The first of these was the band's single "Boku to Hana", released in May 2012, which was used as the theme song for the Tsuyoshi Kusanagi drama 37-sai de Isha ni Natta Boku: Kenshui Junjō Monogatari,[2] Three months later, the band followed this with the single "Yoru no Odoriko", a song that had been featured in commercials for the design school Mode Gakuen from April 2013.

[7] Soon after the band finished touring, Yamaguchi worked on a jingle for the yobikō Tōshin High School, a song that would grow to become "Sayonara wa Emotion".

[8] In its place, the band recorded "Good-Bye", an improvised composition that used musical techniques that he personally wanted to explore.

[13] Though the band had recorded their previous album Sakanaction at Yamaguchi's apartment, only the pre-production for "Hasu no Hana" was undertaken there.

[14] "Hasu no Hana" was announced as the theme song for the film Close Range Love, as well as its spin-off drama, Kin Kyori Renai: Season Zero, which began airing on Nippon Television on July 19.

[13] "Hasu no Hana" was created as the producers of Close Range Love had specifically commissioned a song for their film.

[13] Yamaguchi began the writing process by watching Close Range Love without the soundtrack, and considered the perspective of fans of the film's lead actor Tomohisa Yamashita, wondering why he was not asked to create the theme song.

[21] They found that this was difficult to balance, and recorded the song while simultaneously using computers and instruments while a Korg Donca Matic rhythm machine kept time.

[22] Due to the film's young female audience, an early idea by the band was to have bassist Ami Kusakari sing the song, which she did in initial demo takes.

[18] Yamaguchi stated that the band were likely to re-record "Hasu no Hana" again for a future album, and would continue to experiment with the song's sound.

[25][26] The film version of "Hasu no Hana" was unveiled in the first episode of the spin-off drama Kin Kyori Renai: Season Zero, which debuted on Nippon Television on July 19.

[15] The single version of "Hasu no Hana" was debuted on Japanese radio on October 7 by Yamaguchi, who played the song on his Tokyo FM School of Lock!

[13][16] The single featured two B-sides, the first of which was a remix of the version of "Ame(B) that Sakanaction performed on their Sakanaquarium Sakanatribe tour, given a stronger club sound by musician Aoki Takamasa.

[16] The band performed "Hasu no Hana" for the first time on the Japanese television, on the music program Live Monster on October 27, 2014.

[34][35] Sakanaction had worked with Yasuyuki Yamaguchi several times before, on videos for songs such as "Document" (2011), "Boku to Hana" (2012) and "Eureka" (2014).

[36] The video depicts Ichiro Yamaguchi performing everyday tasks such as driving and visiting a supermarket, while accompanied by a man in a spider costume.

[34] The final scenes depict Yamaguchi and the spider costume man dancing at night time along a closed shopping arcade, while intensely smiling.

[37] Yasuyuki Yamaguchi wanted to do something different to his previous videos for the band: the story-focused "Document", the dramatic play in "Boku to Hana" and the art-focused "Eureka".

[37] Yasuyuki Yamaguchi wanted to express the everyday world inside a person's mind, which included realizations of fantastic things, such as the spider costume man.

[40] Both Oricon and SoundScan Japan independently tracked an estimated 21,000 physical copies sold in the single's first week.