March 7, 2004

• Karaoke Sex-Change

  At most karaoke places now, the remote control has a few extra buttons allowing you to change the pitch, tempo, and volume of the mic or BGM. At some of the nicer ones, there are a few extra buttons modifying your voice even further–and yes, as the title would indicate, there is a 男性/女性 (male / female) button that lets you cross genders.

  Karaoke has just taken on a whole new meaning.

  Let me explain a bit of background to the weekend. Friday night I went out to a place near Kawana-station with a few of the Nanzan-sei. Expensive karaoke, but quite enjoyable (Chuck and Mona in particular are entertaining to watch {^^}). On Saturday, I went by Okazaki–which is about 700yen outside of Nagoya–to meet up with an old friend from four years ago who I hadn’t seen since the summer of 1999. Quite a bit to catch up on there; more than I can get into here. I knew him from the same time that I spent with my host family back then, too.

  Anyway, with a few others, we hit up another ritzy-looking karaoke place. Towards the end of our time, someone decided to experiment with the newly-discovered Male / Female button… Now, you’d think it wouldn’t do more than maybe change the pitch or something cheesy–but no… it really makes a man sound exactly like a woman. The combination of watching a guy sing, yet clearly hearing a girl’s voice is just… disturbing. You’d be best off just forgetting who’s singing and go along with it.

  But now, in addition to wanting to wear a women’s kimono, I also want to sing like a girl. I think Japan might be bringing out a whole ‘nother side of me. Although, for some reason, when I was singing and hit the Female button earlier, I didn’t notice any change. KF

  • 3:06 am
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