Hitsujibungaku have released the music video for ‘Dogs’, directed by cult filmmaker Gakuryu Ishii, whose punk-rooted work helped define Japanese underground cinema.
Ishii’s career stretches back to the late 1970s, when Toei picked up his 16mm debut Crazy Thunder Road for national distribution. His 1982 film Burst City, featuring members of Japanese punk bands The Roosters, The Rockers, The Stalin, and INU, is often cited as a precursor to Japan’s cyberpunk movement. Alongside his film work, Ishii has directed music videos across several decades, including early projects with punk acts such as The Star Club, and Anarchy.
The video adopts a lo-fi, analogue feel reminiscent of Ishii’s early work, combining cold blue-toned performance shots with dark industrial settings and abstract, psychedelic imagery.
Ishii said he was struck by the track’s direction, commenting:
“I was surprised because it was an aggressive track and set of lyrics that went beyond the image of Hitsujibungaku, but I think the passion of the members and all the staff has come together into a really nice groove. It’s a solid, deep, and cool song that doesn’t get boring.”
‘Dogs’, written as the theme song for the Netflix drama series Sins of Kujo, stands as one of the noisiest tracks in the band’s catalogue. Speaking to Asahi Shogakusei Shimbun, vocalist and guitarist Moeka Shiotsuka said the song was shaped by difficult experiences in her life: “If everything had been completely happy, I wouldn’t have been able to write it.”
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Sins of Kujo, produced by TBS for Netflix, stars Yuya Yagira as a lawyer who takes on morally complex cases. Yagira, a long-time fan of the band, said the track “fits the world of Kujo very well”, highlighting the lyric “What is justice?” as a key link to the drama’s themes.
The single was released digitally on March 25th and is available now across streaming platforms.
Hitsujibungaku
Dogs
Release Date: 25/03/2026
Label: F.C.L.S.
Stream: Links
