About

"Danjo" (Japanese: 男女; Eng: Men & Women or Boys & Girls) refer to a series of animated and live-action dance videos inspired by the 2006 rock song of the same name. These dance videos became widespread on the video sharing site Nico Nico Douga during early 2008, becoming one of the site's top dance and animation fads of that year.

Origin

Created with the music software GarageBand^[1], "Danjo" was written and recorded by Japanese musician Taro (太郎) and was released in Japan on December 13th, 2006. The song's premise relatively simple, where it follows a student, a teacher, and a student president deciding the seating arrangements of their class. The song remained mildly known until it was shared to Niconico a year later on December 2nd, 2007.

Lyrics

Spread

The rhythmic and comedic nature of the song fascinated users on the site, but it wasn't until a month later when the initial animations that the song began gaining traction. Created by Niconico user riotogll and uploaded on January 9th, 2008 (shown below, left), the video features the Vocaloid characters Kaito and Kegamine Len acting out the song's lyrics and performing what would be known as the Danjo dance. The completed version of the animation (shown below, right) would later be uploaded to Niconico on the 20th of the same month.

These animations became immediate hits with Niconico users, with the complete version being watched over a million times in just three months. From there, many parody animations quickly began cropping on the site, with them feature characters from various anime and video games series. The first of these showcasted series such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya^[2], Gundam 00^[2], and Higurashi When They Cry. The Higurashi parody ended up becoming one of the most popular Danjo animations, being watch more than 840 thousand times.

Meanwhile users on Niconico soon began filming their own dances to song featured in the animations. One of the earilest to do so was performed by Niconico dancer Killroy and was uploaded on January 12th, 2008.^[4] Though the video was later taken down, it was enough to inspire other user to created their own dance videos. Following the original, many of the later videos feature the dancers concealing their identities by wearing a mask or a bag over their heads.

Various Examples

Over 1900 video relating to Danjo has since been shared to Niconico^[5] ever since the original Vocaloid animations were posted on the site, and many of the video has been reuploaded, as well as created, on YouTube.^[6]

Dance covers

Search Interest

External References