Tokoyami Towa - 'mumei' Reaction

Thank you so much for reacting to this one Tim. This one means a lot to the Hoomans. I still can't hear Towa's goodbye at the very end without bawling, it's such a genuine expression of love to a dear friend. Towa is extremely emotional with goodbyes (she's had to say goodbye to two gen-mates in awful circumstances and has struggled greatly to keep it together both times) and Mumei leaving clearly hit her really hard. Despite language barriers they struck up a close friendship over the years through their time spent in the same place, their love of games like Apex and Overwatch, and their silly natures. Towa even had a cute nickname for her in "Mumi" that she used basically any time they interacted. There's a comment Towa left on Mumei's last cover saying "I miss you" that she left at 3am jst. They likely don't get to talk a ton anymore between time zones, language barriers that were always there, and busy work schedules, but hopefully they still find time here and there. I don't know if you noticed, but Towa kept the backing vocals from Mumei's original version. It was a really sweet way to sing with her one more time to send her off. Also, others have done a better job of explaining it in greater detail, but her name Nanashi Mumei translates to essentially Nameless Without a Name (both nanashi and mumei mean similar but slightly different things). The use of the word mumei pulls triple duty through the three choruses transitioning from, roughly, "I'll continue without a name," into "I'll continue nameless," then finally "I'll continue as Mumei." That through-line between the choruses functions as a beautifully designed literal representation in the lyrics of the song of her finding herself and who she wants to be.

Mumei's singing voice can be somewhat deep, but for "mumei" she's reaching pretty far into the lower part of her range. Towa's vocal range is huge and is much more comfortable in this register. Towa and Mumei both love playing Overwatch. There was a hilarious interaction where Mumei invited a bunch of the EN girls to play OW together and Towa caught wind of it from an earlier stream with Calli, so she just jumped into the EN Discord call live on stream, much to the EN girls amazement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_29WRgdx_OI&t=900s So when Mumei announced her graduation, Towa took it pretty hard, but also put a call out to get some artwork done for a "very urgent project". I don't think she ever confirmed it, but I'm pretty sure that urgent project was her cover of "mumei". There was a pretty bittersweet stream right before Mumei's graduation where she was guilt-tripping everyone in EN into playing Overwatch and a handful of EN girls joined for a few rounds but all had to leave for various reasons. Just as Mumei was about to switch to playing solo, Towa pops up and asks to play a few rounds, It was a super-heartwarming stream with the two of them just enjoying each other's company and chatting back and forth in broken English and Japanese, or as Towa and the JP girls like to call it: "Passion English".

Nanashi and Mumei both translate to Anonymous, Nameless, or Without a name. You can also loosely translate it to Who with both the first and last name together it would be Who Who which is a play on the owl theme. When you hear Mumei in the song it is contextualized differently depending on where you are in the song. First it is translated to "without a name" but at the end of the song the subtitles show it as "Mumei" as this is her coming to terms with her self and accepting that as her name or who she is instead of a title or moniker as to remind her that she doesn't have a name.

Thank you for reacting to this cover. This one hits hard in the best kind of way.

We're definitely mooming now! Reposting my comment from the Mumei study video. Regarding the song "Mumei" there was one more layer to the lyrics I think you may have missed having to do with acceptance. The word "mumei" appears in the song 3 times. The first time it's translated as "without a name" in the context of the lyrics (Just a description) The second time it's translated as "nameless" (an adjective) The third and final time it's not translated at all, because "Mumei" is now no longer a description of her, it has become a noun, it is her name. The word meaning "Nameless" is simply her name now. (It's even capitalized in the CCs) And yes, while I've never seen a confirmation, I've always felt the music in mumei was quite strongly inspired by Porter Robinson. P.S. Mumei is the guardian of civilization (according to her lore) who has travelled the world since the first civilizations arose, lived thousands upon thousands of lifetimes. She has experienced all the joys and sorrows of humanity. As a result, her memory is not the best, she has long since forgotten her original name, so she just adopted the name other people called her most recently, which just happened to be "Nameless". This is basically her lore. P.P.S. Her full name is Nanashi Mumei, both her first and last names can be translated as Unknown, Nameless, Anonymous, etc.

Thanks for this reaction Tim - Towa and Mumei had one of my favourite friendships to watch. Despite their language barrier it really felt like they connected and loved spending time together. They'd play Overwatch and Apex Legends together and give each other language lessons. Towa is so expressive and goodbyes seem to hit her on a deep emotional level, so it's really special that she could dedicate this cover to her friend who she doesn't get to hang out with as much anymore. Mumei's departure especially feels like it left a hole in Towa's heart. 3 months ago, a few days after the anniversary of Mumei's graduation, Towa left a comment under Mumei's final cover that just said "i miss you". I hope they still get a chance to talk every now and then.

we're moomin now

They really liked playing overwatch together. Towa would randomly join Mumei’s Overwatch streams and play a couple rounds with her. There are some great clips of it on YouTube.

Welp time to cry at work.

As for the "Mumei" in the lyrics at the end of the pre-chorus, it shows up 3 times and each occurence has a different implied/translated meaning to it. The first time she uses it as "(I am) without a name" The second time she uses it as "(I am) Nameless" (as in she's seeing nameless as her form of adress.) And the third time it's just "My name is Mumei".

Been one of the ones I’ve looked forward to the most since I joined your page. For the difference in pronunciation. I always just assume that it was more just Mumei being a non native speaker that isn’t fluent and Towa being a fluent and native speaker.