Music Video Analysis –Egomama by DECO*27

feat. Marina

Hannah Potter

About the songEgomama is a song written by Japanese musicians DECO*27 in 2011 and

sung by singer Marina with a completely animated music video. The original song is in Japanese but has official English translated lyrics which many

people have used to make covers.

The song lyrics describe the idea of love being a “give or take” situation in which you have to choose to help your lover or yourself, and the other will

suffer. The narrative later in the song is reflected by a change in the lyrics for the positive, stating that rather than choosing, the two can work together.

Original Japanese:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0l0iLUgyPQ

Best English Cover (horizon):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqTHGFNN4EY

Setting

The video takes place in a setting that resembles some sort of casino with an “Alice In Wonderland” atmosphere due to the wide space and thousands of cards falling from nowhere. The setting is meant to represent limbo, the place between places

and in this case the place between decisions, and how love is a risky gamble or a game of wits.

NarrativeThe story starts with a boy and a girl, the girl opens a door into the “casino” and the

scene switches to two polar opposite girls, one dressed like an elegant lady and the other like a flashy princess. Both have young men playing as dealers. The princess takes all of her table’s chips selfishly and has a card with the letter “I” on it, while

the lady gives all of her chips to her dealer and has a card with “U” on it. These girls represent two sides of a person’s decisions and personality, “I” being the selfish side

and “U” being the selfless side. At one point the camera jumps between a close up of

each’s clasped hands before briefly showing the girl from the start in the same

position, hinting again that they’re both connected to her.

Narrative

Each girl also has a teddy bear, which may be a symbol of their innocence as well as an effigy of themselves, since later in the video they are attacked (showing the pain caused on both sides by conflict) and the

injuries they sustain are also shown on both girls.

NarrativeAfter the bears are injured, the two girls reach for them and are hit by a sudden pain or sadness (shown by the shaking outlines that seem very gritty and out of control). Meant to represent the pain caused by inner conflict and when relationships hit a rough patch. After an instrumental they’re both shown sitting with their bears and

looking defeated. Each girl seems to be alone and notices a card on the floor which they pick up and reveal to be the other girl’s card. “I” is shown comparing the two cards when the heart symbol from each combines to

make one large heart and the words “I Love U” flash onscreen. The two girls are suddenly aware of each other’s

existence and shown to be standing just metres apart, showing that they’re

actually two halves of the same person.

NarrativeUpon discovering each other the two girls smile and come together with their bears. They press the two

bears together face to face in a representation of them uniting at last and as the bears disappear, a large

heart-shaped door appears behind them indicating they can leave now that they work together. Instead the first

girl is seen leaving the room and comes face to face with the first boy, who now seems to be the person she

is in love with. It’s also shown that he was going through the same thing when a shot shows the two

dealers standing behind his own door. After smiling at each other there is a focus pull at the end showing the

girl still has a card in her pocket, indicating the experience was possibly real and she learned from it.

The card “jumps” from her pocket as the scene disappears in an aesthetically pleasing ending shot

showing the importance of the card while making it all seem magical or innocent.

Mise en scéneThe setting already touched upon is very interesting and quite

pleasing to the artistic eye, but something not already mentioned is how the lighting is set to have most of the casino room appear slightly shadowed. This is both to give an air of mystery and tension as well as contrasting with the slightly

brighter lighting on whatever is in the foreground, namely the main characters which because of that always look like they’re in a spotlight and “put on trial”, if you will. The props range from the teddy bears mentioned earlier to the gambling chips shown in a few shots (again hinting that love is a gamble) and the playing cards used in various ways throughout the

video. While talking about the mise en scéne in an animated video is a little strange, the evident simplicity with props has more of an impact on the narrative than if there were random objects everywhere that (as a result) would split our attention and make the narrative hard to follow. In regards to costume

the two girls I and U are shown to be polar opposites, U wearing dark colours with short black hair in an elegant

fashion, and I having long golden hair and wearing a white (if slightly more flashy looking) princess outfit to look more

confident and powerful.

Interesting shotsAn interesting trick used to support the video’s narrative is how each shot of I or U is either perfectly mirrored, has identical composition or is set out to be in some way the opposite of the

equivalent shot. This is meant to signify how both characters are very similar in their situation and only differ in

appearance, personality and perhaps one or two actions (such as when U picks up her bear and stares at it, while I knocks her bear away violently). Many of the establishing shots either pan

very smoothly across certain parts of the setting or glide around it quite quickly, while later during an instrumental the shots are

even more dramatic, showing the casino chips flying everywhere, countless doors falling “down the rabbit hole”

style, and many racing shots down corridors of them where the shots transition into each other using a flickering effect. At one point the corridor is even turned upside down for a split second.

All of this is meant to represent drama and mild chaos.My personal favourite shot however is the close-up of I’s

expression when she realises U is behind her. It’s very brief, but the shock on her face usually creates the same emotive response

in the viewers, especially when followed by the camera’s very fast spinning around both girls for dramatic effect.