Ryu Watabe, who translated the PaRappa the Rapper song lyrics into English from their original Japanese drafts, was told during development to make all the end-lines of the lyrics "rhyme neatly". He later expressed that this approach sounded "kind of cheesy and outdated" akin to old-school hip hop music and did not reflect later lyrical complexities and trends in rap music. He struggled with rhyming lyrics and believed that in English lyrics, "no matter what song, there always has to be rhyming." These struggles were due to Japanese lyrics not using rhyming and thereby lacking the "rhythmic groove" that English lyrics have and what Watabe believed made them "singable". While in the early stages of writing, he originally wanted to make the lyrics PaRappa repeated back easier to rhyme "so they'd flow better." For example, in Chop Chop Master Onion's stage (a character Watabe voiced), he wanted to use "kick, stick" instead of "kick, punch", and "chop, top" instead of "chop, block". Ultimately, he felt this sounded "horrible" and chose to only have the opponent's lyrics rhyme. He also felt embarrassed about other rappers hearing the music he wrote for the game, despite them all being supportive and understanding the vision and limitations of writing rap music for a video game.