Watch a Japanese grandfather sing traditional 'enka' music in this wild Resident Evil Village ad

I've never gotten into the Resident Evil games, so I really don't know anything about the series beyond the most barebones basics. After watching this weird Resident Evil Village advertisement from Japan, I feel like I know even less than I did when I started: Like what little knowledge I did possess was all wrong, and now I have to start all over again.

The ad features a nearly-three-minute performance by Yoshi Ikuzo, who a quick trip to Wikipedia tells me is a famous enka singer-songwriter in Japan. From there, a different Wiki page explains enka as a popular genre of music that's considered to be stylistically similar to traditional Japanese music. Modern enka, a form of "sentimental ballad," was developed in the postwar years, while a revival is dated to 1969 with the debut of singer Keiko Fuji.

We're getting down a rabbit hole here.

Back to the matter at hand: For some reason, Capcom decided that this would be an ideal aural backdrop for a Resident Evil Village ad, and further, that Ikuzo himself should appear in it, with clips of him looking like your three-beers-deep dad singing karaoke stitched between gameplay cuts of horrific beasts, monsters, death traps, and of course the very large, oddly attractive vampire lady. Is "incongruous" the word I'm looking for here? I think so! Ikuzo sure seems to be having a good time, though. At least until the end, which goes about as you'd expect.

The ad actually came out a couple weeks ago in Japan but we didn't see it until today, and I think it's a fine way to send us all off into the weekend. Resident Evil Village did come out today, by the way, and it's very good: We called it "the scariest Resident Evil yet" in our 85% review.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.