About
“2-4-11 of Love” (Japanese: 恋の2-4-11, Koi no Two-Four-Eleven), also tranlated as “Love is 2-4-11”, is a fanmade “idol” song for Naka[1], a fleet girl from Japanese online card game Kantai Collection (KanColle). This song inspired by an illustration for the fleet’s idol had earned a huge popularity on the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) in late 2013, and even got the official approval.
Origin
This energetic fleet girl proclaiming herself as “Naka-chan the fleet’s idol” is well-known for her unique personality like a typical Japanese idol[2], which nature comes from the similarity between her ship number “48” and Japanese idol group AKB48.[3] On the other hand, she is also known for a dishonorable title “The dismantling idol” (解体のアイドル, Kaitai no idol) which comes from a pun for “The fleet’s idol” (艦隊のアイドル, Kantai no idol) as well as a common experience among the game players that they dismantle her with disappointment because her high appearance rate makes her often appear on when they want to get or construct other rare ship girls. The iconic number representing her, “2-4-11”, stands for the numbers of resources which can get from her dismantlement (2 fuels, 4 Bullets and 11 Steels).
The real sense of the word “2-4-11”
Against a backdrop of this Naka’s funny but slightly unhappy circumstances, a parody illustration of she singing an imaginary song named “2-4-11 of Love” at a Karaoke box was drawn for an official fan book for KanColle by an illustrator kinnotama (きんのたま), and it was uploaded to his pages in pixiv[4] and Nico Nico Seiga[5] on September 26th, 2013.
“The next tune! 2-4-11 of Love☆”
Spread
Inspired by this illustration and the catchy song name, a Japanese amateur composer Gun-SEKI created a song in this name actually, which features the 2-4-11 beats in typical Japanese idol song style. His “2-4-11 of Love” song was posted its short version to NND on October 4th[6], and then its full-version on 11th of that month[7] to celebrate that KanColle broke the 500,000 user mark (Shown below, left). The latter music video soon got a huge popularity and a large fanbase on that Japanese video hub site. It had reached to 1 million page views in November 2014, and many hundreds of dancing covers, singing covers and other fan works had been created till that point.[8] Additionally, the “wotagei”[9] chants and lightstick calls dedicated to the song were prepared (Shown below, right). The admirals had learned it for some day.
Niconico【艦これ】『恋の2-4-11』フルバージョンでいっくよー★【オリジナル曲】Niconico【【艦これ】恋の2-4-11に観客コールをつけてみた【フルカオス】
<!--
table.list {border:1px solid #999}
table.list tr:nth-child(2n) {background-color:#f3f3f3}
table.list th, table.list td {padding:5px;margin:10px;vertical-align:middle;border-bottom:1px solid #999;border-right:1px solid #999}
table.list td:nth-last-of-type(1) {border-right:none}
-->
Feedback to the Official
The viral hit of this song soon reached to the ears of KanColle staffs. They mentioned to this song on their Twitter in that month.[10][11] And on December 27th 2013, KanColle official Twitter account announced that Gun-SEKI’s “2-4-11 of Love” would be released on JOYSOUND, a Japanese major Karaoke network, as the first title in KanColle official music distributions starting in the following day.[12] Naka-chan herself got the 2nd upgrade mode “Kai Ni” before other Sendai-Class light cruiser girls in the following month in commemoration of the release.
Naka Kai Ni
On August 3rd, 2014, “2-4-11 of Love” was finally sung by Ayane Sakura[13], the voice actor for Naka, with the cosplay of the fleet’s idol at the 1st official fan event “First Yokohama Naval Review Rehearsal” (第一回横浜観艦式予行) held at PACIFICOYOKOHAMA. An attendant’s report said that all admirals struck the wotagei moves and calls perfectly even though it was the first live performance.[14]
Various Examples
Niconico「恋の2-4-11」を歌ってみた＊ななひら
Left: Singing Cover by Nanahira | Right: Wotagei
Niconico 【第12回MMD杯本選】艦これライヴ 始まるよっ！【恋の2-4-11】Niconico 【修正版】総統閣下は恋の2-4-11に合わせて芸を披露してくださるようです
Left: Miku Miku Dance Edition | Right: Hitler’s Downfall Parody
Dancing Covers
Dancing covers, usually called as “Odottemita” (踊ってみた; lit. “I tried dancing”) on NND, has been the most popular fan work for the song since 2014.[15] Popular choreographies for the song among nico nico dancers are Tora-san & Miya’s version posted in March (Shown below, left) and Asibuto_Penta’s version posted in May (Shown below, right).
Niconico 【とらさん】『恋の2-4-11』踊ってみた【ミヤ】
Illustrations
Search Interest
External References
Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos/illustrations listed in this section.
[2]Wikipedia – Japanese idol
[4]pixiv – 「【告知】「次は『恋の2-4-11』いっくよー★」」/「きんのたま▼6th」 / Posted on 09-26-2013
[5]Nico Nico Seiga – 「次は『恋の2-4-11』いっくよー★」 / きんのたま▼ さんのイラスト / Posted on 09-26-2013
[6]niconico Douga – 【艦これ】『恋の2-4-11』いっくよー★【オリジナル曲】 / Posted on 10-04-2013
[7]niconico Douga – 【艦これ】『恋の2-4-11』フルバージョンでいっくよー★【オリジナル曲】 / Posted on 10-11-2013
[8]niconico Douga – Search results for the tag 恋の2-4-11
[10]Twitter – 「艦これ」開発/運営: "次回の全サーバ群共通メンテナンス＆アップデートは、来週10/16(水)実施を予定しています。「100万の感謝」掛け軸の配信などのアプデートもあります。お楽しみに！ …「恋の2-4-11」が頭の中でリピートされすぎて仕事に支障が…2-4-11とはそういう意味だったの…か… #艦これ" / Posted on 10-10-2013 (Japanese)
[11]Twitter – 「艦これ」開発/運営: "以上…「改」なの～！…という訳で【甘味処『間宮』】のメニュー改でした。本日の新規サーバ開放、残り着任枠僅か、もうすぐ終了致します。明日土曜日も【17:30】より新規サーバ開放予定です。 #艦これ" / Posted on 10-11-2013 (Japanese)
[12]Twitter – 「艦これ」開発/運営: "明日【12/28 15:00】からJOYSOUNDさんの最新機種「JOYSOUND f1」で「艦これ」関連楽曲配信がスタートします！ 第一弾は、艦隊のアイドルが歌う 【曲名／歌手名】恋の2-4-11／Gun-SEKI feat.那珂 です！「改なの～☆」お楽しみに！ #艦これ" / Posted on 12-27-2013 (Japanese)
[13]Wikipedia – Ayane Sakura
[14]かんむす！ – 【艦これ】あやねるが「恋の2-4-11」を生で歌っただとー！？観艦式レポまとめ / Posted on 08-04-2014 (Japanese)
[15]niconico Douga – Search results for the tags 恋の2-4-11 踊ってみた