INDEX
The Music Video Reflecting the Song’s Complexities
Did you have an overall vision for the three music videos, or did you create each one individually?
Yamato: I wrote the script with the assumption that “the three stories take place in the same world.” If you look carefully, you’ll notice that the same characters, instruments, and tools appear in all of them.
Kaika: Oh! Really?
Yamato: Yes. If you pay close attention, you might spot them! This is part of the underlying setting. In this story, the characters are people who might one day be connected through song during difficult times, and that connection is something I wanted to express as part of the narrative. I debated whether or not to make that connection explicit in the story, but ultimately, I decided not to show it openly. However, I still believe that, one day, they will meet in that way.
When was the song “Tenkousei” first written, and what was the inspiration behind it?
Kaika: I wrote it when I was in high school. I remembered when I transferred schools in second grade, and that experience came back to me.
Yamato: So it’s based on your real experience.
Kaika: Yes, it is. Due to the aftermath of the earthquake, I was supposed to transfer schools in April, but the timing became a bit uncertain. I transferred to a small school where everyone seemed to know each other, and I had to introduce myself in front of all the grades. It was raining, and everyone was watching me. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was so uneasy and I remember thinking, “Am I okay?” From there, I started making friends, but I felt anxious until I got familiar with the classroom and my seat. I think those feelings of uncertainty and “I might be out of place” are reflected in the lyrics.
Yamato: “Tenkousei” is such an interesting song. It doesn’t follow a conventional structure, and lyrics like “Katsuki no kodou dodo-don dodo-don” transcend the usual world-building. The song feels like it pulls you into a whirlpool, leading you back to the original experiences of a single girl.
Rather than following the typical singer-songwriter format, it creates an entirely new landscape through the song, as someone attempting to build something never before seen. That’s where the originality lies, and because of that, I had a sense that the visual structure would inevitably be complex as well. The music carries that complexity and disorientation, and in the music video, the timeline gets mixed up—depicting moments before and after transferring schools and before and after cutting her hair—aiming to capture the time distortions and the bold confusion in the memory.
When you saw the actual video, which scene left the biggest impression on you?
Kaika: The moment the girl starts running at the beginning really made me think, “This is exactly the ‘Tenkousei’ music video!” The scene that left the biggest impression on me was in the gymnasium, where one girl is playing basketball, and another girl, who is on the stage in the gym, is watching her. They’re doing completely different things, but they’re in the same space, and the way the girl on the stage is watching from the special vantage point really stood out to me.
Yamato: That’s true, the stage is typically the place where one is observed, but in this case, it’s reversed.
Kaika: I really liked that about it. Also, the scene where the girl cuts her hair—I’ve been wondering what kind of feelings she had. Did she cut her hair because she wanted to get closer to the girl she was thinking about, or did she want to express her intentions, knowing it was something unattainable? I thought about that a lot. When a girl cuts her hair, it’s such a striking moment, isn’t it?
Yamato: It feels like an initiation, a ritual.
Kaika: It’s the first time my lyrics have connected with a story I couldn’t have imagined on my own. The music videos for Kafu often had the story of the song and Kafu herself intertwined, but with Kaika, even though it’s my song, I don’t appear in it, so that felt really fresh.
Yamato: As I was listening to your story, I realized that the act of cutting the hair feels like an initiation, a rebirth. It’s a season of transformation where Kafu becomes Kaika, and I think that’s where the inspiration came from.
