The Japanese entertainment industry is going through all kinds of changes that seemed like they would never arrive even just a couple years ago, but a few elements seem like they will always be present. Like, if you are a rising J-pop artist looking to grab more attention from the public, soundtracking the opening or ending theme to a popular anime is probably your best path forward.
Rap duo chelmico might be the latest group to experience this animated growth. They landed the opening theme song to Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, a series that has attracted enough attention to mutate into a meme that has crossed over into my relatively anime-less feed on Twitter. You’d think it would be a lofty task to match the loopy original clip, but chelmico do a pretty good job with their visual accompaniment to “Easy Breezy.” Watch it below.
Fittingly for a song tied to an anime about the creative process of creating animation, “Easy Breezy” the video goes to great lengths to celebrate the act of creation. The two members of chelmico see their very figures present in the clip warped into new shapes, sizes and colors…not to mention both getting multiplied into a lot of versions of themselves over the course of this work. You also get a whole bunch of backgrounds swapped in and out.
What makes it click — and why “Easy Breezy” functions so well alongside the Eizouken! opening itself — is that the music itself matches the madcap mood. I’m not sure how many songs serving as the starting point for anime have ever sounded like Beck’s “Loser,” but chelmico basically turn this into a energy-drinked-up take on the style, with that guitar twang being a great sonic calling card. Connecting with an anime is an important step, but chelmico also bring a whirlwind of a song to make what will surely be a first introduction all the stronger.