Pikotaro turns viral hit into anti-virus anthem

“At my 1-year-old daughter’s nursery school, they have a handwashing song. She kept singing and washing her hands, and encouraged me and my wife to wash our songs along with the song, too,” Kazuhito (aka Daimaou) Kosaka tells The Japan Times.

Kosaka is better known as Pikotaro, the entertainer responsible for the 2016 song “PPAP (Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen).” He has a pen, he has an apple … I bet it’s coming back to you. That minute-long song became the most viral Japanese tune of the 2010s, reaching the ears of everyone from Justin Bieber and Donald Trump, and hundreds of millions more.

“When I traveled around the world, I realized some countries don’t have the custom of washing their hands,” Pikotaro says. (Kosaka stays in character as Pikotaro during our interview, although he plays the role of Pikotaro’s producer as well.) As the COVID-19 outbreak turned into a pandemic, Kosaka says he wanted to help people combat the virus with a song similar to his daughter’s hand-washing song. “I thought making it with something familiar would be good.”

Enter “PPAP-2020-.” Kosaka jams the instantly recognizable melodies of his meme together with a concept borrowed from the pre-kindergarten set. The titular fruits of the original have been swapped out for “a hand” and “a soap,” which come together to form a crash course in hygiene. All hands squeaky clean, Pikotaro ends the song by asking that you “pray for people and peace.” Perfect.

Since being uploaded on April 5, this new version of “PPAP” has amassed more than 6 million views and given Kosaka’s character the most media attention he’s earned since before the 2016 U.S. presidential election. It has prompted other artists to offer up their own takes on it, not to mention those in the song’s target audience.