Babymetal’s ‘KARATE’ Video Is Metal as Hell

/ Homicidol Maniac

Much to the surprise of I think a lot of people, after announcing that their video for “KARATE” would be released as a Music Choice exclusive tomorrow, Babymetal management either didn’t know which day was which or Music Choice just sucks at embargoing content, because a whole bunch of people are watching this video and you can too (if you have the right cable subscription)! it’s already up on official YouTube. 

Go to this website for some great gifs.

There’s a lot more going on in this video, including what I think might be some seriously OG Babymetal lore (who’s the masked figure? who are the martial artists? what is Moametal going to do with that fly?). Gotta watch this a few more times and get it figured out. Share observations in the comments!

From earlier: Well, they took the suspense out of that one!

I guess the only question left is “what time?”

I mentioned on Facebook that Babymetal’s playing such a long game right now. They have the Hammer eating out of their hands, they’ve got major features and interviews scheduled in pretty much every other magazine that matters, they’re working with high-level unique content providers … and have they even gone gold in the U.S. yet? Amuse is setting them up for a protracted international career.

13 thoughts on “Babymetal’s ‘KARATE’ Video Is Metal as Hell”

  1. I saw your tweet yesterday asking for a translation for the thing about Babymetal that someone posted…I really wanted to let you know that it said that “It seems like there will be the karate video this Friday”…but I don’t use Twitter myself so I couldn’t think of a way…sorry!

    • My friend, it is all good. We are all good right now.

      I am genuinely surprised by how good this video is. It looked like a real splitting of the difference in the trailer.

      • Hey Maniac, as an analytics guy,and just for shits&giggles,do you want to make a prediction on the view count on Youtube for the first 24hrs of Karate??? Chime in as well Phillter. I’m going to say approx. 1.3 million in the first 24hrs.

        • That’s a tough guess. I know it took Road of Resistance a little while to get traction (for some weird reason — by sheer luck I was one of the first 100 viewers, and it was only in the low thousands the next morning), and goodness knows how many people boot the thing; the one I have embedded is a bootleg someone else hosted on Dailymotion!

          But if it makes it to the official YouTube channel and they figure out how to promote it properly (Babymetal’s team is surprisingly bad at social media, or they have the most sophisticated UGC/influencer-based social strategy I’ve ever seen), I’d be willing to give that version up to 500k in the first 24 hours. I was pleased to learn recently that views of embeds count as views on YouTube itself, so literally the more it gets shared out, the better it’ll do. And this ignores any other views on YouTube or other hosts, of course. They could have a grand total close to your number without breaking a sweat.

          • I’m pretty sure the official RoR video didn’t garner as much attention as one would expect, due to the many fan cam versions that appeared after the Brixton show. The scene here with Moa catching the fly reminds me of the “Karate” Kid film, where Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-san are attempting to catch flies with chopsticks. Obviously not a reference to that film,but surely some Japanese folklore in play. Of course she releases it as we all know “she would never hurt a fly”.

        • Given the wider-spread media attention that Karate and their new album has had (as you said, they basically own Metalhammer’s soul for now), I’m gonna go with 700k first day. 1.3M is asking a bit much IMHO, and 500k seems like a bit of an undersell…but I have no analyticals experience so this is the equivalent to guessing the jellybeans in the jar for me haha!

  3. Pingback: I Review Things: Babymetal | “METAL RESISTANCE” | Homicidols

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