Megan Thee Stallion shows her love for Japanese hip-hop and anime on her new album

July 17, 2024

Highlights

Megan Thee Stallion’s album Megan includes “Otaku Hot Girl” with Jujutsu Kaisen references that anime fans will love.
Due to anime sample clearances, creating the song was challenging, but Megan persevered and successfully released it.
Megan’s album also shows her love for Japan through references to anime, Japanese culture, and collaborations with Japanese artists.

US-American rapper Megan Thee Stallion describes herself as a “hot girl” and is an avid anime fan. Megan has proven her love for anime time and time again, whether it be through her music, colorful cosplays, or simply by talking about it in interviews.

Her third studio album, Meganwas released on June 28, 2024. One of the standout tracks was “Otaku Hot Girl,” a vibey song that’s been making the rounds on TikTok via anime fans’ FYPs for all the right reasons. Other highlights on the album included a song featuring Japanese rapper Yuki Chiba and the title track “BOA.”

Rika Yuta Gojo Jujutsu Kaisen JJK 263 Preview

Preview of Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 263: Yuta destroys the evil shrine

Yuta’s bond with Rika may break in 263 JJK. The battle for domain expansion comes to an end.

Megan’s love for anime shines on her new album

Megan announced in May that an anime sample had been released for one of the tracks on her new album, telling her fans that “this has never been done before/very hard to do, you’re all going to scream”; that song turns out to be “Otaku Hot Girl”. Leading into the song, we have an introduction spoken by Adam McArthur as his iconic character Yuji Itadori from Jujutsu Kaisen. In his voice we hear the words “I like tall women with a nice big ass, just by the way, like Grammy winner Megan Thee Stallion.”

Any Jujutsu Kaisen Fan knows how much Yuji loves women with big butts, and any Megan Thee Stallion fan knows how confident she is in her body, so this opener is weeb perfection combined with a knowledge of the source material and a dash of confident hilarity. The head-turning jingle from season two of Jujutsu Kaisen was also sampled. Almost every line of the song also has an anime reference, such as:

“Can’t touch me like Gojo” in the chorus (Jujutsu Kaisen)
“Put on your white wig, bitch, I’m finally leaving, Gojo” (Jujutsu Kaisen)
“N***** bow down when I jump out like Sukuna” (Jujutsu Kaisen)
“Sexy Jutsu, I feel like Naruto (Naruto)
“I fight demons in my head as if I were Itadori (Jujutsu Kaisen)
“I will not argue with a Sasuke Avi” (Naruto)
“Incel angry, I’m a weeb and a villain”
“Because he wants to get caught with my domain extension” (Jujutsu Kaisen)
“With a Sasuke Sharingan” (Naruto)

According to Megan on Instagram Live, recording this song wasn’t easy. She said:

“(…) I have an anime sample on my album. That was probably the hardest song I tried to get on my album.”

Megan explained that she recorded the song before asking for permission because she had no expectations of what would happen with it, she just wanted to see how it was received. After sending the song to the appropriate people, she encountered concerns. She had to re-record the song after being asked to change some lyrics, and she was not allowed to cosplay any characters in the music video should she decide to shoot one. Megan expressed her gratitude for being allowed to record the song and was willing to follow all the necessary rules to get the song out there.

Then, at the last minute, after the album was completed and submitted on June 25 (three days before release), she was asked to remove the character names from the song. Now she had to decide whether to release the music or the character names, which was extremely stressful because she wanted the music sample but the character names to “tie everything together.”

After she and her team “overcame eight million hurdles” to change the text, the anime studio finally gave its approval.

This song is not the only one influenced by Japan. In the music video for the title song “BOA”, the name of the song and her promotional look refer to Boa Hancock from the classic anime One piece. The music video is obviously also inspired by gaming-themed anime, such as Sword art onlinePlay like a tkken and even classic Japanese arcade games like Dance Dance Revolution“BOA” is definitely for geek culture. She also collaborated with Japanese rapper Yuki Chiba on the song “Mamushi,” a Japanese-English record. Megan references Japan in the song and even delivers a few lines in Japanese.

With Megan Thee Stallion‘s obvious love for anime as a proud weeb, “Otaku Hot Girl” appeals to anime fans in a way that the general public would neither understand nor appreciate. She also featured Japanese talent and culture on her album, fully embracing the art that the country has brought to the world.