There’s No English Word for ‘Mono Tarinai’ — Tomggg and Ena Mori Built a Pop Song Around It Anyway

Tomggg and Ena Mori just dropped their third single together — and named it after a Japanese word English can’t actually translate. “Mono tarinai” means the restless ache of wanting just a little more. For an artist whose debut album already won Album of the Year in the Philippines and topped NME Asia’s Best Albums of 2022, that restlessness apparently cuts both ways.

The Wordplay at the Heart of the Title

“Mono tarinai” (もの足りない) describes a specific kind of restlessness — the quiet, persistent sense that something is missing, without quite tipping into dissatisfaction. It’s the feeling behind wanting one more bite, one more verse, one more anything. There’s no single English word for it, just an itch. The phrase joins a small but growing lineage of untranslatable Japanese concepts — “komorebi,” “natsukashii,” “mono no aware” — that have found viral footing in language-learning corners of TikTok in recent years, the kind of explainer content that turns a single foreign word into a recognizable feeling for millions of non-Japanese speakers.

The clever part is how directly the title doubles back on the duo themselves: Tomggg and Ena Mori have already released two songs together, and apparently that wasn’t enough. The phrase ends up describing both the song’s mood and the reason it exists.

Inside Tomggg and Ena Mori’s Third Collaboration

Tomggg brings his own pedigree to the pairing. Born in Chiba Prefecture in 1988, he holds a graduate degree in composition from the Kunitachi College of Music and built his early following through SoundCloud and the netlabel Maltine Records, where releases like “Butter Sugar Cream” and “Art Nature” found an audience. He’s since collaborated with international artists including Ryan Hemsworth and Slow Magic, working across production, remixing, and ad composition — the kind of genre-hopping résumé that explains his reputation for colorful, unpredictable production.

Ena Mori matches that pedigree note for note. The Filipino-Japanese art-pop artist’s debut album, “Don’t Blame the Wild One!,” topped NME Asia’s Best Albums of 2022 and won Album of the Year at the Philippines’ Awit Awards — credentials that made her an obvious creative match for Tomggg’s restless production style.

That history carries into “Mono Tarinai!” The single follows the duo’s earlier “いちごミルク (Ichigo Milk),” a favorite from an Apple App Store campaign, and “なんてね (Nantene),” which soundtracked a Pocari Sweat commercial. The new single builds on kaleidoscopic, shapeshifting beats from Tomggg, with Ena Mori’s art-pop vocals gliding between Japanese and English on top — bright and playful without curdling into saccharine, restless in the best way.

A Visual World Built to Match

The single’s look is doing just as much work as its sound. Both the music video and cover artwork come from visual designer Nana Murata, whose colorful, psychedelic, unmistakably kawaii style turns the track’s restlessness into something you can actually see — surreal, childlike, and a little manic in the best way. The video is being shared via the duo’s official channels alongside the single’s release.

Whether “mono tarinai” follows komorebi and natsukashii into full viral-phrase territory remains to be seen. But Tomggg and Ena Mori are clearly betting that the feeling translates — and that, like the title suggests, listeners won’t be satisfied with just one play.