South Korea’s PSY may still be the king of viral videos, but Japan’s Pikotaro could as well be the prince. After setting a Guinness Record for his original PPAP song, the comedian released a longer version of the “Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen” song which has become viral again.
The two-minute, 40-second video was released two weeks ago, and it has now more than 21 million hits and over 150,000 likes. In late October, the original video entered Billboard Hot 100 list and reached 115 million hits.
On Oct. 28, the Guinness World Records, in a ceremony in Tokyo, recognized “PPAP” for the Shortest song to enter the Billboard Hot 100 even if the catchy tune ran only for 45 seconds. The shorter and original version now has about 150 million views on YouTube. It helped that Canadian singer Justin Bieber, in a tweet, called “PPAP” his favorite video on the internet.
Pikotaro must now be harvesting not only hits but money as well since it cost only 100,000 yen, or $950, to produce the video with nonsensical English lyrics, while Pikotaro, or Daimaou Kosaka in real life, in his trademark animal print attire, danced to the song.
Nextshark reported last week that White Jam, a Japanese band, released on Nov. 2 a Christian version of “PPAP” with a romantic twist. The new version runs over three minutes, featuring a “confusingly touching music video that seemed lifted straight out of an Asian drama TV series.” Although the lyrics of the original song were retained, it had a different storyline which featured a young couple who argued and reconciled before the end of the video.
It has more than 980,000 hits since the sappy “PPAP” version was uploaded on White Jam’s YouTube channel.