Hi! Welcome to the Best of 2021 edition of This Side of Japan, a newsletter about Japanese music, new and old. You can check out previous issues of the newsletter here.

I like to think that if this list for me feels slight as a representative of what happened in Japanese music in 2021, it means more that the year’s abundance of thrills calls for a lot more than 100 songs to properly sum it up. I tried my best to put together a well-rounded 100-song survey collecting this year’s best from Japan in pop, R&B, indie rock, EDM, anison, rap and whatever else lies in between. (Idol music got a whole separate list!) But more simply put, consider this as a scrapbook of all the music that stood out or personally spoke to me in 2021. Here are the songs I’ll make sure to keep with me as 2021 comes to a close.

You can check out this list as a Spotify playlist as well as a text list.

During the writing process of “Fushigi” for the romance drama Kikazaru Koi Ni Wa Riyuu Ga Atte, Gen Hoshino said he would revisit a few of his favorite Kyo-Ani rom-com anime whenever he needed to “recharge” and remember the feeling of the first spark in a relationship. The process of recollection seems essential to write about an emotion that you only can start to properly articulate once there’s closure. Because in the middle of it all, as Hoshino would also ponder in “Fushigi,” you hardly know the change taking place: “How relieving it would be if we can put to words / the days we knew of love, in however way we wish,” he sings in the chorus, and he spends the rest of “Fushigi” searching for the vocabulary to apply to this fleeting sensation.

For how overwhelming a process it is to unpack this complex feeling, Hoshino takes on the task with cool and pure curiosity. The graceful, feather-light R&B helps unload a lot of the potential weight from the matters at hand, offering a vast amount of space for the singer-songwriter to wonder into infinite: the music video opens with the singer-songwriter in solitude at a vacant airport, and it’s not the emptiness but the tranquility of the scene that feeds back into the cozy music. The music takes its sweet time as does its author, patiently waiting for him to reach an answer he’s comfortable with.

The tender arrangements softens what could for others be a call of desperation. Many others have surrendered to the powerlessness in coming up short while trying to jot down fitting words about love. But “Fushigi” as a love song revels in mystery and the undefined, with Hoshino ultimately finding comfort in not ever knowing. For all the frustration felt from the main lovers in Kikazaru Koi from not being able to tell if they truly share mutual feelings, they also seemed to enjoy not putting a label to their relationship. The constant search for a clear definition became a thrill in itself, and “Fushigi,” too, hints at the idea that the process of figuring it all out is better than actually discovering the answer.

Throughout 2021, I constantly shuffled this song and the song you’ll see below to place as my number-one of the year. Both reminded me of the preciousness of relationships, how they make life worth living, and why we continue to form them even after we sever one that gets us to vow to never get close to another person again. I’m old enough now to recognize how rare new relationships can be as life offers less opportunities to start them, and so Hoshino sharing us how he found someone amid this hell of a life inspires me to hold close the people who I can share together “even the days I trip and laugh, the days we say cheers to our tears.”

“Fushigi” won out because Hoshino sounds so enamored in the present moment with the person he found. Though he denies the claim, it’s tempting to imagine him thinking about his now-wife Yui Aragaki while writing this song because the emotions he pours into the song feel so vivid as it does sincere: it’s almost too impressive that he wrote this by pure recollection. Whatever the source, Hoshino succeeds in not only putting to succinct words an inspiring love in “Fushigi” but also making it look impossibly easy.

“You meet someone / then you separate / and then you keep on walking again,” Matsu Takako sings the bridge over and over again quite literally in the “Presence” series, which observes a total of 6 different versions of the same song. If the idea seems redundant as an outsider listening in, it’s lost upon the five featured rappers, who all suffer from the same issue: having to piece together a broken heart after a break-up. The constants—Takako as well as STUTS’s forlorn boom-bap—only highlights the respective rapper’s unique style and approach to their situation. Repetition in fact points to the cosmic joke that humors the series as a whole: we think we learned from our past breakdowns, that this shall pass and that we will eventually meet someone else again, but we continue to hopelessly cry anyway.

While the light at the end of the tunnel seems a bit distant for the featured rappers in “Presence” I-V, they finally reside on the other side of heartbreak in the remix. They all sound wiser from the experience. Daichi Yamamoto carries enough clarity now to examine every small detail of his foolishness. NENE in particular displays the best case scenario, with her closing out her verse about how she can now laugh at past fights with a literal laughter. Tucked away at the very end, KID FRESINO is already ready to move on: “‘We’re not young anymore so I won’t go overboard’ / Those days feel like a joke,” he quips. “You look a little bored / I want to invite you out.”

It’s one thing to gain resilience and try your hand again at love as a 20-something, as these rappers may be, but this talk of relationships is perhaps a whole different story coming from a 40-something, three-time divorcee. Takako plays the part of that very divorcee in the TV show which “Presence” serves as its theme song, and her character seems to no longer carry much sentimental feelings over any of her three ex-husbands, two of whom seem more as pests as they are the show’s comedic relief. Their marriages have been long over enough for them to coexist peacefully instead as acquaintances with history. From the show’s perspective, the truth of life post-break-up feel more mundane than what this otherwise thoughtful pop song suggests: people just… move on and keep on doing what they used to do.

Knowing all this, the triviality as well as the foolishness in committing the same mistake, doesn’t stop anyone from repeating this process over and over again. The rappers of “Presence” certainly make the case that there’s something rewarding to gain from it all despite the pain and heartbreak it may bring. Takako’s refrain tells its point so succinctly, it can read prosaic, but if it seems plainspoken, the ease of it only reminds to not sweat too much of what seems like a great loss. As relationships of mine seemed come and go, it felt better hearing that the future will have more in stores—the end of things but more importantly the beginnings.

A.G. Cook’s idyllic synths in “One Last Kiss” somberly evaporates the moment after it graces the record, like a ghastly memory quickly fading away. The ethereal feel gives Utada’s countdown to the end of a relationship a firm sense of finality as though she’s recalling its disintegration in real time. But while others might indulge on the matter by bracing for their impending doom, she stands at peace, grateful even, that she got to experience it at all. She’s far from naive. She understands the futility in trying to avert her fate at the very beginning of the song, and her embrace of the inevitable end resonates as a mature, powerful act. Utada knows she can’t undo the past, but she can rewrite the story as she would like to remember it herself. “Can you give me one last kiss / a kiss as hot as fire,” she requests before the chorus, assuring it all ends the way she wishes to end.

A feeling of early-morning bliss and tranquility lingers in “Sanji Juunifun” with TAKU INOUE’s sleepy-eyed synths humming soft, tender chords. Suisei Hoshimachi, however, remains anxious for sunrise because the dawn signals the inevitable time for goodbyes. It’s hard to blame her for trying to resist nature when music brought her such a beautiful time if only for a moment: “A dream where the two of us change the world / a dream where I change it with you / I think I saw it,” the idol sighs like the fireworks of INOUE’s dazzling synth-pop took her to heaven and back. “Sanji Juunifun” aptly turns bittersweet during its final moments with Hoshimachi’s brace for the end coming right when we as listeners, too, have to come to terms with the sentimental song reaching the end of its run. The electricity felt from INOUE’s starburst of a production begins to fade away, and the rays of sunlight shakes awake Hoshimachi from her precious dream. Fortunately for us, we can rewind and revisit the feeling.

“Ride on HKM,” HALLCA, Seira Kariya and AmamiyaMaako together welcome you in “TERMINAL” to their mothership that serves as a safe space for the three singers but also you, the lost passenger. While the dusky R&B sets a quiet, low-key groove, the synths illuminate the dark like a warm glow of light showing the way in. As the voices congregate, I can’t help but be reminded of the trio sharing how they got the title, with the friends likening their collaboration as a meeting place connecting three stranded souls. But they also keep the platform open for any passerby in need of a small, temporary pick-me-up from the tough times ahead: “Give a wink to tomorrow / and jump into the new lane,” they suggest before the invite for a ride in the chorus. “Even if the tears start to spill, I’ll be here waiting.”

Aimyon doesn’t hesitate to be honest about how frustrating it can be to try embracing a life perspective as tautological as “to be alive is to live.” The singer-songwriter gets down how tedious and exhaustively long a day-to-day can feel through her equally roundabout lyrics: “This episode called life / that continues no matter how much you run and run until you die,” she describes this journey with her lines bleeding past the margins. Though, she sound as arresting and poignant when she sighs casual, pared-down statements: “Ah, I just want to have what no one else has.”

It’s tempting to layer this struggle of finding meaning in the potentially meaningless with the TV show that inspired the song. Faced with the nearing end of their 10 years together as a comedy troupe, the trio of friends in Konto Ga Hajimaru constantly ponder if there ever was a point to anything they’ve done. “Till I Know What Love Is (I’m Never Gonna Die)” suggests the destination didn’t matter as much as the experience gained along the way: “I want to ride the clouds that stretch on and on / see what I’ve never seen / and cross paths with those who I would’ve never met,” Aimyon shouts in the chorus to make sense of the arguments and tears shared in between. It’s a series of words I’ve kept close as I made some detours of my own this year. Leave it to Aimyon to fit such sobering reflection into a compact, tuneful acoustic-pop song.

Consider “Kirari Party Time” a day off the clock for STARRY PLANET, a band of actresses part of the 2D/3D hybrid children’s TV series Aikatsu Planet. The girls invest most of their time—on the show, but really their hustle continues off set—honing their skills being a secret idol, their dedication to the craft outlined in the anthemic A-side. Planning a party, then, is the perfect low-stakes activity they could use to get away from it all, and the fun just spills into the recording. The ebullient arrangement sounds like one of the members turned on a pile of Fisher-Price instruments scattered across the floor all at once, with the group checking their to-do list to the tune of xylophones, accordions and tumbling drums. STARRY PLANET embrace the commotion and indulge in a killer time preparing their celebration, running up and down without a wear to their idol smile.

Dr.Anon gathers the most exciting and, really, the coolest solo acts active in the SoundCloud underground. Ponika, Haku and e5 each carry worthwhile works of their own with their music residing in a very “now” intersection of crunchy neon EDM and bedroom trap-rap. And though “Blast” is so far their only release together, the two-and-a-half minutes contain a lot of potential to what they can do in the future. The deep-fried EDM-rap indulges in a dreamy digital fantasy, but the three aren’t so subtle when it comes to its darker, depressive undercurrents: “why are you crying,” one of them interjects like a glitch in the system, only for the beat to continue unfazed. Everything here happens too fast to digest in real time, but they’re only speaking in the speed of today’s hyperpop times.

“Blockbuster, Coke, pizza and ‘I love you,’” eureka of For Tracy Hyde sighs before a vibrant streak of fuzzy guitars color in the leftover blanks. While the band’s dream-pop often stood abstract in its reminiscences, here they detail a specific era and place in which to pin its nostalgia. The proper nouns makes the memories vivid as much as it establishes a particular distance: itemizing the American teen experience feels as though the band’s enamored by secondhand nostalgia, a TV version of someone else’s past.

Their position lets the most hopeless of lyrics to be filtered through rose-tinted lenses—“a dream of a distant war rushes by in great colors,” eureka notes—but it stays true to the general wide-eyed perspective of a teenager, whose real world remains so small, their world view so narrow and their emotions so intense. The triumphant shoegaze music of For Tracy Hyde remains fertile land for such teenage innocence to flourish. “Standing on the basketball court / You were my one and only angel”: “Interdependence Day” chronicles the days when a summer crush stood as the center of your world and the fate of “that July when were seventeen” seemed like life or death.

While last year’s “Usseewa” ultimately made bigger noise in 2021, Ado’s follow-up “Odo” makes her breakthrough feel flat and one note in comparison. She gets a lot more adventurous and playful with her vocals as she turns increasingly drunk with power, fueled by the deliciously bombastic EDM drops of Giga and Teddyloid. She screams, cackles and completely devours every syllable written by DECO*27 with such delirious joy, it seems like the producers are trying to answer to her demands of more, not the other way around. “Start dancing,” the singer snarls as the beat grows monstrous, its megaton drops becoming more destructive: it’s a command she ensures you best comply.

As if Moto Kawabe didn’t already sound deceptively casual, the chillness of the guitars only make the scenes in “Fiction” feel more ephemeral and poignant: “What would you say / and what face would you make,” he innocently ponders as he gazes at the stars, wondering how they’re doing down below.

“I Guess So” finds Daisuke Takane robbed of the opportunity for his message — “What could I have said? What could I have done / for you to be happy?” — to actually reach the person he wishes to address. While the guitars sound glorious through its sheer exuberance, the rush here reads as a too-late effort to turn back time.

Ai Furihata leans into the Showa pop pastiche. The glossy synth-pop calls upon the drama, and the seiyuu draws out every small, specific detail. It’s slightly over the top, but it’s only doing what break-up pop does best: centering the heartbroken as the protagonist facing a world conspiring against them.

More subdued than DIALOGUE+’s usual, but don’t mistake it as keeping quiet: the seiyuu idols sigh about their unrequited desire — “the temperature of this sad heart is still ayafuwa” — as flickers of synth zaps and guitar squiggles flash from the jazzy arrangement, suggesting the restless emotions inside.

The former idol still remains slightly shy and reluctant as she makes an otherwise triumphant return. “I want you to know me more / but I’m scared of you seeing through me,” she sighs over exquisitely lush R&B not before assuring, maybe as a coy invitation, “you don’t have to know me ’til the last bit.” 

Moka Kamishiraishi enlists folkie Ayano Kaneko to help sing of better things to come: “It’s only the angels pulling a prank,” she sighs with a nonchalant cool along a jangling acoustic riff. “Just put those tears in a vase and stand it by the light.” And her kind, if naive advice is given as if she hasn’t ever been wrong.

Kabanagu vows to live out a more fulfilled life after getting thrown in a frenzy of deep-fried hyperpop, and then comes the simple yet emotionally searing refrain: “All I need is for you to be here.” He keeps screaming it until his lungs give out, fighting so it doesn’t get dismissed by the cluttered, deafening noise.

Yukichikasaku/men’s kitchen-sink jazz-pop offers an alluring trickiness from its jagged arrangements, slippery melodies and a surreal string of lyrics that favors rhyme and feel. That said, it’s her ability to make all of the abstraction seem inviting and pop that marks her as one of the best singer-songwriters working.

If you need a brat-punk anthem to announce a brand-new you, then Mamana’s Alternative Nation-channeling “mid seventeen” is the one. “Baby, I’m different than before,” she screams, like the teen-girl protagonist of a coming-of-age movie, not before telling off everyone to “shut up! Shut up!”

Kaho Nakamura relishes in the bombast supplied by millennium parade, embracing the drunk poetry and vocal turns signature to the band’s mastermind Daiki Tsuneta. She’s awe-struck faced with an unforeseen scenery — perfect for the re-imagination of the internet of Belle — and yet fearless against the unknown.

The twinkling, tender arrangement rocks Kayoko Yoshizawa to sleep, who deeply misses the company of a significant other late at night: “Good night, hey, let me hear you tell me good night,” she sighs, “I no longer have anyone but you, my one and only.”

“You’re out there somewhere again / dancing until the morning,” NTsKi sighs in a house bop moving with a more extroverted, hi-NRG kick than the head-in-the-clouds songs of her Orca LP. And yet the single communicates a similar sense of distance and yearning found in her vaporwave-influenced album, partly thanks to its music video set on a virtual dance floor filled with avatars. The digital filter of her voice suggests a hint of loneliness living in the vacuum that is the internet. But she continues to dance on her own regardless as though alienation is a given in this space and with the knowledge another is out there doing the same.

Rei spits out woe-is-me laments about her lesser-than life all the while nailing the hairpin turns of Pusu’s pensive Vocalo-pop arrangement, losing none of its intensity and desperation.

“STARKIDS, next up,” the rap crew scream in their demented posse cut, and they bring along a few friends dabbling in a similar deep-fried or Drain Gang-influenced lane of today’s Japanese rap.

Four breakout names of hyperpop team up for a cypher over blown-out bass for FORM’s All Nighter compilation series.

The indie-rock three-piece welcome broken hearts with open arms—“put it all in a treasure chest / and please continue loving life”—and the music echoes equally tender with a propulsive, optimistic momentum.

The cast of anime Tokyo Mew Mew dedicate the single to a love strong enough to overcome any adversity, and the production shines as blindingly bright and cheerful as such a heart-warming feeling would suggest.

From the sliding croons of her homely guitar emerges a loud cry from Ayano Kaneko, who’s yearning for affection. “I was waiting for an embrace from the bottom of my heart,” the singer-songwriter shouts in the titular chorus, immediately following with a charming simile to get her want across: “Squeeze me like I’m a bad child who can’t listen and know what’s wrong from right.” Kaneko amplifies this wholesome desire for such a simple form of love in “Houyou,” articulating it in the most basic, straight way.

Layla remains at a standstill due to ennui, the sighing indie rock summing up their level of enthusiasm, but not all hope seems to be lost as they take the present moment in stride.

The blown-out, kitchen-sink beat offers deceptive pop sweetness as it masks the anxieties of Hirihiri and Yaca in the House, the two caught in disbelief about their grim reality.

LADYBUG arrived as a victory lap for LiSA not only after her massively successful 2020 with the help of Demon Slayer but also her 10th anniversary in the game. That said, rather than get nostalgic, she spent a majority of the record looking ahead, including this fierce pop-metal single from the EP. “Thanks for the feedback, but please go on your own / lame enough that I can laugh, that works just right for me,” she shoos the haters while continuing to adapt to the changing times. With accolades and the songs to back her up, she deserves to be full of herself for once.

Moto Kawabe of mitsume and unmo yearn to hear that precious voice again, and Pasocom Music Club lace their wish with a weightless, sentimental drum ‘n’ bass tune ready to disappear from this corporeal world.

The jangling indie rock track slowly blossoms as SaToA, too, begin to grow more comfortable about entrusting themselves in the titular “brave you.”

“I want you to look at me, right here, right now,” Hakushi Hasegawa opens the song. It seems simple a wish to fulfill, only if he didn’t then fill every inch of the song with the busiest sounds, bashing together a collision of scrambled jazz and antsy drum ‘n’ bass.

Sunsetinfall try their best to walk away from betrayal unscathed, but the band also can’t help but wear their bleeding heart on their sleeve as their explosive pop punk can attest.

While Nana Mori’s previous solo tracks brought out the best of her energetic teenage personality, “Shinkai” places her deep in the world of fellow collaborator Ayase of YOASOBI. The composer’s involvement explains the sprightly piano riff but also the slyly dark content wrapped up in a deceptively sunny melody. Whereas depression manifested in his hit “Yoru Ni Kakeru” as an urge to jump into doom, here it’s a heavy, literally sinking feeling that drags the protagonist to the titular bottom. But leave it to Mori to provide a light, not letting her collaborator completely overshadow her: “The place I return to is still the same as yours,” she assures, reminding that she’s in this together with you.

A song where Tohji extensively croons “iron dick” in the chorus shouldn’t be this good.

A synth blip pulsates in a vast, tranquil ambient passage, like a satellite communicating while it peacefully floats along.

PARKGOLF’s skittering, ebullient R&B production brightens the mood of Erika Nishi, inspiring her to get upfront about her feelings for the one who her heart is set on.

JYOCHO’s intricate math-rock guitar lines are breezy as it is awe-inspiring, the resulting song gospel-like in the way the band aim to reach musical as well as spiritual transcendence.

“TAKES TIME” gets dense when it solely comes to topics as AAAMYYY indulges in bits about religious and spiritual theologies. She for instance calls herself out for looking forward to her next life when her current place would only permit her to be reincarnated into the caste of animals. Her philosophical musings and self-critiques, though, sound coolly seductive as they get laced with a silk-smooth melody, backed by a suave R&B beat with a hydraulic bounce. While her seriousness about self-improvement remains intact, she also crafts it into hypnotic pop.

“Don’t you feel alone / you got a friend in me,” Dizzy Sunfist call out in the chorus with open arms as though they’re singing in behalf of their signature pop punk.

A neon-bright trap beat rounds together a trio of delinquents channeling their inner Lil Uzi Vert, crooning about their juvenile lust over Auto-Tune.

The indie-rock band’s dreamy, fuzzy rock riff cues a tidal rush of teenage nostalgia.

Samayuzame captures the thorniness of desire, poisonous in nature yet powerless under its seduction, as the smoky arrangements lures you even closer.

This party-starting crew track embodies both old-school boom-bap nostalgia and the post-trap modern spirit.

The twee-pop band can’t wait to meet up for their titular date, though the breezy music spins impatience into un-containable excitement.

The four-piece dedicate their signature mellow, suburban indie rock to those trying to hang on to the good things as the season begins to change.

Taichi Mukai makes good on that exclamatory title, shouting “I don’t give a fuck” while feeling the glowing house beat.

The joys of “Sora To Ao” are better understood after viewing its attached drama series, Uchi No Musume Wa, Kareshi Ga Dekinai!!, which its key details Leo Ieiri tucks into the song as Easter eggs: while sora to ao (“sky and blue”) as a title sets up a sentimental scene, it also nods at Sora and Aoi, the show’s main character of daughter and mother, respectively. The connection more importantly changes the perspective of the love song, framing it more as an ode from mother to child. “I’m going to tell you the truth, I want to live life with you / even if the waves of time try to take you away,” Ieiri comforts in the bridge, echoing the feelings of Aoi trying to reconcile with the fact her daughter is not a little child anymore.

51) Fujii Kaze - “Tabiji”

52) Regal Lily - “Tokyo”

53) Sumire Uesaka - “Seikatsu Konkyuu Dame Dinero”

54) PEARL CENTER - “Alright”

55) The Traveling Theory - “Insurance”

56) harmoe - “Kimagure Ticktack”

57) Ohzora Kimishima - “Mukougami”

58) kZm - “Aquarius Heaven”

59) Kana Hanazawa - “magical mode”

60) ako - “bye”

61) Haiki - “The First Walk”

62) aiko - “Jishaku”

63) Tempalay - “Shingo”

64) My Lucky Day - “Sunny day Highway”

65) HARETOKIDOKI - “Don’t Stop the Eurobeat (DE DE MOUSE Remix)”

66) yonige - “Taigan No Kanojo”

67) AIMI - “ReSTARTING!!”

68) eill - “hikari”

69) ASA Wu - “Bloomer”

70) Toko Miura - “Tsuukaten”

71) Soshi Takeda - “Floating Mountains”

72) Denonbu ft. Masayoshii Iimori - “Let Me Know”

73) JJJ ft. Benjazzy - “Cyberpunk”

74) Nariaki Obukuro - “Work”

75) TORiENA - “C.Q.C.”

76) PuniPuniDenki x Yohji Igarashi - “Deeper”

77) DONGURIZU - “E-jan”

78) SARA-J - “How We Gonna”

79) BIM & VaVa - “Fruit Juice”

80) tonari no hanako - “Late Spring, Sunny”

81) S.L.N.M. - “GENT”

82) ano - “SWEETSIDE SUICIDE”

83) She Her Her Hers - “silver rain”

84) Split End - “TEENAGER”

85) Northern19 - “MOVE ON”

86) Neibiss - “Chameleon”

87) MAISONdes ft. OOO & Kujira - “Hontou Wa Yoru No Hashimade,”

88) CVLTE - “wasted times.”

89) AprilBlue - “Seaside”

90) Paraiso - “Biriyani”

91) JUBEE ft. HIYADAM - “Mess”

92) KUNG-FU GIRL - “rabuka”

93) Umeda Cypher ft. OSCA, KennyDoes, KOPERU, ILL SWAG GAGA, Funk, Taurin, TAKE-M - “Big Jumbo Jet”

94) HEAVEN ft. aryy, Lil Soft Tennis - “BOLT”

95) rira - “Are You Ready”

96) Genie High ft. CHANMINA - “Kasha Na Lip”

97) Nanaka Suwa - “Cobalt No Kodou”

98) SonoSheet - “Epilogue”

99) Miku Itoi - “No. 6”

100) Eiko Ishibashi - “Drive My Car (Kafuku)”

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