So, Nintendo put a K-pop song in Donkey Kong Bananza

Spoiler warning. If you have not played Donkey Kong Bananza, but you intend on playing it and you do not want any aspect of this game to be spoiled for you — this is your chance to bounce and scroll on by.

So, I’m playing through Donkey Kong Bananza and a central theme of the game is music. As you progress through the game Donkey Kong will be granted the ability to transform into powerful versions of different animals. The way in which Donkey Kong is given this ability is by playing an ancient record for an animal elder (all of whom are retired DJ’s). And when this record is sung to by DK’s companion Pauline — yep, the Super Mario Odyssey bitch, who actually originated in the Donkey Kong arcade game — it will grant him the power to transform. And the song is played each time you transform in the game, as music is what triggers the transformation and helps retain it.

During the Donkey Kong Bananza Direct you got to hear one of these songs clearly and I couldn’t stop smiling at how much it sounded like an early 2000s J-pop song. I mean, listen to this shit.

This threw me right back to 2003 in the Heisei era, where everybody was frying their hair blonde and had a flip phone. It is GLORIOUS. Ayumi Hamasaki immediately came to mind. She has so many songs in the early 2000s of this vibe — “Evolution” to name one.

Each of the Bananza transformations comes with a great song. So when you know a new Bananza is imminent, you’re just as excited to hear the song as you are to acquire the transformation and the abilities which come with it. Bear in mind, the only Bananza song I had heard prior to playing this game was the Kong Bananza. So the rest were a genuine surprise to me.

So, I’m continuing to play through the game. And I’m quite a way into it and I can see I still am yet to acquire a fifth Bananza transformation. I got to one particular stage — referred to as layers in Donkey Kong Bananza — and as soon as I saw the NPCs, I knew what the animal transformation would be. But given how soft and ambient the music in the layer was and how sombre it was, I figured the Bananza theme would follow that.

WRONG, bitch. The Bananza theme was a second generation K-pop song.

A lot of fans of Donkey Kong Bananza do not like this Bananza theme at all. But me, somebody who was into K-pop during the second generation and a person of taste — I absolutely adore it. It’s easily one of my favourite Bananza themes. But there really are no bad Bananza themes in this game. They are all incredible, insanely catchy and not necessarily what you would associate with the animal transformations, which is what makes them all the more fun and surprising. I mean, who would’ve expected the Ostrich Bananza theme to sound like something out of Hairspray and the Snake Bananza to be a second generation K-pop song!?

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🎛️ ?J Video Game mashups: Britney Spears x Tekken 2 | Mariah Carey x Sonic R | Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion x Super Mario Galaxy | Khia x Super Mario 3D World | Beyoncé x Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike | Lady Gaga x Donkey Kong Country 2 | Megan Thee Stallion x Final Fantasy VII