It's no secret that rapper Megan Thee Stallion is one of the biggest anime fans in the music industry. To that end, one track on her self-titled LP, Otaku Hot Girl, not only fulfilled anime fans' dreams, but it also proved the lengths Megan would go to get her anime anthem approved.
In the lead-up to her third LP's release, the outspoken anime fan teased fans saying her track, Otaku Hot Girl, would have an anime sample that she worked really hard to clear. When her album finally dropped on June 28, fans beelined to the track and discovered that the anime the out-and-proud "weeb and a baddie" sampled was the commercial bumper for the second season of the mega-popular shonen anime Jujutsu Kaisen. The Houston rapper didn't just stop at the sample; she also enlisted Yuji Itadori English dub voice actor Adam McArthur to narrate the song's intro.
megan thee stallion sampling a jujutsu kaisen track and getting yuji itadori’s english VA (adam mcarthur) to narrate the intro like she is so insane for this lmfkskdkskdr#MEGAN #JJK pic.twitter.com/eUgCo7l3Sn
— springkies (@jekkibby2) June 28, 2024
It marks a full-circle moment for Jujutsu Kaisen fans because it referenced a 2021 fandom meme where McArthur changed a famous line about Itadori liking "tall chicks like Jennifer Lawrence" to Megan Thee Stallion. It should be noted that McArthur did the fan-requested commission for free, has it pinned to his official X/Twitter page, and has been frequently recited by the anime voice actor — to great applause — at numerous anime conventions.
Megan's history with anime, more specifically Jujutsu Kaisen, runs even deeper than the fan-requested name drop. Since Jujutsu Kaisen first premiered in late 2020, Megan has added fan-favorite character Satoru Gojo to her rotation of Instagram cosplay pictures, presented Jujutsu Kaisen's Crunchyroll 2024 Anime of the Year Award, and invited Jujutsu Kaisen cosplayers on the stage to dance while on her Hot Girl Summer tour. The triumph fans are experiencing with Otaku Hot Girl resonates all the more when you consider the "eight million hoops" she had to go through to ensure the track saw the light of day.
Megan Thee Stallion speaks on dealing with sample clearance issues and having to change names and words on a song the day before her album drops. pic.twitter.com/9lSpaguF6J
— XXL Magazine (@XXL) June 27, 2024
During an Instagram live on June 26 — two days before the album's release — Megan revealed that she ran into last-second clearance issues with the anime's studio. According to Rolling Stone, Megan was told she would either have to scrap the anime sample or remove all of her references to character names in order to keep clearance rights to the song. Billboard reports that Megan rerecorded Otaku Hot Girl in a makeshift studio hours before her Dallas show on June 11 to get the song cleared.
"I really hope y’all think this shit sound fire, ’cause I had to jump through eight million hoops to get this shit. Once y’all hear the sample, y’all are gonna know why they was giving us a hard time,” Megan said. “This is a very big production company so for them to even say yes — and I be cussing and shit — like I said, I’m grateful. I’m not complaining. I really wanted this sample. I really wanted to do it, so I’m doing everything I got to do to keep it. But change the names? Change the names the day before the album out? That was nuts.”
@ign There are so many video game references in Megan Thee Stallion’s BOA music video! #megantheestallion #boa #music #video #games #spacechannel5 #crashbandicoot #onepiece #mortalkombat #ddr #roomba #tekken #scottpilgrim #streetfighter #soulcalibur #spongebob #squidward #ign #sidebyside #reference #easteregg #gaming #gamingontiktok ♬ original sound - IGN
Megan's LP isn't just chock-full of clever anime references; she also showed some love to the gamers of the world with her music video for Boa. In the track — which references One Piece character Boa Hancock — Megan called back to a plethora of video games. Key among them are Crash Bandicoot, Mortal Kombat, Dance Dance Revolution, Street Fighter, and Tekken. In case Megan's affinity for video games was still in question, Boa's single covers paid homage to the PlayStation 2's video game box art.
In our review for Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2, we gave the series a 6/10, saying, "Jujutsu Kaisen offers plenty of spectacle, but little else during the Shibuya Incident Arc."
Thumbnail credit: @theestallion on Instagram
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
