YOASOBI drops NHK drama 'Brassem' theme 'Sakihokoré' on Oct 14

NHK theme drops October 14

YOASOBI will release 咲き誇れ (Sakihokoré), the theme song for NHK morning drama ブラッサム (Brassem), simultaneously in Korea and Japan on October 14 at midnight across various online music platforms.

Brassem is based on writer Uno Chiyo, a figure who pursued freedom across multiple eras of Japanese history. The drama first aired on September 28. Novelist Wataya Risa, who has long admired Uno Chiyo, wrote an original novel titled 桜の命は不滅なり (The Life of Flowers is Immortal) using Uno Chiyo as the motif. YOASOBI built the song from that text.

Lyrics, composition, and arrangement are all credited to YOASOBI producer Ayase. He is from Yamaguchi Prefecture — the same hometown as Uno Chiyo — and reportedly visited her birthplace and related sites to trace her life before completing the track.

The numbers behind the band

YOASOBI's 2019 debut 夜に駆ける (Running Through the Night) was the first song to surpass 1.3 billion cumulative streams. Then in 2023, アイドル (Idol) — the opening theme for the anime 最愛の子 (Oshi no Ko) — sat at number 1 on Billboard Japan's JAPAN Hot 100 for 21 consecutive weeks. It also hit number 1 on the US Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart. Two very different benchmarks, both cleared.

Dome tour kicks off October 24

The release lands just before YOASOBI begins a Japan-and-Asia dome stadium tour on October 24, opening at Osaka Kyocera Dome. The tour is the largest-scale dome stadium tour ever undertaken by a Japanese artist. A new NHK theme and the biggest dome run in Japanese music history in the same two-week window.