Sayonara wa Emotion

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. The commercials utilized songs Sakanaction had personally wanted to release as singles, and were not written expressly for the commercials. This was unlike "Yoru no Odoriko" (2012), a single by the band which had been specifically commissioned by Mode Gakuen for a commercial. In March 2013, Sakanaction released their sixth studio album Sakanaction. The album was a result of the band's vocalist and songwriter Ichiro Yamaguchi feeling a new resolution to create music that would resonate with a general pop music audience. The album debuted at number one on Oricon's weekly albums chart, after selling 83,000 copies. This was a record for the band, both in terms of the number of copies that they had sold in one week of a release, as well as the fact that they had never reached number one on an Oricon chart before. After the release of Sakanaction, Yamaguchi wanted to take an extended break, however because of the strongly positive response that the band had for the album, he felt that he needed to keep on releasing music. 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". Yamaguchi felt exhausted from the tour and was only able to develop the song's chorus. Immediately after the single's release, the band embarked on their Sakanaquarium 2014 Sakanatribe tour, a 22 date Japanese tour featuring performances at Zepp live houses and two dates at the Tokyo Dome City Hall, between January and March 2014. Footage from one of their performances at the Tokyo Dome City Hall was released as a video album on July 30. == Writing and inspiration ==

inspired Ichiro Yamaguchi to incorporate a dynamic sound range into "Sayonara wa Emotion". The band first recorded "Sayonara wa Emotion" because of Tōshin High School's request for a song for their commercials in 2013. The band envisioned it as a song to perform at festivals, such as they had done with "Identity" (2010) and "Aoi" (2013). After making two verses and a chorus for the commercial, the band shelved the song, as Yamaguchi had become sick of creating emo rock style songs. The initial take of the song was a halftone lower, based around only the initial version's chorus, with the original verses removed in favor of new ones. in a single take, as a method to retain an emotional feel to the song. As Sakanaction member Ami Kusakari was ill during the recording, the take did not include bass guitar. 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. He felt that by following the simple description scene with the phrase "sayonara wa emotion", without explicitly linking the two, would mean that listeners would color the scene with the chorus' emotion. Yamaguchi saw this implicit technique being like the lyrical style of 1980s and 1990s lyricists Takashi Matsumoto, Takao Kisugi and Shozo Ise. He wanted the song to evoke the "real" feeling of music from this period, such as by musician Yumi Matsutoya, and felt that the song's title evoked the Shōwa period. == Composition ==

"Sayonara wa Emotion" was described as a "powerful rock anthem" in publicity statements. It is a medium tempo ballad, based around a live rock band sound, without a focus on synthesizers. The song has a "raw, emotional sound", and incorporates choral vocals. == Promotion and release ==

When recording the song "Hasu no Hana", the band decided that the mid-tempo pop song would pair well with "Sayonara wa Emotion", a "raw and emotional" song, so decided to release these together as a double A-side single on October 29. "Sayonara wa Emotion" / "Hasu no Hana" was the band's 10th physical single release, so to commemorate this, made the release a deluxe CD/DVD package, featuring an EP-like single length and over 50 minutes of DVD footage. 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. The second B-side was a remix of the band's 2013 single "Music" in an acoustic style by Japanese musician Cornelius. The single's DVD featured two studio live performances that had originally been broadcast on their Ustream channel: "Good-Bye" featuring Tamaki Roy and "Sample", rearranged by Sachio "Sunny" Sasaki, including interviews with both Tamaki and Sasaki. The physical single's cover and booklet were created by Hatos. The booklet was printed with heat-sensitive ink, so that the "Hasu no Hana" lyrics were only visible when exposed to heat. Yamaguchi debuted "Sayonara wa Emotion" on Japanese radio on October 23, when he played the song during his regulsr segment on the Tokyo FM radio show, School of Lock!. For the band's 2015 compilation album Natsukashii Tsuki wa Atarashii Tsuki: Coupling & Remix Works, the song was remixed by female track-maker Qrion. == Music video ==

The music video for "Sayonara wa Emotion" was directed by Yūsuke Tanaka, who had directed the band's videos for "Bach no Senritsu o Yoru ni Kiita Sei Desu" (2011) and "Yoru no Odoriko" (2012). It was unveiled on YouTube on November 20, 2014, three weeks after the physical single's release date, and a week after the music video for "Hasu no Hana". This was because the band were not able to complete either video in time for the single's physical release. The band enlisted Tanaka for the video, as he had only worked on catchy, comical songs with the band previously. They believed that having him work on a serious song would create an interesting video. The video was shot with a red camera with an anamorphic lens. He believed that the song's lyrical realism, compared to "Bach no Senritsu o Yoru ni Kiita Sei Desu" and "Yoru no Odoriko", inspired him to do so. == Reception ==

Critical reception Tomoyuki Mori of ''What's In?'' called "Sayonara wa Emotion" "heart-shaking", and described the song as "an impressive blend of next-level folk, electronica, guitar rock". He personally felt that the song was Yamaguchi's expression that he would continue to explore his artistic abilities, and saw that the band had greatly developed the song in the year since its debut in the Toshin High School commercial, to the point where they had created a new signature song for the band. Yuichi Hirayama of EMTG noted that the song felt odd compared to contemporary songs charting in Japan, believing that "Sayonara wa Emotion" expressed reality much stronger than the other songs. He believed that this was a sign that Sakanaction did not write music in response to the Japanese music scene, instead were creative musicians of their own volition independent of the music scene in general. "Sayonara wa Emotion" received major airplay in its first week of radio airplay, being the sixth most played song on Japanese radio that week. This was slightly worse than "Hasu no Hana", which was the fifth most played song two weeks earlier. The single dropped to number 24 in its second week, and only spent these two weeks in the top 30 singles. The release spent a total of six weeks on the top 200 singles chart, selling a total of 27,000 physical copies in this time. == Track listing ==

Personnel details were sourced from "Sayonara wa Emotion" / "Hasu no Hana"'s liner notes booklet. Sakanaction • All members – arrangement, production • Keiichi Ejima – drums • Motoharu Iwadera – guitar • Ami Kusakari – bass guitar • Emi Okazaki – keyboards • Ichiro Yamaguchi – vocals, guitar, lyrics, composition Music video • Aoi Production – production company • ENZO – artwork • Furitsuke Kagyou Air:man – choreography • Akira Hosoka – producer • Hisashi "Momo" Kitazawa – stylist • Sō Nakagaki – location coordinator • Asami Nemoto – hair, make-up • Asumi Sato – production manager • Yūsuke Tanaka – director • Taidō Takahashi – location coordinator • Shoji Uchida – camera • Teruyuki Utsumi – producer • Akifumi Yone'i – lighting == Chart rankings ==