Rindo Chihaya Walks Fans Through the Making of Her Animated Music Video “Hatenai Tabi”

HOLOLIVE — Rindo Chihaya of Hololive’s DEV_IS FLOW GLOW spent a 99-minute chat stream, known in Japanese as a *zatsudan*, taking viewers behind the scenes of “Hatenai Tabi” (roughly “Endless Journey”), her second single, whose animated music video was released the previous week. She watched the video with chat at the start, then went through the storyboard video and design materials she had received from the production team.

Chihaya said work on the song began early this year and the song was finished around April. When she heard the chorus, she said, memories of an anime that does not exist flowed into her head, with a battle scene during the “reach to the far side” line, and that image led her to choose an animated video even though it was costly. She said she weighed releasing it at a time unrelated to an anniversary, and described it as a song released just ahead of her second anniversary. Plans to lower the song’s key by two or three steps were dropped, she said, because the song lost its feel at the lower pitch. The title was settled at the end of September, after the title that appeared on the provisional storyboard video fit the work so well.

“This is a music video made with everything the fans have given in support of Chihaya so far. It’s a music video all of you made.” — Rindo Chihaya, on the music video

She explained that the video is built as the opening of an imaginary isekai fantasy anime, with the second half acting as a digest of episodes viewers can imagine for themselves. She showed character designs for the protagonist, for the mascot Nikkun, for the dark double Kuro Chihaya, and for a mentor, a friend, a merchant and others, along with the magic circle and the merchant’s shop. She noted that the magic circle’s three-gauge layout was modeled on the instrument cluster of the RX-8. Late in the stream she revealed a hidden backstory: when the protagonist came to the other world, part of her negative emotions split off and became Kuro Chihaya, so the double is a part of her.

Chihaya also spoke about recording the song. She said it was the hardest stretch of vocal practice she had had: her voice would not come out, she added lessons with her vocal trainer, and she sang with everything she could give at the time. She thanked the creators involved, saying she could not convey her gratitude to each of them directly, and asked viewers to keep listening, including on streaming services.

Chat answered with applause and 28 paid messages, many of them wishing for a second season or an ending theme for the imaginary anime. Chihaya said she, too, wanted to see the story continue, and said she may hold a stream where viewers think up the story together. She said she would not stream for the next two days because of work and plans to post Shorts instead.