Description:
This is the visualiser for a quick little sketch of a not-yet-released song by Indigo East remixed into a little lo-fi ditty with Kiki+Koko… 「A song for when your best is good enough.」

[The SpeRaToBo HQ computer is currently going through an ‘Automatic Repair couldn’t repair your PC’ loop and is currently inoperable, so we’re borrowing a different computer to create this article for you. Please pardon us if the format might be different.

Our computer is the only thing allowing us to create and live, so if you’d like to help us out, you can leave a tip in the Tip♡Jar, or if not, you can simply browse and share the site. It really helps us out! Thank you so much!]

こんにちにゃ～！Welcome to SpeRaToBo, with your hosts Kiki and Koko, and later QUIZBO™くん。SpeRaToBo is a Special Lucky Toy Box of various content, and each week, something brand new might appear! This week, it’s not something too far from our usual content, so we hope you’ll enjoy. All of our videos have original lofi chill soundtracks created especially for them. In this instance, we have something a bit different. We present to you a music visualiser, but not just any visualiser, one featuring us! Kiki and Koko! We were so happy to be a part of this original lofi hip-hop remix visualiser. We personally think there’s enough happening to consider it a music video, but the producer of this video, who is also our website host, Indigo East, insisted that it be considered more of a visualiser as it’s meant to focus on the music with the visuals simply accenting it. But, you can be the judge of that as we present: 「ＴＲＹＨＡＲＤ [colour me pink]」

This video emulates a relaxing road trip drive, looking out of the window, watching the scenery pass by, that is, if the scenery was a music visualiser. Though the scenery changes throughout the ditty, we focus most of the time on Koko’s 「TRYHARD」jean jacket and hoodie billowing in the wind as she watches the world pass by. It reminded us of long road trips where you look out of the window, seeing where you’ve been and waiting to see where you’ll go.

We enjoy the vapourwave aesthetic mixed with the VHS starts and stops. This makes the video sync with the audio in a way that allows it to truly be a visualiser. Whilst we simply sat in a car and modelled for this with a camera, a lot of greenscreen work had to be put into this by Indigo East in order to get this affect, and she told us of much crashing of the editing programme and so many retakes which definitely fits this idea of trying hard.

Normally, when people see the word: tryhard, they may be confused or off put as to the meaning.  In this case, tryhard is implying that it’s someone who is simply exerting too much effort for any of the tasks at hand. We felt a deep connection to this topic, staying up late nights, always giving 200% to make sure we give the best content we can, which to us is rewarding, but we’ll come back to that. And, at the same time, we figured, if you learn Japanese with us, you may feel a similar connection. Things can be difficult, and it can feel like you’re working so diligently, but maybe you’re not reaching your goals.

We think that the label of 「tryhard」shouldn’t be looked down upon, and in fact, it should be a celebrated idea (in theory). There’s nothing wrong with giving your absolute best to everything. Western society oddly seems to look down upon people who are ‘trying too hard’ or ‘giving too much effort,’ when sometimes extra effort is necessary. We can’t expect everything to happen easily or come naturally. All skills aren’t fully inherent, and even still, we need to cultivate them which takes effort. We need to acknowledge and appreciate people’s efforts as much as the actual end product or their labour, whether it is a skill or a work. At the same time, though, we have to understand the tipping point.

Trying your best doesn’t mean you’ll always succeed right away, and you shouldn’t feel down if something doesn’t happen despite your best efforts. There are times where you simply have to accept that progress may be slow no matter the amount of effort you exert. We think that’s represented in the line:「I’ve been trying so hard, just gotta let it go」You have to know when something is in or outside of your locus of control. You can do your best, but sometimes environmental factors will get in the way. But, this doesn’t degrade the effort, it simply means you have to know where and when to apply your effort. And, of course, there’s avoiding excess.

There’s a point at which you have to know what you want to spend your life on. You can’t simply exert effort for the sake of exerting effort, it has to be put towards something that has purpose. This purpose could be fulfilment in life or just paying your bills, but you can’t have the former without the latter, especially in accordance with Maslow’s hierarchy.

Or you can support the content with new designs available at Redbubble

With that being said, creating articles, lessons, videos and more for you gives us a great sense of fulfilment. It’s rewarding in the way that we’re able to provide something that helps others in one way or another, whether for education or entertainment. At the same time, we want to make sure to continue to provide this service for free for as many people to be able to access it as possible. And this being said, if you are someone who really appreciates what we’re doing and you want to do more to help us provide more and even better content, feel free to leave a tip in the Tip♡Jar. As we mentioned in the opening, we’ve been having some computer issues, and we can’t access our computer, which means we can’t finish our videos, create thumbnails, or do anything at all… We have an enclosure, but we can’t just tear the computer apart without another computer to use…

There’s even yoga trousers!! YOGA TROUSERS!!

In the meantime, we’ll cover it in a future fashion feature, but there’s a new design available on Redbubble~! It’s us! Me, Kiki, on the left, and me, Koko, on the right! (This doesn’t quite work if we’re collaborating on an article, but oh well, haha.) We hope you enjoy this design by  Indigo East, and that you also enjoy the video. It can be enjoyable just to give some theories on how we interpret ditties like this.

But, anyway, we thought this would be a good time to allow QUIZBO™ to take over with a condensed word of the week! Take it away, QUIZBO™!!

ＨＥＬＬＯ！ Ｉ　ＡＭ　ＱＵＩＺＢＯ™！Welcome to Kiki+Koko: Let’s NihonGO!! Online’s Japanese Word of the Week. We surely do have fun here, watching videos, listening to music, and more. Though, we do not want to leave too much of a gap between lessons in order to keep your Japanese language learning going! Today, I’ll tell you how to pronounce part of the title of today’s video~!

If you would like to learn how to apply these words to your own basic sentences, feel free to take a look at a few of Kiki and Koko’s articles on this subject in Kiki+Koko: Let’s NihonGO!! Japanese Language Essentials.

Coincidentally, I covered part of this phrase in another Word of the Week segment. And because this is a noun, you can practise using it by applying them to a basic sentence structure. Though, sparingly, of course. And because this is a phrase with a noun and an adjective attached, I will make sure to explain each word.

This should also assist you in learning the kanji and hiragana, but as you take a look at the phrase and its spelling. You can ask me as many times as you like to repeat the word, as well. Speaking the word aloud after me will definitely assist your learning! I am always here to repeat them as many times as you need. Without further ado, let us NihonGO!!

Word(s) of the Week:

 頑張りすぎな人【がんばりすぎなひと】※
noun
1. tryhard; person who tries too hard

※Explanation

頑張り, ganbari, comes from 頑張る, explained in the link, and すぎな, sugina, comes from すぎる, sugiru, meaning in this case to「 to be too…」, and 人, hito, simply means 「person」. So, 頑張りすぎる, ganbarisugiru, on its own would just mean 「to try too hard」

I hope that this helps you understand how this phrase functions, and if you need help, feel free to leave a comment, below~!

Thank you so much for learning with me this week!
♡QUIZBO™

Thank you so much, QUIZBO™くん, we’re just back to close this article out~!

We’d just like the mention the sentiment at the beginning,「A song for when your best is good enough.」You might not know where your efforts will get you, but you did what you could do, and that’s really all that matters.

@kikikokoNihonGO

Be sure to subscribe to our Electronic Mailing List of Tomorrow, today, using the form at the bottom of the web page so you can be the first to see the latest from Kiki+Koko: Let’s NihonGO!!, Indigo East, and SpeRaToBo. And, remember to return back to previous articles and lessons to review/revise.

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♡Kiki+Koko