# Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga
**Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga** (組曲『ニコニコ動画』, "Suite: Nico Nico Douga") is a Japanese video medley posted on the video-sharing site Nico Nico Douga on June 23, 2007 by the user Shimo (しも), stringing together 33 songs popular on the site into a single track of about 10 minutes.[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47) • [2](https://originalnews.nico/425416) Despite its title, which means "suite", it is not a suite in the classical sense but a medley of existing songs, sequenced and synthesized by Shimo using desktop music production (DTM) software.[3](https://enpedia.org/wiki/%E7%B5%84%E6%9B%B2%E3%80%8E%E3%83%8B%E3%82%B3%E3%83%8B%E3%82%B3%E5%8B%95%E7%94%BB%E3%80%8F) It became one of the defining works of early Nico Nico Douga and spawned a whole genre of user-made medleys known as Nico Nico Medleys.[4](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nico-nico-medleys)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Creator | Shimo (しも), a Nico Nico Douga user; the work is the second in his medley series[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47) • [4](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nico-nico-medleys) |
| Upload date | June 23, 2007, following the predecessor "Nico Nico Douga Chuudoku no Kata e Okuru Ikkyoku" of June 5, 2007[2](https://originalnews.nico/425416) • [4](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nico-nico-medleys) |
| Content | 33 songs tied into one medley, drawn from anime and game music popular on the site in 2007 plus Shimo's personal favorites[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47) |
| Length | About 10 minutes[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47) |
| Views and comments | 11,946,482 views and over 4,937,295 comments as of June 2023[2](https://originalnews.nico/425416) |
| Derivative works | More than 4,000 derivative works; over 15,000 Kumikyoku videos on the site overall[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47) • [4](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nico-nico-medleys) |
| Opening track | "Agent Yoru wo Yuku" from THE iDOLM@STER (arcade)[5](https://medley.bepis.io/wiki/Kumikyoku) |
## Spoilers
For a medley, "spoilers" means the full sequence of songs and the story of what the video did to the internet it came from. Both are below.
### Plot
The video opens with a countdown and the first bars of "Nico Nico Douga no Uta," the site's in-house anthem, a cheery tune about how wonderful it is to waste your life watching videos. A title card announces the suite. From there it never pauses. The medley runs through the site's shared canon of the moment: "Levan Polkka," already famous as the spinning-head Miku figure; "Airman ga Taosenai," the fan song about dying again and again against a [Mega Man](https://www.edgepedia.org/mega-man) boss; "Giregire," with its scrolling wall of lyrics; "True My Heart"; "Hare Hare Yukai," the [Haruhi Suzumiya](https://www.edgepedia.org/haruhi-suzumiya) dance that had conquered the internet that same year; "God Knows..."; "Motteke! Sailor Fuku," the Lucky Star opening; Vocaloid and doujin tracks; game music; and a dozen more. Each gets a fragment of time, each introduced by a text card naming the song in the site's plain white-on-black style. The jokes are visual as much as musical: the lyrics scroll by so fast they become a game in themselves, and the images cut in time with the beat.
The structure is the actual drama. The suite is arranged as a genuine medley, with keys matched and tempos bridged, so that songs written by strangers in different genres flow into each other without seams. Early sections are goofy and self-deprecating, middle sections accelerate into the site's biggest hits of 2007, and the pacing tightens as it goes, the way a concert builds toward an encore. The ordering was widely read as deliberate: a chronicle, roughly tracing what the Nico Nico Douga community had been watching and remixing since the site launched in late 2006, played back to it in one sitting.
**The finale is the moment people remember: the suite ends on "Sakura Sakura," its last track.** The closing track, "Sakura Sakura," arrives after ten minutes of everything the community produced. The video ends on its final track, "Sakura Sakura." On a site where viewers' comments float across the picture in real time, the effect in 2007 was that thousands of people were effectively singing the last chorus together, and the comment stream itself became part of the performance.
The "plot" of the series that follows is the story of imitation. Within weeks, users began uploading their own versions: people singing the whole suite into a webcam (the "utattemita" or "I tried singing" genre), bands playing it, orchestral arrangements, parody lyric versions, mondegreen versions for people who could not keep up with the real ones. One early singing video added a shouted ad-lib, "Ikimasu!" ("Going!"), at the start of the first song, and the ad-lib stuck, becoming part of the de facto official lyrics of the suite.[9](https://en.namu.wiki/w/%EB%8B%88%EC%BD%94%EB%8B%88%EC%BD%94%20%EC%A1%B0%EA%B3%A1) Shimo himself kept the series going: a third medley followed, and the line of official videos ran until Nanairo no Nico Nico Douga ("Rainbow-colored Nico Nico Douga"), uploaded June 3, 2009, the last entry made by the original creator.[4](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nico-nico-medleys) By then the suite was no longer one video but a format, the template for every "Nico Nico Medley" that came after.
### Characters
There are no characters in the ordinary sense, but the video has a cast all the same. The songs are the characters: "Nico Nico Douga no Uta" is the narrator and frame, "Airman ga Taosenai" and "Giregire" are the meme veterans, "Hare Hare Yukai" and "Motteke! Sailor Fuku" are the anime blockbusters, and the Vocaloid tracks are the newcomers who would soon take over the site. The only human presence is Shimo (しも), the anonymous creator, whose taste in sequencing turned a pile of clips into a suite and who stayed anonymous in the way of the site's best-loved users.[10](https://utaite.wiki/wiki/Kumikyoku_Nico_Nico_Douga) The other recurring presence is the audience itself, visible as the flowing comment stream, which the video treats as an instrument.
### Interpretations and controversies
The main debate was over what the medley meant. Some read it as pure nostalgia compilation; others, including many contemporary fans, read the ordering as a deliberate history of the site's first year, with the return of the opening theme as an intentional emotional payoff. A lighter controversy concerned the derivative singing videos and their ad-libs: purists objected that ad-libs like "Ikimasu!" were not in the original arrangement, but the ad-libs won, and later versions treated them as canon.[9](https://en.namu.wiki/w/%EB%8B%88%EC%BD%94%EB%8B%88%EC%BD%94%20%EC%A1%B0%EA%B3%A1) The suite also sits inside the broader copyright gray zone of early Nico Nico Douga, built entirely from songs its creator did not own, which is part of why it could only have existed on that site, in that moment.
### Sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations
The suite is the second entry in a line that began with Nico Nico Douga Chuudoku no Kata e Okuru Ikkyoku ("One Song for Those Addicted to Nico Nico Douga"), uploaded June 5, 2007, by the same creator.[4](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nico-nico-medleys) Further medleys followed, ending with Nanairo no Nico Nico Douga on June 3, 2009.[4](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nico-nico-medleys) The true spin-off is the genre it created: the Nico Nico Medley, and the wave of utattemita singing videos it launched, which in turn built the careers of many of the site's famous singers.[11](https://pikayan.hatenablog.com/entry/20080623/p1)
## The original video
The medley collects songs that were well known on Nico Nico Douga from the service's launch through around June 2007, connected by DTM sequencing.[3](https://enpedia.org/wiki/%E7%B5%84%E6%9B%B2%E3%80%8E%E3%83%8B%E3%82%B3%E3%83%8B%E3%82%B3%E5%8B%95%E7%94%BB%E3%80%8F) The video portion is simply a capture of [Windows Media Player](https://www.edgepedia.org/windows-media-player) visual effects; no anime footage, illustrations, or promotional videos for VOCALOID or [Touhou Project](https://www.edgepedia.org/touhou-project) songs appear in it.[3](https://enpedia.org/wiki/%E7%B5%84%E6%9B%B2%E3%80%8E%E3%83%8B%E3%82%B3%E3%83%8B%E3%82%B3%E5%8B%95%E7%94%BB%E3%80%8F) The first track is "Agent Yoru wo Yuku", a playable song from the arcade version of THE iDOLM@STER.[5](https://medley.bepis.io/wiki/Kumikyoku)
The predecessor video, "Nico Nico Douga Chuudoku no Kata e Okuru Ikkyoku" ("One Song for Those Addicted to Nico Nico Douga"), was uploaded on June 5, 2007, and the series continued from there.[4](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nico-nico-medleys)
## The singing boom
The original upload was an instrumental with no vocals. Users, nicknamed "nicoras", noticed the MP3 data distributed alongside the video and began singing over it, which ignited the boom.[6](https://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/3236747/) Five days after the original posting, another user uploaded a singing version, and spin-offs followed, including dance versions, chorus videos combining multiple users' recordings, and piano performances.[6](https://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/3236747/)
## Derivative creation and comment culture
The media researcher Hamano Satoshi, writing in the artscape series on the future of history, described the work as a case where the work itself functions as a database, a network, and a communication medium: on Nico Nico Douga, derivation does not stop at second-order derivative works but extends through third, fourth, and fifth generations in a multi-hop chain of mutual quotation and collaborative creation.[7](https://artscape.jp/study/rekishi/1207202_2747.html) A retrospective on the 15th anniversary counts more than 4,000 derivative works, describing chains in which a MAD-style music video is used by a singer, whose recording is mixed into chorus videos, which are in turn combined with instrumental performances into massed-chorus or full-orchestra versions.[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47) Several creators active in these chains later became well-known singers, dancers, and performers, and some debuted professionally.[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47)
The video also carries the site's comment culture. Comments flow across the screen from right to left, a convention essentially unchanged since the 2006 launch of the service, and the video retains the practices of danmaku (firing set comments in time with specific lyrics, such as stretching the word "aishiteru" in red during "Sousei no Aquarion") and comment art, in which skilled users place comments to form illustrations on the screen.[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47)
## The medley series and its influence
Shimo continued the series with "Nico Nico Douga Ryuuseigun", "Nico Nico Douga Monogatari.wav", and "Nanairo no Nico Nico Douga"; after "Nanairo" in 2009 he produced no further new Nico Nico medleys for years, though he released the rearranged "Kumikyoku 'Nico Nico Douga' Kai" in 2011 and "Chou Kumikyoku 'Nico Nico Douga'" on April 15, 2012.[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47) • [8](https://ao8l22.hatenablog.com/entry/2015/11/22/103629) Medleys made by referencing Shimo's work are called Nico Nico Medleys, and they are still produced on the site, with representative examples including "Nico Nico Douga Juunen-sai" and "Nico Nico Douga Matenrou".[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47)
The format reached commercial releases as well. The Bandai Namco Group label Lantis produced "Lantis Kumikyoku feat.Nico Nico Artists", sung by popular utaite (cover singers) of the day such as nayuta and J, and "Lantis Kumikyoku 2014", recorded by artists including [Azusa Tadokoro](https://www.edgepedia.org/azusa-tadokoro), Kimiko of nano.RIPE, Hyadain (Kenichi Maeyamada), and JAM Project.[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47)
## Standing after 15 years
On June 23, 2022 the video marked 15 years since posting, and users marked the date with comment art and commemorative videos.[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47) The anniversary article attributes the work's endurance to the site's ranking system of that era, which made trends visible and shared, so that a video built from the songs everyone remembered together revives that period for its listeners.[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47) Although the spread of smartphones diluted the work's presence among newer users, covers by Virtual YouTubers and the recollections of longtime users keep it in circulation; the abbreviation "Nico Nico Kumikyoku" has also spread in recent years, particularly in VTuber circles.[1](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47) By its 16th anniversary in June 2023 the original video had reached 11,946,482 views.[2](https://originalnews.nico/425416)
## References
1. [古月 (2022). 〖祝15周年〗「組曲『ニコニコ動画』」を振り返る。 note.](https://note.com/old_moon/n/n7e08d2f0ba47)
2. [〖16周年〗「組曲『ニコニコ動画』」が投稿されたのは2007年6月23日, ニコニコニュース オリジナル (2023).](https://originalnews.nico/425416)
3. [組曲『ニコニコ動画』, Enpedia.](https://enpedia.org/wiki/%E7%B5%84%E6%9B%B2%E3%80%8E%E3%83%8B%E3%82%B3%E3%83%8B%E3%82%B3%E5%8B%95%E7%94%BB%E3%80%8F)
4. [Nico Nico Medleys, Know Your Meme.](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nico-nico-medleys)
5. [Kumikyoku "Nico Nico Douga", NND Medley Wiki.](https://medley.bepis.io/wiki/Kumikyoku)
6. [〖トレビアン〗組曲『ニコニコ動画』がブーム!?, トレビアンニュース / ライブドアニュース (2007).](https://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/3236747/)
7. [濱野智史 (2009). 〈歴史〉の未来 第1回, artscape.](https://artscape.jp/study/rekishi/1207202_2747.html)
8. [「題名のない音楽会」を見て、「ニコニコ組曲」を思い出した (2015).](https://ao8l22.hatenablog.com/entry/2015/11/22/103629)
9. [https://en.namu.wiki/w/%EB%8B%88%EC%BD%94%EB%8B%88%EC%BD%94%20%EC%A1%B0%EA%B3%A1](https://en.namu.wiki/w/%EB%8B%88%EC%BD%94%EB%8B%88%EC%BD%94%20%EC%A1%B0%EA%B3%A1)
10. [https://utaite.wiki/wiki/Kumikyoku_Nico_Nico_Douga](https://utaite.wiki/wiki/Kumikyoku_Nico_Nico_Douga)
11. [https://pikayan.hatenablog.com/entry/20080623/p1](https://pikayan.hatenablog.com/entry/20080623/p1)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Korean and East Asian web series*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license