A classic of poignant, heartwarming songs. Recommended popular tracks.
When your heart is weary or wounded, you may find yourself wanting to listen to moving songs and sink into a pensive mood.
Here, I’ve compiled a list of poignant and touching Japanese songs that are perfect for just such moments.
Masterpieces of poignant, moving songs. Recommended popular tracks (1–10)
I miss youNEW!RADWIMPS
Even while carrying a sense of loss and profound sorrow, this is a song that tightens your chest with the pure emotion it ultimately reaches.
Amid the gentle sound woven by strings and piano, words that seem to quietly spill out tug at your tear ducts.
This track is included at the end of RADWIMPS’ concept album “2+0+2+1+3+1+1 = 10 years 10 songs,” released in March 2021, exactly ten years after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
It is a culmination of their decade-long commitment to keeping the affected areas in their thoughts.
Listen to it when you strongly wish to meet someone dear once more, or on nights when you’re enveloped by a loneliness with nowhere to go.
The gentle openness of this piece is sure to be by your side and comfort your heart.
Love is litrokudenashi
A ballad whose delicate piano tones resonate in the heart.
Created by the music project Rokudenashi, it was released as a single in February 2023 and is also included on the album “Ai ni Saku Hana.” The lyrics, which evoke the warmth of someone’s presence lighting a candle amid loneliness and anxiety, gently comfort a weary heart.
It’s a song you’ll want by your side on down days or when you feel like you’re losing yourself.
Everyday lifeOfisharu Higedan Dism
In the days that pass as a matter of course, there are moments when anyone might suddenly feel, “I dread tomorrow.” This song by Official HIGE DANDism, a driving force in the J-pop scene, gently stays close to those restless feelings.
The lyrics portray the heart’s cries worn down by work and relationships, and a quiet despair toward things that can’t be changed.
Yet what makes this piece so affecting is that it isn’t merely dark.
Its calm, warm sound brings into focus the subtle kindnesses in everyday life and the fleeting moments of salvation, tightening the chest all the more.
Released in September 2023 as a double A-side single with “Chessboard,” it was written as the theme song for Nippon TV’s “news zero.” On nights when you can’t help but feel unbearably sad, why not sink into a sentimental moment with this song?
On the hill where the moon is visible tonightB’z
B’z also have many moving, bittersweet songs.
“Konya Tsuki no Mieru Oka ni” is one of them.
It’s also known as the theme song for TBS’s renowned drama “Beautiful Life,” a classic that deeply moved many viewers.
Melodies Of LifeShiratori Emiko
For people in their 60s, Emiko Shiratori is known as one half of the duo Towa Tei et Moi; for those in their 40s and 50s, she’s known for the Moomin song; and for younger generations, it’s this song.
It plays during the ending scene of Final Fantasy IX.
I can’t describe the content, so please watch it on YouTube.
Things that have formShibasaki Kou
It seems to tell us that even if tangible things fade away, memories continue to shine forever in our hearts.
This is the sixth single by Kou Shibasaki, who is active both as an actress and a singer, and it was chosen as the theme song for the drama “Crying Out Love, in the Center of the World,” which aired in 2004 and became a social phenomenon.
The song portrays the strength and poignancy of thinking of someone you can no longer meet, transforming even sorrow into love.
Her voice, combining clarity and power, melds with the sweeping strings, and together with the drama’s worldview, it really tugs at the heartstrings.
When you are grieving the loss of someone dear, it gently stays by your side and kindles a warm light in your heart.
Until the day I can no longer rememberback number
A poignant ballad by back number that quietly sings of lingering feelings and a sense of loss for a former lover.
Released in October 2011 as their third single, the song is also included on the album “Superstar,” which came out the same month.
The lyrics portray the emptiness of days that keep going even after losing the most important person in the world, and the deep bond in which the two formed halves of each other.
Fear of memories of the other fading intertwines with the resignation that they will eventually be forgotten, and the realization that the time spent with the person was part of oneself wells up with aching tenderness.
A song that offers comfort to anyone who has lost someone dear.