About

"Mitsubachi" (Japanese: ミツバチ; Eng: Honeybee) is a 2010 dance pop song performed by Japanese actor and singer Yusuke Kamiji, also known by his stage name Yuusuke. The song has been heavily criticized by listener upon it's released in Japan, with it becoming a source of parody and remix.

Origin

Written and performed by Yuusuke^[1] ,"Mitsubachi" was released in Japan as the second single for his second album "Well.. I Wish I Could Dream" on July 28th, 2010.^[2] The Caribbean SOCA^[3] inspired song is notable for it's main hook melody, which is a sample of the Japanese children song "Bun bun bun" (ぶんぶんぶん), with "bun" (ぶん/ブン) being an onomatopoeia for the sound bees make when they flap their wings.

The song became one of the top singles in Japan during the summer of 2010, peaking at number two on the Oricon music chart on August 9th.^[4] However, despite it's chart success, the song quickly became a subject of criticism and mockery in Japan. Many scrutinized its nonsensical lyrics and its repetitiveness, while some condemned it for its excessive use of a children's melody for a song containing "suggestive undertones". Much of the distaste for the song also comes from the disdain towards the singer himself with many questioning his authenticity and seeing him as being pushed by his record label.

Spread

[researching]

After it's release, many Japanese internet users immediately began taking to the song's sale page^[5] on Amazon Japan to write mock reviews ranging from sarcastic praise to straight ridicule. These reviews quickly made their rounds within the Japanese net including the anonymous textboard community 2channel, where many threads were created for highlighting the most critical reviews. Before long, 2ch users began associating the song with a ASCII art character known as "Naito Horizon"^[6] (内藤ホライゾン, ⊂二二二（　＾ω＾）二⊃), due to its likeness is that of a bee and also for its catchphrase "boon" (ブーン) is similar to song's repeated lyric "bun" (ぶん). The earliest reference to this was posted in one of the review threads on the /news4vip/ board on July 31st, 2010.^[7]

Niconico

The song later reached Niconico Douga, when a shorten remix of the song was uploaded to the site on August 4th^[8], while the full version was shared the next day.^[9] The former gained over 480 thousand views while latter attained over 1.2 million. During the same time, a compilation video showcasing the most notable reviews was uploaded by Niconico user Solphy on August 5th.^[10] A revised version^[11] posted on the same day would be viewed more 480 thousand times. The song's notoriety were then be cemented when a flash video of the song featuring 2ch characters, including "Naito", dancing while reading Amazon reviews was uploaded to Niconico on August 5th,^[12] while an animated version^[13] of the flash was uploaded two days later. These animations became one of the most popular out of the parodies, gaining over 1.2 million views and 700 thousands views respectively.

Alongside these animation parodies were also musical covers, and one of the most popular cover was a parody uploaded to the site by Niconico singer Chine Miku (痴音ミク) on August 11th, 2010. Sung in the perspective of a neet, the cover was one of the biggest hits on the site during the Summer of 2010, with the video attaining over a million views in just under a month and over 2.5 million overall as of April 2017.

Many other parodies and remixes would be created and shared to Niconico^[13] until sometime during 2011, when the song's right holder Sony Music Entertainment began issuing copyright claims on videos featuring the song, which sparked the mass take-down of many of the most popular videos on the site. On YouTube^[14], parodies of the song were also shared but in few numbers because videos are often muted or region-blocked.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

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