Death Panda

Death Panda is part of the Japanese metal scene described in the sweet documentary Global Metal by Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn. The sequel to his first metal documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey (which I haven't seen yet but I expect some people to have some sort of metal movie night soon). I was quite pleased with the film! Very interesting to get different viewpoints on metal music and how it is affecting and being affected by different cultures that are new to it. I especially liked the Israel based metal band called Orphaned Land. Also, it made me really proud of Sepultura and their forward thinking ways.

Anywho, one of the stand out funny things was Japan's take on some aspects of metal music (namely visual kei) and there was a clip of a cartoon called Death Panda.

According to this blog:

"The Death Panda is a shock manga by artist Waita Uziga about a giant demonic panda bear from hell. A more cutesy guitar playing anime character called Death Panda (loosely based on the manga) was created and aired as one of the segments of TV Tokyo Channel 12’s wacky TV show "Takeyama sensei?!"

The video clips show an angry guitar playing and singing panda who laments man’s extermination of animal species around the world. The speed metal theme was created by (ex-Megadeth guitarist and now Tokyo resident) Marty Friedman and was sung by members of the popular all girl idol group AKB48."

You know, sometimes things just make you go "What the heck!?" but are awesome.

p.s. If anyone knows the translation let me know (I wouldn't want a repeat of the Polish fiasco).