Initially used as a 2013 jingle for the yobikō Tōshin High School, the song was recorded in full a year later.

Sakanaction's singles for their album Documentaly (2011), "Identity" (2010), "Rookie" (2011) and "Bach no Senritsu o Yoru ni Kiita Sei Desu" (2011), were featured in commercials for the yobikō Tōshin High School.

[7] Soon after the band finished touring, Yamaguchi worked on a jingle for 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.

[12] The band first recorded "Sayonara wa Emotion" because of Tōshin High School's request for a song for their commercials in 2013.

[15] The band discussed releasing "Hasu no Hana" and "Sayonara wa Emotion" as a single with their management at Victor Entertainment, who agreed to the idea.

[15] The song was entirely rearranged and re-recorded for its 2014 release,[16] based around only the initial version's chorus, with the original verses removed in favor of new ones.

[13] During the recording process, Yamaguchi incorporated a wide dynamic range, having felt influenced by listening to jazz and neo soul musicians Robert Glasper and Taylor McFerrin.

The other band members felt that this created a strange vibe in the recording studio, as they were used to Kusakari's bassline being the basis for their songs.

[15] The first stanza, describing somebody going to a convenience store late at night, buying a canned coffee and throwing away the receipt, took Yamaguchi the longest time to write.

[19] Yamaguchi saw this implicit technique being like the lyrical style of 1980s and 1990s lyricists Takashi Matsumoto, Takao Kisugi and Shozo Ise.

[25][26] 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.

[31] The booklet was printed with heat-sensitive ink, so that the "Hasu no Hana" lyrics were only visible when exposed to heat.

[37] The video was primarily shot on a simple sound-stage consisting of two walls and filled with household items,[22] though additional outdoor scenes were shot on the street in front of a building in the Saga area of Koto, Tokyo, owned by the yūgen gaisha Kosuga.

[22] Inside the room are multiple versions of Yamaguchi repeating actions on loop, such as throwing an apple, and drinking a coffee.

In the final scenes, Yamaguchi is joined by the other members of Sakanaction, who sit at the table and drink coffee in a repeating loop.

called "Sayonara wa Emotion" "heart-shaking", and described the song as "an impressive blend of next-level folk, electronica, guitar rock".

[21] He was impressed by Yamaguchi's sigh-like delivery of the lyrics "katta" and "dashita", feeling his vocals showed the band's furthering development and realism.

[43] After two additional weeks of high sales and airplay, "Sayonara wa Emotion" dropped out of the top 30 most sold or played songs.

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

[46] All tracks are written by Ichiro YamaguchiPersonnel details were sourced from "Sayonara wa Emotion" / "Hasu no Hana"'s liner notes booklet.