About

"Kokoro Odoru" (Japanese: ココロオドル, lit. Heart is Dancing) is a 2004 rap song performed by the Japanese hip-hop group nobodyknows+.^[1] Online, this Latin-inspired track has since became a popular musical resource for MAD remix videos on the Japanese video sharing site Nico Nico Douga.

Origin

The song was originally written for the group by former member G-TON and was released on May 26th, 2004 as the third single for their debut album "Do You Know?", released under their label Sony Music Entertainment (SME) on June 30th of that year. The song became a smash hit upon its summer release, reaching the top 10 in Oricon music charts in Japan.

The song has also appeared within other medias, being used as the second ending theme song for the 2004 Gundam spin-off Superior Defender Gundam Force^[2], and featured in the Nintendo DS music-rhythm game Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan in 2005.^[3]

Spread

MAD editors on Niconico began introducing this song into their works as early as January 2008^[4], while one of the first notable mash-up was part of the Futae no Kiwami MAD series, uploaded to the site on August 18th, 2008.^[5] Interest for the song later a significant boost towards late 2008/early 2009, after two MAD videos featuring the likes of Shuzo Matsuoka^[6] and the anime The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya^[7] were uploaded to the site.

However, towards the first half of 2009, nearly all videos and early remixes with original song began being deleted off of Niconico by the songs' rights holder SME, due to their strict stance in copyright infringements against their publications. In response to this action, Niconico user LIET9 created and uploaded a transcribed version of the song to the site on September 3rd, 2009^[6] as an alternative for MAD editors, which was possible because of an umbrella agreement between Niconico company Niwango and music companies including SME allowing transcribed or musical covers of their songs. From there, MAD editors began using this version in their remixes, which later saw a surge of interest after a MAD remix of Mahjong anime Saki was created by user まんてん and was uploaded to Niconico on February 2nd, 2010.

The video would become one of the most viewed on these remixes and also among MAD videos, generating more than 2 million views since its upload. As of May 2014, more than 580 videos relating to the song has since been uploaded to Niconico^[7], many being remixes using the transcribed cover.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

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