Six months into 2025, J-pop is having a full-on identity crisis (and a great time)
The Japanese music industry has spent the first half of 2025 in full-blown celebration mode. There were government-funded concerts in Los Angeles and the splashy Music Awards Japan in Kyoto — both of which offered no shortage of self-congratulatory back-pats for J-pop's steady climb on the global stage.
But beneath the revelry, something more interesting is happening: the sound of transition. With the first half of the 2020s now behind us, the big question isn't who's winning, but what comes next. Will the future belong to fantastical rock bands or hip-hop-inspired pop groups? Will the industry lean into AI — or gorge on ... ice cream?
As summer sets in, the paths ahead for J-pop are diverging. What role does music even play in a decade as fluid as this one? Awards and accolades are abundant, both at home and abroad. But the real trend of the year so far might be trying to predict the next major shift in the zeitgeist.
Top of the J-pops
Pop-rock trio Mrs. Green Apple is pretty much inescapable at this point.
Even before the year began, Motoki Ohmori, Hiroto Wakai and Ryoka Fujisawa were already the reigning champions of J-pop. After a two-year hiatus starting in 2020 as the group developed its 'phase 2,' Mrs. Green Apple returned with a vengeance, climbing straight back to the top of the domestic pecking order thanks to gospel-tinged ballads 'Soranji' and the musical theater bounce of 'Dance Hall.' Last year's surging rock cut 'Lilac' became the group's largest hit yet.
Mrs. Green Apple is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and its grip on Japan has only tightened. Newer releases 'Kusushiki' and 'Darling' have racked up millions of views on YouTube while becoming staples in supermarkets and chain stores nationwide. At time of writing, 15 of the tracks on Spotify Japan's 'Top 50' playlist are by Mrs. Green Apple — five are in the top 10.
Sonically and visually, the group's ascent signals a shift in what mainstream J-pop sounds and looks like. The early 2020s were dominated by acts like Yoasobi and Ado — Vocaloid-indebted creators who offered a more realistic (meaning an often more dour) snapshot of modern life, marked by darker lyrics and harsher vocal deliveries. Mrs. Green Apple isn't above getting a little emo, either — for example, 'Bitter Vacances' tackles the grind of modern life — but the group's lens is more optimistic, sometimes to the point of sounding like a motivational coach with a guitar.
It's a snapshot of a mainstream in flux. Alongside Mrs. Green Apple, a fresh wave of groups are blending melodic sugar with hip-hop edge. XG, a girl group that sings in English, recently played Tokyo Dome, while fledgling girl group Hana has scored one of the year's biggest breakout hits with the swagger-scented 'Rose.' On the male side, trio Number_i has been building steam behind the slick 'God_i.'
While artists such as Ado and Fujii Kaze — representatives of the early 2020s J-pop global breakthrough — go on large world tours, the domestic scene is recalibrating. In today's fractured music landscape, the biggest shifts may not come from who's in the spotlight — but from who's on the edges outside it.
Generative hits
Japan saw its first AI-generated hit in early 2025 — and naturally, it was a complete joke.
Technically, 'Yaju & U' dropped in late 2024, but it only blew up at the start of this year. It was uploaded to the internet by someone calling themselves Mochimochi, but the credited composer is Udio — an AI music program. And yes, you can tell: The strings are clunky, the vocals are uncanny and the whole thing sounds like a computer's idea of either a J-pop track or the long-lost follow-up to Dexys Midnight Runners' 'Come on Eileen.'
But hold the sonic critiques, because more importantly, this song works as a chaotic ode to one of Japan's oldest and weirdest memes.
The lyrics pay homage to the 2001 adult video 'A Midsummer Night's Lewd Dream' — a relic of early internet culture best known for its terrible acting and glorious absurdity. The AV became meme royalty in Japan. 'Yaju & U' — named after a now-iconic character — continues the legacy with a track that feels like it was coded specifically to go viral. Bonus: There's a goofy TikTok-ready dance to match.
'Yaju & U' dominated Spotify Japan's 'Viral 50' for weeks, marking the biggest moment for generative AI in the country's music sphere to date. While it's tempting to go full-Luddite and condemn this brave new world, the song really reflects our relationship with memes. AI-powered music has flooded the Japanese web as of late, from imitation city pop playlists to goofy geopolitical satire. These songs aren't trying to say anything profound — they exist to rack up likes, shares and shrieks of 'wtf did I just listen to?'
Still, that doesn't mean they can't top charts. 'Yaju & U' shows that viral hits don't need a human touch to resonate — just a well-placed punchline and a good beat. It's not the death of music, just the rise of a new kind of background noise.
Hot idol summer?
The biggest Japanese song to catch fire globally in 2025 is not about rock positivity or bawdy memes. It's about ice cream.
Idol trio AiScReam's 'Ai Scream!' unites three performers from the long-running 'Love Live!' media juggernaut for a sugar-rush tribute to frozen desserts — and, naturally, to love. A clip of the group performing a section after the first chorus where each member shouts out an ice cream flavor they like ('but not as much as you!') — hit TikTok like a brain freeze. As these things go, the clip broke out of idol-centric spaces before spilling into the wider corners of the internet, where it was gleefully adopted by users worldwide, especially K-pop performers.
Somehow, 'Ai Scream!' ended up as this year's 'Bling-Bang-Bang-Born' — an unlikely J-pop export that turned viral gold. It wasn't built to break the internet, but it did, climbing global streaming charts and becoming a bonafide meme in its own right. That's right, the defining sound of J-pop so far in 2025 is a high-pitched cry of 'choco mint!'
This kind of out-of-left-field success isn't a surprise in the 2020s, it simply reflects how most J-pop hits travel now. What is different, though, is the type of group enjoying this success.
Yes, we may very well be gearing up for an 'idol summer.'
Hyper-cute idol-pop groups — who many resigned to the music history heap of the 2000s and 2010s (remember Morning Musume, Momoiro Clover Z and AKB48?) — are having a moment. While those legacy acts never really went away, they've felt increasingly distant from the road J-pop is on. Not anymore. AiScReam's breakout is just the tip of the strawberry soft-serve cone. Fruits Zipper recently nabbed its first No. 1 on the Oricon Charts with 'Kawaii Te Magic,' while more hyperactive compatriots Cutie Street and Candy Tune are racking up views with a pastel vengeance. A change is in the air — and it's wearing Skittles-colored dresses.
But there's something deeper under the kawaii overload. Idol music has long been criticized for its talents' perceived lack of singing and dancing skills, but the draw is the emotional arc. Fans go on a journey with their favorite performers as they stumble, grow and eventually overcome.
If 'Yaju & U' imagines a meme-core future churned out at the speed of a Temu delivery, then 'Ai Scream!' suggests a different path — messier, sillier, sweeter and unmistakably human.
It's a future you might just want to say 'hai!' to.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Times
an hour ago
- Japan Times
‘Strangers in Kyoto': Tea, tradition and passive-aggressive politeness
Even first-time visitors to Japan may be familiar with honne and tatemae: The distinction between a person's true feelings and their public facade. The art of dissembling is taken to the extreme in Kyoto, famed as a place of inscrutable social etiquette where nobody says what they really mean. In a notorious example, if a host asks, 'Bubuzuke dōdosu?' ('Would you like some green tea over rice?'), it isn't a friendly gesture: They're trying to get you to leave. This phrase provides the Japanese title for Masanori Tominaga's sprightly comedy of manners — renamed 'Strangers in Kyoto' for the international market, lest anyone mistake it for a Yasujiro Ozu film. Many of the characters in the movie seem like they'd happily serve a bowl of bubuzuke to protagonist Madoka (Mai Fukagawa), an ingenuous new arrival from Tokyo. Having recently married the 14th-generation heir to a traditional folding-fan shop, she's determined to understand what makes Kyoto tick. Worse yet, she intends to share the city's secrets, in a manga essay series that she's writing with her artist pal, Riko (Zuru Onodera).
Japan Times
9 hours ago
- Japan Times
Fuji TV to sue former executives over their response to Nakai scandal
Fuji Television Network said Thursday that it is preparing to file a lawsuit against former President Koichi Minato and former Executive Vice President Toru Ota over the broadcaster's response to an alleged sexual assault by former TV star Masahiro Nakai. The company decided to question the responsibilities of Minato and Ota regarding the matter under corporate law. Meanwhile, the company demoted the then-head of programming by four ranks for his alleged secondary harassment of the victim, a former Fuji TV announcer, as he delivered cash and other consolation gifts from Nakai to her while she was in the hospital. He was also suspended for one month for another harassment case. For failing to take appropriate action despite knowing about the alleged sexual assault, the then-production bureau head was slapped with a 50% pay cut, and the heads of the announcer's office and the personnel affairs bureau were reprimanded. All of the punitive measures were implemented Monday. Separately from the Nakai scandal, the then-news bureau chief was suspended for two months and two weeks, effective Thursday, for a 2018 harassment case. Regarding news anchor Osamu Sorimachi's alleged past harassment of a female employee, the company said he would have been punished if it had responded appropriately to the case. Asked whether the company will question Nakai's legal responsibility, Fuji TV President Kenji Shimizu told reporters Thursday, "We will keep that option, but I have nothing to say at the moment."
Japan Times
9 hours ago
- Japan Times
'Kokuho' illuminates the high price of becoming a national treasure
Japan's ningen kokuhō (living national treasures) are a select group of artisans and performers who are recognized for mastery of their craft. Shuichi Yoshida's 2018 novel "Kokuho" traces the life of one such individual, an orphan from a yakuza clan adopted into a family of kabuki stars, whose tumultuous journey through the world of classical Japanese theater leads to the top — but at a price. "Kokuho" has now been adapted into a film by Korean Japanese director Lee Sang-il which, following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this May, hits Japanese cinemas Friday. The sumptuously shot film spans three hours and half a century of story, and stars Ryo Yoshizawa ("Kingdom") as orphan-turned-kabuki legend Kikuo alongside industry veterans like Ken Watanabe ("The Last Samurai"), who plays Kikuo's adopted father and a kabuki master in his own right. Lee tells The Japan Times that while the provenance of the film is ostensibly Yoshida's 2018 novel, his desire to make a film about kabuki goes back much further, to shortly after he adapted Yoshida's novel "Villain" for the screen in 2010. "I told Yoshida I wanted to do a movie about kabuki and ... what kind of characters I wanted to feature," says Lee, 51. "We both had our own projects for years after that, but at one point, Yoshida told me that he had started to do some research into kabuki. I thought, 'Oh! That idea I mentioned sparked something within him.'" Lee, who debuted as a feature film director with 2002's "Border Line," explains his interest in kabuki came from a desire to explore forms of storytelling outside cinema. "Up until 'Villain,' I was primarily interested in movies, but I started to get interested in forms of traditional Japanese expression. Among those, kabuki is both popular but incredibly deep with elements you can't see on the surface," Lee says. "Even the same play can be very different depending on when it's performed and who stars in it." Yoshida's take on Lee's original concept took its own twists and turns, but the resulting novel retained two key elements: Its lead, Kikuo, is an onnagata, a male actor who plays female roles, and the film traces the course of his life, from his childhood as the son of a slain yakuza boss in 1960s Nagasaki to his official designation as a ningen kokuhō. To mark the passing of time visually, Lee gave each of the film's three main sections (youth, adolescence and middle age) a distinctive look by applying different color grades — the digital equivalent of changing film stocks. "We also thought about our characters' relationships, and how their positions flip from period to period,' says Lee. 'Are they at the height of their career or at a low point, and how does that change how they interact? By showing that, we could clearly show how time had passed.' One partner in bringing the film's look to life was Tunisian cinematographer Sofian El Fani, whom Lee first worked with on the television drama "Pachinko." "Sofian really watches the actors to see what they're trying to express," says Lee. "'Pachinko' was filmed in English, Japanese and Korean, the latter two of which he didn't understand, but he picked up perfectly on what the actors were feeling." Ryo Yoshizawa (left) and Ryusei Yokohama star in 'Kokuho' as siblings-by-adoption turned rivals. | © Yoshida Shuichi / Asahi Shimbun © "Kokuho" Film Partners Key to bringing "Kokuho" to the screen was finding the right actor to play Kikuo. Lee needed an actor who could both embody the complicated, sometimes ruthless character and dedicate over a year to training for the performance. "Yoshizawa saying yes to the film was the determining factor in whether I would make it," says Lee. "In fact, I offered the part to him five or six years ago, before there was any guarantee we could get the funding to make the film. "I saw in him the same idiosyncrasies that Kikuo had in the book," says Lee. "On the outside, they're like dolls, but their insides are like black holes. I couldn't think of any other actors who had that aura." To play Kikuo's adopted father, Lee turned to Watanabe, the Academy Award-nominated actor whom he has directed twice before: in "Unforgiven" (2013), a spin on the Clint Eastwood western, and in another Yoshida adaptation, "Rage" (2016). "Ken has appeared in many films and TV, often as a kind of a tough guy with a lot of pride and strength," says Lee. "But I usually go against that public image and ask him to display weakness, characters with some kind of internal struggle. "In real life, he's overcome terrible illness," continues Lee, referring to Watanabe's bouts with acute myeloid leukemia and stomach cancer. "He's seen the worst and come out of it. So I think that 'shadow' is within him, and I think it's interesting to ask him to do roles that come into dialogue with that." Ryo Yoshizawa trained for over a year to play the Kikuo, a kabuki actor on the path to becoming a nationally recognized master of his craft. | © Yoshida Shuichi / Asahi Shimbun © "Kokuho" Film Partners In "Kokuho," Watanabe plays a famous kabuki actor raising his biological son Shunsuke (Ryusei Yokohama) as his successor. But after bringing Kikuo into his family, Watanabe's character must choose between his bloodline and talent when he realizes his adopted son may have more potential than his biological one. For Yoshizawa and Yokohama's many kabuki performances — first as partners and later as rivals — Lee depicts the view from the audience, who are swept up by the exquisite dancing, makeup and costumes, but also takes us right up alongside the actors, who fight to maintain the illusion through intense physical and emotional pain. "When an audience watches a kabuki play, they focus on who's in the spotlight. But I have a feeling that's not all that's touching them," Lee says. "There's so much effort that goes into the final performance, and the audience feels that, maybe unconsciously. When an actor finishes their performance and leaves the stage, some kind of atmosphere, some kind of afterimage, lingers. I wanted to capture that experience on film." Director Lee Sang-il says his interest in kabuki came from a desire to explore storytelling in different forms of traditional Japanese expression. | Matt Schley The director also worked hard to make sure the kabuki scenes were integral to the overall story rather than serve as their own distinct sections. "The story and character relationships needed to carry on into the kabuki scenes, to synchronize," says Lee. "The kabuki has its own story, but at the same time, it's reflecting the relationships between Kikuo, Shunsuke and the other characters." Another theme is the loneliness endured by a performer striving for kokuhō-level greatness like Kikuo. "What is a living national treasure, anyway? In the film, we depict it as someone who's able to see something that others can't, a kind of 'landscape' that no one has ever seen," Lee says. "That's quite a lonely situation to be in. And when you reach for something of that level, you can't hold on to anything, or anyone, else. It all slips through your fingers." In that sense, Lee says there may be a connection between the worlds of kabuki and filmmaking. "The art forms are different, but the pursuit is similar. There are people in both who want to keep going further and higher." "Kokuho" is screening in cinemas nationwide. For more information, visit, (Japanese only).
