“Chikatto Chika Chika” ending from the first season of Kaguya-sama: Love is War anime (also known as Chika Dance) surpassed 30 million views on YouTube. It’s a special ending song that was featured in the third episode and animated by Naoya Nakamura, the animator who expressed his gratitude on Twitter.
Naoya Nakayama took care of key animation (genga), direction, and storyboard. He drew 845 keyframes by tracing over a video of a real person dancing frame by frame – an animation technique called rotoscoping. The end result were the character’s realistic moves in the video. His profile on Twitter includes “Chika Dance” as one of his works.
The official Twitter account of Kaguya-sama anime series celebrated the 30 million view milestone on Tuesday and the animator quote-tweeted it to express his gratitude to viewers on Saturday:
“Thank you very much for watching a lot🙇♂️🙇♂️🙇♂️I remember I was really dead at that time, but it’s 100 percent thanks to Chika Dance that I am what I am now😭✨ Look forward to the new work, too😊“
A new anime adaptation Kaguya-sama: Love Is War -The First Kiss That Never Ends- is currently in the works and will have an early premiere at this year’s Anime NYC, where the first part of the series (about one episode) will be screened on November 19.
The official Chika Dance video was posted on January 26, 2019, and is currently region-locked to Japan only on YouTube. It features Chika Fujiwara, who is dancing while singing the song. Konomi Kohara performed the song, as she voices Chika. The voice actress is known for her roles as Roxy Migurdia in Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation and Yuko Yoshida in The Demon Girl Next Door. The first season’s second Blu-ray and DVD volume limited edition compiles the video’s non-credit version along with a CD of the song as a bonus. The number of views for Chika Dance is much higher in reality, because of a big number unofficial uploads.
Studio A-1 Pictures is animating Kaguya-sama Love is War anime based on Aka Akasaka’s romantic comedy manga of the same name, which came to an end in early November 2022 in Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump magazine. The manga will have a total of 28 volumes. The first season of the TV anime aired from January to March 2019, the second season from April to June 2021, and the third from April to June 2022, and the manga-inspired live-action film adaptations.
Source: Official Twitter, Official YouTube
© Aka Akasaka / Shueisha / Kaguya-sama: Love Is War Production Committee