" Much like All your base are belong to us, Yatta! has become a major Internet meme: anyone who hasn't seen Happatai's music video is certainly missing out on a good laugh. But there's also a good deal of social commentary going on in these lyrics. Consider:
Yatta! Yatta! We're doin' great in college!
Yatta! Yatta! Made president at our jobs!
Long as we've one leaf on, we're doin' fine!
Hey, we're lucky just 'cause we're alive!
In Japan, if you graduate from a rokudai school (which takes virtually no effort... getting in is where effort is needed), you're guaranteed an awesome job in a good megacorporation or in the government, where you basically sit at a desk and goof off for 12 hours a day thanks to the wonders of lifetime employment. Education is just a way to earn your bull****, not to learn.
For example, my girlfriend, a pharmacy student here in Hogtown, completed her degree at a university in Osaka. Then, she came over here, and discovered, much to her dismay, that an American degree demands mastery of a million fields that a Japanese degree doesn't even touch on. Ever wonder why you see so many Asians in American graduate schools? Well, now you know. As they put it:
Japan's got crises, but tomorrow's wonderful
Even if somebody's mean to us, we just go to bed and
Snore! Snore! Snore! Snore! Pass! Pass! Pass! Pass!
(Ohayo!)
What's Yatta! telling us? It's telling us that in Japanese society, you can **** off and it doesn't matter. Let's hit reset! Be ichiban! The bubble economy shall return! "