#power push

Virtual Fantasy

A~chan: Actually, this song was originally written entirely in English. There weren’t any Japanese lyrics at all. When I first saw it, I was like, “Oh no… this is going to be tough,” and sure enough, the recording was really hard. I kept thinking, “You’re really going to cram this many words into a single note!?” (laughs). I just pushed through with everything I had. But then partway through, the idea came up to “add some Japanese lyrics,” so we re-recorded it. When we added those new Japanese parts, the moment the three of us switched to Japanese mid-song, I got goosebumps all over and thought, “This is it!”

──Why was that?

A~chan: When we sing in English, our voices naturally go a little lower. But the instant our three voices shifted into Japanese, it turned into the “Perfume sound” that I think is already imprinted in people’s minds. It made me realize all over again: “Ah, this is where our charm lies.”

──So it was like suddenly hearing the voices you’ve been listening to right beside you for the past 25 years.

A~chan: Exactly. While I was listening back to the instrumental break, tears welled up. I think it was partly because the tension was lifted and I finally relaxed, so the emotions just came out naturally. Also, singing the song an octave lower was such a unique experience. It was still my voice, but so low I was like, “Wait, who is this?” (laughs). And adding ad-libs at the end—that’s rare for Perfume too. All of that together makes me really love this song.

──So recording English lyrics is definitely harder than your usual sessions.

Kashiyuka: Another thing is that our recording style changed this time. Nakata-san no longer sits in on the sessions. Since he keeps churning out new songs, he leaves the recording process to the director. And because this director speaks English, he’s super strict about pronunciation (laughs).

Nocchi: He’s like, seriously native-level. So you can’t fake anything (laughs). He’ll say things like, “You need to distinguish clearly between ‘s’ and ‘th,’ or the meaning won’t come across,” and he was very particular about the difference between “R” and “L.”

Kashiyuka: It was pretty much boot-camp levels of strictness.

Nocchi: And then there’s “Solar Wind.” Even though that song had existed from a really early stage, it wasn’t included in Part I—which shocked everyone (laughs). We were like, “Why didn’t you put that one in? Please make sure it goes in Part II!” We kept putting pressure on them. Then the tie-in with the Gundam Card Game was decided, and they even made a commercial for it, which made the outer-space vibe even stronger.

A~chan: That melancholy, languid mood—it fits Yuka perfectly! (laughs) The way the song brings out the character of our three voices is pure genius!

Nocchi: I love how it starts with that slightly kitschy seriousness in the intro and first verse, and then in the chorus it opens up into this classic idol-style melody. It might be my favorite track in Part II.

──In “Solar Wind”, the interlude uses the melody from “The Light”, and the vocal line has a bit of that “IMA IMA IMA” feel. Since it’s sprinkled with elements from Part I and plays a role in linking the two halves, I wondered if it might have left quite a different impression had it actually been included in Part I.

Nocchi: I think so too. It felt like that moment in “Season 2 when the Season 1 theme song starts playing”—it gave me chills.

──Also, I’m not sure if it’s directly related, but the melodies throughout really reminded me of the old song “Butterfly.”

A~chan: You noticed too, right? I thought the same thing. I’m pretty sure Nakata-san used it consciously. He once told us, “The more I try something new, the more I deliberately weave in old sounds to make it feel familiar to the ear.”

A~chan: Of course, I don’t want it to end, and I do feel that sadness. But at the same time, it also makes me want to keep expanding the story—like creating future side stories. Nakata-san said that for Nebula Romance, Part I was made with movies from the 1970s–80s in mind, and Part II with films from the 1990s. Which makes me think: doesn’t that mean there’s still room for a Nebula Romance set in the 2000s and beyond?

Nocchi: We could even do an Episode 0 set in the ’60s (laughs).

──So while fans who saw Part I were thinking, “What’s going to happen next…?” Perfume themselves were feeling the same way. At what stage did Nakata-san decide on the ending? A~chan: The first version we heard was actually a really dark bad ending. But we were like, “Nooo, not a bad end, bad end NG~!” (laughs). So I think in the end he took our opinions into account. The version we first heard was much more tragic—the story ended with just a single wildflower blooming through the asphalt (laughs).

Nocchi: Nakata-san wrote the original, but then Director Tanaka and MIKIKO-sensei, inspired by Meguru-pu, came up with a beautiful ending. Instead of the world being destroyed and just one flower blooming, they turned it into a story where the three of us transform into something else in another dimension and miraculously meet again.

──Since Meguru-pu is the final track, it’s hard to picture a bad ending.

Kashiyuka: Meguru-pu was actually written after we were offered the chance to do the theme song for the drama Chihayafuru. So if Chihayafuru hadn’t come along, the last song wouldn’t have been this one, and the story really would have ended with the world ending and just a flower blooming in the asphalt (laughs).