Japanese Video Game Planning Unit Dominates TikTok Trends

The second album of Japanese video game planning unit Serani Poji, ‘one-room survival’, released on November 21st, 2002, has become a global trending topic. The album, created by sound designer Tomoko Sasaki and produced by Yukihiro Fukutomi, features a mix of sounds like lounge, house, bossa, and techno. Fukutomi has produced for famous Japanese artists and remixed for overseas artists like Jazzanova, London Elektricity, and The Realm&V.

In October 2023, when online distribution of the album began, the tracks ‘pipo pipo’ and ‘where is smiley?’ began to go viral on short video platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram, particularly overseas. ‘pipo pipo’ was played 400,000,000 times on TikTok and ‘where is smiley?’ was played more than 650,000,000 times, with both tracks combined achieving more than 1.05 billion plays in approximately 3 months. They continue to show this momentum even today.

In particular, the song ‘where is smiley?’, as the title suggests features a jaunty rhythm and has lent itself to a vast number of uploads expressing friendship or love and leveraging anime, videos of animals and photographs.

This same track, in January 2024, charted on the Billboard TikTok charts in America for three consecutive weeks. Moreover, having charted on Spotify’s Viral Top 50 in a wealth of countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia it is a Japanese track that is very popular around the world.

＜TikTok＞

‘where is smiley?’ 346,300 different videos

https://www.tiktok.com/music/where-is-smiley-7008584981258160897

‘pipo pipo’ 157,600 different videos

https://www.tiktok.com/music/pipo-pipo-7270784942370900742

YouTube Official Audio

https://youtu.be/1Ewgnlga70k?si=tZcOO7sd5uJYLv3w

https://youtu.be/_X_tJ712Htw?si=UqmGh3rflLDgE5OT

・Serani Poji　「one-room survival」

Music streaming links：https://lnk.to/oneroomsurvival

Info about the physical release: https://www.hmv.co.jp/en/product/detail/14531184

・Official Website： https://www.seranipoji.com/