JANE DOE - Hikaru Utada feat. Kenshi Yonezu
pop • 2025
9.3
my friend and i have a wonderful connection with this song. it reminds of us of the time we spent in Kyoto, watching the Chainsaw Man film in theaters. no subtitles. just enjoying the experience for what it was. afterwards we sat by the Kamo River and enjoyed a couple of lemon-sours. separately, the song also reminds me of an intense season of upturn, loss and necessary growth injected into my life at the time.
sure that’s a memory for me, but that doesn’t mean the song solely evokes that astringency for me alone. i think the song carries a strange and powerful quality. maybe it’s because the Chainsaw Man film resonates with this feeling of momentary emotion. maybe it’s because the music video finds a similar conclusion in its own visual way. maybe it’s Utada’s gorgeous and pained longing echoed by Kenshi Yonezu’s response in equal weight. whatever the definitive factor is, a core feeling of deep loss permeates the song in whole. “JANE DOE” expresses itself in a full range of quiet timidity, explosive longing and fading exhaustion. its a beautiful piece that takes full appetite in its premise, wanting to entirely waste every ounce of energy in its journey.
both Utada and Yonezu are greatly revered and talented artists in their own right. seeing them come together was a great personal delight. yet even my own feelings could not prepare me for a song that somehow is greater than either of their own personal sums. “JANE DOE” is desperate, evocative and haunting, through and through. it’s a song that bitterly reminds me of a great personal turmoil i met in 2025, it’s also a song that reminds me of simply enjoying a fantastic movie with a great friend one quiet evening in japan. for myself there could be no better representative of this complex yarn of emotion i feel when i think back on this time. i have an inkling this is both an extremely subjective and, strangely, very objective take on the song. “JANE DOE” is a rare collaboration effort and an even rarer icon of human complexity.
written by Marcus Landeros
