YOASOBI -- Ano Yume wo Nazotte（あの夢をなぞって）

 

Well, with the unusually high temperatures today and the Diwali fireworks shooting off in my neighbourhood last night, I couldn't quite help feeling as if Japanese summer festival season had mysteriously materialized in my neck of the woods. Wouldn't it be nice to have some of that takoyaki and yakisoba while downing it with some Calpis? Even better, it would be nice to enjoy that natsu matsuri food with that significant other in yukata.

That kind of feeling seems to be imbued within the lyrics of popular band YOASOBI's 2nd digital download single "Ano Yume wo Nazotte" (Tracing That Dream) from January 2020. According to the Wikipedia writeup on the song, it "...was based on Monogatary.com's Monocon 2019-winning short story, titled "Yume no Shizuku to Hoshi no Hana" (夢の雫と星の花...lit. "Dream Drops and Star Flowers"), written by Sōta Ishiki".

Now, as all of YOASOBI's fans will know immediately, I am quite late to the party when it comes to YOASOBI since this is the first article that has gone up on KKP. I have been aware that the band has been on the Kohaku Utagassen in 2020 and 2021, and I figure that if composer Ayase and vocalist ikura have made their appearance on NHK's annual New Year's Eve special in consecutive years, I can imagine that their chances of a third appearance is pretty darn good. We shall find out in a few weeks when the announcement of the teams for the 2022 edition is made.

But in any case, I wanted to start off the YOASOBI file with their summer festival-themed tune "Ano Yume wo Nazotte". Written and composed by Ayase, I had figured because of that official music video done up as an anime featuring a young couple, it was a theme song for an actual animated feature.

Uh...no, such wasn't the case but my compliments on the animators for the video. Also, according to the aforementioned Wikipedia article, there was a well-sung English version of "Ano Yume wo Nazotte" by ikura that was a track on YOASOBI's first English-language EP, "E-Side", which was released in November 2021. That album hit No. 1 on Oricon's digital albums list and as for the original single, it was recognized by the Recording Industry Association of Japan as having gone Gold in the downloads category and Platinum in streaming.

A slower version of the song known as the Ballade Version came out in March 2022 as a digital download. It was not only used for a Calorie Mate commercial, but also as an accompanying song for the live-action cinematic adaptation of that novel that was mentioned above, "Yume no Shizuku to Hoshi no Hana".