AKB48 -- Sanbyaku-Rokujuu-Go-nichi no Kami Hikouki（365日の紙飛行機）

 

This song has been gnawing at me for the longest time and I figured that I would have to get it onto the blog at some point since it has become one of the trademark tunes for AKB48.

AKB48 was enlisted to come up with a song for the 2015 NHK morning serial "Asa ga Kita"（あさが来た...Here Comes Asa）, the first time that the aidoru group was given that opportunity, and what resulted was "365-nichi no Kami Hikouki" (365 Days of Paper Airplanes). On the network site for the serial (via the J-Wiki article), lyricist Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）analogized the song with the carefree life of the main character of Asa Shiraoka（白岡あさ）, a paper airplane that kept on flying forever despite the restrictions that women had faced in Japan in the mid-1800s onwards into the 20th century.

The melody was supplied by Toshikazu Kadono and Hiroki Aoba（角野寿和・青葉紘季）, and with the main instruments of acoustic guitar and strings, the two of them wanted to achieve something along the lines of a 1970s Japanese folk song. Indeed, there is something in the arrangement that hit me as something very old-fashioned, which in retrospect, made it stand out even more considering that my impressions of the aidoru group was that they often enjoyed their disco (which I do, too).

I think that "365-nichi no Kami Hikouki" definitely grew beyond its parameters as the theme song for "Asa ga Kita" since its release as the coupling song for the single "Kuchibiru ni Be My Baby"（唇にBe My Baby..."Be My Baby" On My Lips） in December 2015. In recent years, whenever AKB48 has popped up on any music show, it's been to perform this particular relaxing tune along with any new release. The single did hit No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies, and the group was able to perform the song on the 2015, 2017 and 2020 Kohaku Utagassen.