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Kenshi Yonezu dropped a new music video yesterday and! It! SLAPS!
I've been a fan of his music since I was in middle school, when Yonezu was making Vocaloid songs under the name "Hachi" and I was watching his self-drawn music videos of those songs with English subtitles by vgperson. He was always a star in the Vocaloid scene-- Pinocchio-P even said in this interview "Probably everyone was watching not because it was Vocaloid, but because it was Hachi. I get the impression of that charisma spilling out of the cup of Vocaloid and becoming Kenshi Yonezu."
And he's been so successful! He did the first opening theme to the second season of My Hero Academia (Peace Sign), he held a concert in Fortnite to promote his latest album, he wrote a song for the 2020 Olympics, he launched a fashion line for Uniqlo which sold out instantly and the store on fifth avenue in New York City was decorated in the album artwork he drew for himself. I'm so proud of this guy!
His music isn't just good, it's uniquely his, ugly emotions and difficult topics conveyed with poetic lyrics and skillful instrumentation. As Kenshi Yonezu, he pushes his own voice to an emotionality his vocaloid songs had never reached, creating songs that sound raw and intimate.
However, he's also notoriously shy. Yonezu doesn't really like performing live and doesn't do it often. What's so stunning about this new video for "Shinigami" is how he pushes himself to perform in it, as himself, acting with his face and whole body, allowing the camera angles to catch glimpses of his eyes. It's compelling. It's magnetic. It's that charisma Pinocchio-P mentioned as being a part of who Kenshi Yonezu is.
"Shinigami" takes inspiration from a traditional rakugo story, and reminds me of older songs Yonezu made as Hachi like "Musunde Hiraite Rasetsu to Mukuro" (which, sidenote, I can't believe he drew the video for that all by himself! with a mouse! He HAS the range!). His body of work shows he's always been fascinated with mythology and storytelling, and when he says "with Shinigami I did only what I liked," I believe it.
If you've never heard of this guy before reading this post, his latest single release (including Shinigami) is on Spotify, and so is his last full album Stray Sheep (which I love a lot). Some of his best new songs (in my opinion) are Kanden, Flamingo, Horse and Deer, and also Shunrai from his previous album. As classic as his vocaloid music is, it's also older and less polished. But Matryoshka was my favorite song in 8th grade, so.
I like him! There you go.
I've been a fan of his music since I was in middle school, when Yonezu was making Vocaloid songs under the name "Hachi" and I was watching his self-drawn music videos of those songs with English subtitles by vgperson. He was always a star in the Vocaloid scene-- Pinocchio-P even said in this interview "Probably everyone was watching not because it was Vocaloid, but because it was Hachi. I get the impression of that charisma spilling out of the cup of Vocaloid and becoming Kenshi Yonezu."
And he's been so successful! He did the first opening theme to the second season of My Hero Academia (Peace Sign), he held a concert in Fortnite to promote his latest album, he wrote a song for the 2020 Olympics, he launched a fashion line for Uniqlo which sold out instantly and the store on fifth avenue in New York City was decorated in the album artwork he drew for himself. I'm so proud of this guy!
His music isn't just good, it's uniquely his, ugly emotions and difficult topics conveyed with poetic lyrics and skillful instrumentation. As Kenshi Yonezu, he pushes his own voice to an emotionality his vocaloid songs had never reached, creating songs that sound raw and intimate.
However, he's also notoriously shy. Yonezu doesn't really like performing live and doesn't do it often. What's so stunning about this new video for "Shinigami" is how he pushes himself to perform in it, as himself, acting with his face and whole body, allowing the camera angles to catch glimpses of his eyes. It's compelling. It's magnetic. It's that charisma Pinocchio-P mentioned as being a part of who Kenshi Yonezu is.
"Shinigami" takes inspiration from a traditional rakugo story, and reminds me of older songs Yonezu made as Hachi like "Musunde Hiraite Rasetsu to Mukuro" (which, sidenote, I can't believe he drew the video for that all by himself! with a mouse! He HAS the range!). His body of work shows he's always been fascinated with mythology and storytelling, and when he says "with Shinigami I did only what I liked," I believe it.
If you've never heard of this guy before reading this post, his latest single release (including Shinigami) is on Spotify, and so is his last full album Stray Sheep (which I love a lot). Some of his best new songs (in my opinion) are Kanden, Flamingo, Horse and Deer, and also Shunrai from his previous album. As classic as his vocaloid music is, it's also older and less polished. But Matryoshka was my favorite song in 8th grade, so.
I like him! There you go.
