Chapter 48: The TikTok Sensation of the Can-Can Dance
Tokyo, Japan.
Okayu Agency, Idol Training Base.
"Hey, Momoko. Co check this out."
As Momoka opened the door to her apartnt after an exhausting training session, her teammate Yuko called her over with uncontainable excitent.
Walking into the inner room, she discovered that Yuko and their other two teammates, Ayane and Hitomi, were huddled together in one room scrolling through TikTok.
These girls...
They had just finished rehearsing, and with a concert scheduled for the weekend, they should have been resting instead of wasting ti on TikTok. As the leader of the idol girl group "KING," Momoka was tempted to give them a stern lecture.
"Hold on, Momoko, just look at this."
Yuko enthusiastically held up her phone in front of Momoka.
The video showed a male high school student and a female high school student—one playing the piano, the other seemingly playing the cello?
"The Can-Can Dance?"
Momoka squinted at the title displayed on the screen.
She didn't understand what was so captivating about it. She often urged them to watch recordings of senior idols' performances to improve, but here they were, watching soone play instruntal music.
"Just listen, just listen."
Yuko stuck out her tongue and pressed play.
As the light piano lody intertwined with the lively cello notes, a cheerful tune began to dance through the air.
Momoka's eyes lit up instantly.
"Hahaha, isn't it fun?" Yuko bead.
"This is interesting... Wow, this piece is really sothing."
Momoka couldn't help but praise it.
As a mber of the girl group, she was often responsible for composing parts of their music and choreographing dances. A quirky tune like this struck a chord deep within her.
These two musicians, who went by the na "Moonlight and Cat," must be quite the amusing couple in real life.
Beside her, Ayane had already closed her eyes, her body instinctively swaying to the rhythm.
This was the natural response of an idol—when hearing a particularly engaging piece of music, their bodies couldn't help but move. Many viral choreographies were born from such monts.
"We were just talking about how fun it would be to choreograph a dance to this song," Hitomi said with a smile.
"That's a great idea."
Momoka thought for a mont. "Hey, why don't we film a TikTok video using this BGM?"
"Perfect! I called you over just to suggest that." Yuko clapped her hands in agreent.
For KING, this wasn't their first rodeo. Thanks to their imnse popularity, their official TikTok account boasted over four million followers. Whenever there was a trending audio, they'd jump on the bandwagon and create content.
As long as the video wasn't monetized, there wouldn't be any copyright issues.
Without wasting a second, the four idols, still sweaty from their recent practice and not even having showered, rushed back to the dance studio.
They propped up a phone on a tripod and began improvising a dance routine to the rhythm of the Can-Can Dance.
The girls hopped around on one foot like they were limping, then turned to the cara and made silly faces. Within minutes, they had created a delightfully chaotic and infectious dance routine—devoid of technical intricacies but brimming with joy.
---
The next afternoon, following the explosive popularity of "Moonlight and Cat"'s Can-Can Dance on TikTok, many social dia influencers and journalists suddenly noticed sothing:
A new trend had erged on TikTok.
Countless influencers began using The Can-Can Dance as background music for a hilariously contagious dance routine. And the source of all this? A single TikTok post by Japan's wildly popular girl group "KING".
In the video, the four idol girls danced along to the upbeat tune, shaking their bodies in absurdly endearing ways. As the tempo increased, so did their movents until, unable to keep up, they burst into laughter, collapsing into fits of giggles.
Yuko, trying (and failing) to maintain composure, covered her face with her hands before rushing over to stop the recording.
And thus, art was born.
"OMG SO CUTE!!!"
"Hahahaha, Yuko-chan is adorable!"
"I saw this song yesterday—I can't believe you guys already choreographed a dance!"
"KING really stepped up their ga riding the coattails of Moonlight and Cat."
"I predict tomorrow, TikTok will be flooded with this song."
"Witnessing history. Get ready for everyone to remake this dance lol."
"..."
In just three hours, KING's video garnered 1.3 million likes. anwhile, "Moonlight and Cat"'s original upload surpassed 1 million likes. Soon, major influencers joined the craze.
By evening, the hashtag "Can-Can Dance Challenge" skyrocketed to third place on TikTok's trending list.
The reason behind its virality lay in the sheer entertainnt value of the dance itself. It pushed people far out of their comfort zones, requiring them to "go all in"—mimicking limps, pulling exaggerated facial expressions, and even adding lyrics like "La la, la la la~" for extra flair. The faster the music got, the more chaotic the dancing beca, culminating in uncontrollable laughter when participants could no longer keep up.
The cuter and sweeter the influencer, the better the effect. Consequently, dancers, musicians, beauty creators, and even borderline-content creators jumped on board.
Unexpectedly, this sparked another debate entirely.
"Finally, a proper dance trend! Enough with the borderline stuff—it's been driving insane."
"Exactly! Does everything have to be suggestive? Isn't wholeso and cute like The Can-Can Dance refreshing?"
"TikTok finally got sothing right. Rember those cringy songs like "Oh baby, you're my treasure~"? Ugh, they made want to throw up."
"Sob sob sob… Thank you, Moonlight and Cat. Without you, we wouldn't have so many adorable videos to enjoy."
TikTok users had long grown weary of the platform being overrun with mindless, low-quality earworms. What made matters worse was that while users could mark videos as "Not Interested," they couldn't do the sa for audio tracks. So, countless viewers were forced to endure endless replays of these annoying tunes.
It felt like being force-fed garbage.
Every ti so self-proclaid internet guru hyped up yet another "hit song" on TikTok, users rolled their eyes.
Is it famous because it's good? Or because TikTok keeps shoving it down our throats?
So, stumbling upon a genuinely pleasant-sounding track paired with a wholeso, non-suggestive dance was a breath of fresh air. Users couldn't contain their excitent.
With The Can-Can Dance blowing up, "Moonlight and Cat"'s follower count skyrocketed to 320,000. Fans flocked to the comnts section, begging Moonlight and Cat to try the dance themselves. After all, who better to pull it off than the creators themselves?
User Comments
0 comments from readers