From our other sites
The story
A video of a man busking on what appears to be a street outside Kawasaki Station, asking passersby who were chatting nearby, “If you’re going to talk there, could you just leave?”, became a hot topic on 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyo G” (Live Commentary General) board. The thread split between people outraged that he had the nerve to tell someone to “get out” of a public street, and others defending the musician by citing Kawasaki City’s official “Music City Kawasaki” policy supporting street performers — with the debate centering on whether his warning actually carries any legal weight.
Isn’t that a public road, though?
Source: video.twimg.com / Original article here
What people said
Dude's an idiot
Selling out the Tokyo Dome with this whole "picking fights with strangers" act would be way too hype
Which means the singer's actually in the right here, since the city officially backs it.
Still, this is a very Kawasaki kind of trouble — everyone who gathers there has rock-bottom manners.
Opening the area to musicians doesn't mean they get to control pedestrians too, idiot
He's getting reported to the cops constantly, though
If you want to get famous in Kawasaki, you gotta rap, not sing
Honestly, if I were actually there I'd probably burst out laughing
So the move is to file a complaint with Kawasaki City Hall, then?
Kawasaki City: "If you don't like it, don't come to Kawasaki."
That's the end of that.
Plenty of idiots in this very thread bashing the singer with "if you don't like it, don't do it" too —
it all comes back around on you.
Wait, they're attracting street musicians to improve public safety?
That makes zero sense
It's better than having the area taken over by thugs, basically.
There's also some rivalry with Yokohama, which produced Yuzu [a famous busker-turned-duo].
By the way, the most famous act to come out of Kawasaki's street scene is SHISHAMO (lol)
The city just supports the musicians, that's all — it doesn't give them any power to force people to stop talking or kick them out.
And chatting on the street isn't illegal either
There's also no rule saying it's illegal to ask people to move if they're interfering.
Going by the city's own policy, the singer's actually on firmer ground here.
You lose if you mistake Kawasaki for some ordinary town
Well, just asking nicely is fine, I guess — it just has zero enforcement power.
So if they ignore him and keep chatting right there, he's got no grounds to complain
Not a single street musician has ever been arrested for singing in an approved area.
File as many spiteful reports as you want, it's pointless — don't underestimate how useless the Kanagawa police are
If the Kanagawa police don't act on a spiteful report about something happening in an approved area… is that really their fault?
The city just said "go ahead and sing badly in the street" — it never gave him authority to kick ordinary people out
He does have the right to call out ordinary people who are interfering with his performance.
Since the singer didn't resort to violence or physically drag anyone away, the singer wins this one
He's allowed to complain, he just has no enforcement power to force them out.
But since this singer is only asking nicely, there's nothing illegal about it, and it lines up fine with city policy
He's using a mic and started lecturing them at full volume — that's way past just "asking nicely"
There's no legal problem here, so what grounds do you even have to complain?
Makes you wonder what that complaint is actually based on —
if it were just a polite request, sure, that'd be one thing
Does it actually have any music-related industry? lol
I could understand it if it were Hamamatsu, which has like 99% of the domestic market share in musical instruments
Apparently the only way to survive in Kawasaki is to become a rapper
Muza Kawasaki Symphony Hall [a concert hall in Kawasaki]
Can you guys take the actual musician debate somewhere else?
This guy wins
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZh5o72KOkE
You're the top-tier culprit here, buddy
This is Kawasaki, baby
Background and key points of the debate
Kawasaki City promotes itself as “Music City Kawasaki,” setting aside performance areas for street musicians around JR Kawasaki Station and similar spots to support their activities. The thread’s central debate was whether this program gives performers any authority over passersby — while a musician can ask people to quiet down, there’s no legal basis for forcibly removing anyone who refuses to comply, since the policy amounts to little more than a “request.” Even granting that it’s “just a request,” opinion split over whether the act of calling someone out is acceptable at all, reflecting differing views on how to weigh the public’s right to use the street against the priority the city gives to performances it backs. Commenters also brought up SHISHAMO and other musicians from Kawasaki, but it’s worth noting this isn’t because the city is some hub of the music industry — it’s tied specifically to the city’s support for street culture, a distinction that’s easy to miss.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (“Nandemo Jikkyo G”) thread “[Video] Street musician: “If you’re going to talk there, could you just leave?”“.
Leave a Reply