About
“Humans are Nice” (Japanese: 人間っていいな, Ningen tte Iina) is a quite well-known Japanese child song that was played in an ending movie for a Japanese famous TV anime series Manga Nippon Mukashi Banashi (まんが日本昔ばなし).[1] This song has been familiar to almost all Japanese people for over many decades, and hence sometimes utilized as musical resource in online parodies.
Origin
“Humans are Nice” was composed for an ending theme song of the program by a famous Japanese composer Asei Kobayashi[2] and arranged by Joe Hisaishi[3], known as the main composer in Studio Ghibli’s anime movies. And its innocent lyrics was written by Akari Yamaguchi.[4] This song was originally aired as the 5th ending theme of that program from 1984 to 1987 and earned a much popularity among viewers. Then it came back to the ending movie in 1990 and continued to be played till the program ended in 1994. Besides, the ending theme had been fixed to this song when the show was re-aired in 2000s.
Spread
Since this song is the memorable song for almost all Japanese people, it’s a very common occurrence that they sing filk songs of this song in childhood. Hence, many filk songs of “Humans are Nice” naturally became to be posted to the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) after its launch in 2007. “2D (Nijigen) is Nice”[5] and “Phimosis is nice”[6] are good examples for silliness of those filks.
In addition to this, this song and its movie became to be often utilized in Vocaloid covers or parodies such as MAD videos and hand-drawn animations around the end of 2007. Famous earliest hits in both genres are a hand-drawn animated video featuring Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure posted in November 2007 (shown below, left)[7] and Donald McDonald’s Ran Ran RuMAD“Donald is Nice” posted in December 2007[8] (shown below, right).
【ニコニコ動画】【ドナルドMAD】ドナルドっていいな【にんげんっていいな＋ドナルド】
Like these, there are hundreds of parodies for this song are uploaded to NND[9], and most of them are usually named by the phrasal template“X is Nice” (Xっていいな).
Notable Examples
For more videos, check out the videos section in this entry.
【ニコニコ動画】ストリートファイトっていいな【ニコニコ動画】バトルドームっていいな
Left: Street Fighter | Right; Battle Dome
【ニコニコ動画】にんげんっていーのっく 【げーむ天界昔ばなしED】【ニコニコ動画】【切実】にんげんっていいな【魔法少女まどか☆マギカ】
Left: El Shaddai | Right; Puella Magi Madoka Magica
【ニコニコ動画】ウメハラっていいな【ニコニコ動画】【APヘタリア】にんげんっていいな【手書き】
Left: Crazy Live Report feat. Daigo Umehara | Right; Axis Powers Hetalia
Search Interest
A large spike around the beginning of 2008 was caused by a TV commercial featuring the song covered by Japanese punk rock musicians.
External References
Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.
[1]Wikipedia – まんが日本昔ばなし (Japanese)
[2]Wikipedia – Asei Kobayashi (Japanese)
[3]Wikipedia – Joe Hisaishi
[4]Wikipedia – (Japanese)
[5]niconico Video – 日本オワタ話(ED：にじげんっていいな）verミジンコ11-26-2007 (deleted)
[6]niconico Video – ほうけいっていいな / Posted on 02-15-2008
[7]niconico Video – にんげんっていいな・ジョジョver / Postedo n 10-18-2007
[8]niconico Video – 【ドナルドMAD】ドナルドっていいな【にんげんっていいな＋ドナルド】 / Posted on 12-11-2007 (deleted)