Ascendant Japanese indie rockers Hitsujibungaku have shared with NME insights into their recent singles, including ‘Burning’, their brand-new ending theme to the second season of hit anime, Oshi No Ko. Read on for the interview.
Spearheaded by guitarist/bandleader Moeka Shiotsuka and steadily backed by drummer Hiroa Fukuda and bassist Yurika Kasai, the band first emerged in Tokyo’s indie rock underground over the late 2010s. With Shiotsuka’s soaring, delicately expressive voice and an elegant, concise guitar-centric sound, they’ve established themselves as one of Japanese indie’s premier acts with releases like ‘Dear Youths’ and ‘Zawameki’.
Following their signing to a Sony Music sublabel, the trio have gone from indie darlings to chart-scaling stars. After gaining national attention with their Christmastime hit ‘1999’, the group gained steam with a slew of albums and anime themes – but none rivalled the splash generated by ‘More Than Words’, the band’s slow-burning ending theme of the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen. More than 60 million Spotify streams later, the band have embraced their newfound status, embarking on their first Asian tour, playing Taipei, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Hong Kong, and beyond.
They’re continuing their rise today (July 3) by dropping ‘Burning’, their grungy ending theme to hit anime Oshi no Ko, which has boasted themes by J-pop megastars Queen Bee and YOASOBI. Ahead of their sold-out Singapore concert today and arguably biggest release yet, NME caught up with Shiotsuka and Kasai to talk about the band’s influences and musical identity. Check out the interview – and the new music video for ‘Burning’ – below.
NME: Welcome to Singapore, and congrats on your Asia tour! It’s been a huge couple of years for the band, and I’d love to ask about ‘Burning’, which is a huge placement for the band after the hit ‘More Than Words’. Could you share some of the inspirations behind the song?
Moeka Shiotsuka: “This song was inspired by Oshi No Ko’s second anime season. I read the original work again and again, and I imagined how I would translate the characters’ feelings in my own way. In terms of the song’s sound, I was inspired largely by the band Curve. We were introduced to them by our sound team – and in that way, I thought it would be nice to go for a rockier, shoegaze approach in that vein.”
The shoegaze mention is interesting, with the song’s grunge guitars. It reminds me of the band’s earlier, more textured sound, which really stands out given your more recent, poppier releases. Is there anything the band particularly considered for this song when writing it?
MS: “This time, it was an ending theme, so I thought I had much more room to play around with than composing an opener. [Laughs] When I think back to the last time we had made an opening theme song – for example, with the anime Heike Monogatari [the song ‘Hikaru Toki’] – I remembered how Agraph had made such a cool-sounding closer for the show.
“If the opener pays attention to the anime as a whole, then the ending song is something that reflects the spirit of the show. When you listen to the song, you can deepen your understanding of the work, and investigate the work in your own way. I thought it was good to be working like that.”
Having experienced writing for these different anime series, has the band’s songwriting process evolved over time?
MS: “To be honest, I don’t really think I still have a grasp on the songwriting process. But I think I’ve become more precise with the process. I guess I’ve become quite aware of judging whether a song would work or not – in that way, I’m still growing slowly.”
Hitsujibungaku have been steadily expanding across Asia and beyond. What are some of your international influences?
MS: “I love Smashing Pumpkins, and the way that they sound – especially in the way that they would randomly drop into metal parts. I’ve loved Yuck since their first album, from the time I began listening to music from the West. The xx, James Blake – I fell in love with the way that they craft songs so simply.”
James Blake makes so much sense, especially considering the electronics in songs like ‘Ooparts’, or the solo material that Shiotsuka-san has featured on by other electronic artists like Shuta Hasunuma. Have there been new sounds the band has thought about experimenting with stylistically?
MS: “Hmmm, we’ve been doing a lot of tie-up stuff, so we’ve been inspired a lot by works that we come across. As for the rest, for the future…we’ll probably be starting to create stuff again this autumn, but I want to make what’s inspiring me at that time.”
Speaking of tie-ups, I’d love to hear the band’s thoughts about your recent Shaun the Sheep tie-up – that cover really came out of left field! Was it something that the band talked about for a long time?
Yurika Kasai: “Sheep connection! [Laughs] [Editors’ note: Hitsujibungaku translates to ‘sheep literature’ in Japanese.] Especially because it was a song that already existed, it was something that we could freely put our own spin on. It’s a little light and floaty, and it’s got that cute element in it too. We were able to be ourselves on it, so that was a lot of fun.”
MS: “The Japanese Shaun team was full of adorable people. I was grateful that they had so much fun coming to our shows. On making the song – I love Pavement, so in that spirit, it’s definitely the roughest thing we’ve made, in a good way. In my head, I thought: ‘let me not sing this as well as I usually do’. I was trying for that vibe, and I thought it went well.”
Since we’re talking about Pavement – I think it’s interesting how Hitsujibungaku holds so firmly to their indie rock stylings in J-pop’s current gacha-pop landscape, especially now joining acts like YOASOBI and Queen Bee with the Oshi no Ko placement. Is there anything Hitsujibungaku wants to hold onto sound-wise?
MS: “Maybe it’s because I can only do that! I’ve thought about it – what if I started making by tapping madly on the computer? – but I guess after all it’s because we love our sound. It’s not necessarily some core belief that we’re holding onto as a band, though. I hope in these three years, Japanese audiences will come around to our sound. It does seem quite a difficult goal, but for now I definitely want to convince them.”
What characterises Hitsujibungaku’s sound?
MS: “I wonder what it is. I guess… there’s not a lot of instruments?” [Laughs]
YK: “I guess, yeah, in the simplicity of our songs, whether it be with the arrangements or beyond. But I think there’s a lot of personality injected into every sound.”
MS: “Indie rock is not a sound that’s originally Japanese. So I’ve thought that it’s not great to just directly rip it off or imitate it. So, I think you can say that in some way, the J-pop elements that we infuse into that is part of our own unique appeal. But also, to me, more so than wanting to adopt a band-like sound, I got into music with the spirit of musicians like James Blake, but then happened to be playing with a band while admiring all those electronic musicians. I love that sort of imbalance that we have in terms of our music.”
It’s so interesting that you bring up J-pop, especially considering the narrative of Oshi No Ko. In previous interviews, you’ve shared that you grew up listening to J-pop singers like Yui, and wanting to be a singer from those experiences. Moving the conversation back to ‘Burning’, were there any elements of the work that resonated with you when writing it?
MS: “To be honest, I made two songs for Oshi no Ko – I made a really poppy song where I thought: ‘this would definitely make the cut’, and I made ‘Burning’. That being said, there’s still a very poppy chorus that’s part of the song. As far as lyrics go, it’s rather tied to the story’s contents. Of course, it’s a story that puts all of its characters on stage, and so there’s the key word ‘stage’ included.
“In the second season, the story is full of young actors, including Aqua from the first season, and ‘Burning’ is thematically about the battles between them within their generation. Rather than reflecting any particular scene or character, I wanted to inject into the song the unfulfilled emotions the characters all share. Although they would never show them on stage, but all the hidden conflicts that they hid behind the stage – I wanted to channel them all into ‘Burning’. Until I could reach that point, I read the work again and again.”
Hitsujibungaku’s new song ‘Burning’ is out now. The first episode of Oshi No Ko‘s second season premieres today (July 3)