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Music: Shonen Knife
Shonen Knife is a Japanese Pop Punk group that started in Osaka when two sisters and their close friend decided they liked The Ramones enough to start a band and copy them. They started gaining overseas recognition in the late Eighties and early Nineties when such notable figures as Kurt Cobain and John Peel brought them into the limelight, and since then they've had a respectable fanbase both in their native Japan and in the Western world.

Like their heroes, Shonen Knife's songs largely have simple chords, catchy lyrics and manic energy. They also have a rather large number of songs about food.

Tropes related to the band include:

  • Action Girl: "Super Girl (Buttercup)".
  • Baths Are Fun: "Public Bath".
  • Careful With That Axe: A particular song called "Buddha's Face" due to its sound being borrowed from Heavy Metal had the singer screaming "Going, going, going to hell" near the end and then on the fourth time screams, "Going, GOING, going to hell".
  • Cat Girl: "I Am A Cat." Possibly related to the novel of the same name.
  • The Constant/I Am the Band: Naoko Yamano.
  • Cover Album: Osaka Ramones.
  • Cover Version: They did a cover of "Top of the World" which appeared on a Carpenters tribute album and in the remake of The Parent Trap. They also recorded "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" (for a Burt Bacharach tribute album), "When You Sleep" (for an all-Japanese My Bloody Valentine tribute album called Yellow Loveless), "Daydream Believer" and "Jet"
  • Days of the Week Song: "One Week."
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: Quite so. The band had a very rusty start in the 1980s.
  • Gratuitous English: At first, but started to write English songs on their first album in the 1990s. However, their latest releases still have some sort of Engrish in them, especially when Naoko sings, which leads to some indecipherable lyrics
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: Their very first album "Minna Tanoshiku" is impossible to be found in a physical format unless you're one of the lucky ones to actually own one. This is due to only having limited copies of it and further pressings were ceased by the band. It has since then resurfaced in mp3 formats in some places of the internet.
  • Mega Neko: "Giant Kitty."
  • New Sound Album: "Strawberry Sound" which was deliberately after Shonen Knife's members were just the Yamano sisters.
  • No Export for You: "Candy Rock" is one of the few album's not to be released in the US. It is currently their most elusive album yet.
  • Promoted Fangirls: "Ramones Forever."
  • Rock Trio: For an amount of time, they became a duo due to Michie leaving the band. Then after Atsuko left, she is replaced by a new member. As of now, they are a trio once again with a totally different lineup.
  • Three Chords and the Truth
  • Widget Series: As noted above, songs about food take up a good chunk of their output.
    • Also, animals seem very popular ("I Am A Cat", "Spider", "Cobra vs. Mongoose").

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alternative title(s): Shonen Knife
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