Kyu-Kurarin
"Kyu-Kurarin" is a song by Japanese Vocaloid producer Iyowa. The song was first released on both YouTube and Nico Nico Douga on August 29, 2021, and released as a single on September 4, 2021. On December 22, it was included in the album .
A CeVIO voicebank "Kafu" performed vocals, and Iyowa wrote the lyrics and created the illustrations for the music video. The composition contains experimental sounds, described as "chaotic" despite its "simple" and "powerful" chord progression, and "pop" and "catchy" melody. The lyrics, which main theme is described as a broken heart or one-sided love, are characterized as uneasy in its visual representation. The song is considered one of Iyowa's signature songs, or one of his biggest hits. Several fan works have been inspired by this song, and it is included on soundtracks for a number of music games.
Production and release
The song "Kyu-Kurarin" incorporates a synthetic voice package named "Kafu", which was released on July 7, 2021, and based on the virtual singer Kaf. Shortly after the launch of the package, Japanese producer Iyowa released "Kyu-Kurarin". In a 2024 interview, he stated, "It's like the feeling of a child who has just received a new toy, wanting to get hold of it as soon as possible", and he tried to capture the fresh impression he got from the voice while it was still vivid. He also stated that the song was influenced by "Sotsu Omeshiki", a soundtrack for the video game Taiko no Tatsujin.On 29 August 2021, Iyowa released the song on both YouTube and Nico Nico Douga, and on 4 September released it on the music streaming service. On December 22, it was included on the album .
Composition
"Kyu-Kurarin" is categorized as J-pop or vocaloid music. Its chord progression is described as "simple" and "powerful", while the melody is characterized as "pop music", and "catchy". Jin Sugiyama from ' states that the atmosphere of this song is created to take advantage of Kafu's voice, "which has a natural fluctuation." Additionally, the song's sound is richly layered, and the rhythm is not quantized. As a first impression, Genko from ' highlights the song's "grainy sound quality, like a meme image that has been incessantly reposted, as if it had been irreversibly degraded to a 64kbps.mp3."The writer Flat of Eureka argues that the synthesizer featured in the intro, which "probably uses a chorus-like effect to excessively bend the pitch", is one of the characteristic elements of Iyowa's music., in addition to the synthesizer, points out prominent elements such as the live piano, frequent use of reversed audio, and modulation, concluding that the song "is packed with the characteristics of Iyowa". draws attention towards the continuously playing, intricate xylophone-like sounds, which he thinks can "only achievable through programming", and also highlights the excessive amount of information per unit of time, which is one of Iyowa's characteristics. Shiori Ni Fit Suru Kado from Eureka feels that the reversed audio both marimba and the wavering synthesizer chords create an effect that "evokes a sense of unease amidst cheerfulness". He praises the song as "a zenith of Iyowa's songwriting, where catchiness and weirdness coexist". Regarding the dissonance used in the song, the musician Toidora points out that the song's chords "deliberately play notes that should not be played together."
Shiori Ni Fit Suru Kado assesses that the drums have a light timbre maintaining drum-and-bass-like rhythm, and argues that they emphasize "the eerie atmosphere of the kicks, played in sixteenth-note clusters, implying a sense of unease amidst the briskness." Namahoge from Eureka thinks the drums imitate the sound of an alarm clock. He argues that the sound skilfully resets the "half-time progression with a sudden single beat of silence", concluding that these elements depicting "the moment when one is forcibly torn from a dream" intervene in the narrative time of the song. According to Genko, its "collapsed, but not entirely" tonality and rhythm add a complex flavor to what would otherwise be a simple chord progression. This structure, they argue, evokes a sense of "irretrievably falling apart with each alarm ring".
Music video and lyrics
Iyowa also wrote the lyrics and created the illustrations for the music video. Before the lyrics start, "a girl dressed like a schoolgirl and an alarm clock appear". The lyrics refer to the girl as "I", but the character sheet named her "Kurari-Japanese honorifics". Her hairstyle is inwardly curled with a slightly messy bedhead, wearing three pink ribbons-like hair clips placed on the right side and three flower-shaped ones on the left. According to the aesthetician Yuki Namba, Kurari-chan is portrayed as "a character who sings about her restless and wandering mind that goes back and forth between hope and despair in a one-sided love", and she acts in a way that embodies the qualities of the song's sound, characterized by its "displacement, delay, and muddiness".Many fan works quote and pay homage to the scene where multiple versions of the girl drop from above and slide to the left, overlapping and making a chain. Shoma Yonehara from Eureka describes it as "the most memorable scene in the video". She is featured across seven illustrations—depicted eating a slice of bread, checking the time, running, and wiping sweat from her forehead. However, since there is a certain time interval between each pose, hardly any continuity in her actions can be observed. According to Yonehara, this sequence draws the viewer's attention not so much to the character's poses themselves but to "the easing and spring effect of the fall." He argues that this technical simplicity encourages the creation of fan works. Namba states that this scene emphasizes not only "the persona of the character in a hurry" but also "the persona of the chaotic song". Furthermore, a similar sequence in the chorus, "perfectly synchronizes with the rhythm of the song, expressing the hurried and arrhythmic emotions of a character in love."
Moreover, Namba thinks that in the video, the "interaction between the voice, animation, sound, direction, images and editing" expresses the emotional instability of "Kurari-chan". This kind of direction has the effect of making the viewer want to know more about the character's feelings and encouraging them to "interpretation" of the situation. The singer Kokoa Ando highlighted the narrative quality that rewards the deeper analysis of the lyrics. Some fans believe that Iyowa wrote this song while inspired by Sayori from the visual novel Doki Doki Literature Club!.
argues that the song initially gives an impression of being a heartwarming love song, with the mimetic word "" mentioned in the lyrics seeming to imply the girl's passion for "you". However, as the song progresses, the word gradually shifts to other forms such as, and "by the song's conclusion, this word, while retaining a similar sound, transforms into one suggesting hanging." She notes that its lyrics, much of which are camouflaged by a cheerful singing style, eventually reveal themselves to be about the emptiness plaguing the girl, which in turn creates a sense of emptiness in the gaze of the listener when noticing the irony between the two opposites.
The Japanese word itself refers to "hanging in mid-air" or "being in a halfway or incomplete state". Yutorina from UtaTen argues that the song as a whole is about her broken heart, and that the word chu-burarin expresses the girl's feelings of hanging on to the person she loves.
Reception
"Kyu-Kurarin" received critical acclaim from a number of music critics. It is considered one of Iyowa's signature songs or one of his biggest hits. Namahoge described the song as "Iyowa's glitch magnum opus", and praised the way the it expresses time through music, including the sound of the alarm clock and its divergence from dreams. Flat also evaluates the song positively, highlighting how these "dissonant ornaments" are unified by "the catchy melody and powerful chord progression," maintaining "a sense of order as pop music." Sugiyama appreciates the experimental sounds used in the song, such as the "hurly xylophone, dissonances, spacey synth, and reverse-audio-like effects," noting that they harmonize well with the lyrics. According to Kawano, the song has become "the most popular track" on the album .On September 5, 2021, it surpassed 100,000 views on Nico Nico Douga. On YouTube, it had over 1,000,000 views by January 19, 2024, has exceeded the 80,000,000 views by May 2025. It was ranked at the top of Billboard Japan chart, which was released on 23 August 2023. Since this chart launched on 7 December 2022, the song has appeared in the chart for most weeks in 2021–24. It also reached on number 7 of the Billboard JAPAN Heatseekers Songs.