About

"Bad Apple!!" is a Japanese dance pop song originally featured in one of the arcade games from the Touhou series. Since its rise to popularity on Nico Nico Douga in 2009, the song has inspired an extensive list of remixes, dances and musical tributes, initially on the Japanese web and then worldwide. In October 2010, the shadow art video became the first Nico Nico Douga video to reach 10 million views, becoming a cultural phenomenon and inspiring a trend that involved recreating the video in various mediums.

Background

The Touhou series is a Japanese indie scrolling manic shooter game created by Team Shanghai Alice’s sole member, ZUN. Touhou games have a strong following in Japan and it is far from uncommon to see most Touhou soundtracks being remixed by various doujin circles^[1], some of them giving birth to other phenomena such as U.N Owen Was Her? and Night of Knights.

Origin

The Song

"Bad Apple!!" was originally included in the soundtrack of Level Stage 3 in the 4th Touhou Project game Lotus Land Story^[2], created by series designer ZUN^[3] and released in July 1998.

On May 20th, 2007, Masayoshi Minoshima, the founder of well-known, Touhou-affiliated doujin club Alstroemeria Records^[4] released a remix of "Bad Apple!!" featuring the voice of Japanese pop singer Nomico^[5] in an album called Lovelight^[6].

Early MAD Videos

One of the first MADs of "Bad Apple!!" was uploaded on March 28th, 2008. While its peak has likely passed, MADs based on the song are still being published on YouTube^[7] to this day.

Shadow Art Video

On June 8th 2008, Nico Nico user Μμ made a video^[8] featuring a storyboard with precise details of what he considered would be the best video clip for the "Bad Apple!!" song. His video has accumulated more than 3 million views on Nico Nico Douga in 15 years (translated YouTube version shown below).

As the idea began to spark interest, the first draft^[9] video was uploaded on October 26th, 2008. "Bad Apple!!" achieved virality on October 27, 2009 when Nico Nico Douga user Anira (あにら) released the last draft of his work on the video^[10], inspired by the 2008 fan version. This video, made with 3D moving models and silhouette shadow art featuring a great amount of the female cast from the Touhou series was posted to YouTube^[11] the same day, with the upload garnering over 11 million views in 14 years. In addition, the original Nico Nico Douga video became the first to reach 10 million views, making it one of the most watched videos in the Japanese video-sharing community at that time (English subtitled version shown below).

As a result of the video's success, many Touhou articles were published,^[12] mostly praising it as an art form.

Derivatives: Stylized Shadow Videos

While that video clip was far from being the first one in history to employ shadow and light in an artistic manner, this silhouette art instance launched its own trend of parodies. This was first translated by videos featuring other Japanese CGI models, mostly Miku Miku Dance^[14] related clips:

CNN News: Bad Apple in Stop-Motion

One of the most popular MADs of "Bad Apple!!" uses stop-motion animation where the director printed out every individual frame of the shadow video and uses contextual frame placement, published January 2010:

While most of the parodies, remixes, and MADs were made by people knowing at least a little bit about what Touhou is, the rest of the world was bound to discover the stop-motion animation clip when CNN made a report about it on January 30th 2010 :

However, in it, the reporters mistakenly credited the stop-motion alteration as being the initial video describing how the Stylized Shadow one has been made, which prompted negative comments from Touhou fans.^[15]

Dance Videos

Before the 3D shadow MAD, "Bad Apple!!" was already popular on Nico Nico Douga as a dance fad from people inventing a dance fitting the song. In a manner similar to the Fukkireta meme, the Odotte Mita (踊ってみた) or “I tried dancing it” fad on NND took hold.

It first began on June 27th 2009 when two Japanese boys uploaded themselves dancing to the song on Nico Nico Douga.^[16]

The duet performance gave birth to more than 100 videos^[17] of people following the dance, featuring either human beings or 3D characters.

Performances and Tributes

While others, pertaining to a Japanese fad called Hiite Mita (弾いてみた) or "I tried playing it" can be considered as covers and can feature nearly every kind of instrument.

Another peculiar fad on Nico Nico Douga involving a song meme, Utatte Mita (歌ってみた) or "I've tried singing it" involves people singing the tune, recording and posting it to Nico Nico Douga or other video streaming sites.

2020s Resurgence

Bad Apple!! saw a massive surge in popularity during th early 2020s, with new videos in which users played the animation in various mediums going viral online. On October 10th, 2020, YouTuber^[18] Treyzania uploaded a video in which they played Bad Apple!! on a moving herd of sheep in Minecraft, with sheep alternating their colors between black and white, achieved viral status, accumulating 6.6 million views on YouTube in two years and contributing to the comeback of the meme format in a major way.

In 2021, several more videos in which Bad Apple!! was re-animated in peculiar ways went viral online. For example, on February 6th, 2021, YouTube^[19] user Lamp posted a video in which Bad Apple was played using bots posting emoji in a Discord chat, with the upload gaining over 983,000 views in two years (shown below, left). On May 27th, YouTube^[20] user dethi uploaded a version animated entirely with the Among Us Twerk GIF. The video (shown below, right) received over 497,000 in two years.

In July 2023, /r/Touhou animated the entirety of the video during the 2023 installment of /r/place collective art project on Reddit. A timelapse of the process received over 29,100 upvotes in /r/touhou^[21] and 16,500 upvotes in /r/place^[22] in ten days (shown below).

Various Examples

External References