit. So far this follows a large selection of TV performances and commercials. It's a winning combo in Japan. Now we need a song. Let's do it in English. Think of a list of words you know in English. Then they recall "I have a pen", because many Japanese men of that generation know and say this, sometimes when drunk, to get a laugh. It seems to be the first sentence learned in school. Then the process gets stuck on fruit. Hey, let's combine that with "I have a pen". And so it was born. Simple.

On the other hand, many foreigners, not privy to the simple process, have a different impression. Many things are like that. They appear consciously zany or even postmodern but in fact they are just words or artefacts assembled randomly in irrelevant juxtaposition. While outsiders are seeking and create for themselves some meaning, even of meaninglessness, which gives them a buzz, in Japan what you see is mostly exactly what you get. PPAP is an ideal example. And having hit accidentally on a winning formula it is then exploited to the max.

good bye Piko Taro, please send my regards to Los del Rios

Move over Mombusho ,,,, it's PikoTaro!!!!

But how many other AKB songs do you listen to in your head when you ride your bicycle?

Total sum of zero. Can't stand the juvenile drivel!!

Well, I used to like OJ.

Truly cringeworthy.

Thanks jpnguy. You've saved me writing an essay.

The guy's team, there is no way he can get himself on lots of adverts in Japan and o/s without one, can't see that he chanced upon something catchy, remarkably also a tongue twister, and must simply think that any English phrases with a zany dance can work as a follow up. On Japanese tv where everyone says what they are told and English can be used for cheap laffs, maybe it can get some other talento smiling, but it won't work on Youtube and it won't work internationally. The video looks like something that was rushed out before he goes the same way as all the other ippatsu-ya.

Yeah, now I HATE OJ!!

First time was dumb & harmless, round two is grating & truly obnoxious!

I think he's trying to be PSY, but fails. Only the most loyal and truest of all the weaboos would like this. "Take that Kpop!".

heavy rotation was a brilliant song? Some people sure are easily satisfied. No 1 on the hearing impaired listener's chart, wasn't it?

I have come to acknowledge that this generation is thouroughly absurd.

Not funny at all.

What do they put in the orange juice.......