Fujii Kaze “Shinunoga E-Wa”: Analyzing 500 YouTube Comments with Data

Fujii Kaze “Shinunoga E-Wa”

On August 21, 2026, it was announced that Fujii Kaze’s year-end Bangkok show (Prema World Tour, scheduled for December 26 at Supachalasai National Stadium) had been cancelled. The only reason given was “unforeseen circumstances,” with no further details disclosed. Fujii reposted the cancellation announcement to his Instagram Story and apologized in Thai, writing “ขอโทษครับ” (“I’m sorry”).

That news was the trigger for this analysis: a fresh look at the YouTube comments on “Shinunoga E-Wa,” the song that first made Fujii Kaze widely known overseas. The track went viral on TikTok in Thailand around July 2022 before spreading across Southeast Asia and Latin America, and it’s even cited as a case study by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) as an example of viral hit songs.

Watch on YouTube: Fujii Kaze – Shinunoga E-Wa (Not a MV)

What the Comments Show, in Data

Language mix and comment themes

The target video is the official “Fujii Kaze” channel’s “Shinunoga E-Wa (Not a MV)” (uploaded October 26, 2022). We pulled the top 500 comments sorted by relevance. Among them was a viewer comment noting “2026.8.11, surpassed 150 million views” — a sign the song is still gaining views nearly four years after release.

Running a simple language check on the 500 comments, 142 (about 28%) were in Japanese, 344 (about 69%) used Latin/English characters, and 5 (about 1%) contained Thai script (the remaining 9 were other characters or unclassifiable). Among this top-500 relevance-sorted sample, comments using Latin characters made up the clear majority. Thai-script comments were rare, but separately, we also found an English comment reading “I love this song so much from Thailand” (105 likes), identifying the commenter as a fan writing in from Thailand.

Sorting the comments by theme (keyword-based classification; “Other” covers comments that didn’t match any of the themes below) gave the following breakdown.

A few representative comments:

“Understanding 0%, Enjoying 100%, Music has no boundaries really” (@farihajabinahana1576, 50,451 likes)
“I didn’t understand it was about his ideal self, not a lover, until I found that out — it sounds completely different now” (@トマト-h8w, 13,906 likes, translated from Japanese)
“Message to the future generations don’t let this song die.” (@PhoneGuy1996, 5,315 likes)
“I love how Fuji kaze rly went international with this song, I heard it on the radio too” (@Lazie_Lena, 1,191 likes)

What Fujii Kaze Said “Anata” Means

On a December 28, 2022 broadcast of NHK’s “NHK MUSIC SPECIAL Fujii Kaze: Now, to the World,” Fujii Kaze himself spoke about this song, and his comments made news (source: modelpress, dated December 29, 2022, reporting on the NHK broadcast).

He said the chorus line “I’d rather die than stay like this and part ways with you” came to him suddenly, “like it just fell into my head,” on his way home from a discount store after moving to Tokyo. As for who “you” (anata) refers to, he explained it this way:

“Someone I love who lives inside me. The strongest version of me, inside me.”
“If I were to forget that, it’d be like being dead. It’s kind of like a dialogue with myself.”
“I don’t think almost anyone reads it that way — and that’s what makes it interesting.”

In other words, as Fujii Kaze himself explained it, “anata” in this song isn’t a romantic partner — it’s the beloved, strongest version of himself, the ideal self living inside his own heart.

His Own Words, and How Fans Read the Song

Looking at the actual comments, the more likes a comment had, the more likely it was to say something like “I don’t understand the meaning, but I love it anyway.” One of the most-liked comments was the one quoted above: “Understanding 0%, Enjoying 100%” (50,451 likes). Being moved purely by the voice and melody, without understanding the lyrics, turned out to be an extremely common way people described listening to this song.

That said, a smaller number of comments did land close to the meaning Fujii Kaze himself described. Several Japanese comments, like the one saying it “sounds completely different” once you learn “anata” refers to one’s ideal self rather than a lover, appear to reflect what viewers learned from the NHK broadcast. Interestingly, we also found an English comment reaching the same conclusion independently: one fan, after noting it was a shame so many comments just said “Understanding 0%, Vibe 100%,” went on to research an interview themselves and wrote a long explanation that “anata” refers to one’s ideal self. At least among the comments we reviewed, examples of interpretations close to what Fujii Kaze described turned up regardless of language.

Fujii Kaze himself seemed to find it genuinely interesting that “almost no one reads it that way.” Judging by the comments, that’s still largely true today. But that doesn’t mean the song’s appeal is any weaker for it — if anything, the fact that people want to keep listening even without understanding the meaning seems to be one of the reasons this song spread as far as it did.

A Personal Note

As a fan of Fujii Kaze myself, I’ve visited places connected to him in Satosho, Okayama Prefecture — “Fujii Kaze’s Garden,” near his family home, and a footbridge that actually appears in one of his music videos. There’s no special sign marking either spot; they’re just an ordinary part of the town’s scenery. Knowing that his distinctive voice and piano playing were born there, and that these very places were captured on film, left me with a feeling I can’t quite put into words.

Reading through the comments for this piece, it struck me that Fujii Kaze’s music proves, paradoxically, that meaning doesn’t have to travel for a song to land. Even I, who know that quiet corner of Satosho, didn’t fully understand what “anata” truly meant until he explained it himself on that NHK broadcast. So the fact that listeners overseas, facing an even bigger language barrier, are moved by the song itself, beyond the meaning of the words, feels obvious in hindsight — and still genuinely remarkable.

It’s a shame the Bangkok show was cancelled, but the comments section keeps gaining new voices from people discovering this song for the first time. Whenever that show eventually happens, I suspect this song will keep being heard across borders long after.

One Last Question

When you listen to “Shinunoga E-Wa,” who or what does “anata” sound like to you?
If you’re interested in this kind of comment analysis and data work, please feel free to get in touch.

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