Gifu is awesome, but maybe not as awesome as Ogaki. There’s lots of stuff to do—expat bars and punk shows like the one at this place called Huck Finn we went to on Friday night. Lots of Japanese hardcore—hardcore’s big over here in Japan. Even bands that don’t really sound like it all cite Black Flag and lots of ‘80s punk as their influences. And they cop the sound to varying degrees of success; some are straight-up hardcore (not quite my cup of tea) while others, like this band called And Believe, incorporate bluesy ‘70s riffs into the mix, which IMO makes for more enjoyable listening. The best band of the night was a group called Sika Sika, they’re three girls and a guy with a keyboard. Maybe they just kind of remind me of a thrashier Japanese version of the Butts, but I thought they were sweet, they had male-female shout-alongs and razor-sharp melodies that start and stop on a dime. Very cool.
So yeah, Gifu is cool, it’s bigger and there’s a lot of culture over there I might not be able to find in Ogaki—although according to Dak, an American on the scene, bars in Ogaki are really cool if you can speak Japanese—still I feel Ogaki is a prettier city and an overall nicer city than what I’ve seen of Gifu thus far. There are beautiful little riverfront roads with trees and pink flowers dotting the banks, and all the rice paddies and old bricked sidewalks and Ogaki Castle (though there’s a Gifu castle too, which I haven’t seen), and you just bike through it and think Wow, this place is really, really pretty. Gifu is kind of like a Japanese version of Chicago’s downtown, a grid-like complex of big box stores and business buildings. Kind of boring, to be honest.
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