I, unfortunately, found myself unironically scrolling through YouTube shorts the other day. Luckily, my feed on there isn’t all that brainrot-y. It’s primarily just cooking videos, people dubbing Tumblr or Twitter posts, little minecraft facts here and there — and of course, idols. While doomscrolling, I saw this reel of a few girls playing around. I assumed they must be an idol group by their outfits. They looked cute so I checked out their channel out and yup, they’re members of the idol group -SETSUNA-.
What really made them stand out from the sea of chika idol groups to me is just how.. heisei they feel? Maybe not entirely heisei, but their music and MV’s feel like something you’d see from an older underground group rather than a newer one. They have a sound you don’t really hear often in jpop today, and their group photos aren’t an unnecessarily detailed conglomeration of colors and weirdly ai-looking graphics. I really like their style, honestly. It’s refreshing.
I believe they were formed in October 2022, and currently are a four member group. The members being;
It’s really hard to choose a favorite out of everyone honestly. I’m leaning towards Reichemu cause I like her personality, but they’re all so cute and charming it’s hard. Picking an oshi out of four member groups is always tricky for me, dunno why. I have the same issue with Wasuta and Kyurushite. Four member groups always have such a solid lineup.
Anyways, in October 2022 they were formed with 3 members; Takahashi Eri, Izumi Yukina, and Riichan whom is the only founding member still in the group. Then in 2023 they had a bunch of members join (don’t ask me who they all were, I do not know. Fake fan alert, sorry). What I do know though, is that the other active members Kanon, Ayaka, and Rei joined during this period. Then in 2024, a bunch of people left and we got the four member lineup you see today.With this lineup, they’ve released a solid amount of really cute MV’s. Like I mentioned earlier, their style is very heisei feeling. While a lot of underground groups today either overuse the Medansy mixing + Kazushi Fujii image design aesthetic, or the Circle Lychee / MADS INK alternative rock aesthetic — SETSUNA feels way different than all of that. The MV for their song Tokyo Yabai really embodies this whole underground-idol-group-from-the-late-2010s aesthetic to me.
You could probably tell just from the thumbnail, but this MV is a full of the two absolute best elements an MV can have: fun and chaos. The song is shockingly catchy, and some of the lyrics are gold, lol. “It’s not a fart, don’t worry about it” WHO COMES UP WITH THIS STUFF?!??! I guess it’s not that crazy of a lyric but it definitely caught me off guard, since when do idols talk about farts? In a song, no less.
Other than that, I really like the creative direction of this video. It’s nothing high budget — many people would argue it’s low budget. But with the budget they’ve got, this MV has a lot of really cool visual effects and elements. I like the overlays and stuff they do over girls in the many verses. The effects get especially crazy near the end of the song, a lot of flashing lights. Which uhhhh.. now that I’m thinking about it, maybe that’s something I should’ve warned about earlier? This videos got a lot of flashing text, overlays, etc. I will admit, I do prefer the visuals that aren’t so flashy near the beginning because you can actually see the girls, but the flashy-flashy does has its cool moments.
Another video I REALLY like is their most recent, Demo Demo Datte. It’s got a totally different vibe from the other MV, having more of a peaceful autumn theme than whatever was going on in Tokyo Yabai. And fun fact, this was the first song I checked out from -SETSUNA-. In other words, the song that got me totally hooked.
This video is just… so… so… so…cute… there’s no other word to describe it. Absolutely cute, kawaii if you will. This song is also super super catchy, it feels like one of AKB48’s modern day title tracks. Kinda reminds me of Masaka no Confession, which I freaking LOVE. Both cute and sweet little love songs with even cuter MV’s… both peak.
Speaking of the MV; it’s adorable, if you didn’t hear me the first ten times. Everything from the simple set, the outfits, the slightly awkward lip-syncing — every shot of this MV is ADORABLE. And the lyrics?? This song is so cute I might faint.
I’d also like to take a moment to appreciate the fact that they provide ENGLISH SUBTITLES!! They only have these subs on MV’s, no other videos. But still, most jpop groups don’t even do that!! I think that was part of what made them stand out to me. It’s really nice to see an underground group at least kind of care about demographics outside of Japan. And yet, they’re still so shockingly underrated. Hell, I might be one of their only international fans (sigh).
The final thing I wanna talk about today is the fact that they performed at Nippon Budokan!! Literally today!! Or.. technically yesterday? Time zones are weird, Japan’s a full day ahead of my area. Whatever, on January 14th, they were a part of Giovanni 44 Fes, which took place at Budokan. I was honestly shocked to hear that such a small-scale group was performing at this huge venue, but good for them! Even though I’m still an incredibly new fan, I can’t help but be proud. You don’t just casually get invited to stuff like that. I hope to watch this amazing group of four climb even greater heights in the future!
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