fripSide is a Japanese pop and trance duo originally formed by composer Satoshi Yaginuma (Sat) and singer Nao in February 2002. In a 2008 interview, Satoshi said that he was a fan of TM Network and its member Tetsuya Komuro in his elementary and junior high school days and began to produce his music at the age of 14. When the group started, they were releasing their songs on the Japanese amateur and indie community, Muzie. fripSide’s albums were always high in sales at Muzie’s online CD shop. As of July 2006, more than 6,000 copies of the three original albums have been sold.
They officially became a part of Visual Arts in 2006. They released their works under elseena-music entertainment and many of their songs were created for Visual Art’s games, as well as other erotic game companies. In addition, fripSide had a side group, called “fripSide NAO Project” which started in March 2007. fripSide NAO Project released songs different from the usual style of fripSide, and did not follow fripSide’s motto of “creating songs that everyone can relate to”. One album and one single were released under fripSide NAO project.
In March 2009, Nao stated on the fripSide Official Website that she had graduated from fripSide. Sat and Nao want to pursue different musical careers, as Nao intends to pursue a solo singing career. Meanwhile, Sat will continue in fripSide with a new project called, fripside: The Next Project.
Voice actress Yoshino Nanjo replaced Nao as the new lead singer of fripSide. They re-debuted under the record label Geneon Universal Entertainment with single “Only My Railgun”, the opening theme to the anime series A Certain Scientific Railgun, in November 2009. The single debuted at the number-three position on the Japanese Oricon weekly single charts with the first week sales of about 26,000 copies, which was higher than the position of single “Flower of Bravery” (No. 26) in 2008. in May 2013, fripSide release their 6th single, “Sister’s Noise” which was used as the first opening theme for A Certain Scientific Railgun S and was their first-ever to reach No. 1 spot single in the weekly charts, #9 on the monthly charts, with 42,632 units sold for May beating Uta-Pri Maji Love 2000% Idol Song Singles.
In August 2013, fripSide released their 7th single, “Eternal Reality” which was used as the second opening theme for A Certain Scientific Railgun S. The single was made in collaboration with Tetsuya Komuro for its composition and arrangement and was released into 3 editions, the Regular (CD only), Limited (CD+DVD edition) and Anime editions. During the fripSide Announcement Special livestream in October 2021, Nanjō announced her retirement from fripSide. She still performed with Yaginuma in a virtual concert in January 2022, and joined him again at a concert tour in April.
In April 2022, the fripSide Phase 2 Final Arena Tour ended with the announcement of Phase 3’s two new singers, Mao Uesugi and Hisayo Abe. Phase 2 singer, Yoshino Nanjo, performed “infinite synthesis” then was joined by Phase 3’s singers during the song. The emcee then introduced the duo before they performed their debut song “dawn of infinity”, which premiered as the opening theme to the anime series The Dawn of the Witch.
