X of the Sprite Tribe

About

X of the Sprite Tribe refers to a style of MAD videos and YTPMV’s that use the audio track “The Little Sprite” (Japanese title : 妖精族のこども, lit. the Child of the Sprite Tribe) from Square’s 1993 game Secret of Mana.^[1] The Little Sprite was written by a Japanese composer Hiroki Kikuta.^[2] It is said that the Japanese title for this song “The Child of the Sprite Tribe” is a homage to Lord Dunsany^[3] because a title of an anthology of short stories including his 1924 fantasy novel “The King of Elfland’s Daughter” is “The Daughter of the Sprite Tribe” (妖精族のむすめ). Despite its title, this song is a theme music not for POPOI who is one of the player characters and the child of the sprite tribe, but for KAKKARA which is a village in the desert.

Since the first half of 2009, this song has been occasionally used in MAD videos on the Japanes video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND).

Origin

The oldest video using this song for parody was posted to NND in May 13th, 2008^[4], and it was a simple remix with the dance of I Want To Love You Tender.

And, this song became to be used gradually in MADs around March 2009. Some of the earliest videos that received support from MAD editors featured the Japanese anime/manga such as Lucky Star^[5] and Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase.^[6]

Among these, Several videos like this below that featured the characters from the Japanese anime/manga K-ON! were able to reach the largest audience partly due to the huge popularity of K-ON! in those days.

Ui of the Sprite Tribe【けいおん！】いもうと属性の憂【妖精族のこども】^[7]

Spread

On Nico Nico Douga

Since then, though it hasn’t been able to get popularity like other video game music such as Kirby’s Gourmet Race, a certain amount of MAD videos using this song have been posted to NND.^[8]

On YouTube

The fad of this song was imported to YouTube by YTPMV lovers. When they port those videos into YouTube, they renamed their title to “(Character’s name) of the Sprite Tribe”. Therefore, the series of this MAD video is called “X of the Sprite Tribe”.

They also have made their own “X of the Sprite Tribe” videos, and a few of their works has been posted to there.^[9]

Notable Examples

For more videos, check out the videos section in this entry.

AGK of the Sprite Tribe 【鍵盤伝説２】妖精族のキーボード^[10] (See also : Angry German Kid)

YuiRitsu Child of the Sprite Tribe 指がスパッと族のうんたん^[11] (See also : Untan)

This Yui & Ritsu video has several hand drawn animation version. Those videos are called “K-ON! Dance” on YouTube, and featured not only these girls, but also the characters from Touhou Project : Sakuya & Koakuma and Koishi & Okuu.

Westerners’ Draw

Filly of the Pony Tribe (See also : My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Alice of the Sprite Tribe (See also : Marisa Stole the Precious Thing)

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.