"Kind World"," an original rap song that advocates plain-form Japanese, has been released. The raps were created with the thought of using easy Japanese (Japanese that everyone can easily speak and understand) to encourage a more inclusive, diverse, and kinder world. This project was created by the Plain Japanese Tourism Initiative in cooperation with the Yamawaki Keizo Seminar at the School of Global Japanese Studies of Meiji University, and supported by The Japan Foundation.

We are asking non-native Japanese speakers to submit videos in which they perform their own original plain-form Japanese rap lyrics using the audio we have provided as a backing track. Those who do not live in Japan but are studying Japanese are more than welcome to participate, and videos may be submitted either as a group or individually. The submission deadline is now extended to Friday, January 14, 2022 (Japan time), after which we will select the top ten raps to be included in our global mix video!

How to create your own special video

1. 1.Create your own rap based off of your experiences, feelings, and thoughts studying Japanese and communicating in Japanese. Anything is okay as long as it is about Japan, such as why you love Japan and Japanese, things you want to do in Japan, thoughts about Japan, etc.
2. 2.Japan Foundation's official YouTube channel has the instrumental/backing-track versions.
   Short version：https://youtu.be/dH5ySJ0tioI
   Long version：https://youtu.be/y5p-MI0Odss
   Play the instrumental, put your original rap on top of it, and create a video.
   There are both short and long versions of the backing track, so please try the long version if you feel confident with your skills!
3. 3.Do not change the lyrics of this part: (きもちとどけよう～せかいをつくろう).

   

4. 4.Post either on YouTube or TikTok with the hashtag #やさしい日本語ラップ
5. 5.Please contact oca＠jpf.go.jp with the following information:
   (When sending an e-mail, please replace the full-width "＠" character with a half-width character.)
   1. (1) Name
   2. (2) Country of residence / area
   3. (3) The lyrics you have created
   4. (4) Where you have uploaded your video (YouTube or TikTok)
   5. (5) Account name and the link to your video (either YouTube or TikTok)

   We will select three submissions for outstanding performances and seven submissions for best performances, and then use them to create the global mix version.

6. 6.Students of the Yamawaki Keizo School of Global Japanese Studies Seminar at Meiji University will judge the submissions.
7. 7.Japan Foundation will contact those whose submissions are selected.
8. 8.We will invite the three participants whose submissions are selected as "outstanding" to attend an online ceremony at which you will have an opportunity to speak in Japanese directly to the students.
9. 9.The Global Mix version will be uploaded on Japan Foundation's YouTube channel.