CHAI - PING PONG! (feat. YMCK) - Official Music Video

What this video is

Released April 28, 2021 as the final pre-release single from CHAI's Sub Pop debut album WINK, 'PING PONG!' emerged during a period of pandemic-enforced creative reinvention. The entire WINK album was recorded remotely via GarageBand and Zoom, marking CHAI's first use of outside producers. The video celebrates a distinctly Japanese leisure ritual — playing ping pong at an onsen (public hot spring) while wearing…

Why it matters

A landmark document of neo-kawaii J-indie's international crossover moment on Sub Pop Records, and a rare mainstream-adjacent deployment of authentic chiptune aesthetics in an animated music video. Bridges Japanese underground chiptune (YMCK's 8-bit jazz-pop lineage since 2003) with CHAI's…