Jason Mraz a crazy K-ON fan?


 

Astute user SierraEdge sent me an email pointing out an particularly odd soundbite from Jason Mraz’s Try Try Try, which can be heard in the above video at 0:08 and again at 1:07. About 100% of all anime fans will instantly recognize it to be the eyecatch audio clip from moe blob Akiyama Mio showcasing anime K-ON.

The song itself is pretty good, but having Yui’s mono-ized voice chime in doesn’t fit with the song at all, which naturally begs the question – what the hell? Could it be some huge fan-made troll that has somehow pervaded itself in every single Youtube clip and mp3 found online? Could someone at Atlantic Records be on Kadokawa’s payroll? Or is Jason Mraz every bit of the crazy otaku as those guys who celebrated Ritsu’s birthday? The only other mention of this I could find is on the ZOMG Forums, where people seem to be just as confused…

While Mraz does communicate to his fans via traditional means like Twitter, perhaps, if we are trusting and optimistic enough to believe the addition was completely intentional, he’s showing a bit of his closet otaku self as a big wink to those who would understand…

66 Comments

  1. Raso

    its got to be a troll……… or some marketing plan?

  2. God~Knows~

    Does not compute.Who’s the okama?*Erases him from memory*

  3. Ashan

    First time I’ve ever heard of him, or his music. The song is actually decent, the odd soundbite inclusion is a slight wink to those who would understand it, its going to fly past the head of anyone unfamiliar with K-ON. 🙂

  4. Gundamaniac

    errrrrrrrrr……….wtf?

  5. Kuya

    Well…if you watch his “Geek in the Pink” video, he’s got a pink shirt on that says “Otaku” on it. So I would assume he knows something of anime. At the -very- least.

  6. jaalin

    mmm good point kuya

  7. lol, it doesn’t even fit well w/ the rest of the song >_>

  8. brianleung8912

    As much as the K-on bits doesnt fit into the song, i am hoping this is not a fan made troll. If a celeb is a closet otaku that could change the sterotype of geeks and otaku, bits by bit ^-^

  9. Ties

    Listening to the lyrics of the song it actually fits with the themes of K-On! so the song might be a tribute to K-On! in a way.

  10. kimikodatenshi

    Pretty cool! Seems legit! Now i want to know why it’s there!! Jason Mraz has some nice songs… he sings ‘lucky’ with Colbie Caillat and ‘I’m yours’

  11. jarmel

    Makes no goddamn sense. Has to be an epic troll. It sounds so ridiculously out of place.

  12. Kuya

    This doesn’t sound like troll-work. It’s on several of the other videos of this song, for starters.

    Even if you ignore Mr. A-Z being or not being an anime fan, this just doesn’t seem like enough to qualify. Only adding two sound bites from K-On? If the guy really wanted to troll, there’s so many things he could add. If this is a troll, it’s pretty weak.

  13. starss

    I really have no idea how that got in there, and I can’t make a rational enough decision for why!

  14. Pikow

    Jason Mraz!?!? An anime-lover!!?!? That would rule! Jason Mraz is a really respected musician and talented, it’d be so cool if he liked anime lol.

  15. Swampstorm

    Win. I never thought I’d see two completely different interests of mine fused like that.

  16. Shin

    Jason Mraz can love anime, fine. But this seems fake…

  17. Mao

    Its all a major troll by Jaalin, Major conspiracy going on here. xD

  18. :)

    this looks real though

  19. KayDat

    Oh my…this is unbelievable. But a quick search on Google so far holds up.

  20. KayDat

    A Google of Jason Mraz Otaku also shows that he’s (proudly?) worn a shirt displaying his interest before.

  21. mechwarrior

    That clip in the song makes the entire thing sound stupid…

  22. Fumi

    Oh i hope isn’t fake =D
    I love his music and if he love K-on like i do i’ll him even more….

  23. fishies

    knowing it’s k-on kinda brings the song down a bit, but i wonder what it’d sound like to someone who has no idea that there’s anime audio in the song. would anime even come to mind?

  24. 8ghosts

    100% of anime fans? Speak for yourself. K-on and k-on clone animes FTL

  25. Lauren

    Eh, not 100% fans would recognize this. Maybe everyone who’s watch K-ON, but not hundred percent of all fans. The show didn’t interest me at all, hence I never bothered to watch it.
    The part in the song doesn’t fit will. =/ Almost made me cringe first time I heard it.

  26. Hello everyone. In this link you will see my confession to all otaku.

  27. lialiakicks

    This is like the new rick-roll video. D: CANNOT UNSEE OR UNHEAR.

  28. BROOKLYN otaku

    who?

  29. This just made my day in an awesome and freak way XD

  30. CHIBI

    Nice blog. If I meet the person who defiled Yui with this horrible music…..

  31. Tay-Tay

    His song is nice but the x-over is weird o.0

  32. Freeter

    Dude has toured in Japan, so if anything this is a brilliant marketing strategy. Snag some of that K-On dough while still raking it in from his other single.

    He’ll probably rock a Mio shirt and play to sold-out venues next time he goes.

  33. Kita

    …I’m confused. The soundbites don’t fit it at all. It’s gotta be a troll.

  34. kbot

    I think the song’s called “Try Try Try”, and it seems legit.

  35. handsomehwang

    I love Jason Mraz but I really don’t think it was him who put that reference in. There has to be licensing issues that would come about otherwise.

  36. Putang

    i love this guy… im a jasion mraz fan now :3… i’ve only heard his awesomo I’m yours… to think he was even more awesome T_T!

  37. Tumbrils

    I find it a little suspicious, though, that practically 98% of the results on Google for “Jason Mraz Try Try Try” are download links , with about 1% of lyrics and 1% blog posts about the confusion…Also suspicious: like handsomehwang said, there would need to be some sort of licensing agreement between Mraz and KyoAni, plus, it’s extremely odd for a single/EP by an American musician to be released in China before all the other countries, and this song seems to only exist within a couple message boards, Youtube, some lyric sites, and a few blogs. No music info sites have any sort of reference to this song. And finally, like others have said, these clips just don’t fit in with the song. Not in a “this doesn’t fit the mood” sense, but rather they just sound like one song with a sound being played over it at the same time (which is something very, very easy to do with pretty much any audio editing program.)

    I think it’s possible that Try Try Try really is a legit Jason Mraz song, somehow leaked, and someone got their hands on it, edited in the K-ON! clips, and released it to the Internet. Or perhaps it’s just a guy with a real talent for emulating others’ voices…I’m gonna say troll, for now…but we’ll see.

  38. kadian1364

    The mysteries of the world never cease to end…

  39. megalith

    What’s going on!!!????

  40. Mr Penguin

    Here’s my little guess on that k-on soundbite… It might have been put there because mr a-z wanted us to know that the source of inspiration for this song was… k-on. And more precisely the chorus part of ‘Don’t say lazy’.
    Both song’s chorus roughly follow this chord progression :
    C – D – Bm – Em
    C – D – Em (or G for ‘Try, try, try’)
    Same key and almost the same chords for the chorus, though the tempo is much slower for mraz’s song. If you don’t understand anything about music, just try to sing the chorus of ‘Don’t say lazy’ over the chorus of ‘Try, try, try’ and you’ll see that it fits pretty well. The verse’s chords are totally different though…
    Anyway, for someone wearing a pink otaku t-shirt in one of his videoclip (even if the clip was about geeks) that doesn’t surprise me.

  41. Haha that is AWESOME. The fact that Jason Mraz loves anime and this song.

  42. If Mraz is actually behind this, it’s a clever bit of viral marketing. The thing about the anonymous internet is that it easily allows stunts like this happen to generate fan buzz for practically nothing. Maybe someone in Mraz’s camp did this, maybe it was a fan that edited a leaked copy of the song for poops and giggles, or maybe it was even someone at KyoAni trying to generate buzz for K-ON. There’s no way to know unless someone comes forward. One thing for sure is that it succeeded in generating discussion.

  43. Duran

    …… did I just read someone consider Mio a moeblob?! She’s WAY more tsukkomi/kagami clone than moeblob (Yui’s the resident one even then she’s not up to Tsukasa’s level, let alone Mei or Yutaka’s)

  44. dmo

    Assuming this is real…the song is good by itself, but now it’s just gimmicky.

  45. maktosa

    I found this song on imeem.com and the K-on sound bites are still there. Seems like this is for real.

  46. anyone else notice the massive misname in the post?
    its not “moe blob Akiyama Mio” its “moe blob Hirasawa Yui”
    Yui is named “moe blob” for her blob-like-fat cheeks when she hugs people.
    plus that is Yui’s voice in the sound bite, not Mio.
    makes me wonder if RC even watched K-ON!, a mistake like that is pretty heavy mix up.

    in regards to Jason Mraz..people are drawing WAY to much speculation over this and jumping to conclusions like a dog in heat. there is so much to consider before he could ever put a soundbite like this in one of his sounds.

    since the origin of the song appears to be from a Chinese EP/website, and this song is STILL unavailable from iTunes or even Amazon, i would say this is either a fake or a promotion from something in Asia. probably this song was used in a K-On promo video and the soundbites would probably make more sense in said video.

  47. skeptical

    until proven otherwise, i’m gonna say it’s a troll

  48. So Ka

    and are this song is Fake?
    Cause not official come with Studio or chinese hack some future single jason mraz?
    I very confused,
    search in google but nothing only Download links,Lyric and not good info.
    Someone tell me the truth
    Jason Mraz Single Try Try Try Chinese Ep Version
    >o< d

  49. Desho

    Okay, so I’m assuming the K-ON bits are just to prevent people from taking the song and claiming it as their own. (For instance, in most Techno songs, you’ll hear a voice saying “DJ such and such”) And since Jason seems like he’s an anime fan, he decided to use K-ON.

    Also:
    http://www.box.net/shared/qynot2xvp7

    Mixed by me, because it had to be done.

  50. srsly guys, stop making more out of this than it should be.
    the chords are ridiculously popular. dear god, what guitar song DOESN’T HAVE C – D – and Em.
    this is like a sad attempt for otakus to find similarity and common ground with someone popular to better justify their own existence.

  51. everything should be taken with a grain of salt on the internet and until this song is out on itunes or amazon, this should be deemed FAKE.

  52. He IS an otaku. Remember his very old music video of Geek in the Pink? He was wearing a tshirt saying ‘otaku’ on it. Problem solved.

  53. i’ll wear a tshirt saying metallica, does that mean i like metal? NO
    i see some dude at school with a shirt that says rapist, under your logic, hes a rapist.

  54. Debbie

    dis is interestin! i actually kinda lik it^^
    is this a real song?

  55. Ning

    Lol, this is a very different kind of awesome that doesn’t happen everyday xD

  56. Ning

    He’s one of us! 8D

  57. Lucky Pentagram

    Oh please, this could have been made by anyone. If not, and was planned in accordance to Jason Mraz, well then. I’m not the only musician who would incorporate Anime elements in my music.

    But still, 1 in a 9999 chance that Jason Mraz actually had anything to do in this.

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