I am a thief. Throughout all time, there have been many kinds of thieves, but I am a little different from them. I don’t steal money. I have absolutely no interest in antiques, jewels, or other valuable works of art. I am a thief who steals sound. "Haru o hisagu" is a slang term for prostitution. Here, it functions as a metaphor for "music as a business." Don’t you think that’s sad? It’s even more foolish than real prostitution. We shave away our pride to make a living, choose themes that cater to the masses, and search for pop melodies. We create works that are neatly worded and easy to understand. In this way, we sell ourselves—ourselves as expressed through the form of music—to you at a bargain price. I call that "haru hisagi."

This music video reflects the feelings that Chara and Arata Ko express through this work, recreating memories with their beloved families in a soft-touch style of artwork. Using a stop-motion movie technique with a huge number of materials, it has been crafted into a piece that can be described as a short animated film. The music video was directed by up-and-coming art director Takuya Katsumi, who also created Chara’s previous music videos “Ai no Heaven” and “SweetNight Fever.”

To celebrate the 5th anniversary of “Mahjong Soul,” we produced this concept movie. [Story] Laughing, joking around, and having fun... as time passes, the days grow even more enjoyable. But time moves on, and a moment comes when we must face the future. “Let’s play a friendly match at the usual time again.” Even now, as each of them begins to see a different view, they still remember the promise they made at parting. Let’s gather again in Mahjong Soul...

Together with filmmaker TAKUYA KATSUMI, we expressed it through rotoscoping and animation.

A grand concept movie featuring virtual singers KAF, RIM, HARUSARUHI, and Isekaijoucho from KAMITSUBAKI STUDIO, hinting at the developments leading into FUKAKAI II Q2.

We created this piece at the request of Sukima Switch, who asked for “the opening movie of a fictional animated work.” The video is themed around a protagonist struggling to change himself, but since it is an opening sequence for a fictional animation, we also incorporated visualizer-like elements and were mindful of the distance between sound and image in the production. For the dance scene in the chorus, we used a technique called rotoscoping. Only the dancers’ movements, captured simultaneously with multiple cameras, were traced, and the dance sequence was completed by connecting different angles through a transforming character. The dance scene’s background was also created based on CG, and combined with the subtly shifting camera angles, it helped create a surreal space.