Aoi (song)
Sakanaction wrote the song specifically for NHK, taking inspiration from soccer, and from the associations of the word blue in Japanese, due to the home jersey color used by the Japan national football team.
Critically, CDJournal reviewers responded positively to the song, believing the guitar-based rock, dance beat and vocal choir showed off a signature style of the band.
[4] However, while this was happening, the band were contacted to write a theme song for the Tsuyoshi Kusanagi drama 37-sai de Isha ni Natta Boku: Kenshui Junjō Monogatari,[1] which disrupted their plans for the single.
[8][9] Originally the band intended for "Music" to be the leading promotional track for Sakanaction and not released as a physical single before it was chosen as a drama theme song.
[12] "Aoi" was commissioned for NHK, when the television channel contacted Sakanaction to write a song for their 2013 soccer broadcasts,[13] after the band had finished recording the backing track for "Music" in late 2012.
[18] He incorporated choral vocals because of the Birds' song's association with high school sports,[17] believing that this would lift peoples spirits and give them a feeling of expectation for the soccer matches.
[20] Lyrically, Yamaguchi themed the song about the present, and wrote about the word ao (青), and its associations with youth, inexperience, beauty, danger, as well as it being the color of the Japan national football team.
[31][32] The video featured a live performance by Sakanaction of "Aoi", interspersed with 3D rendered landscapes and objects, and views of places such as Shibuya.
[32] Initially, NHK Enterprises had no current plans to show the video at other venues, due to there being no locations in Japan that were capable of displaying an 8K 3D projection with 22.2 surround sound at the time.
[33][34] CDJournal reviewers felt that "Aoi" showed off a signature style of Sakanaction, and believed the mixed gender vocal chorus invoked the feeling of a school song.
[35] Despite the song debuting on Japanese radio on February 25,[24] it only began to receive notable airplay from a week before the Sakanaction album's release date.
