“Shinunoga E-Wa” (死ぬのがいいわ, roughly “I'd rather die”) is a love song with a dramatic promise: if they can't be together, the singer would rather die — so stay with me until the end. It's sung with a smooth, jazzy, soul-pop groove that makes the words sound almost casual.
Fujii Kaze, from Okayama, released it on his 2020 debut album; two years later it went viral on TikTok and became one of the most-streamed Japanese songs around the world.
His Japanese is relaxed and natural, with the gentle sentence-ending particle わ (wa) that gives the title its tone — and the “E-Wa” of the title is how his home region says いいわ (ii wa): ええわ (ee wa). A good B1 song for hearing how real Japanese sounds in conversation.