A Japanese language interview of the creators of the song Shikairo Days, the viral hit My Deer Friend Nokotan OP, was done by Youtube Channel "Mew's Box." Mew's Box is a channel of the same name by a Japanese arts and culture blog and video site. The interview subjects were Music Director Masamitsu Fujimori and Composer Yuxiki Waga.

The main topic: asking about the creators about how they created the song Shikairo Days and their reaction to the explosive viral hit upon release.

From left, Interview Shinosuke, Musical Director Masamitsu Fujimori, Composer Yuxiki Waga

Some highlights of the interview:

Writing the Refrain

The whole process kicked off when Twin Engine (anime production company) and Lantis (Music Production label) who were working on My Deer Friend Nokotan reached out to Fujimori asking him to help produce the Opening theme song to the anime.

Fujimori commented that ordinarily, these initial discussion meetings begin with a detailed discussion of what kind of song they are looking for, with reference materials in great detail. For example, pages or cut outs from the manga, image art, storyboard clips or other information that helps the director figure out a direction for the song.

For Shikairo Days, Fujimori was given nothing and he was told make a song that says the manga's title "Shikanoko nokonoko koshitantan" over and over and given NO other instructions on what kind of style of music or song it would have, or whether the song would even have any other lyrics, and they were given essentially a blank slate other than to be told the title should get stuck in peoples' heads.

Fujimori immediately had a stroke of inspiration in the meeting and began singing a few bars of an outline of a refrain, and called up the composer Waga, and asked him "Can you write a Denpa Song (Moe Song)?" Waga was taken aback and he responded he's never written a Moe song befoer, but he could.

Fujimori explained the ask, and sang the few bars he came up.

Waga spent the next three days saying "Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan" over and over for hours to himself, at different rhythms, intonations, and tempos to find what worked. They felt the tempo in particular was of key importance.

Waga commented he had a slow, medium and fast modes he settled on, and in particular he considered the faster mode. he though the fast mode sounded funny, but it was harder to make out the individual syllables and kind of meshed together, where as the medium speed mode had a more hypnotic quality that he liked, and the slow mode didn't have a driving rhythm, so he settled on the tempo and cadence that the song actually used.

The Refrain is Delivered

A few days later, Waga returned with a sample recording of the refrain, that was just a loop of music and a beat laid over the lyrics "Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan" (basically what was used for the Tiktok Dance).

When Fujimori listened to it, his reaction was "WINNER." He explained the manga title was so attractive and catchy, paired with the rhythm and tempo that Waga settled on, the refrain for the song just grabs you and doesn't let you go in a way that's incredible.

The next step was deciding whether or not the song actually needed anything else. Fujimori seriously considered making the whole OP nothing but "Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan" over and over, with no melody, no deviation, but decided as an OP they wanted more of a fun melodic quality to it, although they wanted to keep the refrain front and center to the song.

As they wrote the rest of the song, Waga commented about how much importance they put on 4-syllable words in the lyrics.

Shi – ka -no – ko

No – ko – no – ko

ko -shi – tan – tan

Repeats 4 syllables over and over which adds to the hypnotic quality of the lyric, and Waga wanted to lean into that, so they wrote the rest of the lyrics focused on bringing as many 4-syllable lyrics as possible, which would give the song a powerful catchy rhythmic quality through repetition.

For example the first verse:

しかのこ とことこ Shi ka No ko / To ko to ko
あらわる のこのこ A wa yu ru / No ko no ko
つのつの ぴょこぴょこ Tsu no tsu no / Pyo ko Pyo ko
見た目はおにゃのこ？ Mi ta me wa / On Na No ko?
近頃うるさぬなかなかキワモノ Chi ka go ro / Uh Ru Sa Nu / Na ka Na ka / Ki wa mo no
お手並みいかほどへなちょっこ Oh teh na mi / Ih Ka Ho Do/ He na Cho Koh

Made up entirely 4 syllable phrases, mostly 4-syllable words

Everyone working on the OP loved it immediately

Fujimori commented that Waga delivered 200% on the ask, and the reaction from everyone that heard the song was very positive.

Fujimori commented that typically when the music production side delivers the OP, it's extremely common that they get back a series of requests for edits or changes, and a collaborative editing process begins between the msuci side and the anime production side to adjust the OP to the anime's needs.

Waga's Shikairo Days got zero retake requests and was immediately OK'd to go, so the OP piece that's used in the anime is essentially the first draft that Waga delivered with zero changes.

They were gunning for the feel of a Heisei Era Anime Song

Fujimori commented that having read the manga, he felt that the manga was incredibly powerful, and had a distincitive throwback feel of the kind of crazy comedies that were in vogue in the Heisei era (1990-2019 — here probably referring mostly to the 90s ~ 00s).

Because of that, Fujimori felt the OP should also have the feel of a throwback anime song that captured the feel of the Heisei era, but have modernized feel ot it so that it doesn't feel dated. Most of the top anime staff, Fujimori himself and Waga grew up during the early Heisei era so they had a uniform understanding of what was needed, but Fujimori included younger staff to help edit and add to the music to make sure the song feels like a throwback but still feels fresh and modern.

They expected success, but didn't anticipate THIS

Both Fujimori and Waga were confident they had a winner, but they didn't at all anticipate the international level of success that the OP ended up getting.

Fujimori posted the video of the refrain and Koshitan dancing with the deer staring at her to Tiktok right before he went to bed. When Waga and Fujimori woke up the next morning, both their phones had exploded, the video had already gotten millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes, and there were comments not just in Japanese, but in English and many other languages.

Fujimori commented their main priority was pleasing the fans of the manga and the manga's author. He was confident that they would get the attention of the Japanese anime community with the OP, but that this type of massive international viral hit happens to the entire anime industry maybe once a year, if that, and so you never go in expecting something like this could happen to you.

Waga commented he woke up and his phone's LINE app (a popular messaging app in Japan) had exploded with messages from numerous people that just said

お前がシカだったのか　(oh, you're the deer)

as people checked out the song credit and realized Waga had been the one to write the viral hit. Waga commented he got so many messages saying "you're the deer" that he began to feel like maybe I am a deer.

Virality was a priority during writing the song

Fujimori was asked to what extent the ways in which the song's viral nature, for example the popular dance moves to the song, were planned into the song's conception. Fujimori answered that while they didn't have a specific dance in mind when they wrote the song, in terms of the rhythmic nature of the song and the tempo, they did have the idea that they wanted the song to be danceable as they wrote it.

So when the anime production side came back with an idea for a Shikairo Days dance for the characters to do, both Fujimori and Waga were like "yeah that makes sense."

Waga commented that in order to make the song particularly danceable, when that was made a priority, he made the bass line a "walking bassline" inspired by Ska music–a type of music that gained popularity in the 1950s that was inspired by Jamaican music and became a popular form of dance music. So the song's bass line was written from inception with danceability in mind.

Additionally, Waga chose "Ska"music as an inspiration, because Shika –> Ska (Waga explained this and then commented he was embarassed to explain this is why he chose a Ska bass line).

Fujimori also comments after the fact, a sound engineer friend of his analyzed the 1 hour endurance version of the song to try to understand why a video that is 2 bars of music, merely the intro to a song to an anime that hadn't been release at the time it was posted would go massive viral with millions of views.

His friend claims the video has similiarities to a type of popular Japanese healing music called 1/f Yuragi, and speculated the song's popularity may be in its weirdly soothing qualities.

Shikairo Days has an easter egg

Waga included an easter egg in the song in the form of 3 real deer cries into the song, and challenges listeners to figure out where the real deer cries are.

There's just one issue.

Waga had no idea what a deer actually sounds like. So he went to a library of sound effects and searched for "Deer noise" and bought sound samples that were for that. But for all he knows they could be a different animal's noises. Or a cow. And he'd have no idea, but he bought sound samples that were labeled "Deer."

Waga asks people who like the song to figure it out for themselves.