to new heights in South Korea and rewrote the fortunes of today's biggest boy band". Commercial performance Immediately after release, "I Need U" became the top trending search term on South-Korean portal sites and ranked number one on various real-time music charts, including Soribada, Genie, and Daum Music. The song also managed to crack the top 10 on Melon, Bugs, and Naver Music's real-time music charts. It debuted at number five on Gaons Weekly Digital and Weekly Download charts, with 93,790 digital units sold in its first week. The single went on to accumulate over 850,000 digital downloads. In Japan, the single sold over 43,000 copies on its opening day and debuted at number one on the Oricon Daily Singles Chart. By the end of its first tracking week, it sold an accumulated 95,668 copies for the period dated December 7–13, and entered the weekly chart at number three. In the US, "I Need U" debuted at number 4 on the Billboard World Digital Songs Chart, ranking the highest of the six tracks from its parent EP that entered the chart. As of September 2019, the song has sold 98,000 downloads. Music video The music video's release was preceded by a teaser clip uploaded to Big Hit's official YouTube channel on April 23, 2015. The full music video, in which the members of BTS portrayed "discomforted youths...running away from the past", was released on April 29. It was later revealed that the video had been edited to lower its rating from 19+ to 15+ in order to meet the Korea Media Rating Board's rating standards. The uncut 19+ version, titled "I Need U (Original ver.)", was released on May 10. It included almost two minutes of extended scenes containing darker themes and more graphic imagery than the previous video. Both the original and extended versions were produced and directed by Lumpens. Through the music video, BTS brought their long-standing creative narrative, typically known as the "BU" or "BTS Universe", to the forefront. Speaking to Billboard, Michelle Cho, an assistant professor of East Asian Popular Cultures at the University of Toronto, said: "As an audio-visual experience, "I Need U" inaugurated the Bangtan Universe—the coming-of-age storyline that brilliantly integrates the Most Beautiful Moment in Life [album] trilogy and continues in music videos, "concept videos" (mini-films), and the multiform, open-ended narrative that's been serialized in album liner notes and Twitter and Instagram posts".