Jessica brings us a song that is A Lot (complimentary)…
Jessica Doyle: This is not the Tatsuya Kitani single that blew up, nor the bombastic older single that convinced me to keep an ear out for his work more generally, nor the relatively supple newer single that seemed like a more respectable repeat play than the bombast, nor the gorgeous collaboration with yama that doubled as a Hyundai advert, nor the collaboration with Kento Nakajima that will probably end up being my most played song of the year if we’re being honest. It does have the virtue of being maybe more interesting than all of those, as by assigning “You will be a loser next week!” to a chirpy children’s chorus suggests we might take it, and thus the song’s whole existential crisis, less seriously. Kitani can definitely be funny (and sweetly playful), but it seems wrong to assume that all the big guitars and heavy lyrics aren’t sincerely meant, that he does indeed have an existential crisis or several to talk about. And yet meeting the bombast where it is would seem to take my own self far too seriously. So I appreciate that “Preview of Me” is about the existential crisis, the universal one, and resolves to “I can’t go on, I’ll go on,” in kaiju costume. Anyway, here, have the Tatsuya Kitani playlist I’ve been working on assembling for the past couple months.
[7]
Jel Bugle: Yes! This is my kind of thing! Brilliant quirkster pop, lots going on, and I’ll like any song that has a video featuring kaiju (I’m easily taken in). I enjoyed reading the witty and pathos-filled lyrics as well.
[9]
Ian Mathers: The energy level is good but the singing and instrumentation is a bit generic (or maybe feels like the edges have been sanded off), so pushing it actually over the top might have served this better. Oh, and the group of kids singing along/in counterpoint; the song always gets more interesting when they’re there, so more of that too.
[6]
Leah Isobel: “Preview of Me” finds a numb, weary bliss in overstimulation and decay; it weirdly reminds me of early Ellie Goulding in its use of warm analog textures to induce dread. I do feel like it never quite peaks — the tightness of its construction, Kitani’s controlled explosiveness, forecloses the possibility of a fuller grit and pathos. But there’s relief in roboticism.
[7]
Taylor Alatorre: So meta it’s hurting my feelings: the official single release for “Preview of Me” gives the opening theme its own opening theme, as well as a “Kono bangumi wa” sponsorship tag that’s titled like it just beat an 11:59 PM deadline. Both of these play into the series’ deconstruction of “monster of the week” sentai shows, but together with the cleverly harrowing lyrics, they also seem to hint at the creator’s gently cynical stance toward his chosen medium. From a celebrated Vocaloid producer to a celebrated anisong composer, Kitani has spent most of his professional life writing songs from the perspective of characters he had no part in creating. Not that he’d give it up anytime soon — his demonstrable enthusiasm on all aspects of “Preview” make that quite clear. Still, he’s earned the right to wonder aloud about where exactly such a career leaves the self in the equation. The badgering children’s choir can represent the constricting demands of a target audience that stays largely the same even as he ages, but it can also represent Kitani himself at an earlier age, and the fawning, fantasy-seeking innocence that still fuels his creativity even as its pulse grows ever quieter: “an adult’s morning colored by a child’s dream.”
[8]
Nortey Dowuona: Kitani seems to love overwhelming his listeners with the possibility of titanic waves of sound. His voice is clotted and snotty, awkward and jarring over the rippling arpeggio bass line and glittery synths, but it feels especially clumsy on the chorus, which projects bombast. However, it’s bombast that has ballast and strength, if only through Kitani throwing the kitchen sink — spindly chorus vocals, spiky guitar buried in the back to provide texture, jarring synth lines providing additional melodies for his voice to play off, the avalanche of heavily digitally altered melodies that play in the pre-chorus. It wallops you in the heart, just as it’s meant to. And the way the first chorus builds this ballast, only to swap it out abruptly for the arpeggio bassline and kick loop of the verse, makes the avalanche of musical ideas feel even more bold and energizing.
[9]
Alfred Soto: The tension between the jungle beats and the vocals doesn’t relent.
[6]
Brad Shoup: One of those times where the endless stylistic switchover is too on the nose… Kitani’s too warm a host to act like he’s truly freaking out in this funhouse.
[6]
Katherine St. Asaph: I’m sure this has an internal logic, but I haven’t found it yet.
[6]
Dave Moore: I can’t get a bead on how the many different ideas in this one interlock — vocals bounce between millennial alt radio earnestness and goofball winking, a warp-speed breakbeat skitters underneath while the melodies lumber overtop like ants trying to carry a whole donut back to the nest, a blank kid chorus comments neutrally from the sidelines like they’ve been doing this all day and just want to go home. Sounds exhilarating and vaguely cursed.
[7]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: This is an overwhelming amount of song — densely packed with incongruous details that only barely hang together, the children’s choir spilling over into the breakbeats spilling over into the math-y guitar heroics. Yet I feel moved to praise its restraint; the most thrilling moment here is almost a silence, the brief, metallic gear-shifting as the soar of the chorus descends back down into the chug of the verse. For something this convoluted to work, even the connective tissue needs to excite.
[8]