Dance to Force The Earth Federation to Reflect on What They've Done
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About
The Dance to Force The Earth Federation to Reflect on What They've Done (Japanese: 連邦に反省を促すダンス, Renpou ni Hansei wo Unagasu Dansu), also called the "Passionate Speech" (Chinese: 激情演説, Jīqíng yǎnshuō) on the Chinese web, refers to a series of videos inspired by a mashup of the Pumpkin Dance and "Senkou" (閃光), the theme song for the 2021 Gundam movie, Mobile Suits Gundam: Hathaway Part 1[1], by Japanese rock band Alexandros.[2]
Origin
On March 26th, 2021, Sunrise, the anime studio for the Gundam series, first introduced Alexandros' song in the 2nd trailer for the movie on YouTube (shown below, left). Then, the studio added the initial 15 minutes of the movie before its premiere on April 18th.[3] In the footage, Hathaway Noa or Mafty Navue Erin, the protagonist, thwarts a highjack of a spaceplane by a terrorist group, including his imposter wearing a Jack-O'-Lantern head engraved with Mafty's emblem (below, right).
In this context, online artist Shiratori (しらとり, @yy_108109) used the Pumpkin Dance guy as that "Fake" Mafty and posted a mashup of a sped-up version of the Pumpkin Dance with the movie's logo and song to Twitter[4], Niconico[5], and YouTube (shown below) on May 14th. Its title, "Just Do It! He Is A Fake!" (やっちゃいなよ！そんな偽者なんか！), came from a remark by the character Gigi Andalucia in the trailer.
Spread
After the theatrical movie's premiere on June 11th, this dance video started to attract attention. In early July, Niconico's tag, cited from Shiratori's other tweet (shown below), "Dance to force the Earth Federation to reflect on what they've done," had entries on Nico Nico Pedia[6] and Pixiv Encyclopedia[7] and became the popular name for this dance beyond the video-sharing service. His posts on Niconico and YouTube, which had only 16,000 and 68,000 views by June, added over 1 million page views by September, and the YouTube one reached 10 million views by December 2022. It also helped the video's spread that Japanese internet users weren't familiar with the original Pumpkin Dance and felt it was fresh. Therefore, those online glossaries and YouTube videos explaining this dance trend usually describe that classic meme together.
そこの反政府主義者の君もこの連邦政府に反省を促すダンスを踊ろう！
— しらとり skebください (@yy_108109) May 14, 2021
You there, resistants! Let's do this dance to force the earth federation to reflect on what they've done!
On video-sharing services, users set the video to the subject of parodies and usually named them with the phrasal template "The Dance to Force XX to Reflect on What They've Done." (〇〇に反省を促すダンス). Niconico user Igeta (井桁) helped to spread this parody series by providing a Miku Miku Dance replicating the Pumpkin Dance on June 20th.[8] On Niconico, the number of videos in this series reached over 1000 by December 2022.[9] Many of those works follow the format called "Maftyspeak" (マフティー構文)[10], where the movie trailer's sequence described below suddenly interrupts people's conversations, and the dance begins with the song. In December, "The Anime Buzzword Award 2021" by Japanese online gossip news site Getnews awarded "Maftyspeak" and "The Dance to force XX to reflect on what they've done" in the gold and bronze prizes, respectively.[11]
Gawman: Yatte Misero yo, Mafty! (You show him, Mafty!)
Hathaway/Mafty: Nantodemo Naruhazu Da! (This has to work out somehow!)
Lane: Gundam Dato? (A Gundam?)
[Theme song begins]
On July 7th, 2022, Bandai Namco published a TV commercial movie for a smartphone app game Mobile Suit Gundam UC Eengage on Twitter[12] and YouTube (shown below), in which Kenjiro Tsuda[13] and Kensho Ono[14], the voice actors for Gawman and Hathaway, uttered the famous "Maftyspeak" phrases.
Creators Approval
Alexandros members showed a positive reaction to their song's online fame. In an interview published on July 28th, 2021, they commented that they knew fans made many videos using "Senkou," and they often watched them. They added, "I think it's good that people enjoy (the song) as they like, in this current era, because it's enjoyable for us too."[15] On October 28th, 2022, Alexandros' official TikTok published a video paying tribute to Shiratori's video (shown below), where Yoichi Kawakami, the band's frontman, sang and played the song with a guitar in front of small Jack O'Lanterns while showing the Gundam: Hathaway title logo.
@alexandros_official やっちまったよ、公式が #ハロウィン #閃光 #閃光のハサウェイ #音楽の秋 #ハロウィン仮装 #仮装 #Alexandros #butwaitarena #川上洋平 #弾き語り ♬ 閃光 – [Alexandros]
Various Examples
Bilibili
Shiratori's video also became popular on the Chinese web through an unauthorized reprint uploaded to Bilibili in May 2021.[16] On July 5th, 2021, the creator reported[17] that the reprint scored 1 million views ahead of his originals while being called "Mafty's Passionate Speech (ABSOLUTELY)" (马夫迪激情演说（迫真）) and already had some parodies.[18] After 2022, Bilibili users like to use popular Hololive VTuber Hoshimachi Suisei's singing for its audio resource, which also became a small meme called "Talalala" in the Hololive fandom.[19]
Search Interest
External References
[1] Wikipedia – Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash
[2] Wikipedia – Alexandros
[3] YouTube – 機動戦士ガンダム 閃光のハサウェイ｜冒頭１５分５３秒（Aパート）【5月21日(金)全国ロードショー】 / 04-18-2021
[4] Twitter – @yy_108109 / 05-14-2021
[5] Niconico – やっちゃいなよ！そんな偽物なんか！ / 05-14-2021
[6] Nico Nico Pedia – 連邦に反省を促すダンス (Japanese)
[7] Pixiv Encyclopedia – 連邦に反省を促すダンス (Japanese)
[8] Niconico – やっちゃいなよ！そんな偽物なんか！.vmd / 06-20-2021
[9] Niconico – #連邦に反省を促すダンス
[10] Nico Nico Pedia – マフティー構文 (Japanese)
[11] GetNews – 「ひよってるやついる？」「やってみせろよ、マフティー！」『ガジェット通信 アニメ流行語大賞2021』結果発表！ / 12-01-2021 (Japanese)
[12] Twitter – @gundam_uce / 07-06-2022
[13] Wikipedia – Kenjiro Tsuda
[14] Wikipedia – Kensho Ono
[15] Real Sound – [Alexandros]、10周年を経て新たなステージへ ライブに対する自信、変化することの大切さを明かす / 07-28-2021 (Japanese)
[16] Bilibili – 马夫迪激情演说（迫真） / 05-18-2021 (Chinese)
[17] Twitter – @yy_108109 / 07-05-2021
[18] Bilibili – Search results for 激情演说 (Chinese)
[19] YouTube – Search results for talalala vtuber
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