Yoasobi

Yoasobi (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese music duo composed of Vocaloid (voice synthesizer software) producer Ayase and singer-songwriter Ikura (Lilas Ikuta). The group has released songs based on short stories posted on Monogatary.com, a website operated by Sony Music Entertainment Japan, later also from various novels and book tie-ups.
Name.
The name "Yoasobi" originates from the Japanese word , meaning "nightlife". Ayase, who is a producer of the group said he named it as a wish that he could take on various playful challenges by comparing the appearance of acting as an individual to the appearance of daytime and the appearance of two people acting as Yoasobi as the appearance of the night.
The group has a slogan .
History.
2019–2020: Formation and rising up with "Yoru ni Kakeru".
Both members of Yoasobi had active music careers before forming the group. Ayase gained a following on the video hosting site Niconico since his first upload on December 24, 2018, a song titled . On November 23, 2019, he released an extended play, , which reached third on iTunes' album chart. , performing under the name Ikura, had already released two extended plays: "Rerise" in 2017 and "Jukebox" in 2019.
The first song released by the duo was "Yoru ni Kakeru", based on Mayo Hoshino's short story "Thanatos no Yūwaku" hosted on Monogatary.com. The music video was released first on November 16, 2019, where it broke 10 million views in five months on YouTube as well as being popular on TikTok. It was subsequently released as a single on December 15, 2019, where it topped the popularity charts on both Spotify and Line Music. More than five months after its release, the song would top the "Billboard Japan" Hot 100 on June 1, 2020. The song also tops the year-end chart of "Billboard Japan" Hot 100, become the first song not released on CD to top the year-end chart.
Following the success of their first release, the duo released their second song, "Ano Yume o Nazotte" on January 18, 2020, based on Sōta Ishiki's "Yume no Shizuku to Hoshi no Hana". On April 20, the duo released the teaser for their third song, "Halzion", based on Shunki Hashizume's "Soredemo, Happy End". "Halzion" marked the first time that Yoasobi collaborated with a professional novelist, whereas the first two were amateur writers. The song was released on May 11 as a promotional project by Suntory to advertise their new energy drink named Zone.
In the second half of the year, Yoasobi released their fourth song, "Tabun", on July 20. The song was based on the short story of the same name by Shinano. Their fifth song, "Gunjō" was released September 1. The song collaborated with a manga, "Blue Period" for Bourbon's Alfort Mini Chocolate advertisement. The song was based on Alfort's television advertisement story text "Ao o Mikata ni". On December 18, the duo released their sixth song, "Haruka", based on Osamu Suzuki's novel, "Tsuki Ōji".
On December 31, 2020, they debuted in 71st NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen and performed "Yoru ni Kakeru", which is also their first live performance.
2021–present: "The Book".
On January 6, 2021, Yoasobi released their first extended play and first physical release "The Book", which included the six previous songs and three new songs, "Encore" as a lead single, "Epilogue" as an intro, and "Prologue" as an outro. The duo also released their seventh song, "Kaibutsu", on the same day. The song has been featured as the opening theme song for the second season of the anime television series "Beastars". The anime's ending theme song and duo's eighth song, "Yasashii Suisei", was released on January 20. Both were released as a double A-side single in physical format on March 24.
On January 20, the duo opened their fan club website and announced that they would hold their first concert, Keep Out Theater on February 14 at the inside of the building under construction at the former site of Shinjuku Milano for an online audience of 40,000 people.
The duo released the ninth song for the Fuji TV's morning show "Mezamashi TV", titled "Mō Sukoshi Dake" on May 10, and was based on a novel "Meguru", which won the "Yoasobi Contest Vol.3 with Mezamashi TV" by Chiharu. , an upcoming tenth song for the advertisement for the NTT Docomo's mobile service Ahamo, was based on a novel "RPG" by scriptwriter Yūichirō Komikado. It will be released in the early summer of 2021.