Some Japanese Songs I’d Recommend

The other day I made this list of Japanese songs in my fangirling account. I think it’s becoming a thing in the fandom. Like, someone posted answers to some questions but didn’t actually display the questions, just the answers. Then they asked people to drop an emoji, and would DM them the questions. It’s fun because sometimes it gets us really curious about the questions. Hhe I myself do not know much about the fandom, but I really want to share the songs I listen to with my mutuals, and I’m kinda curious too about the Japanese songs they listen to outside Hey! Say! JUMP fandom. There were a lot that I wanted to include actually, but I was trying to list songs of different singers/musician. I simply want to know how diverse the songs my “friends” listen to. So, well, I think I’ll post the list here and let you know how I came to know each song. Well, I know most of them from either anime or movies, though 😀 PS: If you’re on Twitter and feel familiar with this list or a certain username that made this list, it might be me ^^

1. Kenshi Yonezu ft Suda Masaki – Haiiro to Ao Surprisingly, this one is not from any movies or anime that I know. I love Suda Masaki and maybe that’s how YouTube recommended this song for me. LoL But then I come to love this song so much. I also fell in love with Kenshi Yonezu. Man, his live performances are sick! I mean, it’s really awesome! You know how, no matter how good a song is if the live performance isn’t that good, I won’t like the singer, right? Kenshi is different. He always slays. He really performs greatly in every live performance. It’s almost like a recording, except that it’s really live. His voice is stable, his music and performance is, gosh, I don’t know what word to describe it. It’s like “amazing” doesn’t do it justice. And, there are a lot of his songs that I love. I couldn’t list them all here but please give them a listen like Lemon, Peace Sign, Loser, Paprika, etc. As for Suda Masaki, try to listen to Sayonara Elegy and Machigai Sagashi 🙂

2. Arashi – Turning Up I put it here because everyone in the fandom loves Arashi. Haha And they also collaborate with the love of my life: One Piece too, so that’s why :’)

3. Kenshi Yonezu ft Daoko – Uchiage Hanabi This is an ost of an anime “Fireworks” movie, where Suda Masaki became the voice actor of the main lead. BUT, funny thing was, I didn’t actually notice or wasn’t aware of it when I was watching the anime. It’s just when I was looking up Kenshi Yonezu and checking out his songs when I found this song, and found out that this is an ost of an anime, and I was like, “Wait, I did watch this anime movie! How could I not love it back then?” But, well, once again, this proves that love is really about timing and momentum. I guess when I was watching the anime, the timing wasn’t right so I didn’t get the momentum. But, oh, my. Kenshi Yonezu is really great. This version ft. Daoko was too high for me so it’s hard to sing, but I listened to the one version where Kenshi sang it live alone and it was super amazing. He’s definitely a music genius!

4. GReeeeN – Kiseki I first knew this song from the “Kiseki: Ano hi no Sobito” movie. (I reviewed it here if you want to read). And, gosh, that’s how I came to fall in love with GReeeeN! Like, their songs are gorgeous. It’s simple, sweet, nice, but not too cheesy. Well, it might be too flattering or too cheesy sometimes but I don’t think it’s in an annoying way. Quite the contrary, their songs make you feel loved, like, feeling love in a simple but beautiful way 🙂 There are other songs of GReeeeN that I love like Aiuta, Michi, and Koe. Please check them out ^^

5. L’Arc-en-Ciel – Coming Closer To be honest, I couldn’t really remember how I got to know this song. I guess it was back in the days when one local band here got so popular and many said that they were actually copying L’Arc-en-Ciel and it turned out that L’Arc-en-Ciel was really famous (🙈😅✌I’m sorry, I didn’t know it before🙏🙇‍♀️), and so somehow I ended up knowing this song and love it. It even became my ringtone and my alarm tone for a while 🙂

6. YUI – Tokyo I’ve written about this song before (here!), so I won’t talk much about it. In short, though, I knew this song because I like YUI 🙂

7. Mongol800 – Anata Ni I first know this song from Osozaki no Himawari drama (I reviewed it here!) because Ikuta Toma was there and sang this song with the other actors and actresses as the ost. However, later, this song was actually sung again as an ost of another movie, “Chiisana Koi no Uta.” Chiisana Koi no Uta itself was also a song from Mongol800, please check it out. And funny thing is, it was actually an ost of a drama I watched some time ago, namely Proposal Daisakusen (I reviewed it here!) but I wondered why I wasn’t aware of how beautiful this song was back then. I mean, I really loved that drama to a point I still remember the story until this day, but when I found out that this song was actually the ost of that drama, I was like, “Wait, I watched and loved that drama! How could I not know that?!” Again, love is really about timing and momentum… ^^

8. Kamenashi Kazuya (KAT-TUN) – Rain Well, I love Kame. I might not be a fan of KAT-TUN, but damn, I love Kame. He’s the first Japanese celebrity who actually came to my dream ^^ And this song? Well, my Instagram and YouTube algorithm definitely did their job well by showing me a video of his singing this song 🙂

9. GENERATIONS from EXILE TRIBE – Hard Knock Days It’s one of ONE PIECE songs! You know how much I love One Piece, right? (Read it here!) But, funny thing is, when I was actually watching the episodes in which this song became the theme song, I wasn’t aware of how great the song was. I fell in love with this song much later when some other fans made a list of their favorite ONE PIECE songs and I was like, “Oh, my, this song is great! I love it!” And I really want to learn the choreography of this song! I don’t know why my timing is often late. Hikz

10. AAA – Wake Up Another ONE PIECE song 😀

11. Hey! Say! JUMP – Mayonaka no Shadow Boys Well, I know I said I wanted to know the Japanese songs people listen to outside HSJ fandom, but it doesn’t feel right to not include Hey! Say! JUMP here. Besides, this might have been the first song that I really loved from them 🙂

12. Kis-My-Ft2 – Kimi wo daisuki da I’ve talked about this song before (here!), so I won’t talk about it anymore. In short, though, I knew it from the movie that I watched: Tora san: Boku ga neko ni natte wake (Tiger: My life as a cat).

13. Miwa ft Hazzie – Yozora I knew this song because I fell in love with Miwa after I watched her movie and listened to her songs there (here!), and again, YouTube kinda recommended this for me and I fell in love with it 🙂

14. Do as Infinity – Fukai Mori It’s an ost of an anime during my childhood: Inuyasha. It’s interesting that I could remember, sing, and memorize the lyrics quite well even though it’s actually not really my favorite anime. Sometimes I remember it better than One Piece songs. Haha

15. V6 – Change the World It’s also the ost of Inuyasha, the popular anime in my childhood.

16. Spitz – Uta Usagi It’s an ost of one of Ikuta Toma’s movies: Sensei, suki ni natte mo ii? Funny, again, that I didn’t fall in love with the song when I was watching that movie. I fell in love with it after one of the fandom accounts I follow posted a throwback of Toma’s old movies and posted this song, and I was like, “This song is nice. I love it.” Again, it’s about timing… 😊💕

17. Wanima – GONG It’s the ost of One Piece Stampede movie 😀

18. YamaPi – Dancer I knew this song because someone posted a video of YamaPi singing this in his concert and at that time Kame came as a guest to sing along with him. Later I learned that they actually co-write this song. I love Kame, so, what do you expect? Haha

19. The Babystars – Hikari E Another One Piece song. And this is really one of my favorites, like, I’ve loved it since the very beginning. Too bad I cannot find any videos of the band singing this song live, though. Even my Japanese friends couldn’t help me find it :'(

20. Old codex – Aching Horns In one of my depressing days, I ended up watching this anime movie: “High Speed! –Free! Starting Days”. And I ended up loving the song ^^

21. Crude Play – Sotsugyo This is an ost of one of my favorite movies (I reviewed it here!). And, my, I know they formed the band only for the movie, but their songs are really good! I think I love all of them including Insecticide and Sayonara no junbi wa mou dekite ita.

22. Sekai no owari – Rain This is another “love is about timing and momentum” thing. I mean, this is actually an ost of a famous anime movie: Mary and the Witch’s flower. But as you might expect, I wasn’t in love with the song when I was watching the movie. I fell in love with the song much later and I was like, “Wait, this song is an ost of that anime movie? I watched it!” LoL me, or rather, jeez me! But oh, another song that I love from Sekai no Owari is 「RPG」. I guess I love Fukase’s voice, except that personally I found Fukase quite intimidating so I was kinda scared of him. Haha

23. Radwimps – Ai ni dekiru koto wa mada arukai This is one of the osts of Weathering With You anime movie. This movie gets so popular following Kimi no Nawa. Too bad I haven’t watched it ☹😭 But it’s available on YouTube and I kinda anticipated the movie, that’s why I came to listen and love it 🙂

24. ONE OK ROCK – Change Well, because ONE OK ROCK is quite popular. It’s actually one of the prominent Japanese bands nowadays, I think. That’s why I feel the need to include at least one of their songs in my list here. And by the way, I was actually surprised that Taka, the vocalist, once joined Johnny’s agency, like he was in the same JE company as Hey! Say! JUMP. Wow.

25. Official 髭男dism – Pretender Another “love is about timing and momentum” thing because actually YouTube has been recommending this song to me since a while ago but I didn’t really have time to check it out. I might have given it a listen but wasn’t in love with it. HOWEVER, during my flight back to Indonesia, I watched The Confidence Man JP and fell in love with the ost. I played the movie till the end ’cause I wanted to read the credits and found out who sang the song and what the title was. And when later I could double-check it later, I was quite surprised because, dang, I’ve known this song for a while but didn’t properly listen to it. But then I fell in love with it 😉 And, Official 髭男dism (It’s read Official Higedandism, btw) is a great new band. I also love their other songs like “I Love…” 🙂

So, mmm, those are all the songs that I listed for the game in the fandom/in my fangirling account. I’m quite surprised when some people actually know a lot of it. And somehow I’m not surprised that many just listen to only Arashi and a few of idol groups in JE fandom only. But, I’m glad I made this on my Twitter fangirling account. The best part is not getting more followers or getting more people to join or play along. The best part for me is, as someone plays along, they get to know the songs I listed. And somehow I hope they’ll have time to listen and who knows end up liking them. 

Some of these songs are really my mood boosters. So I hope they can brighten more people’s day 🙂 And, oh, I attached my username on the list not because I wanted attention. I thought that maybe some people want to make their own list of their own favorite songs. So when they see my username on the “challenge”, they’d be like, “Oh, I’ve done this list.” And when there’s another list of J-songs, they can still do it because it’s a different list. That way they don’t have to wonder if it’s the same list or end up doing the same lists. I encourage people to make their own list, though. I think it’s quite interesting. It can broaden our views? I mean, like, knowing more songs. That way we can appreciate more music and perhaps not feel superior towards others, because, gosh, there are a lot of amazing work out there 🙂 But, oh, I hope you can love them too. Thank you 🙂

PS: Someone actually made another list. I don’t know most of the songs she listed and suddenly she thought I was younger than her. Haha I mean, it’s possible, but I wouldn’t be too sure. You know how late I usually am with things, right? I mean, things could be very popular when I was younger but I didn’t know bout it. I could find it out later but it’s also possible that I’d never know about it no matter how popular it was. (I mean, JUMP has been around for 12 years yet I’ve become a fan only for 2-3 months!) So, really, I wouldn’t really use this thing as a reference to decide on someone’s age. Chance is, we could be of the same age, or perhaps, I could be older. But, well, never mind. Being older or younger doesn’t automatically make us a better or a superior person anyway. And in this fandom, I position myself as a newbie who could learn a lot from other fans, be they younger or older. But, ok, I love feeling young, so if someone is happy to think I’m younger than her, I’ll just take it for granted :p

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