Music Data Analysis
Wasureranneyo’s “Nanmo Nee”: When an Anime Theme Song Becomes More Than an Anime Song
Why Is This Song Being Talked About?
“Nanmo Nee” is the opening theme of the 2026 TV anime Yani Neko.
It was written specifically for the anime by Takahiro Shibata of the Japanese rock band Wasureranneyo, who is himself a fan of the original manga.
But when we looked at 500 comments on the band’s official YouTube music video, the conversation was not limited to the anime.
People were talking about Kaiji. They were talking about hearing the song in a store. They were talking about the possibility of appearing on Kohaku Uta Gassen, Japan’s major New Year’s Eve music show. They were talking about their own lives. And one overseas listener wrote that their love for the song had gone beyond their enjoyment of the anime.
So what exactly are people listening to when they listen to “Nanmo Nee”? Is it an anime song? A rock song? Something more personal? We analyzed 500 YouTube comments to find out.
The Context You Need to Know
To understand the comments, a little Japanese pop-culture context is necessary.
What is Yani Neko?
Yani Neko is a Japanese TV anime for which “Nanmo Nee” was written as the opening theme. The song was released digitally on July 2, 2026.
Shibata is a fan of the original manga and was deeply familiar with the work. He described himself as having read the manga so extensively that he could say nobody could beat him in the number of manga volumes he had read.
His approach to the song was deliberately specific to the world of Yani Neko. As Shibata put it:
“It is a song that only we can understand. Words and thoughts that will appeal to some people. And that’s fine.”
That attitude is important when looking at the comments. The song was not designed to be universally understood in the same way.
Why does Kaiji appear in the comments?
Wasureranneyo also has an earlier connection to Kaiji. The band made its major-label debut in 2011 with “C Kara Hajimaru ABC,” the ending theme for the TV anime Tobaku Hairyu Kaiji: Hakairoku-hen. Both Yani Neko and Kaiji are series associated with Kodansha’s Young Magazine lineage, and the new music video includes visual references that invite comparison. There is a real connection between the band, the anime, and the visual language of the MV.
What 500 YouTube Comments Reveal
We analyzed 500 top-level comments on Wasureranneyo’s official music video, collected in newest-first order on September 2, 2026. The comments were classified by theme. As with the other analysis, the figures should be understood as indicators of the themes appearing in this particular comment sample, rather than a statistically representative survey of all listeners.
| Theme | Comments | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Kaiji parody / jokes | 37 | 7.0% |
| Store BGM / “beep” censorship jokes | 28 | 5.6% |
| Streaming-view milestones | 23 | 4.6% |
| Personal projection onto the lyrics / life experiences | 20 | 4.0% |
| Yani Neko anime / voice actors / MV performers | 20 | 4.0% |
| Hopes for a Kohaku Uta Gassen appearance | 10 | 2.0% |
| Overseas listeners | 9 | 1.8% |
| Karaoke experiences | 8 | 1.6% |
| Longtime support for Wasureranneyo | 4 | 0.8% |
| MV direction / performance | 3 | 0.6% |
| Lyric quotations / copy-paste | 3 | 0.6% |
| Other | 335 | 67.0% |
| Total | 500 | 100% |
The largest category was “Other,” at 67%. That is important in itself: most comments did not fit neatly into one of the specific themes above.
Among the identifiable themes, however, Kaiji jokes came first. One comment described the song as so compatible with Kaiji that it would not feel strange if someone told them it was a Kaiji song.
Another major theme was the experience of hearing the song as background music in a store. The most-liked representative comment in this category, with 1,041 likes, described hearing the song at AEON, a major Japanese retail chain, and realizing that the profanity was being censored with “beeps.” The commenter found the contrast hilarious.
There were also 23 comments about view-count milestones, 20 comments connecting the lyrics to the commenters’ own lives, and 20 mentioning the anime, voice actors, or people appearing in the MV.
And then there were the longtime fans. One comment, which received 223 likes, said:
“I’ve supported Wasureranneyo for more than 10 years, and finally, finally, finally, the world is getting to know them.”
Another fan described having been 14 when they first became a fan of the band and being 30 now, looking back on how the band’s music had supported them through their life.
These are very different kinds of reactions. Some are jokes. Some are about the anime. Some are about numbers. Some are memories. And some are deeply personal.
Artist’s Intent vs. Listener’s Interpretation
The most interesting comparison is between what Shibata wanted to express and what listeners actually talk about.
Shibata wrote “Nanmo Nee” because he was a fan of Yani Neko. His intention was not simply to produce a generic anime opening. He wanted to capture something that fans of the original work would recognize.
His own comment makes that approach clear: the song is deliberately written with words and ways of thinking that only “we” can understand, and he accepts that it will appeal selectively.
That creates an interesting relationship with the comments. The artist starts with a very specific world. The listeners expand it.
Some listeners connect the song to Kaiji because of the MV parody and the band’s history. Others connect it to the experience of hearing the song in an AEON store. Some want to see the band perform on Kohaku Uta Gassen. Others use the lyrics as a way to talk about their own lives.
And one overseas listener discovered the song through the English-language context around Yani Neko and wrote:
“my love for this song transcends my enjoyment of the show.”
That is a particularly revealing comment. The song may have been created for an anime, but a listener can eventually experience it as something beyond the anime.
The original intent has not disappeared. Instead, it becomes one layer of meaning among many.
How the Song Travels Beyond Its Original Context
“Nanmo Nee” shows a different kind of musical journey from “Mou Koi Nante Shinai.”
For Makihara’s song, an unexpected cultural reference in Indonesia became an entry point to a song released more than 30 years earlier. For “Nanmo Nee,” the starting point is much more recent and much more specific: manga → anime → original song → YouTube audience
But once the song reaches listeners, it begins connecting to other contexts.
The Kaiji references connect the song to the band’s earlier work. The store-BGM comments connect it to everyday life outside the anime. The personal comments connect it to individual memories and experiences. The overseas comments show that at least some listeners can encounter the song from outside Japan through the anime and its English-language context. And the longtime-fan comments connect the new song to more than a decade of personal history with the band.
The song therefore becomes a kind of meeting point. It belongs to Yani Neko. But it can also belong to a fan’s memory of Kaiji. It can belong to the moment someone unexpectedly hears it in a store. It can belong to a karaoke experience. It can even become part of someone’s own life story.
This is why the distinction between “a song for an anime” and “an anime song” matters. Once listeners begin attaching their own memories and references to it, the song exists in contexts that the original creator could not completely control.
That does not weaken the original intention. It shows how listeners participate in creating the meaning of a song.
What This Means for Artists
“Nanmo Nee” offers another useful lesson about how music can travel.
Artists can control what they write. They can choose the story, the words, the sound, and the context in which a song is released. But they cannot completely control the memories that listeners bring to it.
A listener may hear a song and think about an anime. Another may think about Kaiji. Another may remember hearing it in a store. Another may connect the lyrics to their own life. Another may discover it from overseas and eventually love the song independently of the show.
The 500 comments do not tell us that these reactions represent all listeners. They are a snapshot of the audience gathered around this particular YouTube video. But they do reveal something valuable:
A song’s meaning can expand as it moves from the creator’s world into the listener’s world. And YouTube comments can make that expansion visible.
Streaming numbers can tell us that “Nanmo Nee” was gaining momentum. On August 20, it was announced as No. 1 on Oricon’s Weekly Streaming Surge Ranking, with streams up 43.7% week over week.
But the comments tell a different story. They show what people were talking about while they were listening. They show references, memories, jokes, expectations, and personal experiences that a streaming chart cannot capture.
Perhaps the more interesting question is not simply: How many people listened to the song?
But: What did the song become for them after they listened?
Learn more about Music Data Analysis Lab
Sources: Official Yani Neko anime website; Oricon; artist comments (OTOTOY). Comment analysis is based on 500 top-level comments on the official music video (collected September 2, 2026), classified using keyword matching. This is independent analysis, not an official statement from the artist or label.