Young Girl A (少女A)

Content Warning: Portions of this entry make mention of suicide, which some may find difficult or upsetting. If you need support or are dealing with suicidal thoughts, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's website or call 1-800-273-8255.

About

Young Girl A or 少女A is a song released in 2013 by the Vocaloid Japanese artist siinamota (椎名もた) that delves into deeply introspective thoughts like life, death, love and self-identity. The music was popularized in the online anime community with remixes, parodies and other video edits shared on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter (X) and TikTok throughout the 2010s and early 2020s.

Origin

"Young Girl A" was first released^[1] on October 17th, 2013, by the Japanese Vocaloid singer Shiina Mota, popularly known as siinamota or PowapowaP. The music was uploaded on the YouTube^[2] channel @umaainc, garnering 28 million views and 671,000 likes in a decade (shown below).

Siinamota's Death

Japanese composer siinamota, whose real name was Ryo Mizoguchi (溝口遼 Mizoguchi Ryou), was born on March 9th, 1995, in the Ishikawa Prefecture. He passed away on July 23rd, 2015, as the company label to which he was working for U/M/A/A Inc. revealed on X^[3] a few days later on July 26th (shown below). The tweet received over 3,700 likes and 9,500 retweets in eight years.

Although the cause of his death was never revealed, the producer uploaded his last song,^[4] titled "Aka Pen Onegai Shimasu" (Please Give Me a Red Pen, in English) feat. Hatsune Miku, half an hour before his death in 2015. The music (shown below) was uploaded to YouTube^[5] by @lyricsub19 on July 27th, 2015, garnering over 480,000 views and 11,000 likes in eight years.

Due to the timing of the release of a song and various tweets from the Japanese producer, it is speculated^[6] that the cause of death might've been suicide.

Spread

The song resurfaced on social media around early 2022, inspiring parodies and video edits of anime characters. For instance, on January 30th, 2022, YouTuber^[7] ynexz273 posted an edited video of the Charlotte anime featuring the "Young Girl A" song (shown below, left), which garnered more than 141,000 views and 9,400 likes in a year. On January 24th, YouTuber^[8] carmwe8814 posted a remix of the song (shown below, right) that amassed over 66,000 views and 2,200 likes in a year.

The music also gained popularity on TikTok in 2022, as its official audio accumulated over 105,000 videos posted on the platform as of September 2023. For example, on February 11th, 2022, TikToker^[9] @imanvaldez posted a clip from the Juni Ito anime (shown below, left), amassing more than 35 million plays and 5 million likes in a year.

On September 16th, 2023, TikToker^[10] @refugio_dos_clips uploaded a video of the "We Become What We Behold" game featuring "Young Girl A" music as the soundtrack. The post garnered over 18 million plays and 1.8 million likes in two days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References