With a name that translates to “sheep literature,” you have to be putting out some of the most incredible indie music out there. And that is exactly what Hitsujibungaku (羊文学) has been doing.
Formed in 2011 by five high school freshmen, they began by covering songs of Japanese rock bands like chatmonchy, GO!GO!7188 and Sambomaster. Sadly, two of the members left soon after their formation, leaving the current lineup of vocalist Shizuoka Moeka, bassist Kasai Yurika, and drummer Fukuda Hiroa.
When asked about the name, Shizuoka told Fudge.jp she wanted to add sheep in both Japanese and English, because she was a fan of the band S. R. S. (Sleeping Rag Sheep). She was also a fan of Sigur Rós’ music and liked how the lyrics of their songs could transport you to another world, so she wanted to add literature to the band name. Then one day in the bathroom, she realized it could be cool to just combine them.
The world of anime is an incredibly powerful tool for helping to launch the careers of Japanese musicians to the world. The four seasons of Tokyo Ghoul featured three different artists in the opening songs: TK from Ling Tosite Sigure did the openings for Seasons 1 and 4, österreich for Season 2, and Cö shu Nie for Season 3. Both of TK’s songs — “Unwravel” and “Katharsis” — have become his most streamed songs on Spotify at over 276 million and 39 million streams, respectively. Hilariously, TK now has more monthly listeners on the platform than Ling Tosite Sigure themselves — 1.8 million to 197 thousand. Cö shu Nie’s song “asphyxia” launched them to a current monthly listener count of just shy of a million, and while österreich has had the least amount of monthly listeners from their song, they still have over 100 thousand. While Hitsujibungaku aren’t in need of the boost in listeners from doing a song for an anime, having consistently hit over 200 thousand streams on all of their songs, it can’t possibly hurt.
This isn’t the first time that Hitsujibungaku has done a song for an anime, as their song “Hikaru toki” was used as the opening song for the anime Heike Monogatari, a retelling of the fourteenth century epic of the same name. This time, they got a bit of an upgrade in terms of brand recognition, as “more than words” is the ending song for the “Shibuya Incident Arc” of Jujitsu Kaisen. The version used at the end of episodes showcases characters from the show in locations within Shibuya. The full music video does the same but with fewer locations. The post-rock stylings of the band fit so well with this sort of ending that I’m surprised it hasn’t been done nearly as often.
A line from “more than words” says, “きっと 間違いだらけのストーリー,” which translates to “there is always going to be more to all of our stories.” There’s always going to be more words to add to our stories. Some of the things we will end up doing will require things that are simply just more than words can describe.
