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In their first-ever dome tour, YOASOBI 5th ANNIVERSARY DOME LIVE 2024 “cho-genjitsu” (“SURREALISM”), YOASOBI performed at Kyocera Dome Osaka on October 26 and 27 and at Tokyo Dome on November 9 and 10.

Over the four days of the dome tour, commemorating the fifth anniversary of the group’s formation, they played to a combined total of roughly 170,000 people. The theme of the tour was “surrealism,” and, befitting the theme, the shows were packed with surprises that went above and beyond the real. The set list consisted of a total of 25 songs, ranging from their debut song, “Into the Night,” to their newest song, “New me.” The audience got to experience and enjoy the many different faces of YOASOBI, which has become one of the leading figures in the J-pop world. 

On the duo’s first-ever solo tour performance at the Tokyo Dome on November 9, the first eye-opener was the way they took to the stage. Shortly after the scheduled starting time, the YOASOBI logo appeared on the massive LED screen at the back of the stage, accompanied by a 10 second countdown. Massive monster claws ripped the logo apart, and gigantic hands appeared from the left and right sides, wrenching open the area above the stage so that Ayase and ikura could make their appearance. ikura shouted, “Welcome to the surreal! You think you can make it through all the way to the end, Tokyo?!” and the duo began playing “Seventeen.” Lasers flittered through the air, and the FreFlow remote-controlled lights that the audience wore on their arms lit up, drawing the 50,000 in attendance into a fantastic world.

Ayase and ikura, wearing monster-like down jackets, followed this up with “The Blessing.” They then descended, joining the rest of the band to perform two aggressive numbers, “Monster” and “UNDEAD.” Flames leapt from the stage, and the dome rang with the band’s vibrant playing and ikura’s spirited voice.

After introducing themselves again to the audience, Ayase shouted out, “We’re finally here, after dreaming of this for so long! We’re here in the Tokyo Dome!” They then played two endearing and cheery numbers, “Halzion” and “Mister.” The audience clapped along, and the duo waved at fans, left and right, enveloping the dome in a warm and welcoming mood.

For “Mou Sukoshi Dake” an urban scape of skyscrapers was revealed at stage left. In “Umi No Manimani” and “Comet,” stage right was decorated with a seaside set, complete with vending machines and benches. These sets, along with the scenery shown on the video screen, created a new world for each song. YOASOBI is a musical unit that produces music inspired by novels, and there is a story for each one of the songs they have released. Their shows, which depict the worlds of each and every one of their songs, feel almost like theme park attractions.

There was then a video retrospective of their spectacular five year history, such as their performances in the U.S. and in Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan, where they played for the first time to a live audience. It ended with a look at the computer screen on which Ayase wrote “Probably” using Vocaloid. At center stage, a new set was revealed, showing the room where Ayase was living when he wrote the song. Surrounded by objects like a refrigerator and a microwave, Ayase sat at a low table, wearing headphones, while ikura sang the laid-back melody. The middle of the show gave the audience a sense of YOASOBI’s origins, here in this humble apartment. The two then performed “Haruka,” which was followed by an audience quiz using the FreFlow lights. Next, the two played their new song, “New me.” With this fresh, cheery song about starting a new life, it felt like the duo was setting off to a new start of their own.

The two left the stage, and the members of the band were introduced again: drummer Honogumo, bassist Hikaru Yamamoto, keyboardist Zaquro Misohagi, and guitarist AssH, all decked out in black suits. Each performed an energetic solo and talked about how they felt standing on the Tokyo Dome stage.

Then Ayase, also wearing a black suit, called out “Okay, now on to the second half!” and ikura, face covered with a veil, returned to the stage. They played “The Brave,” and then ikura started an a cappella rendition of “Tracing that Dream” before being joined by the rest of the band. The song and performance drew the audience in even deeper. During “RGB,” the crowd swung around their towels, excitement rising even further.

Then ikura told the audience, “We’re going to need all of your voices for this next one!” With that, YOASOBI launched into their smash hit, “Idol.” Cheers broke out when the intro began, and ikura sang at center stage, surrounded by child dancers, while Ayase hammered the drum pads. The heartfelt shouts of the 50,000-strong crowd, calling out “Oi! Oi!” rang through the dome. The venue was on fire. Beaming at the audience, Ayase said “Five years ago, I would have never believed that we’d be standing here at center stage, with cheering people all around us. This is truly wonderful. Thank you.”

He went on, reflecting on the past five years, “…but it wasn’t all wine and roses. There were hard times. There were times when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore.” He said that while there were times when he was happy, just as often, he felt intense loneliness. The turning point, he said, was when the group performed live. He talked about seeing the smiles on the faces of the people in the audience. And with that, YOASOBI began performing “Monotone,” a song about loneliness. Then ikura shared with the crowd the happiness she felt being able to play in the Tokyo Dome, a stage she had long dreamt of performing on. “I think what makes YOASOBI’s live shows great is our live team,” she said, and she thanked the staff who had worked together to create the stage’s sets, led by a desire to create worlds that nobody had ever seen before.

“We’re following the path we feel in our hearts,” she declared, and, her voice rich with deep-felt emotion, she performed “Encore” at center stage. For “HEART BEAT,” she shouted out to the crowd, “Let’s all raise our voices together!” and led a sing-along with the audience.

During “Love Letter,” a hot air balloon decorated like a monster rose from the rear of the stage. Ayase and ikura boarded the balloon, looking down at the audience and waving as they sang. During “Adventure,” the members rode go-carts around the arena, joining up at center stage. Then the child dancers performed again during “The Swallow,” and the group closed out the set with “Blue.” The 50,000 people in the audience came together as one, singing along in the grand finale as confetti fluttered down.

As calls for an encore resounded through Tokyo Dome, Ayase, ikura, and the rest of the band returned to the stage and performed “Butai ni Tatte.” ikura played a white electric guitar as she sang. As she sang the lyrics “Now I’m standing in front of the scenery I dreamed of,” she broke out in a huge smile. It was apparent that she felt that message as one that resonated deeply with YOASOBI’s own position.

Their final song was their debut song, “Into the Night.” The visuals on the screen behind them showed previous performances of the song, and this synchronization of past and present tugged at the audience’s heartstrings. The show ended to roaring cheers. Ayase and ikura took a photo to commemorate the event and then left the stage, but a palpable feeling of joy lingered in the air.

YOASOBI’s first solo Tokyo Dome show was filled with astounding and gorgeous performances. The final impression one was left with was that of the tremendous power of the duo’s music to enthrall so many listeners.

With this dome show, the two finally arrived at a destination they had long worked toward, but it was also a new starting point. From December until February 2025, they will be setting out on YOASOBI ASIA TOUR 2024-2025 cho-genjitsu, a seven-city tour of Seoul, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Taipei, Shanghai, Singapore, and Jakarta. The Tokyo Dome show was a night that took expectations for the future of YOASOBI to an even higher level.

—This article by Tomonori Shiba first appeared on Billboard Japan

YOASOBI, the J-pop duo that turn creative writing into music, is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year and recently wrapped up its first dome concerts marking the occasion called cho-genjitsu (“Surreal”).

Since leaping to prominence with its debut single “Yoru ni Kakeru” (“Into the Night”) in November 2019, YOASOBI has been blazing the trail of a new era in J-pop. In 2023, their song “Idol” featured as the opener for the anime series Oshi no Ko broke more records than any of its previous releases and became the pair’s biggest hit to date. On the various year-end Billboard Japan round-ups for that year, “Idol” topped five song charts including the all-genre Japan Hot 100, and the duo also achieved its dream of topping the coveted Artist 100 list. In September of that same year, “Yoru ni Kakeru” became the first song in the history of the Japan charts to reach a billion streams, and the hitmakers are advancing a phenomenal career that could literally be called “surreal.”

Billboard Japan spoke with the two members of YOASOBI —composer Ayase and singer ikura — as they contemplate their stances and prepare to move on to a new phase after five years of rapid progress. They shared their current feelings as they celebrate this milestone and the creative process of this year’s releases “UNDEAD” and “On the Stage” (Japanese title: “Butai ni Tatte”), both of which showcase the duo’s positive next step.

YOASOBI formed on Oct. 1, 2019 and recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. Tell us how you feel now that you’ve reached this milestone.

ikura: It only recently started to sink in as we held meetings for the dome concerts and organized lots of events to celebrate our fifth anniversary. When we started YOASOBI, I never thought it would become such a big part of my life. It all sort of slid into my current life, so I guess you could say it went by quickly, but… In terms of density, it’s been like ten years’ worth of experience packed into five because so much has happened.

It feels like “five years already” while also being “only five years yet.”

ikura: But the five-year mark is a really big one. I guess we’ve broken out of the newcomer bracket. [Laughs] We were thinking of celebrating our fifth anniversary as a new beginning, so we’re also determined to keep growing even more from here.

How about you, Ayase?

Ayase: To be honest, it doesn’t feel too different from our third and fourth anniversaries, but this year, everything we do including the songs we put out and the promotion has been based on the fifth anniversary. It’s kind of a nice round number so I’ve been able to renew my enthusiasm and feel like, “Let’s restart YOASOBI from here.”

So your activities this year are part of the fifth anniversary project?

Ayase: Yes. I mean that in a positive way. Last year, lots of people in Japan and around the world listened to “Idol,” and thankfully, we became the No. 1 artist of the year on Billboard Japan’s Artist 100 ranking. We were able to achieve our goal in Japan, and now we’re working on our fifth anniversary projects with a really fresh feeling. The public might not be too concerned about such things, but for us, being recognized like that was important.

Like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders?

Ayase: Yes, exactly. Up until our fourth year, we’d often do our best to respond to the things we were asked to do and work hard to achieve good results. From our fifth year onwards, we’ve been trying to organize what we want to do and how we want to be seen, how we want to develop YOASOBI from now on, and what YOASOBI means to us in the first place. It’s a year where we begin anew after re-evaluating these things.

You both have often said that you didn’t think the project would last long at first, but now that you’ve reached your fifth anniversary, what do you think has been the driving force and motivation behind YOASOBI’s longevity?

Ayase: That a relationship of trust has been established between the two of us, the existence of our band and team, and of course the support of our fans was also a big factor. Also, I was conscious of things like the charts as a goal, so the fact that we often fell just one step short was big for me. There were times when I was like, “I give up” or “I don’t wanna write songs,” but there were goals that we could reach if we could hang on a bit longer. That was my hope and became my motivation. Even though we get along so well, I think that if we hadn’t achieved any of those goals, our spirits would have broken somewhere along the way.

Feeling like you were really making progress helped.

Ayase: It was only after the beginning of this year that those goals really started to scale up. It wasn’t about numbers this time, but something more vague like where I want YOASOBI’s place to be in society. This fifth year has given me a chance to re-evaluate, and that’s my motivation now.

How about you, ikura?

ikura: It’s hard to narrow it down to one thing because my motivation changed a lot from our first year to the fifth, but… I’d always dreamed of a music career like this, so in the first and second year of YOASOBI, my motivation was a combination of the joy of having a chance at last and feeling that I had to maintain that career and keep growing with the team. Every day was a new challenge that I’d never experienced before.

You were working as a singer-songwriter on your own since you were a student, after all.

ikura: Right. Then after three or four years as a duo, when we went on our arena tour [YOASOBI ARENA TOUR 2023 “Denkousekka” from April to June 2023], it felt like a lot of people had entrusted their dreams to the YOASOBI project, and that we were all moving together on a big spaceship. At first, I was feeling the pressure on my own, but my mindset shifted to the idea that I could put my dreams on board YOASOBI as one of the crew, and that everyone was in that same position, putting their thoughts on board. It was like I had a better idea of what I wanted to express in the group and of my stance in it. So the people who are engaged with us are also a big source of motivation.

The first song you released on this anniversary year was “UNDEAD.”

ikura: It was our first new song in a while.

Ayase: It was really tough. We were working on it while also preparing for first-time endeavors like our performances at Coachella and other shows in the U.S. We spent our days off in New York in the hotel, working on the song the whole time.

That does sound pretty rough.

Ayase: But as I said before, last year’s “Idol” gave me a sense of accomplishment, and now it feels like I’m able to write songs more freely. Of course, I put my feelings into them to make sure that as many people as possible will listen to them, but I’m also thinking about what kind of songs it would be good for YOASOBI to have from now on, as we’ll be doing more concerts in the future.

“UNDEAD” is being featured as the theme song for the anime Monogatari Series: Off & Monster Season. It’s based on the short short stories by [best-selling novelist] Nisio Isin called “Nadeko Past” and “Shinobu Future.” How did you interpret these stories?

Ayase: I’ve seen all of Monogatari Series, and I think one of the themes that Mr. Nisio is probably trying to get across is, “Live your life desperately aiming for happiness.” In fact, in “Owari Monogatari” there’s a line that goes, “It’s cowardly to not try to be happy.” I think the same thing, but it’s not easy to be forceful in song lyrics. But I figured I could say it if I enlisted help from Monogatari Series. As a narrative leading up to that point, I connected things from Nadeko’s past and Shinobu’s future from the original stories to write the lyrics.

You can’t change the past, but you can change who you are now. If you want to change the future, you have to change who you are now. The themes depicted in the original stories must have resonated with both of you now as you celebrate your fifth anniversary.

Ayase: This is pretty wild, but around January when I was working on this song in full swing, I was in exactly the same state as Shinobu Oshino in “Shinobu Future.” She’s been alive for hundreds of years and she’s fallen into a rut, and she feels like nothing brilliant will ever happen to her again and life isn’t fun because she doesn’t have any expectations for the future. That was me. Complete burnout.

I’d always wanted to top the year-end Artist 100, and we finished the year in a big way on Kohaku Uta Gassen, but I didn’t think I’d burn out there. Then our POP OUT Zepp tour started at the beginning of the year. It was a lot of fun of course and I learned a lot, but on the other hand, I was also thinking, “Am I really happy?” Like, if I were to write a song in the future that reaches even more people and that song breaks bigger records, would there be much of a difference in the sense of accomplishment I’ve felt already? But the time and effort I’d have to sacrifice for that would be immeasurable. And I’d also be getting older in the process, so I was like, “Is my life going to be OK like this?” 

In “Shinobu Future,” Shinobu Oshino is a former vampire who has lived for over 600 years. She’s become used to the “great, world-changing invention” and laments that she can no longer expect excitement or freshness from the future. The scale is different, of course, but it’s a feeling that anyone could face when they’re evolving.

Ayase: When I read that story at that time, I thought Mr. Nishio was reading my mind. The idea that “all you can do is to polish who you are now” really connected with me, and I’ve finally been able to get out of that negative state of mind over the past several months.

What are your thoughts on this, ikura?

ikura: Until about our fourth year, I just worked hard without thinking about anything else. But I suffered some major health problems around last summer, and after I recovered, I was also like, “What is my happiness?” Though I’m sure I’ve acquired and experienced a lot of things because I’ve devoted my whole life to music and given it my all.

Yes, if you care about your future self, you have to take care of yourself now, too.

ikura: While I have areas of expertise and roles that I’m entrusted with, I was taking on too much so I had to learn to give up in a positive sense and let other people handle stuff so that I could focus on doing what I can do. I felt that I won’t be able to keep at it unless I worked in a healthy way. So when I read the lyrics of “UNDEAD,” I was like, “That’s so true,” and it also felt like it was affirming my life and the way I’ve been working so hard.

“On the Stage” was written for NHK Sports Theme 2024. In the story it’s based on, the presence of a rival who strives together with you was symbolically depicted as well. As members of YOASOBI, is there anyone you could call your rival or someone who’s inspired you?

ikura: There aren’t any other artists that I consider in that way, but as long as we keep doing YOASOBI, I think Ayase and ikura will always have a kind of rivalry. So the first thing that comes to mind is Ayase and our team, including the band members and the staff.

Ayase: I agree. Rival might not be the exact way to put it, but I’m pretty sure we want to strut our stuff to each other. I think we both want to make the other appreciate us, so I guess it is close to being rivals. It’s not about solo work, but as motivation to keep going as YOASOBI.

ikura: They’ve entrusted me with their backs so I’m also responsible for that, too, so I want to fulfill my role well.

—This interview by Takuto Ueda first appeared on Billboard Japan