Yoasobi is a Japanese pop duo formed in 2019. It consists of musician and record producer Ayase and singer-songwriter Lilas Ikuta, under the moniker Ikura. With the slogan “”unit that turns novels into music”. With this slogan, if the song is not performed based on a fictional story, they are not credit under Yoasobi, but credited separately under their individual names (Ayase and Lilas Ik) The duo originally released songs based on selected fictional stories posted on Monogatary.com, a social media website for creative writing operated by Sony Music Entertainment Japan. Sources later also come from various media such as stories written by professional authors, books, letters, plays, etc. The duo’s name, Yoasobi, originates from the Japanese word yoasobi meaning “nightlife”. Ayase, who came up with the name, explained that is a wish that he and Ikura could take on various playful challenges by comparing their individual career to daytime and Yoasobi’s career to night time.
Their debut song “Racing into the Night,” released in November 2019, quickly attracted attention immediately after its release, sweeping the top spot on various domestic distribution charts and ranking on viral charts in multiple countries, and winning first place on the 2020 Billboard JAPAN general song chart and streaming song chart. The total number of streamed plays has now exceeded 1 billion, the first time in history. They also participated in the 71st NHK Kouhaku Uta Gassen. Their first EP “THE BOOK,” released in January 2021, has been attracting a lot of attention for its luxurious specifications that express the concept of “turning novels into music,” and can be called a “CD to read.” It has also won first place in the Oricon Digital Album Ranking for five consecutive weeks, and the seven songs included in the album have ranked within the TOP 15 of the Apple Music Chart.
In July, in collaboration with UNIQLO’s “UT,” they held a free live broadcast “SING YOUR WORLD” at UNIQLO CITY TOKYO in the UNIQLO Ariake headquarters, which recorded 280,000 simultaneous viewers. In December, they released their second EP “THE BOOK 2,” and held their first live concert with an audience “NICE TO MEET YOU” at Nippon Budokan on the 4th and 5th of the same month, attracting 14,000 people over the two days, and the related hashtags trended every day, creating a lot of excitement. At the end of the year, they participated in the 72nd NHK Kouhaku Uta Gassen for the second consecutive year. In February 2022, they launched the project “Hajimete no,” in which four Naoki Prize-winning authors, Shimamoto Rio, Tsujimura Mizuki, Miyabe Miyuki, and Mori Eto, write original novels and release songs one after another, and released a book containing the four original novels. In August, they made their first appearance at a summer festival on the stage of “ROCK IN JAPAN FESTIVAL 2022”, and also performed their first live shows at festivals around the country, where their special stage and production using LED panels became a hot topic
The “Mobile Bookstore “Traveling Bookstore YOASOBI”” that started in conjunction with the summer festival appearance attracted attention for its wide range of developments, such as selling YOASOBI-related books as well as curry supervised by Ayase and ikura from a kitchen car. The opening theme “Blessing” for the TV anime “Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch of Mercury” in October 2022, along with its original novel “The Cradle Star” (written by Ichiro Okouchi), has received a great response and has already achieved 100 million streams. In February 2023, they released the theme song “Adventure” for Universal Studios Japan’s “Uni Spring”, and in March, they appeared at “Uni Spring! Live 2023” held at the Universal Studios Japan Gramercy Park special venue. The messages in the songs, which were created based on the experiences of students during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the collaborations with various characters at live performances have struck a chord with students of the same generation as well as a wide range of people.
The opening theme song for the TV anime “Oshi no Ko”, “Idol”, released on Wednesday, April 12th, topped the Billboard JAPAN comprehensive song chart “JAPAN Hot 100” for 21 consecutive weeks, breaking the all-time record for consecutive top spots in Billboard JAPAN, and surpassing 400 million cumulative streams in history. In addition, it topped the US Billboard Global Chart “Global Excl. US”, Apple Music’s “Top 100: Global”, and YouTube music charts TOP 100 songs Global, continuing to set new records in J-POP history. The TikTok LIVE, which was streamed worldwide on April 24th, had a total of approximately 630,000 viewers and over 120,000 simultaneous viewers, the highest number of viewers for a Japanese artist’s live performance on TikTok LIVE. Their first arena tour, “YOASOBI ARENA TOUR 2023 “Lightning Speed”,” attracted a total of 130,000 people in 14 performances in 7 cities, including additional performances. In August, they made their first appearance at the LA festival “HEAD IN THE CLOUDS Los Angeles” organised by 88rising.
