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1. Music Video Analysis –
Egomama by DECO*27
feat. Marina
Hannah Potter

2. About the song
Egomama is a song written by Japanese musicians DECO*27 in 2011 and
sung by singer Marina with a completely animated music video. The original
song is in Japanese but has official English translated lyrics which many
people have used to make covers.
The song lyrics describe the idea of love being a “give or take” situation in
which you have to choose to help your lover or yourself, and the other will
suffer. The narrative later in the song is reflected by a change in the lyrics
for the positive, stating that rather than choosing, the two can work together.
Original Japanese:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0l0iLUgyPQ
Best English Cover (horizon):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqTHGFNN4EY

3. Setting
The video takes place in a setting that resembles some sort of
casino with an “Alice In Wonderland” atmosphere due to the
wide space and thousands of cards falling from nowhere. The
setting is meant to represent limbo, the place between places
and in this case the place between decisions, and how love is a
risky gamble or a game of wits.

4. Narrative
The story starts with a boy and a girl, the
girl opens a door into the “casino” and the
scene switches to two polar opposite
girls, one dressed like an elegant lady and
the other like a flashy princess. Both have
young men playing as dealers. The princess
takes all of her table’s chips selfishly and
has a card with the letter “I” on it, while
the lady gives all of her chips to her dealer
and has a card with “U” on it. These girls
represent two sides of a person’s decisions
and personality, “I” being the selfish side
and “U” being the selfless side. At one point
the camera jumps between a close up of
each’s clasped hands before briefly showing
the girl from the start in the same
position, hinting again that they’re both
connected to her.

5. Narrative
Each girl also has a teddy bear, which may be a symbol of their innocence
as well as an effigy of themselves, since later in the video they are
attacked (showing the pain caused on both sides by conflict) and the
injuries they sustain are also shown on both girls.

6. Narrative
After the bears are injured, the two
girls reach for them and are hit by a
sudden pain or sadness (shown by the
shaking outlines that seem very gritty
and out of control). Meant to represent
the pain caused by inner conflict and
when relationships hit a rough patch.
After an instrumental they’re both
shown sitting with their bears and
looking defeated. Each girl seems to be
alone and notices a card on the floor
which they pick up and reveal to be
the other girl’s card. “I” is shown
comparing the two cards when the
heart symbol from each combines to
make one large heart and the words “I
Love U” flash onscreen. The two girls
are suddenly aware of each other’s
existence and shown to be standing just
metres apart, showing that they’re
actually two halves of the same person.

7. Narrative
Upon discovering each other the two girls smile and
come together with their bears. They press the two
bears together face to face in a representation of them
uniting at last and as the bears disappear, a large
heart-shaped door appears behind them indicating they
can leave now that they work together. Instead the first
girl is seen leaving the room and comes face to face
with the first boy, who now seems to be the person she
is in love with. It’s also shown that he was going
through the same thing when a shot shows the two
dealers standing behind his own door. After smiling at
each other there is a focus pull at the end showing the
girl still has a card in her pocket, indicating the
experience was possibly real and she learned from it.
The card “jumps” from her pocket as the scene
disappears in an aesthetically pleasing ending shot
showing the importance of the card while making it all
seem magical or innocent.

8. Mise en scéne
The setting already touched upon is very interesting and quite
pleasing to the artistic eye, but something not already
mentioned is how the lighting is set to have most of the casino
room appear slightly shadowed. This is both to give an air of
mystery and tension as well as contrasting with the slightly
brighter lighting on whatever is in the foreground, namely the
main characters which because of that always look like they’re
in a spotlight and “put on trial”, if you will. The props range
from the teddy bears mentioned earlier to the gambling chips
shown in a few shots (again hinting that love is a gamble)
and the playing cards used in various ways throughout the
video. While talking about the mise en scéne in an animated
video is a little strange, the evident simplicity with props has
more of an impact on the narrative than if there were random
objects everywhere that (as a result) would split our attention
and make the narrative hard to follow. In regards to costume
the two girls I and U are shown to be polar opposites, U
wearing dark colours with short black hair in an elegant
fashion, and I having long golden hair and wearing a white
(if slightly more flashy looking) princess outfit to look more
confident and powerful.

9. Interesting shots
An interesting trick used to support the video’s narrative is how
each shot of I or U is either perfectly mirrored, has identical
composition or is set out to be in some way the opposite of the
equivalent shot. This is meant to signify how both characters are
very similar in their situation and only differ in
appearance, personality and perhaps one or two actions (such as
when U picks up her bear and stares at it, while I knocks her
bear away violently). Many of the establishing shots either pan
very smoothly across certain parts of the setting or glide around it
quite quickly, while later during an instrumental the shots are
even more dramatic, showing the casino chips flying
everywhere, countless doors falling “down the rabbit hole”
style, and many racing shots down corridors of them where the
shots transition into each other using a flickering effect. At one
point the corridor is even turned upside down for a split second.
All of this is meant to represent drama and mild chaos.
My personal favourite shot however is the close-up of I’s
expression when she realises U is behind her. It’s very brief, but
the shock on her face usually creates the same emotive response
in the viewers, especially when followed by the camera’s very fast
spinning around both girls for dramatic effect.