Babymetal and the Kami Band watching the sakuras bloom.
Let's Play with Babymetal-chan (BABYMETALちゃんと遊ぼう BABYMETAL-chan to Asobou) is a Yonkoma Fan Webcomic by Ariyuki Hirosue about the adventures of a fictionalized version of the metal group BABYMETAL and the people around them, first published on August 17, 2016. It is published semi-regularly on his Twitter account
. There's also an archive, with Fan Translation for most of the comics and links to the corresponding Reddit discussion threads and original posts. Issue numbers are based on the Reddit archive, and the dates are Japan Standard Time (UTC+9).
The characterizations of the BABYMETAL members, Yui, and Kano are heavily based on those of their real-life counterparts, as described in the Sakura Gakuin character sheet.
Let's play with tropes-chan:
- Actor Allusion: In #203, Riho gets a gorilla figurine from an Avengers capsule machine, which shocks Kano and Momoko since gorilla impressions is Kano's gag in Sakura Gakuin (the gorilla is probably misplaced from the animals capsule machine next to the Avengers one).
- Affectionate Parody: There are parodies of rap group Dragon Ash's MV and the gags of comedians Keisuke Okada and Dacho Club, among others.
- In #203, the Avengers are drawn resembling their Marvel namesake: Momoko as Captain America, Riho flying using Iron Man's repulsors, and Kano wielding the magic hammer from Japanese Mythology instead of Mjolnir.
- Alter-Ego Acting: Moa strongly objects when Su wants to give an opening speech in their cinema live concert screening, since she imagines that Su would appear as Suzuka Nakamoto in normal clothes and talk about Su-metal like she's a movie character (she exclusively appears in public as Su-metal since her graduation from Sakura Gakuin in 2013).
- Alternate Character Reading:
- In the 2019-12-12 story, the furigana for "DVD" is given as デロリアン (DeLorean).*
- In #176 (2018-07-25), they're playing "Say Hot, You Lose" (暑いって言ったら負け, a popular summer pastime). Su loses because she continues Moa's "moeru" with "atsui haato" (hot heart) like in the "Road of Resistance" lyrics; since the kanji for that part are actually "koutetsu tamashii" (heart of steel), she thought it doesn't count.explanation
- #190 (2019-07-22) discusses the Yamada brewery and their Saiai (最愛) brand sake, which name is written exactly the same as Moa's, making it a collectible item for Babymetal fans. The brewery also happens to be based near Moa's hometown of Nagoya, and she just turned twenty that month so she can drink her namesake sak... nihonshu, although it's not shown.
- In #199 (2019-08-08), Riho and Su misread げっ歯 (rodents, like guinea pigs) as geppa until Moa informs them that it's pronounced gesshi...* and that they left their shoe and skirt in the hallway. The title is "Ponko2", a Goroawase Number play on "2 Ponkotsu" or "2 Ditzs".
- In the 2020-07-02 edition, Moa and the Avengers call the various midyear gifts (ochugen お中元) they've received o-Nakamoto since the writing is the same as Su's last name.
- Animorphism: Su can transform into a fox or tanuki.
- Yui and Moa also grow fox tails after staring at a red moon.
- Ascended Extra:
- Of the three Avengers, Riho appears most often, possibly because she's the most famous one (being Morning Musume's former center) and about the same age as Su and Moa.
- In the 2023-04-12 issue, Su and Moa welcome and dress up their newest full member, Momometal (Momoko).
- Asian Fox Spirit: The trio's patron deity occasionally appears as a giant fox. Normal-sized foxes appear more often.
- The Five Foxes and Big Fox from the 2017 concerts of the same names have also appeared.
- Yui once summons the Fox God to ask for candy, but he gives her a bookstore gift card instead.
- Beach Episode: Several summer issues are set at the beach.
- Big Eater:
- Moa. One strip even pays homage to Spirited Away by turning her into a pig.
- In #186, while eating cake, Su mentions that she would like to be a police chief for a day (a usual PR event in Japan), and Moa approves of that while stealing her cake. Su's first action as police chief is to arrest Moa for that crime.
- Riho is also one and finishes the entire group's food with Moa in #207. The starving Kano instantly faints after seeing that.
- She even eats a paper hamburger and seems to like it.
- Moa. One strip even pays homage to Spirited Away by turning her into a pig.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- Moa seems to be aware that they're webcomic characters and not the real Babymetal.
- In #188, released in July 2019 after 7 months of hiatus, Su implies that the author is a bit embarrassed to return and nervous while drawing them. However, this time Moa doesn't understand what she meant.
- Busman's Holiday: In #218, when it's Momoko's turn to go on stage for their February 2020 UK tour, Riho keeps following her around instead of taking the day off, and her crying at the end implies that she actually still wants to perform.
- The Cameo: Nogizaka46's Reika Sakurai and Himeka Nakamoto, the hip-hop group Dragon Ash, all three members of Perfume, Red Hot Chili Peppers's Chad Smith, and of course Judas Priest's Rob Halford have appeared.
- There's also a sketch based on their real debut appearance in the prestigious NHK Kouhaku Uta Gassen in 2020, in which they're celebrating the Red (female artists) team's victory with Seiko Matsuda and Hinatazaka46's Kumi Sasaki.
- There's also a sketch
- Character Exaggeration: Despite her ditziness, the real Su was a highly regarded student council president and the only one to have a surprise appreciation party held in her honor before her graduation. This webcomic's Su can barely function without the others' help.
- Character Tics: They wave their arms in excitement all the time.
- Classic Cheat Code: In #210 (2019-12-14), Su tries entering their song title "↑↓←→BBAB" into the Metal Galaxy Fictional Video Game, but puts in the wrong final key.* The game console explodes.
- In #213 (2020-01-19), Su mistakes the lyrics again* , but this time they're outdoors and nothing happens.
- Cluster Bleep-Bomb: In #169 and #170, there are switches on the girls' heads which turn their speech into this when flipped (in the original Japanese, they speak like delinquents instead).
- Comic-Book Time: Averted, everybody ages with their real-life counterpart. Whether they become more mature is another question entirely.
- Commuting on a Bus: After she left the group, Yui still occasionally appears in the stories or as a background character in full-page artworks (in real life, she's still signed to Amuse but on hiatus).
- Cool Old Guy: Rob Halford is depicted as a grandfather figure. He plays hide-and-seek with the girls and makes dolls of them at a craft workshop in #122.
- #17 is a parody of a real episode of the variety show YOU wa Nani Shi ni Nippon e? ("Why Did YOU Come to Japan?") which followed a group of overseas BABYMETAL fans who went to the Tokyo Dome live show in 2016... except here, the fan is Rob Halford.
- Covert Pervert: In #62, Moa is groping people's butts (a known habit of hers in Sakura Gakuin), and is shocked to find out that Ohmura's butt is softer than Su's. Seeing her flustered, Su mistakenly thinks that Ohmura groped Moa.
- Creepy Good:
- The Kami Band are drawn with demonic faces.
- In #21, a parody of the "Grateful Days" MV by hip-hop group Dragon Ash, members of that group (who boast that their friends are mostly "bad people") are terrified of Yui and her metal entourage, who are actually just on their way to the supermarket to buy snacks.
- Cultural Translation: In #101, Su messes up the lyrics to "Babymetal Death" and says "Babymetal Dosu" instead, which is in Kyoto dialect, and the other two cover it up by responding in that dialect. The English translation turns Su's mispronunciation into "Babymetal Doth" and they proceed to speak in Flowery Elizabethan English.
- Suzuka and Nogizaka46 then captain Reika Sakurai, both often described as ponkotsu ("ditzy" in Japanese slang; the literal meaning is "jalopy") or "loose screws" in the translation, meet in #20. When they attempt to deny that they are ponkotsu/loose screws, actual screws start falling from their bodies.
- Dissonant Serenity: Su tends to have no reaction to the crazy things happening around them.
- Does Not Know Her Own Strength: Su has accidentally broken down doors while entering a room. She has shot down buildings with her Su-metal Beam. She has split a beach in half while Smashing Watermelons.
- Double Meaning: Perfume members, who are Babymetal's seniors in the Amuse talent agency (and Su's in Actor's School Hiroshima), sent them a box of chocolates labeled "Chocolate Disco", which is also the title of their 2007 single. The trio immediately take it as a warning not to be conceited with their viral 2013 single "Gimme Chocolate!" and rush to apologize to their seniors.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Since 2019's Metal Galaxy era, Su no longer has her Hime Cut-style sidelocks. It seems that the locks helped her sense the environment around her (like an insect's antennae), since she keeps crashing and tripping into things in #189 (2019-07-10).
- Eye Beams: Himeka has the charming Himetan Beam. Turns out Su also has the Su-metal Beam, which can demolish buildings.
- The Faceless: Before her identity is revealed to be Momoko Okazaki, the third Avenger is depicted wearing a fox mask, and doesn't even know who she is herself. She's also shown in #195 (2019-07-30) to be overwhelmed by the members' and two other Avengers' accomplishments: Suzuka, Moa, and Kano have been appointed Student Council President in Sakura Gakuin, while Riho was the center performer of Morning Musume; Momoko and Yui held the titles of Ganbare! and Performance Chairperson, respectively.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The Babymetal trio have a sisterly dynamic, but Su as the eldest is very scatterbrained compared to Yui and Moa, and they have no hesitation in scolding their leader.
- Su offers to help her two comrades with schoolwork, and is dejected upon finding out they've already finished the whole thing by themselves. Yui and Moa are reluctant to accept her help since she's Book Dumb, but remove some of their finished work anyway so they can redo it with her.
- Himeka is depicted as concerned about her little sister's ditziness.*
- In #109, Himeka goes on a surprise visit to Birmingham to support the homesick Suzuka, right after a four-day concert at Tokyo Budokan with her own group in December 2016... but actually it's Moa wearing a Himeka mask. For once, Suzuka isn't fooled (maybe because Moa is shorter and Himetan taller than Su), but appreciates the gesture anyway.
- For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Played with in #183, where Yui, who recently resigned from the group, dresses up as Yuimetal for Halloween, with mixed reactions.
- Freudian Slip: Su makes a pun with "want to scream" (叫びたい, sakebitai) and "binge drinking" (酒浸り, sakebitari) and Moa thinks she's going through something (Su's probably fine and didn't realize what she implied).
- Friend to All Children: The girls go trick-or-treating on Halloween wearing their 2015 masked costumes, and then give away the candies at a daycare center or orphanage.
- Friend to All Living Things: Yui often have stories involving animals, especially dogs and foxes. She also befriends a Friendly Ghost even though it's not living.
- Genius Ditz:
- Su-chan is a virtuoso on stage but often a ditzy mess in their private lives.
- The Japanese equivalent of "ditz" is tennenboke ("natural airhead"), or tennen ("natural") for short. When Yui says that Su isn't a tennen, Su thinks that means she is farm-grown instead.
- When they receive UberEats delivery gear from Kobametal, the group's producer, Moa freaks out because she knows that Su cannot ride a bicycle and has No Sense of Direction (it's a Shout-Out to the group BiSH, who delivered food in collaboration with UberEats as part of their new single campaign in 2020).
- Riho is also one, and her mishaps often involve food.
- Su-chan is a virtuoso on stage but often a ditzy mess in their private lives.
- Hates Being Alone:
- In the 2018-12-12 strip, a few months after Yui's departure, Moa is sadly reminiscing about her and their combined name MoiMoi (もいもい) when Su receives a call. Su's answer "mosu mosu" (shortening of moshi moshi?, "Hello?", usually with a silent u) inspires Moa to create a new combined name, MoSu (もす).
- In the 2020-03-15 strip, simply titled "#uaaaaaa", Moa freaks out when Su imitates the Avengers' hairstyle, leaving Moa as the only one with a different look, and quickly attempts to do the same (it's implied to be a prank, which Su and Riho regret once Moa starts bawling).*
- Help, I'm Stuck!: In the 2020-02-27 issue, the strong wind in London blew off the first A of the BABYMETAL sign on the Eventim Apollo concert hall marquee (which actually happened in real life), and somehow it ends up stuck around Su's neck (the real thing was not nearly that big).
- Holy Halo: Kami Band guitarist Mikio Fujioka, who passed away in January 2018, temporarily returns as a spirit with a halo in #183 to celebrate Halloween with everyone.
- Honorary True Companion: The Avengers are not Babymetal members, but are pretty much treated as equals.
- When the five of them arrive in the US for their tour, only three are permitted to enter the country due to an implied immigration issue. The ones who end up being deported are Su and Moa.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Although Su is the official leader, Moa seems to be more responsible and the Only Sane Woman (except when it comes to food). With Yui gone and the addition of the Avengers, she becomes the Team Mom to two unreliable adults and two former members of Sakura Gakuin's loudest trio, the K.Y.G.
- I Don't Know Mortal Kombat: In #33, Kami Band drummer Hideki keeps getting beaten by the girls at Taiko de DON.
- In-Joke: Many of the stories become less funny or won't make sense at all if you're not familiar with the group's music and backstory, including their time in Sakura Gakuin. There are also many references to Japanese comedians and entertainers not well known outside Japan.
- Intergenerational Friendship: The girls often hang out with the adult Kami Band members and Rob Halford, who could be the same age as their grandfathers.
- It Runs in the Family:
- Su's sister Himeka was a member of Nogizaka46 and appears several times, including in the first issue.
- In #198 (2019-08-05), Momoko's identity is finally revealed. Su and Moa then discuss her father, comedian Hanamaru Hakata, and mistake Keisuke Okada's "Happy Boy Dance" gag for his "Attack Chance".
- Japanese Ranguage: When they're about to perform at the Super Slippa festival in Taiwan, Su tries looking it up... and gets dozens of slippers images instead (Slippa and slippers are both written as スリッパ).
- Kids Raiding the Wine Cabinet: In #65 (2016-10-21), the girls manage to acquire the "Moa" sake (see Alternate Character Reading entry for more detail), but suddenly start contemplating the consequences of underage drinking (they were all under 20 at the time). The title implies that they "Decided to Keep It", and #190, which was released a few weeks after Moa's 20th birthday, mentions the sake again.
- Literal-Minded:
- In #50, Boh asks the girls to make him look cool, and they literally draw fever cooling pads on his bald head.
- In 2020-07-08, Su thinks that "kitsune possession" means being a fox's Human Pet.
- The Maiden Name Debate: In #48, Yui and Moa discuss how if they married a man named Metal, their real names (in Western order) would sound exactly the same as their stage names, but Su's wouldn't (since her name is Suzuka). However, Su misunderstands (or is Becoming the Mask) and thinks her name would be "Su-metal Metal".
- My Future Self and Me: Suzuka is visited by the elderly mythical Metal Queen, who is really herself from the future.
- Non Sequitur: #29 (and several following issues) is a talk show segment called "Talking Nonsense with Moa Kikuchi", which Su is unsurprisingly very good at.
- Noodle Incident: Su tells a story to Moa about something that happened after the January 2021 Budokan show that makes Moa cry, but we never know what it's about.
- No Title: The series didn't have an official title until it was given the current one in December 2019. Each story since then also has its own title, written as a #HashtagForLaughs (previously only some strips have titles, which are written as actual Twitter hashtags). However, most people still simply refer to them as the Ariyuki comics, and the Fictional Universe as the Ariyukiverse.
- Older Than They Look: In #161, a passing man mistakes Yui for a little girl (her riding a rocking horse doesn't help).
- Only Six Faces: Maybe inevitable, given the art style. The girls have different eyebrows and hairstyle combinations to tell them apart: Riho have downward eyebrows (like Su and Moa), Momoko and Yui have wavy hair, and Moa's hair is brown.
- Our Time Travel Is Different: In #153, Su accidentally time travels after chewing mint-flavored bubble gums (a reference to "Awadama Fever"), and somehow leaves tiny burning trails behind (Moa implies that this is not the first time it has happened, too). She can also conjure a door out of thin air and enter it to teleport elsewhere.
- Parting the Sea: Su can part the sea like she parts a sea of people at live shows.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: The stories are often related to recent events concerning the group.
- Real-Person Fic: Most characters are based on real people.
- Recognition Failure:
- In #55, Su greets a passing bald man because she thinks it's Boh.
- In #70, Su raises a kitsune sign to a pair of fans she passes by, and is relieved that they don't recognize her.
- When they are about to perform as Metallica's opening act, Su looks forward to meeting Chad Smith again, unaware that he's in a different band.
- Retired Badass: In #201, Yui wistfully watches her former group performing at Summersonic on TV while having lunch at a ramen joint.
- Robotic Reveal: In #175, Su, Moa, and two Chosen Sevens are actually Yuibots in disguise.
- Slice of Life: The genre in general.
- Super-Deformed: Everybody is drawn in this style.
- Sweet Tooth: Yui is depicted as having one.
- Tragic Dream: In the 2020-03-19 strip, Kano declares that she wants to sing "Headbanger!", a song about a girl's fifteenth birthday, while she's still 15 (all three original Babymetal members did so on or near their real birthdays). Given that she's an Avenger (who usually only dances and doesn't sing on Babymetal shows) and it's been too long since her 15th birthday on August 28, this is unlikely to happen, but the others can't bring themselves to say so. On the other hand, she's already standing on a stage platform with Su's mic in hand, so she could sing to them right then and there if she wants to.
- Twin Switch: Suzuka and Himeka Nakamoto are depicted as very similar-looking and attempt this a few times (in fact, the very first 2016-08-17 strip is about Himeka disguising herself as Su-metal), but always thwarted by Yui and Moa because the sisters keep accidentally saying their own catchphrases.
- Video Arcade: Several stories are about capsule machines, or gacha machines, containing their figurines. Moa is shown to be very good at claw machines.
- Waxing Lyrical: Unsurprisingly, Babymetal lyrics are often slipped in the dialogues.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
- Su is terrified of insects and other small animals. In #191, she silently freaks out in the subway when she sees a cicada on another passenger's clothing.*
- Yui is afraid of ghosts, but befriends a Friendly Ghost in a strip.*
- Wish Upon a Shooting Star: In #61, Yui does this, but her wish is very long and has to be repeated three times according to Japanese customs. Fortunately, the star pauses and waits for her to finish.
