In my Japan Studies minor in college, it was professed to me that we live in an age of globalization. That means what we do in our own country has effects on people in other countries. It definitely made me feel that we should be business collaborators, not competitors, trading the resources and goods we’re good at producing for the ones that are more difficult to obtain.
What does this have to do with MST3K? I in part studied Japanese because I wanted to prove the translated lyrics to the Jet Jaguar Fight Song were made up, and I wanted to know what the real words were. I can still sing it in Japanese today, along with several other kaiju songs. I have a slightly better idea that the outlying islands around Japan have different people like the Ainu who are the ones who look like eskimos in the first Gamera film. They’re north of Aomori prefecture and have their own language and music they are trying to maintain.
I’d love to trade some Japan lessons for some Russo-Finnish troika, if there are Russian or Finnish people in our forum community. Also, Magical Voyage of Sinbad is a favorite. I would like to know if anyone read or studied folklore relevant to the Sinbad stories, some Arabian Nights or another cultural take on this film’s world.
My findings on the Jet Jaguar fight song are that it is an entertaining fake translation as I expected. Jock as a verb is kinda silly and does not parse.
Here are the real words in Japanese as I remember them:
人が作ったロボトだけど、
Even though you’re just a human built robot,
ジェットジャガー！ジェットジャガー！
Jet Jaguar! Jet Jaguar!
やった、ジェットジャガー！
Hooray, you did it, Jet Jaguar!
行け行け平和なを守るため
Go! Go! Protect our peace
皆んなも驚く勇気を見せる
Show courage with us all!
ゴジラとジャガーデパンチ！パンチ！パンチ！
（パンチ！パンチ！パンチ！）
With Godzilla, punch! punch! punch!
(punch! punch! punch!)
泣くな僕らも頑張ろう！
Don’t cry, let’s do our best.
As much as I love our heroes, I no longer appreciate the MST3K version weakening our brave robot protector. No one’s hiding that he is just a mere man built from human designs. I think his dignity can take us knowing that. This was in the 1970s and Japan had just recovered from the Pacific War to rise to be a world power. In light of the Tokyo olympics, it is important that we revisit Japan’s ability to recover from hard times, masculinity in tact, protecting crying little boys by letting them know someone big and brave fights for them. The cars are in the future and are not just for personal adornment.
There are two more verses in the song about how he’s everyone’s friend and protects us from threats from the sky:
The Finnish national epic Kalevala was the original source of it. You can find an old German made english translation of it online since its technically no longer copyrighted, but you do need to prepare for poetry: It was compiled from oral tradition and completed in a similar fashion
edit: although i do remember reading that Finnish poetry is sort of familiar to Japanese academics… But i’m not good enough at Japanese yet to confirm.