Music / BIGMAMA

Left to Right: Mao Higashide, Hideto Yasui, Masato Kanai, Hiroya Kakinuma, Ib Riad^* former drummer

The meaning of our lives, the reason we can't die

Is that we've always been anxiously awaiting this day

"St. Light" (2020)

BIGMAMA are a Japanese Alternative Rock band from Tokyo formed in the early 2000's, consisting of Masato Kanai (vocals, guitar), Hiroya Kakinuma (guitar, vocals), Mao Higashide (strings, keyboard), and Hideto Yasui (bass)^note As of May 10, 2020, the band is without a permanent drummer. Their defining characteristic is the inclusion of a violin and increasingly ambitious string/orchestral arrangements throughout their career, and they're best known in Japan for their EP trilogy Roclassick, in which they sample well-known classical pieces.

Originally formed in 2001 while the members were in high school, BIGMAMA signed to RX-Records (under the independent record company UK.Project) in 2006 and released their debut EP short films. After a quick lineup change in which Hideto Yasui and Mao Higashide joined the group, they released their first album Love and Leave, and steadily gained notoriety from then. By the release of (and with the help of) the "Secret to Lucy" single in 2011, they had become one of UK.Project's biggest artists.

They culminated their independent music career and marked their ten-year anniversary with a show at the Nippon Budokan, where they announced they would continue their career with Universal Music.

Nothing to do with the movie character of a similar name.

Discography (with RX-Records)

• short films EP (2006)
• Love and Leave (2007)
• Dowsing for the Future (2008)
• And Yet, It Moves (2009)
• Roclassick EP (2010)
• Kimi ga Mata Burausu no Botan o Todomeru Made ^en: Until the Blouse is Buttoned Up (2012)
• Kimi omou, yueni ware ari. ^en: I think of you, therefore I am. (2013)
• Roclassick 2 EP (2014)
• The Vanishing Bride (2015)
• Fabula Fibula (2017)

Discography (with Universal Music)

• Synchronicity (Collaborative album with HY) (2015)^note Released before signing to Universal, through HY's record label
• ‪-11°C (2018)
• Roclassick ~The Last~ (2019)

Singles (with RX-Records)

• "Boys Don't Fly" (2007) ^A-side: "Moo"
• "Neverland" (2007)^* Limited single
• "Weekly Fairy Tale" (2008) ^A-side: "Keisandakai Cinderella"
• "Diamond Ring" (2009)
• "I'm Standing On The Scaffold" (2010)^* Limited Christmas single
• "Secret to Lucy" (2011) ^en: "Secret and Lucy"
• "#DIV/0!" (2011)
• "to mother" (2012)^* Live-exclusive limited Mother's Day single ^A-side: "Haha ni Okuru Uta"
• "Fuusenfuufu no Fukan Show" ^en: "Mr. and Mrs. Balloon's Bird's Eye Show" (2012)
• "Jeffrey Campbell no Skate Shoes de" ^en: "With Jeffrey Campbell Skate Shoes" (2012)
• "alongside" (2013)
• "Wanderlust" (2014)^* Limited Single
• "Sweet Dreams" (2014)
• "SPECIALS" (2016)
• "DOPELAND" (2017)^A-side: "Crystal Clear"

Singles (with Universal Music)

• "Strawberry Feels" (2018)
• "Foxtail" (2018)^* Download-only Christmas single
• "mummy mummy" (2019)
• "St. Light" (2020) ^* Download-only Mother's Day single

BIGMAMA provides examples of:

• Abandoned Pet in a Box: The cat in the video for "Crystal Clear" was found this way.
• All There in the Manual: Each song on Fabula Fibula is about a made-up town with a slightly altered reality explained in the CD's physical liner notes. Most of the songs make perfect sense without the extra information, but "Spoon Diving," "Raincoat ni Nareta Nara," and "Blinkstone no Shinjitsu o" name-drop their towns, which doesn't make much sense without the notes.
• Animated Music Video: The video for "Crystal Clear" is a short animated film about a girl and her cat.
• Anti-Love Song: "Thank You Is Fxxk You," most notably.
• Album Intro Track: More often than not, for full albums:
  • "Overture" for And Yet, It Moves
  • "Beautiful Lie, Beautiful Smile" for Kimi ga Mata Burausu no Botan o Todomeru Made
  • "awasekagami" for Kimi omou, yueni ware ari. (which flows seamlessly into the album's title track)
  • "The Vanishing Bride" for The Vanishing Bride
  • The additional instrumental tacked on to the beginning of "Yesman" for the Complete Edition of -11°C.
• Album Title Drop: In "Roll It Over" (a song with a Non-Appearing Title) for And Yet, It Moves, sixteen times.
• Alice Allusion: "Miffy's Mouth" centers around them, despite being named for a different white rabbit from children's literature.
• All Just a Dream: "(50) days of flower" turns out to be:

  "One morning the angel left ^jp: ある朝天使は出掛けたよ (Aru asa tenshi wa dekaketa yo)

  And never came back ^jp: それきり帰らないけど (Sorekiri kaeranai kedo)

  It was all just a dream ^jp: 全てが全部夢オチだって (Subete ga zenbu yume ochi datte)

  But it wasn't so bad." ^jp: それでも悪くないような (Soredemo warukunai you na)

• Alternative Rock Band Mascot: A non-metal example of the music mascot: CPX (from his eponymous song), a sketchy robot with X's for eyes, a squiggly line mouth, and an antenna, is a staple of The Merch; for any given product they sell, there's probably at least one with him on it. He also appears on the merchandise posters themselves to provide helpful notes.
• Atomic F-Bomb: Kanai is no stranger to English-language swearing, but "Tereize no Tameiki" and "Thank You Is Fxxk You" stand out for their violent final F-bombs.
• Auction: "Auctiomania," of course; the greedy narrator bids on everything, only to find himself up for auction at the end, pleading with the audience to increase their bids.
• Audience Participation Song: Many of their songs have designated lines for the crowd to sing; any yeah's, woo's, or whoa's are taken by the crowd, especially when they run counter to the lead vocal line (such as at the end of "Sweet Dreams").
  • The audience takes the "Divided by x!" countdown lines in #DIV/0!".
  • In "alongside," the chorus consists of an echo between Kanai/Higashide and Kakinuma — the crowd takes Kakinuma's part at shows:
    Ushinatte (ushinatte) hajimete (hajimete)
    Kizuita (kizuita) koto bakari sa...^en: "I just now realized I've started to lose it..."
• Auto-Tune: Used for its distortion effect on "Anata no Koe de Boku no Na o Yonde."
• Baroque Pop: A lot of their work from Kimi omou, yueni ware ari. through The Vanishing Bride qualifies, with less emphasis on punky guitars and more on lush, intricate arrangements.
• Book Ends: "we have no doubt," the first song on the first EP they released with RX-Records, and "Crystal Clear," the last single they released before signing to Universal, have some of the same lyrics. Though they're in different languages (and "we have no doubt" is a bit shaky on its English), the lyrics to "Crystal Clear" are lifted directly from the translation of "we have no doubt" — including "But let's make a promise" (Soredemo bokura yakusoku o shiyou), which doesn't actually appear in the sung English lyrics:
  "we have no doubt": "Tomorrow does not always come/Word is not so certainly/I don't know, I don't know, I don't know"
  "Crystal Clear": "Words are not so certain/And tomorrow may not always come/But let's make a promise" ^jp: 言葉は確かなものじゃない/明日が来るとも限らない/それでも僕ら約束をしようよ (Kotoba wa tashika no mono janai/Asu ga kuru to mo kagiranai/Soredemo bokura yakusoku o shiyou)
• Broken Bird: The angel in "Sore wa Kitto Tenshi ga Nagaku Tsutomaranai Riyuu"^en: "Surely, This is the Reason why Angels Don't Work Long" wore herself down to a breaking point by sharing her love with others so much that she forgot to love herself. She ends up tearing off her wings and wearing her scars in the open to prevent people from taking advantage of her.
• Busby Berkeley Number: The video for "Secret" features some impressively synchronized choreography. With props, no less.
• Call-and-Response Song: Several of them; usually, in the recorded versions, the chorus vocals (Kakinuma and Higashide) take the crowd parts:
  • "MUTOPIA": Unusual in that the crowd calls and the lead singer responds:
    Crowd/Chorus: "Sunny day is sunny day"
    Kanai: "Aru ga mama yukou"^en: "Let's go just as we are"
    Crowd/Chorus: "Rainy day is rainy day"
    Kanai: "Nasu ga mama yukou"^en: "Let's go at its mercy"
  • "SPECIALS":
    Kanai: "Stay the best forever and ever,"
    Crowd/Chorus: "We are the specials, bokura wa specials"
    Kanai: "Stay the worst forever and ever,"
    Crowd/Chorus: "We are the specials, bokura wa specials"
  • "Kamisama mo Iu Toori ni" becomes one live: during the bridge, which is recorded as half of a phrase from the chorus repeated four times, the crowd finishes the line:
    Kanai: "Tatta sanbyou areba bokutachi wa"
    Crowd: "Mirai o kaete yukeru"^en: "If for just three seconds/Our future is changed"
• Call-Back: Two in "(50) days of flower":
  • To "Paper-Craft":
    "Paper-Craft:" "I'm stretched cruelly thin/About 40 micrometers thick oblate" ^jp: 僕は酷く薄っぺらなんだ 厚さ40μオブラート然り (Boku wa hidoku usuppera nanda/Atsusa yonjuu micro oburaato shikari)
    "(50) days of flower": "I think my whole self was stretched so thin/So that I could envelop you" ^jp: 薄っぺらな僕の全ては 君を包むためだったと思うような (Usuppera na boku no subete wa/Kimi o tsutsumu tame datta to omou you na)
  • To "Sore wa Kitto Tenshi ga Nagaku Tsutomaranai Riyuu":
    "Sore wa Kitto Tenshi ga Nagaku Tsutomaranai Riyuu": "Forgetting her wings are now gone, tonight, she'll fly once again/A branch for you to rest, was I able to be?"
    "(50) days of flower": "One morning, I found an angel, but she had no wings/Wrapped up in sheets, she'd lost her memory and said "Nice to meet you" with a bitter smile" ^jp: ある朝天使を見つけたよ 羽は生えていないけど / シーツに包まって記憶喪失って はじめましてって苦笑い (Aru asa tenshi o mitsuketa yo hane wa haetenai kedo/Shiitsu ni kurumatte kioku soushitsutte hajimemashite tte nigawarai)
• Call-Forward: "Insomniark," before it was the name of a song on -11°C, was the name of the setting town of "Merry-Go-Round."
• Christmas Songs: "My Greatest Treasure" is about growing up to find out Santa was your dad all along, and then goes a bit off the rails from there. Anti-Christmas Songs aside, it may be one of the only Christmas songs to include a Precision F-Strike.
• Coat Cape: One of Kanai's fashion staples; he has his arms out of his jacket sleeves more often than in.
• Concept Album: Fabula Fibula is meant to be a series of vignettes set in a group of towns; a town for every song.
  • The "Weekly Fairy Tale" single is, as the name might imply, all about fairy tales with some twist in the story.
  • On a smaller scale, the song titles on the "Strawberry Feels" single all have to do with food.
  • The Roclassick EP's are called this by name, as opposed to being numbered albums, with the concept being classical music samples.
• Cover Drop: Right out of the gate on And Yet, It Moves; the cover depicts a theater with several silhouettes behind a curtain, and the very first line of "Overture" is "Okay, ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for the show?" and goes on to describe the silhouettes.
• "Days of the Week" Song: "Weekend Magic," naturally.
• Dead to Begin With: In the "Crystal Clear" video, the cat was dead from the start; the moments where it's with its owner are all flashbacks. What stops this from being Posthumous Character is that the owner successfully reunites with the cat at the end.
  • The "Weekend Magic" video may be an example as well. The girl with the unusual makeup sitting across from Kanai was never physically there at all; the instances when it was made to look like she was interacting with him are revealed to have been other people/things.
• Deal with the Devil: In "Fabula Fibula":
  "If you make a deal with me," the devil whispered softly ^jp: ならば私と取引きを悪魔がそっと囁いた (Naraba watashi to torihiki o akuma ga sotto sasayaita)
  "Your wish will be granted in exchange for what you cherish most." ^jp: 一番大切にしているものと引き換えに貴様の願いを叶えよう (Ichiban taisetsu ni shiteiru to hikikae ni kisama no negai o kanaeyou)
• Don't Fear the Reaper: In "The Right," the narrator is confronted by a friendly angel rather than a traditional god of death and given a choice between reincarnating without their memories and being able to keep them in death.
• Drama Theme Song: "Strawberry Feels" and "mummy mummy," while not the opening songs, are the main themes for the first and second season of the live-action drama adaptation of Kakegurui respectively.
• Dream Within a Dream: "Insomniark" takes place in one:
  "Dreaming within a dream within a dream within a dream ^jp: 夢の中の夢の中の夢の中で夢を見てる (Yume no naka no yume no naka no yume no naka de yume o miteru)
  Someone, please, come wake me up soon" ^jp: お願い誰かそろそろ起こして (Onegai dareka sorosoro okoshite)
• Dwindling Party: In "#DIV/0!"; the "Divided by x!" countdown represents the number of remaining people among whom the treasure discovered at the beginning of the song can be divided, which goes down one by one as they off each other. As the name implies, nobody survives — not even the last one standing.
• Echoing Acoustics: Used fabulously on the vocals of "awasekagami;" since the title means "mirrors facing each other," it was probably named for this effect.
• "El Niño" Is Spanish for "The Niño": From English to Japanese; "Specials" translates the line "We are the specials" to "Bokura wa specials" right after.
• Epic Instrumental Opener: "Animanimus" (and by extension, the Roclassick 2 EP) starts with a dramatic orchestral introduction; the main motif doesn't start until 1:08 in.
• Evolving Music: "MUTOPIA" has a grand total of nine versions: one for each region of Japan (excluding Kanto, which is assumed to be the default version because the band is from Tokyo) and one "for Party People" including references to the Japanese rock scene.
  • In the original words to "look at me," Kanai refers to being twenty years old; in the 2013 re-recording, he changes it to twenty-eight.
  • "St. Light" had different lyrics in the original live version, a year before its official release. Some speculate the lyrics were changed to make the song a fitting send-off to Ib Riad, whose last day with the band was the day the song was released.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The "Secret and Lucy" single has two songs: "Secret" and "Lucy."
• Fading into the Next Song: "Sore wa Kitto Tenshi ga Nagaku Tsutomaranai Riyuu" fades into "The Game is Over" on Dowsing For The Future. "awasekagami" also fades into "Kimi omou, yueni ware ari." but due to the nature of the two songs it's nigh impossible to tell where one ends and the other starts without watching the tracks tick over.
• Fallen Angel: Something of a recurring theme for them. The subjects of "Sore wa Kitto Tenshi ga Nagaku Tsutomaranai Riyuu" (and by extension, "(50) Days of Flower") and "Spoon Diving" are explicitly described as such, and the subject of "Secret" is also implied to be something like it.
• Food Songs Are Funny: All five of their food-related songs manage to avert this, "Donuts Killed Bradford," which has the silliest name, most of all.
• Fractured Fairy Tale:
  • "Keisandakai Cinderella"^en: "Calculating Cinderella" is about an ambitious Cinderella who pushes everything to end up in her favor, wearing the glass slipper even though it makes her foot bleed and cooking and eating her own pumpkin carriage. The prince winds up being impressed with her nerve.
  • In "Nidonesuru Nemureru Mori no Bijou"^en: "Sleeping Beauty Goes Back to Sleep" Sleeping Beauty gets annoyed that someone woke her up, peeks at him through half-closed eyes, decides he's not her type, and goes back to sleep.
  • "The Naked King" tells The Emperor's New Clothes from a point of view sympathetic to the Emperor, who trusted the crooked weavers because he would rather regret trusting others than doubting them. It also has him addressing the townspeople and apologizing for his indiscretion, something unaddressed in other versions of the story.
• Fun with Homophones: "Fukan Show" as written in the song title means "Birds-Eye Show," but it's pronounced the same as "fukanshou," meaning "sexual frigidity".
  • "A Kite" is a bilingual play on "akai ito," meaning "the red string" (i.e. of fate).
  • "Koukyoukyoku 'Shinsekai'" is a cross between this and Alternate Character Reading; "koukyoukyoku" means "symphony," but in the song title it's written with characters meaning "madness" and "destruction." Together, the song title is meant to be read as "New World Symphony," which is the classical piece it quotes.
  • "Valkyrie no Hikou" is pronounced just like "Ride of the Valkyries"'s translated Japanese name, but with "hikou" written to mean "delinquency" rather than "flight."
• Gratuitous English: Frequently. Their lyrics often nonchalantly flip back and forth between Japanese and English, going well beyond the occasional word and including whole English phrases and choruses.
  • As frequent as it is in their current work, they've toned it down since the beginning; they didn't actually write anything in Japanese until their second album, and even then it was only two and a half songs. We'd be here all day if we listed every instance.
• Gratuitous French: The cover of Kimi omou, yueni ware ari. reads "Je pense fort á toi, donc je suis." which is the album's title in French.
  • "Turkey Outsider" counts to three in French as well as German.
• Greatest Hits Album: BESTMAMA, a compilation drawn from the first ten years of their career (spanning from short films to "SPECIALS"). Subverted at least in part, as some songs included didn't see commercial release in the first place.
• Growing Up Sucks: Overlapping with Ode to Youth, more than once:
  • In "bambino bambina":
  Wanna skip for joy no matter how old I get
  Forever bambino bambina
  No saddle on my back, I don't know how the world is yet
  Forever bambino bambina
  • In "look at me":
  You said to me, "study hard" and "back to cage"
  Oh shit, no need to chain
  I wanna fly away, 'cause I'm a kid
• Indecipherable Lyrics: Usually not, but "All Right" falls into this at times due to the vocal effects and Kanai outright mumbling toward the end.
• Intercourse with You: "MISSION 481" and "Royalize" are two on opposite ends of the subtlety spectrum.
• Just a Machine: "CPX" is about a robot who has learned to feel resentment toward its former owner for discarding it.
• Kids Rock: The ending of the Roclassick version of "Keisandakai Cinderella".
• Late for School: The narrator in "make a booboo" progressively sleeps in later and later until he oversleeps and has to run to get to school on time.
• Lead Bassist: Kanai was one in the beginning until Yasui joined the band in 2007 and took over the bass, allowing him to take up secondary guitar.
• Lighter and Softer: Kimi omou, yueni ware ari. features a higher concentration of Silly Love Songs and optimistic lyrics than any other album and represented a musical shift toward Baroque Pop elements, never getting quite as heavy as the albums before or after it. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing, though.
• Long-Runner Line-up: The lineup of Kanai, Kakinuma, Higashide, Yasui, and Riad lasted over 13 years, from February 10, 2007 when Higashide and Yasui joined, to May 10, 2020 when Riad left the band.
• Looped Lyrics: In "Donuts Killed Bradford" a couple of times:
  "SOSOSOSOSOSO e, sou janai ^en: SOSOSOSOSOSO, ah, it's not like that
  You and I, and I, and I, and I, and I e, ai janai" ^en: You and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, ah, this isn't love
• Lost Wedding Ring: The obvious subject of "Where's The Ring?", but in this case it's intentional; the narrator hid it in his dog's house, and the dog ate it. It was never worn after that.
• Lyrical Cold Open: In several flavors:
  • "Kakurenbo," "No Way Out," "(50) Days of Flower," the single version of "Specials," and "Life is Mille-Feuille" have vocals in the pickup to the first measure.
  • "we have no doubt," "Where's the Ring?," Mutopia," "Spoon Diving," "Fukan Show," "the cookie crumbles," "look at me," "Saigo no Hitokuchi," and "Haha ni Okuru Uta" start the vocals and music simultaneously.
  • "Why You Refrigerate Me?" goes the full monty and has the title sung in full with a joyous "WOO!" before the band kicks in.
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Merry-Go-Round," a cheerful, driving tune, tells the story of a carousel horse who chooses to experience a brief moment of freedom at the price of its own life.
  • "look at me" is pretty chipper with the line "I wanna kick someone's ass to make my sweet day."
  • "#DIV/0!, one of the most upbeat numbers on its album, depicts nine people killing one another out of greed over a discovered treasure.
• Lyrics/Video Mismatch: Pretty often. For instance, the video for "Merry-Go-Round," a song about trading a life in captivity for a deadly moment of freedom, is mostly about obi spinning. Although in its defense, it suits the upbeat music more than the lyrics do.
• Medusa: Used as a comparison in "Blinkstone no Shinjitsu o"^en: "The Truth About Blinkstone" by name.
• Miniscule Rocking: The Album Intro Tracks "awasekagami" (0:54) and "The Vanishing Bride" (0:30) clock in under a minute. "Happy Sunday" (1:28), "Overture" (1:45), and "Popcorn Star" (1:58) all come in under two minutes, which, while less severe, is much shorter than their usual fare.
• Mood Whiplash: Kimi ga Mata Burausu no Botan o Todomeru Made follows up "Koukyoukyoku 'Shinsekai'" (mentioned above) with "Zoo at 2AM," a lighthearted and fun track about animals throwing an after-hours party at the zoo.
  • "Strawberry Feels" pulls this off mid-song; the transition from the hectic, minor mode, half-time violin/guitar solo section to the toned-down second-last chorus in major mode 4/4 is just short of jarring.
• Murder Ballad: "Koukyoukyoku 'Shinsekai'" ends with the narrative character getting slaughtered for trespassing.
  • In "#DIV/0!" nine people kill each other and the last man standing kills himself.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The celebrities who aren't harmed; their music and characters based on their likenesses are featured in the Show by Rock!! mobile game as Spectrenotes.
• Not a Morning Person: Kanai, self-admittedly.
  Kanai: "What time is it?" *Turns around to look at the clock* "About 10 or 11? Everyone... this is like 4 or 5 AM for musicians."
• Ominous Latin Chanting: Throughout "Ta ga Tame no Requiem," lifted directly from Verdi's Requiem (Dies Irae)
• One-Woman Song: "Lucy."
• Our Vampires Are Different: According to "Kyuuketsuki wa AB-gata ga Osuki," they have a preference for AB-negative type blood.
• "Pachelbel's Canon" Progression: Parts of "Keisandakai Cinderella," as it samples the piece itself.
• Pop Punk: They started out as a pop punk band with a violin (much like one of their influences from the West), and most of their music from the first five years of their career qualifies. They still dip into the vibe from time to time, such as with "Popcorn Star."
• Precision S-Strike: In "Until the Blouse is Buttoned Up":
  "Filthy guys
  Foxy girls
  Dirty grownups
  The world is full of shit"
• Pre-Climax Climax: Implied in "No. 9":
  "On the night of my last day, who would I go to meet? ^jp: 自分最終日最後の夜は誰に会いにいこう？ (Jibun saishuubi saigo no yoru wa dare ni ai ni ikou?)
  Out of a million, out of all of all of humanity, I'd go to you without hesitation ^jp: ウン十億の全人類から迷わず君の元へ (Un juu oku no zen jinrui kara mayowazu kimi no moto he)
  Just like always, as we are wont, that's my sole desire: ^jp: 至って普通に普段通りそれが唯一の望みさ (Itatte futsuu ni fudantoori sore ga yuuitsu no nozomi sa)
  I want to fool around until the very last second and die with you" ^jp: 最後のラスト1秒まで君と戯れ合って死にたいの (Saigo no rasuto ichibyou made kimi to jareatte shinitai no
• Red Filter of Doom: Parts of the "Strawberry Feels" video are completely tinted red, for added intensity and because it's the color of strawberries.
• Reincarnation Romance: Subverted by "Happiemesis"; in all their lives, the narrator falls in love with the subject, who hates him every time.
• Rock Me, Amadeus!: The entire point of the Roclassick EP's; they have twenty songs that fit the bill, plus a cover of "Sabre Dance". (More details on the trope page.)
• Runaway Bride: The Vanishing Bride uses this as a visual and thematic motif; the album art features a headless mannequin in a wedding dress on a beach.
• Sanity Slippage Song: "Donuts Killed Bradford" has shades of one, and the sound to match. The nonsense title definitely contributes.
  "susceptible to submitting to irritated, delusional impulses ^jp: 焦燥妄想衝動に従順に敏感に (shousou mousou shoudou ni juujun ni binkan ni)
  just like that, donuts killed bradford" ^jp: そうあるがままに donuts killed bradford (sou aru ga mama ni donuts killed bradford)
  • "mummy mummy" comes off as one as well, with the chorus repeating "I'm not going crazy" several times, though given the nature of the series it serves as a theme song for, it's not surprising.
• Sequel Song: Arguably, "Crystal Clear" for "we have no doubt;" though they're not similar in sound, "Crystal Clear" borrows imagery, concepts, and whole lines of lyrics from "we have no doubt."
• Shout-Out: "Specials" name drops Batman and Robin, of all things.
  • "Miffy's Mouth" refers to Miffy, a children's book character whose mouth is drawn as a small x.
  • The line, "But weight is light as kitty, you know/Weight of three apples" in Lucy references the fact that Hello Kitty is said to weigh "about three apples."
• Siamese Twin Songs: "awasekagami" and "Kimi omou, yueni ware ari." can't exist without each other.
• Signature Song: "Koukyoukyoku 'Shinsekai'." Kanai once remarked that, since it was the song that got them where they are, they include it in nearly every set.
• Silly Love Songs: Numerous. "Haru wa Kaze no Youni,"^en: "Spring, Like the Wind" "Life is Mille-Feuille," "Saigo no Hitokuchi," and "Kimi omou, yueni ware ari." probably rank as the sappiest and the silliest.
• Snake Oil Salesman: The auctioneer in "Auctiomania" peddles, among other things, wine that promises eternal youth. To rub it in, all sales are final and he won't hear complaints.
• The Something Song: Of the Japanese "[x] no Uta" variety, "Haha ni Okuru Uta," which translates to "A Song for Mother."
  • "The Last Song," the appropriately titled last song of the last Roclassick EP.
• Song Style Shift: "Strawberry Feels" spends much of its length as a catchy, up-tempo rock song, devolves halfway through into the most intense and frantic solo section they've ever written, and abruptly snaps back as though the whole thing never happened.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: In "Lucy," though it comes in just late enough that you can hear Kanai start to say "fucking." Not that it would make the song any cleaner if it didn't, as he says "bitch" twice per chorus.
• Stepford Smiler: CPX is one in his eponymous song.
  "I get it, every time, I fake a lovely smile
  My heart is shredded into tiny pieces"
• Step Up to the Microphone: While Kanai and Kakinuma often split vocal duties, Kanai has the lead part in every song except "The Right," where Kakinuma takes most of the verses and all of the chorus.
  • Kakinuma also has half, if not more, of the lead vocal lines in "Foxtail."
• Stopped Numbering Sequels: Roclassick, Roclassick 2, and Roclassick ~The Last~.
• Stuffy Old Songs About the Buttocks: "Lucy" describes a girl as having hips "like a hippo's."
  • Subverted in "Merry-Go-Round":
  "I can't even tell anyone that I'm tired of staring at your behind." ^jp: 「あなたのお尻は見飽きた」と誰にも言えないまま ("Anata no oshiri ga miakita" to dare ni mo ienai mama)
• Suicide Pact: The subject of "Swan Song," to be Together in Death.
• This Is a Song: "This is 'The Last Song'/Maybe it's a love song..."
• Title-Only Chorus: The choruses of "Fabula Fibula" and "Until the Blouse is Buttoned Up" consist only of their titles and "Whooooooa~, whoooooa".
• Title Track: Dowsing For The Future, Kimi omou, yueni ware ari., The Vanishing Bride, and Fabula Fibula each have one. Kimi ga Mata Burausu no Botan o Todomeru Made has a track called "Until the Blouse is Buttoned up," which is the album's title translated into English.
• Together in Death: In the video for "Crystal Clear," the cat's owner is shown studying a new method of space travel; as it turns out, she's trying to reunite with her cat in the afterlife, and succeeds.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: "Niji o Tabeta Iris,"^en: "The Iris that Ate the Rainbow "#DIV/0!," "Life is Mille-Feuille"
• Uncommon Time: "Royalize" is in 11/8, switching between subdividing by 6+5/8 and 5+6/8 every measure; the result sounds like a song that alternates between 6/8 and 5/8 every two measures. Toward the end, it stays in 11/8, but switches to 6+5/8 every measure.
• Unplugged Version: "to mother" features a straight example ("I Don't Need a Time Machine") and an inverted one ("Happiemesis," at the time unnamed).
• Unreplaced Departed: As of May 10, 2020, the date of what would have been the last live as their 2007-2020 lineup (which was cancelled due to public health concerns), BIGMAMA is officially a four-piece band without a drummer.
• Vocal Tag Team: To a degree; while Kanai is the main singer, Kakinuma is billed as a secondary vocalist rather than just as a chorus/backing vocalist. He regularly gets lines and phrases where he sings lead, though he never (hardly ever) sings more than half of a full song.
• Wanderlust Song: "Wanderlust," unsurprisingly.
• Warning Song: "Blinkstone no Shinjitsu o" warns about Medusa.
• Word Salad Title: "Donuts Killed Bradford" has little if anything to do with its own title, except that it crops up in the loosely strung-together lyrics.
• You Are Not Alone: The subject of "Kakurenbo" ^jp: "Hide and Seek":
  "Even if you make an enemy of the whole world ^jp: 君が世界を敵に回しても ("Kimi ga sekai o teki ni mawashite mo")
  I'll be the only one on your side" ^jp: 僕が全部味方にしてあげるから ("Boku ga zenbu mikata ni shite ageru kara")