Joe Rikiichi's "OBF" Is a Chaotic Banger That Only He Could Have Made

Some artists make music that sounds like everyone else. And then there’s Joe Rikiichi (ジョー・力一), Nijisanji’s self-described freelance clown, who just dropped an original song so thoroughly himself that you couldn’t mistake it for anyone else’s work if you tried.

OBF — which stands for “OK, it’s Boon boon Festival” — landed on May 25, 2026, and it’s already doing exactly what Joe Rikiichi does best: pulling you in with pure charisma and refusing to let go.

The Sound: Festival Energy Cranked to Maximum

The title isn’t just a fun acronym — it’s a mission statement. OBF is a festival song in the fullest sense of the word. From the opening note it radiates that specific kind of energy you only get when a crowd is fully alive — loud, bright, relentless, and completely unserious in the best possible way.

Composer and arranger ⌘Hainomi (ハイノミ) builds the track around a driving, celebratory backbone that keeps the tempo urgent without ever feeling exhausting. There’s a richness to the production that rewards repeated listens — layers that reveal themselves the more time you spend with it. The arrangement leans into Joe’s theatrical, larger-than-life persona rather than working around it, which is exactly the right call. This isn’t a song that tries to make Joe sound like someone else. It gives him a stage perfectly sized for who he already is.

Joe’s Vocal Performance: All In, No Brakes

If you know Joe Rikiichi, you know he has a voice that carries personality the way other singers carry technique. He describes himself as an unidentified clown who, after receiving a sudden revelation at the end of his teenage years, has been working as a freelance jester ever since — beneath his tricky appearance and behavior lies a lonely soul who is always seeking human connection, yet remains isolated precisely because of his clown nature. That contradiction — warmth and isolation, chaos and sincerity — is exactly what you hear in his vocal delivery on OBF.

He performs with the kind of committed, all-in energy that makes you feel like he’s having the time of his life recording it. Recording engineering by Sunno Yuhi (住野雄飛) keeps the vocal clarity intact even in the track’s most frenetic moments, while mixing by NNZN ensures nothing gets lost in the density of the arrangement. Every syllable lands with the precision of someone who genuinely loves performing, even when — especially when — the song is being gloriously unhinged.

A Song That Knows Exactly What It Is

OBF is not trying to be a genre-defining statement or an emotional gut-punch. It’s a song about joy — specifically the kind of communal, ridiculous, slightly chaotic joy that Joe Rikiichi has built his entire identity around. He’s been part of Nijisanji since September 2018, and later debuted as a member of the music unit Rain Drops under Virgin Records (Universal Music Group). Years of performing, streaming, and connecting with his fanbase — the ジョー児 (Jouji) — all feed into what OBF feels like. It’s not the work of someone figuring out who they are. It’s the work of someone who figured that out a long time ago and is now just having an absolute blast with it.

The music video matches the song’s energy beat for beat — vibrant, fast, and fully committed to the bit. It’s exactly what you’d want from a man who once described himself as a lonely clown and somehow made that into one of the most endearing personas in the entire VTuber space.

Whether you’ve been a Jouji for years or this is your first encounter with Joe Rikiichi, OBF is the perfect introduction to why he matters. It’s loud, it’s fun, it’s a little weird, and it’s completely genuine. Turn it up, clear some space, and let the festival begin.