KAKYOIN Marks Her Birthday With a New Cover, a Career Retrospective and a Gift From MIMI

KAMITSUBAKI — KAKYOIN of KAMITSUBAKI (PHENOMENON RECORD) celebrated her birthday on Sunday with a stream of about 165 minutes that combined a look back at her career, congratulatory messages from colleagues and collaborators, and a musical present from the composer MIMI.

She opened by pointing viewers to a cover video posted just before the stream: “Shiranai Planet,” sung with the singer Kaf, her first duet with Kaf. She said singing with Kaf was the first of several birthday wishes she had been allowed to make. She had worked with staff on the part split so their voices would overlap more often, made the video herself, and filled the song’s famously thick choruses with her own harmonies.

“Thank you for finding me, and thank you for letting me deliver my songs to you.” — KAKYOIN, late in the stream

The first half went through a printed commemorative pamphlet sold for the occasion, with a digital edition linked from the stream description. She read its profile and Q&A pages, then walked through a year-by-year timeline: her debut on Aug. 8, 2024 at a KAMITSUBAKI festival as part of the unit Shojo Kakumei Keikaku, her first cover video, her first original songs and her first YouTube stream on Dec. 17 of that year. She said she had borrowed the title of that first stream for the birthday stream’s title. She also recalled how daunting the dancing and recording were at the start.

The second half was given to messages gathered from people she had worked with over the year, several with hand-drawn illustrations and a question for her to answer. Replying to one, she described traveling alone to Asakusa in Tokyo to see an advertisement placed by fans to mark her birthday and buying melon bread from a shop she had long said was a favorite. The last guest, MIMI, who wrote her song “Uchu Toh Hiko” (a space flight), sent a message along with an arrangement of that song as a gift, which played while she read it. She said it was the most striking birthday present she had received and her first present in the form of music, and that she had listened to MIMI’s songs long before joining the label. She also hinted at a project she is working on without giving details.

Before closing she announced a birthday singing stream the next evening at 9 p.m., then read out the names of those who sent the stream’s 26 Super Chats. She became tearful as she explained that her profile line about delivering songs had once meant hoping they would reach somewhere in the world, and that she now pictures the particular people she sings for. She ended the stream with a song, and chat answered with thanks and “see you tomorrow.”