“パッパッパラッパパパラパ あれはきっとパンダヒーロー”
“Pa-pa-pa-lah, pa-pa-pa-la-pah, surely that must be the Panda Hero.”
-Panda Hero
“教えてダアリン ダアリン ねえダアリン”
“Please tell me, darling, darling, darling.”
-Lynne
“継ぎ接ぎ狂ったマトリョシ”
“I’m a mad Matryoshka covered in patches.”
-Matryoshka
Do these lyrics ring a bell? If you still don’t remember it, how about the name hachi (ハチ)? Do you remember now? That year 2009 where hachi began posting songs in NND and was known as one of the producers who rose to fame with the songs ‘Matryoshka’, ‘Panda Hero’, ‘Lynne’, and more. His songs are deemed to have unique sounding melodies, lyrics with deep meaning, and eccentric music videos.
If you’ve been in the community for a very long time, he’s deemed to be one of the legendary vocaloid producers out there, but around 2010 after the release of his album ‘Official Orange’ we no longer heard from him.
So, where is he now?
Hachi or now known as ‘Kenshi Yonezu’ (米津玄師 ) is a singer-songwriter whose songs peaked number one in the Japanese charts. Incredible, right? The vocaloid producer we loved is now a singer.
Like other vocaloid producers, hachi also lent his voice to one of his songs in the album ‘Official Orange’ where we heard his voice for the very first time. The name of the track is ‘Urban Playground’ and boy, oh boy, I was really surprised back then and began searching about him in the internet and then I found out that he used to be a vocalist in a band, so it’s no wonder that he has such a nice and unique voice.
Then in 2011, he and some fellow vocaloid producers established an independent record label called ‘Balloom.’ And in 2012, he released his own album called diorama which sold around 57,000 copies and ranked 6th in the charts. Three music videos were released and all MVs where illustrated by him since he used to be a fine arts student. These songs are vivi , Go Go Ghost Ship and Love and Fever.
A year later he released a single called Santa Maria under a big music label. Followed by MAD HEAD LOVE and Poppin’ Apathy. Then after two years he released a song where he used vocaloid once again and that song is called ‘Donut Hole’.
In 2014, he released his second album called ‘Yankee’ which peaked second in the charts. Under this album three MVs were released: Living Dead Youth , WOODEN DOLL and Eine Kleine. Eine Kleine was written for Tokyo Metro and the MV was made by Yonezu-san which added more his unique touch. His own cover of Donut Hole is also in this album.
He continued to release singles after that which is not good for my heart and the two singles are Flowerwall and Unbelievers.
And things are getting better for him with his latest album, Bremen. It was the one that peaked number one in the music charts which is totally awesome. He released two MVs from this album which are Fluorite and Metronome.
September will be a great month since he’ll release a new single with LOSER/number nine as the lead songs in the single. Let’s all look forward to it. I’ll give it a review once it’s released.
As you can see, our beloved producer made it in the big industry. It feels great when the people you just know from behind vocaloid songs become famous. You can’t erase the feeling of being proud for them. I know it’s sad to see that he’s not active in the vocaloid industry anymore since he is focusing in his career as singer but it’s not yet impossible for him to produce another vocaloid song. All we need to is to wait. There’s nothing impossible as long as you believe.
Let’s support hachi in this new light since all the songs he makes will make you sing and dance right on your seats.
Until the next ‘Where are you P-san?”, where we track down the whereabouts of our favorite producers.
The next time we meet, let’s talk about his album ‘diorama’. Please look forward to it.
Really interesting! 10/10
Cool. You must have put in some work for this article.