YOASOBI on Zoom are the most dressed down I’ve ever seen them. Which is not saying much, because I’ve seen them only twice before this, but somehow they’re still exuding chic more effortlessly than most artists I’ve met.
One of 32-year-old Ayase’s many tattoos is peeking out from his neck and his colourful manicure is impeccable as usual, while Ikura, 25, sports currently brown hair and large hoops that elevate her simple checked shirt and tank. But enough about their style. If you can believe it, YOASOBI (which literally translates to “nightlife”) are ridiculously more interesting than that.
Take for example their newest album The Book For, released two and a half years after their last one. The 12-track release is the fourth and last addition to The Book series, where the songs are exclusively based on fictional creative works, be it manga or short stories or longer ones.
It’s a fascinating premise, made even more unique by the fact that Ikura and Ayase’s biggest hits have had not a trace of English. Although they have since released their ‘E-sides’ or English translations, YOASOBI’s biggest global hits, from “Racing Into The Night” to “Idol” have all been entirely in Japanese.
The duo’s entire artistic identity is, therefore, rooted in the specificity of Japanese literary culture, and they have been one of the fastest-growing Japanese acts in world in the recent past.
Their debut single “Racing Into The Night (Yoru ni Kakeru),” released in November 2019 when Ikura was only 19, has now surpassed 1.1 billion streams, the first song to ever do so in Japanese music history. If you are chronically online, you would also recognize it from the widely shared meme contrasting the bubbly pop nature of the sound to the lyrics (adapted from a story) about a couple struggling with depression and suicidal ideation.
“Idol,” released in April 2023, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Global Excl. US chart and Apple Music’s Top 100 Global, and spent 22 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard Japan Hot 100. “Monster (Kaibutsu)” was named one of TIME’s ten best songs of 2021.
They have since performed at Coachella, headlined Radio City Music Hall. And now, as we speak in late June, they are about to embark on the Never Ending Stories North American tour — their largest North American run yet — which kicked off August 4 at Boston’s TD Garden and wraps August 16 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
When I congratulate them on The Book 4, Ikura tells me they felt the long wait. “We were just very happy because it’s been two and a half years since we last released our album,” she says. “It’s finally here.”
On The Album, The Comma And Where YOASOBI Go Next
The title The Book 4 ends with a comma, grammatically implying continuation even as it closes a chapter. I ask what comes after the comma, and Ayase and Ikura glance at each other. “We are in the middle of looking for it,” Ikura says. “I don’t have something concrete I can talk to you about. But I hope you can expect things from us. We are thinking of something very exciting and fun.”
YOASOBI’s artistic division has always been crystal; Ayase composes and produces, Ikura sings. Until now. The album’s final track, “Gekijyo” (劇上 / “The Show”), is notable for a different reason. It features Ayase’s own vocals, marking the first time he has sung on a YOASOBI release.
“I had relatively clearly separated it and decided that I would absolutely not sing,” Ayase says. “But there were some changes in my state of mind as I went along. It wasn’t that I put it out of my own ego wanting to sing. When I thought about expressing the original story in the best possible way through music, I thought I wanted a male voice. If that happened, I thought it might be me.” He adds, “As for whether I will sing in the future, it’s just for fun. I don’t know.”
“It’s a song that also talks about the fact that I am the main character of the stage, so since I created it myself, I thought I should sing it with a sense of responsibility.”
On Being The Main Characters
If you’ve ever attended a YOASOBI show, there would be no doubt as to who are the main characters of the stage.
Sets like their recent one at Lollapalooza Chicago (where Ikura spent a couple of years as a toddler) are representative of the extremely high energy stage presence that both artists, but especially Ikura, don’t really dial down for the whole one-hour performance.
One of their other main character moments incuded a 2024 state dinner with President Biden. Ayase, after thinking for a moment: “The White House was very beautiful inside. It was incredibly beautiful. And there was also music, live performances the whole time.”
“It’s very obvious but it was rich,” he observes, and Ikura chuckles in agreement.
He pauses. “I thought it was an unreal experience doing this as a musician. I didn’t think this kind of thing would happen. It was a surreal experience.”
It feels obvious, but I ask if either of them has ever had a moment of feeling like, definitively, the main character. They both smile to themselves.
“Rather than having some kind of event happen and thinking about it a lot,” she says, “I myself am very properly living my own life with the feeling that I am always the protagonist. Even if some big event or big success happens — that we are the center of the world — I don’t really think that’s useful.” She laughs her famous eye-smile. “It’s a difficult question.”
Ayase, by contrast, says he is always thinking it. He’s always the main character, he smirks.
“If anything,” he course corrects quickly, “it’s more in the trivial moments of daily life — moments where something I had vaguely wished for suddenly comes true. That’s when I often think, huh, maybe I am the protagonist after all.”
On stage, his perspective shifts again, “Of course, when we are up on stage, in a formal sense they have come to see us, so we have to entertain them. But when you think about everyone enjoying it, including the audience, there is also the perspective that everyone is a main character.”
What a very acceptable answer for everybody, I point out, and we all laugh.
On Playing To Audiences Who Don’t Speak Japanese
YOASOBI’s audience usually include thousands of people who do not speak Japanese and may never have read the source novels. I ask what she thinks they are feeling in those moments when they mouth along to words they likely cannot translate.
“Really purely as sound,” she says, “the interest and fun of music as such, truly going beyond words — I feel that they are feeling and enjoying it with their bodies and hearts.” But she is also specific about what she has witnessed at their international shows. “Quite a lot of people have beforehand researched and read the original novel or read the original manga or studied Japanese. I can feel firsthand that they are enjoying the background of the various works.”
On what they would say to themselves five years from now, when YOASOBI would’ve been active for 12 years, Ikura’s wish is standard. “I really hope that I’ll be taking great care of myself, the people that I care about, my team, and also that everybody stays healthy.”
Ayase seems tired of the premise, having been confronted with it many times. “if I could ask and get an answer back, then the future would be known and it wouldn’t be interesting, so basically I, there’s absolutely nothing I want to ask.”
Then he solemnly reconsiders. “Please continue your muscle training properly, is what I wannt to say.”
YOASOBI On The New Grammy Asian Pop Category: ‘We’re Going For It’
Just a few days before our interview, The Recording Academy announced that a new category for Best Asian Pop Music Performance will be awarded at the 69th Grammy Awards. The category covers releases that feature meaningful use of at least one Asian language, with an eligibility window running from August 31, 2025 through August 28, 2026.
With BTS having announced they will not submit for the award, the field is more open than it has ever been for its inaugural year, and I’ve already mentioned that despite expectations, the winner might not even be Korean at all.
My list of non K-pop contenders had included both the literary fiction-driven YOASOBI and their fellow J-pop artist, the mysterious masked Ado. I have to ask, of course, if they’ve set their sights on this prize.
It’s the quickest Ayase has been to answer anything this whole conversation.
“Yes, we’re going for it,” he says. “We will do our best to be able to go for it.”
“Regardless of Asian pop — if you seriously want people all over the world to listen to your music, you don’t work to win a Grammy, you work to get your music to many people. If we become artists capable of winning a Grammy, that would just mean that by that time, a great many people already know about us.”
“So I intend to do my best to make that happen.”
YOASOBI’s ‘Never Ending Stories’ North American tour ends August 16 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. The Asian leg will commence in October.
