About

Otamatone Covers are a series of instrumental tributes to various songs and themes performed with an Otamatone, a Japanese electronic musical instrument synthesizer which emits notes out of a plastic head.

Origin

The Otamatone was originally developed in Japan by the toy company CUBE. On August 27th, 2009, the instrument was unveiled in a YouTube video on the Maywadenki channel (shown below, left). On October 9th, the Maywadenki channel uploaded a video of several people performing a cover the traditional English folk song "Greensleeves" played on several Otamatones (shown below). Within eight years, the video gained over 3.4 million views and 3,700 comments.

Spread

On April 4th, 2012, YouTuber Sp4zie uploaded a cover of the "League of Legends": theme played with an Otamatone (shown below, left). That day, the video reached the front page of /r/leagueoflegends.^[1] On May 29th, 2013, YouTuber leakmilkhkg posted an Otamatone cover of the 2008 pop song "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga (shown below, right).

On January 22nd, 2014, YouTuber Owen Korzec published a cover of the 1991 grunge song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana played on an Otamatone (shown below, left). On September 8th, YouTuber nelsontyc uploaded an Otamatone cover of the 20th Century Fox Theme (shown below, right).

On June 15th, 2015, YouTuber nelsontyc uploaded a cover of the song "Sandstorm" by Darude played on several Otamatones (shown below, left). On November 30th, YouTuber Kouki posted an Otamatone cover of the theme song for One Punch Man (shown below, right).

On July 3rd, 2016, YouTuber Sakura Novas posted a cover of the "Chocobo Theme" from the Final Fantasy series played on a Otamatone (shown below). One December 8th, the video reached the front page of /r/YouTubeHaiku.^[2] On December 12th, YouTuber mklachu uploaded an Otamatone cover of the song played in the Temmie Village location in Undertale (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References