Marcel Winatschek

HEL HEL HEL, the Party

You think you understand the outer limits of Japanese pop. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu desensitized you to candy-colored nightmare logic. Babymetal fused idol pop with thrash metal and somehow that was coherent. World Order turned synchronized salaryman choreography into something genuinely moving. You think you’re ready for whatever comes next.

You are not ready for Namakopuri.

Mako Principal studied at the Tokyo University of the Arts—one of Japan’s most prestigious institutions—and also works as a cosplay model, which feels right. Her partner in chaos, Namacolove, makes strange YouTube videos and uploads t.A.T.u. covers to SoundCloud in a way that is simultaneously sincere and completely unhinged. Together they are a creative detonation with no interest in collateral damage.

They joined forces with Asian hip-hop crew Hel Climb to release Hell Ward 24 Hours, a song and video that resists useful description. What I can say is that it lodges in the brain like a splinter, and the splinter is neon pink and screaming. Japanese pop has always been a relentless sequence of WTF stacked on WTF, but Namakopuri elevates that to something approaching philosophy. HEL HEL HEL the party.