Intro Bonito

Intro Bonito is the debut mixtape by London indie pop trio Kero Kero Bonito, originally self-released on Bandcamp and SoundCloud on September 30, 2013^[1]. The record was later issued physically by Double Denim Records on August 25, 2014, and received an expanded reissue by Polyvinyl Records on April 28, 2023, adding 13 bonus tracks to bring the total to 28 songs.

The album was largely constructed around a Casio SA-46 mini-keyboard, giving it a characteristic toy-instrument, 8-bit warmth^[2]. The sound draws freely from J-pop, dancehall, hip hop, electropop, and chiptune, filtered through the sensibility of a self-produced London DIY project. Vocalist Sarah Midori Perry sings in both English and Japanese across the tracklist, a bilingual quality that distinguishes the record from most Western pop of the era.

The mixtape is broader in thematic scope than its playful surface suggests. Alongside tracks about schoolwork, urban life, and homesickness, the album engages with consumer culture, ecological anxieties, and the social expectations placed on women, including the pressure to reproduce. Perry's bilingual delivery is not merely aesthetic: the English and Japanese sections of songs often carry distinct emotional and ideological registers, with the Japanese passages frequently carrying the sharper social commentary.^[2]

Critical reception positioned the album as a founding document of what would later be labeled hyperpop. Gorilla vs. Bear listed it as the 46th best album of the 2010s^[3], and Sputnikmusic praised its wider range of topics, zestier lyrics, and more Nintendo-oriented sound compared to later studio work^[4]. The 2023 Polyvinyl reissue charted at #42 on Billboard's Top Album Sales, demonstrating sustained appetite for the band's earliest recordings.

The album closes with "I'd Rather Sleep," a short song that quietly reframes everything before it: the playful surface giving way to a genuine, melancholic longing to opt out of an adult world that has lost its sense of magic.