About

"Renai Circulation" (Japanese: 恋愛サーキュレーション; lit. "Love Circulation") is the fourth opening theme of Bakemonogatari, the anime adaptation of the Monogatari light novel series. Although the theme was only used for two episode, the song has since became one of the most recognizable in the series, with it inspiring many musical covers and remixes.

Origin

Bakemonogatari was produced by animation studio SHAFT and first aired in Japan from July 3, 2009 to September 25, 2009, where the series centers around the protagonist Koyomi Araragi, who deals with deities and spirits that reflect people's inner problems. "Renai Circulation" was composed by Satoru Kosaki and sung by Japanese voice actress Kana Hanazawa^[1], and was used as the theme song for the "Nadeko Snake" arc, where Koyomi Araragi tries to help Nadeko Sengoku get rid of a curse that will eventually kill her without treatment.

Spread

Its catchiness and Kana Hanazawa's cute singing immediately gained popularity among viewers of the anime. Shortly after, people began introducing this song to fan creations such as guitar or bass guitar covers, music remixes/mash-ups and MAD videos despite of its full version hadn't been released yet. Those creations were continually uploaded to the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga. Among them, a choreography for this song created by Niconico user MAKOTO (馬琴)^[2] particularly caught much attention.^[3] It became one of the most popular subjects for dance videos among female participants in Niconico's dancing cover movement "Odottemita".

However, by late 2009 to 2010, many popular fan creations featuring the song, including the above video, on Niconico were taken down by Aniplex, the copyright holder of the anime series, and its parent company Sony Music Entertainment, which their famous for their very opposition stance against online creations. Niconico users have been recording their deletion campaigns to niconico Pedia article^[4] in a negative tone. Although there are more than 4,000 videos of fan creations for this song on Niconico^[5], many of them are sometimes taken down because their strict copyright-claims.

Various Examples

Dancing Covers

Music Performances / Singing Covers

MAD/Parody Videos

Search Interest

External References

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