is a 2020 song written by Japanese music producer Chinozo, utilizing the

Vocaloid is a singing voice synthesizer software product. Its signal processing part was developed through a joint research project led by Kenmochi Hideki at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, in 2000 and was not originally intended to b ...

voice library V Flower. The song is the most viewed Vocaloid song on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

with more than 100 million views, and received over 3 billion listens on

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

by 2022. A light novel adaptation was released on October 25, 2021, and sold over one hundred thousand copies by 2022.

Background

Influenced by Japanese Vocaloid music producers Harumaki Gohan and , Chinozo started to create Vocaloid music. Attracted by Japanese illustrator Chika Aruse's illustrations posted on Piapro, he decided to collaborate with Aruse to create a Vocaloid music video. In an interview, Chinozo said the situation was "becoming dark" due to the spread of the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, so he wanted to make some upbeat music.

Music and lyrics

"Goodbye Sengen" is a fast-paced

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

song with a tempo of 170 beats per minute. Its

vocal range Vocal range is the range of pitches that a human voice can phonate. A common application is within the context of singing, where it is used as a defining characteristic for classifying singing voices into voice types. It is also a topic of stud ...

spans from the low note of C4 to the high note of C6. The pre-chorus features a repeating hook, "lu-lu-lu". The lyrics make reference to ''

hikikomori , also known as acute social withdrawal, is total withdrawal from society and seeking extreme degrees of social isolation and confinement. ''Hikikomori'' refers to both the phenomenon in general and the recluses themselves. ''Hikikomori'' ha ...

'', and the lyrics also express the pain of loneliness. In a trending topic on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

in 2021, participating tweets interpreted some lyrics of the song as " yandere" and "scary".

Music video

The illustration of the music video for "Goodbye Sengen" was drawn by Japanese illustrator Chika Aruse, featuring a signature gesture which Chinozo and Aruseee designed together. The gesture shows the right hand touching the index finger with the thumb, rotating behind the head, with the left hand making the V sign towards the right hand. Japanese singer hailed the illustration as " kawaii, fashionable, and coolness coexisting".

Reception

Many singers, YouTubers, and

VTubers A , or , is an online entertainer who uses a virtual avatar generated using computer graphics. Real-time motion capture software or technology are often—but not always—used to capture movement. The digital trend originated in Japan in the mid- ...

have uploaded cover versions of the song. A derivative finger dance was popular on

. Chinozo also released his own cover version on July 31, 2020. By October 2022, the music video had received 760,000 views and over 3 billion listens on TikTok, and was used as background music in 310 thousand videos, including many dance cover videos. In August 2021, its view count surpassed the music video for "DUNE" by Kenshi Yonezu, becoming the most viewed Vocaloid song on

. On July 26, 2022, the song reached 100 million views on YouTube, unprecedented for Vocaloid songs. On April 28, 2023, the song won a bronze medal at the 2023. In May, the song was nominated for three categories of Independent Artist Awards by TuneCore Japan: Top Streaming Music of the Decade, Top UGC Music 2022, and Best Music Video 2022. In 2024,

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

Japan collaborates with ''Goodbye Sengen'' to promote its new evolution Cheese Bacon Potato Pie.

Chart performance

On March 4, 2021, "Goodbye Sengen" reached fourth place on

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

's "Viral 50 - Japan" chart. The song ranked at number two on the

Billboard Japan ''Billboard Japan'' is a sister organization of the U.S.-based music magazine ''Billboard''. It is operated by the Japanese Osaka-based company Hanshin Contents Link (a subsidiary of Hanshin Electric Railway), holding an exclusive licence from ''Bi ...

Top User Generated Songs chart on March 17, and topped the Billboard Japan

Heatseekers Songs Top Heatseekers are "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. The Heatseekers Albums and the Heatseekers Songs charts were introduced by ''Billboard'' in 1991 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new an ...

chart for two consecutive weeks. The song also topped the TikTok Hot Song Weekly Ranking chart five times. The song topped the TikTok Hot Song Weekly Ranking chart in the first half of 2021, and ranked fourth in Top User Generated Songs chart for year-end 2021. It also topped the annual music chart "TikTok Trends 2021" released by TikTok at the end of 2021 with 3.25 billion views.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Release history

Other media

Light novel

A light novel adaptation was written by Midori Sangatsu, illustrated by Chika Aruse, and supervised by Chinozo. It began publication on October 25, 2021 by Media Factory under their MF Bunko J imprint. The novel series mainly tells the story of high school students Kiritani Kakeru and Nanase Rena. The sequel volume "Shamer" was released in April 2022 and tells the story of "Goodbye Sengen" four years later. The third volume "Elite" was written from the perspective of Saki Ayase, a model student in class. In the first week of its release, the novel ranked 5th on the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in Nov ...

Light Novel Weekly Chart with a sales volume of 7,424 copies, and kept this ranking with a sales volume of 6,977 copies in the next week. It reached third place on the Japanese

Rakuten () is a Japanese technology conglomerate based in Tokyo, founded by Hiroshi Mikitani in 1997. Centered around Rakuten Ichiba, its businesses include financial services utilizing financial technology, as well as digital content and communicati ...

BOOKS Light Novel Weekly Chart, ranking ninth in the

bunkobon In Japan, are small-format paperback books, designed to be affordable and space saving. The great majority of ''bunkobon'' are A6 (105×148mm or 4.1"×5.8") in size. They are sometimes illustrated and like other Japanese paperbacks usually ...

category of the "Next Light Novel Award 2022" held by

Kadokawa Kadokawa may refer to: *Kadokawa Corporation, the holding company of the Kadokawa Group **Kadokawa Content Gate and Kadokawa Mobile, both former names for BookWalker **Kadokawa Future Publishing, a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation and the publis ...

's "Kimirano". It also ranked in the top 20 of

Tsutaya Tsutaya is a Japanese word referring to a number of people and businesses. It is usually written 蔦屋, meaning "ivy shop". People *Tsutaya Jūzaburō (1750–1797), woodblock publisher of ''ukiyo-e'' and popular illustrated books. Companies * Ts ...

's monthly light novel sales chart for 7 consecutive months. By June 2022, it sold over one hundred thousand copies.

Manga

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

adaptation was announced in December 2021. Illustrated by Iri Arata, it was serialized in

ASCII Media Works ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

' ''

Dengeki Daioh is a Japanese shōnen manga magazine published by ASCII Media Works (formerly MediaWorks) under the ''Dengeki'' brand. Many manga serialized in ''Dengeki Daioh'' were later published in ''tankōbon'' volumes under ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Co ...

'' magazine from July 27, 2022, to May 27, 2024. Its chapters were collected in three ''

tankōbon is the Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or cultur ...

'' volumes.

Audio drama

An audio drama adaptation by Kiki Anime under STUDIO koemee started airing in August 2022. It stars

Minori Suzuki is a Japanese voice actress and singer affiliated with E-Stone Music. She started her career after passing an audition for the role of Freyja Wion in the 2016 anime television series ''Macross Delta'', beating 8,000 other auditionees for the r ...

as Nanase Rena and

Setsuo Itō is a Japanese voice actor from Hokkaido, Japan. He won the Best New Actor Award at the 11th Seiyu Awards. He is affiliated with Air Agency. Filmography TV Anime *''Maji de Otaku na English! Ribbon-chan the TV'' (2013), Participant A *''Pupipō!' ...

as Kiritani Kakeru.

References

External links

* at MF Bunko J {{Authority control 2020s fads and trends 2020 songs 2020 singles 2021 Japanese novels 2022 manga ASCII Media Works manga Dengeki Daioh Light novels Mass media franchises MF Bunko J Romantic comedy anime and manga Coming-of-age anime and manga Secondary schools in fiction Anime and manga set in schools Shōnen manga Songs in Japanese Vocaloid songs