Tokyo in 2012 wasn’t short on oddball J-pop acts, but few were as wilfully unplaceable as WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA. A three-person project originally consisting of composer and lyristist Kenmochi Hidefumi and director Yasutomo Fukunaga (known as Dir.F), with KOM_I as its public face, the group stood out with eccentric, reference-laced electronic pop tracks that drew on rap, theatre, and EDM. Since the arrival of second-generation vocalist Utaha in 2021, the project has entered a new phase. More accessible, more pop-facing, but no less tongue-in-cheek.
More than a decade since their debut, WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA’s catalogue reads like an index of shifting trends and subcurrents in Japanese pop. Some tracks went viral by accident; others played like surrealist sketch comedy. Across it all, the group has shape-shifted freely, moving from folklore satire to deadpan club bangers, and anime tie-ins that bury suburban melancholy under a slick surface.
Ahead of the European leg of their SUMMER TIME GHOST tour, which begins in London on July 27th, we revisit five key tracks from across both eras of the group, digging into their origins and tracing the evolution of one of Japan’s most unpredictable pop acts.
Momotarō (2014) – How a NEET named Peach Boy started it all
Album: Watashi Wo Onigashima Ni Tsuretette (2014)
WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA’s breakthrough came with ‘Momotarō’ (‘Peach Boy’), a trippy take on the Japanese folk tale. Released in 2014 on their fourth mini-album, it introduced a style that defined the group’s early years: dry humour, deadpan vocals, and minimal electronic production. Falling somewhere between underground club music and spoken-word theatre, KOM_I delivers Kenmochi’s lyrics in a hypnotic monotone, reimagining the folk hero as an apathetic shut-in exiled by his grandparents and dragged from video games to reluctantly fight ogres.
Kenmochi has cited TRIPLE FIRE’s ‘Fujisan’, with its blunt lines like “Mt. Fuji has nothing to do with me”, as a turning point that encouraged him to write more like regular speech. The result is a style of rap filled with colloquialisms, pop culture in-jokes, and dry irony. Lines like “Not getting any takers who’d throw down their life for dango” became catchphrases among the group’s cult following. Despite sparse production, the structure is deceptively intricate—off-kilter, post-dubstep rhythms in the verses snap into a four-on-the-floor chorus. That contrast, between disjointed and danceable, became a hallmark of the group’s early work.
Equally essential, the music video directed by OTAMIRAMS. Reimagining Taro as a shut-in and his grandmother as ruler of Onigashima, it riffs on cinematic references, from RoboCop’s flashbacks to The NeverEnding Story’s airborne finale. With choreographed dance numbers and ogre MCs, it’s a five-minute detour that skips the demon battle entirely in favour of bizarre humour.
Over ten years on, ‘Momotarō’ remains central to the group’s identity. In 2023, they released a sequel MV, ‘Shichifukujin’ (‘Seven Lucky Gods’), again directed by OTAMIRAMS. The gods are recast as political candidates, with a final reveal that Hotei, the god of fortune, was the original Momotarō, tying the narrative back to the group’s earliest mythology.
Melos (2017) – From pop persona to performance art beginnings
Album: Galapagos (2018)
Premiered in collaboration with the Japan Racing Association ahead of the 84th Tōkyō Yūshun, ‘Melos’ was a noticeable shift in WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA’s output following their ‘SUPERMAN’ album and Budokan performance. Drawing from Osamu Dazai’s retelling of the Greek parable Run, Melos!, the track reframes its theme of loyalty and endurance by replacing the direct humour of earlier singles with something more meditative.
zAk, known for his work in dub and psychedelic scenes, engineered the track with a focus on space and stillness. Built around a slow, weighty beat and ambient acoustic textures, ‘Melos’ trades the tight, clipped cadences that defined KOM_I’s earlier delivery for soft, sung lines. The arrangement is mournful but resolute, anchored by a persistent low-end thrum, layered horns, and flickers of organic percussion.
The accompanying video, directed by Tomokazu Yamada and filmed entirely in Mongolia, was the most logistically demanding production in the group’s catalogue. Featuring 100 horses and 100 local children, it centres on both KOM_I and a young Mongolian girl who rides across vast terrain, encountering and parting ways with each other in fleeting moments. The children, aged 12 to 15, were cast to mirror the age of Derby-eligible racehorses, linking the track’s Japan Racing Association tie-in with a looser metaphor about growth, movement, and impermanence.
KOM_I later described the shoot as transformative, navigating sandstorms, horseback scenes, and freezing temperatures to complete what would become her final large-scale MV with the group. While Melos didn’t match the viral impact of tracks like ‘Ikkyu-san’ or ‘Momotarō’, in a sense, ‘Melos’ hinted at the shift KOM_I would soon make, moving away from character-led pop and into introspective, physically driven performance art.
Edison (2022) – Utaha era breakthrough and viral TikTok hit
Album: Neon (2022)
If ‘Momotarō’ was the launch point for WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA’s cult status, ‘Edison’ was the track that opened the door to a new audience, this time with Utaha as its frontwoman. Released in early 2022, six months after KOM_I’s departure, the track was the first real test of the group’s new configuration, and it passed with ease.
Issued as part of a digital double A-side alongside ‘Manekineko’, ‘Edison’ wasn’t originally positioned as the lead. But while Kenmochi believed ‘Manekineko’ had more immediate appeal, it was ‘Edison’ that began circulating on TikTok, climbing to No. 1 on Billboard Japan’s TikTok chart by July and eventually peaking at No. 13 on the Hot 100. The song’s hook, “If I had time to dance, I’ll spend that time inventing”, became a meme in itself, looping through millions of short videos and winning a 2022 Buzzword Award in the music category.
Built on a lean tech-house pulse, the track strips back the layered eccentricities of earlier singles in favour of clipped phrasing and rhythmic bounce. Lyrically, it sketches a loosely autobiographical figure, someone who sets out to be an inventor but drifts into music instead. Kenmochi called it “the most straightforward pop song” he’d written for the group, though its phonetic hook (“Odoru Edison, jisonshin”) made it easy to parody and repurpose, particularly within TikTok’s looped microformat.
Utaha, a freelance model with no formal vocal training, hadn’t originally planned on a career in music. But within a year of the single’s release, she was performing on national TV, appearing in film, and fronting headline tours. In 2025, ‘Edison’ won Best Dance/Electronic Song at the MUSIC AWARDS JAPAN, an acknowledgement of its role in helping WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA turn the page without erasing their sonic past.
Little Red Riding Hood (2023) – A fable rewritten for reality TV
EP: RABBIT STAR ★ (2023)
When WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA were tapped to write the theme for Tonari no Kazoku wa Aoku Mieru 4 (My Boyfriend or a New Guy 4), a reality series where couples pause their relationships to explore new ones, they took the show’s bait-and-switch premise and turned it into a fable of their own.
In ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ (‘Akazukin’), Red isn’t some naive wanderer, she’s already seen through the Wolf’s act. “Busted. Totally busted… Trying to fool me with this? Bit overconfident, don’t you think?”. Delivered with escalating sarcasm and rhythmic snap, the track plays out like a slapstick monologue with no time for subtlety.
Built on a nimble 2-step beat, Kenmochi’s production stays light and clipped, sticking close to WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA’s usual mix of direct delivery and character-led humour. It’s essentially three minutes of Red dressing-down the Wolf for an obvious lie. Simple in premise, but made a staple of second era WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA. Witty, agile, and never cynical.
The video, directed by Nao Watanabe, who’s worked with the group since phase one, leans into the absurdity with 3D and 2D animation, cutaway gags, and surreal live action. Red and the Wolf, no longer rivals, team up to face off against Grandma, now cast as a boss-level antagonist. Part sketch show, part fairytale remix, it’s a visual companion that mirrors the track’s humour and rhythm, built to loop without losing steam.
Summer Time Ghost (2025) – From anime opening to European headliner
Released in April 2025, ‘Summer Time Ghost’ marked WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA’s return to the anime sphere, serving as the opening theme for the TV Tokyo series Kowloon Generic Romance, available internationally via Crunchyroll. Adapted from Jun Mayuzuki’s manga of the same name, the show’s blend of sci-fi romance and clone-mystery intrigue is echoed in Kenmochi’s production, which melds hazy retro-futurism with heatwave malaise.
Kenmochi wrote the lyrics during an unrelenting Tokyo summer in 2024, drawing on a recent trip to Hong Kong for imagery. The song opens on mirage-glimmered asphalt, cracked concrete and air conditioners spinning endlessly, every detail drenched in a sweaty nostalgic discomfort. “Bring me a mystery like ice that won’t melt even in the height of summer”, Utaha sings. The lyrics drift in and out like overheard thoughts of flickering neon, melting ice coffee, 33 bowls of shaved ice. These visual cues translated into a sound that walks a fine line between modern J-pop precision and the faded textures of vaporwave and early 2000s French house.
RELATED: WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA set for first European shows with Utaha on ‘SUMMER TIME GHOST’ tour
Utaha later admitted she hadn’t read Kowloon Generic Romance until after recording. Kenmochi, by contrast, approached the project like writing a character song, but deliberately avoided letting the show dictate the shape of the track. As with past WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA tie-in work, the track retains its identity even when decoupled from its anime context.
Soon after the release of ‘SUMMER TIME GHOST’ came the announcement of WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA’s Asia-Europe tour of the same name, which opened with a sold-out set in Seoul on June 9th, their first solo performance in South Korea.
The tour arrives in Europe at the end of July for stops in London, Milan and Paris. It’s the unit’s first time in the region since Utaha took over vocal duties, and one that promises the kind of unpredictable electronic driven pop and straight cut humour that has defined WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA for over a decade.
Dates and tickets
| Date | Location | Tickets |
|---|---|---|
| 8 Jun 2025 | musinsa garage, Seoul, South Korea | |
| 20 Jun 2025 | Legacy Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan | |
| 22 Jun 2025 | Lido Connect (Hall 2), Bangkok, Thailand | |
| 27 Jul 2025 | Heaven, London, UK | |
| 29 Jul 2025 | Legend Club, Milan, Italy | |
| 31 Jul 2025 | Petit Bain, Paris, France | |
| 2 Aug 2025 | OFF Festival, Katowice, Poland |
WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA
Summer Time Ghost
Release Date: 04/04/2025
Label: WARNER MUSIC JAPAN
Stream: Links
WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA
RABBIT STAR ★
Release Date: 26/04/2023
Label: WARNER MUSIC JAPAN
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music
CD: CDJapan
WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA
Neon
Release Date: 25/05/2022
Label: WARNER MUSIC JAPAN
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music
CD: CDJapan
WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA
Galapagos
Release Date: 17/06/2018
Label: WARNER MUSIC JAPAN
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music
CD: CDJapan
WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA
Watashi Wo Onigashima Ni Tsuretette
Release Date: 05/11/2014
Label: Tsubasa Records (formerly Tsubasa Plus)
Stream: Spotify | Apple Music
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