| I Wanna Be Your Ghost | |
| Cover: | I Wanna Be Your Ghost - Gen Hoshino (cover).png |
| Alt: | The single's cover. It features a real shot of a Japanese seaside city centered by a pylon, scattered with illustrated ghosts. The ghosts are incorporated into the scenery; several hang like curtains on the power line, others sit on top of rooftops, and some peek out of windows. |
| Type: | single |
| Language: | Japanese |
| Artist: | Gen Hoshino |
| Genre: | |
| Length: | 3:45 |
| Label: | Speedstar |
| Producer: | Gen Hoshino |
| Prev Title: | Comedy |
| Prev Year: | 2022 |
| Next Title: | Why |
| Next Title2: | Life |
| Next Year: | 2023 |
(pronounced as /ja/) is a song by Japanese singer-songwriter and musician Gen Hoshino, released as a digital-exclusive single through Speedstar Records on July 18, 2022. It was written and produced by Hoshino, who co-arranged and programmed it with Mabanua. Musically a J-pop and dance track with electronic instrumentation, the song was used as the main theme to the film (2022), a live-action adaptation of a children's book series by Kodansha. Lyrically, Hoshino sings of breaking the barriers of the worlds of humans and ghosts. The song features background vocals performed by voice actors Rie Kugimiya, Hiro Shimono, and Tomokazu Sugita, who portray the ghosts in Yokaipedia.
"I Wanna Be Your Ghost" was received positively by Japanese music critics for its production style and drew comparisons to Hoshino's preceding single "Comedy" (2022). Upon release, the song debuted at first place on the digital download component charts of both Billboard Japan and Oricon with 12,000 sales, while it reached numbers six and twenty-six on the parent Japan Hot 100 and Combined Singles charts, respectively. The animated music video—featuring a boy dancing with ghosts—was produced by the studio Outline, led by director Yūki Igarashi. The popularity of its choreography on the video sharing service TikTok made "I Wanna Be Your Ghost" Hoshino's only entry onto the Billboard Japan TikTok Weekly Top 20. Throughout 2022, he promoted the song with performances on the Spotify video series Go Stream and on the Christmas special of CDTV Live! Live!. Dressed as his alter ego character Akira Nise, Hoshino first sang it in front of a live audience as the closing song of his Reassembly tour in 2023.
"I Wanna Be Your Ghost" was written as the main theme to the film (2022), a Takashi Yamazaki-directed live-action adaptation of a Kodansha children's books series. Its plot follows three friends who are transported to an alternate universe of ghosts after a spirit guides them to find the "Ghost Book" at a mysterious second-hand bookstore.[1] [2] During the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020—two years before the film's premiere—the production team contacted Gen Hoshino with a request to write the film's theme song. They asked that the song represent the otherworld explored by the kids in the movie, but still remain accessible to a wider audience.[3] [4]
Musically, "I Wanna Be Your Ghost" is a J-pop and dance song,[3] [5] with a runtime of three minutes and forty-five seconds (3:45).[6] The song was written, arranged, and produced by Hoshino, who programmed and co-arranged it with recurring collaborator Mabanua. Apart from vocals, the song's instrumentation consists solely of electronic instruments: electric bass, Rhodes piano, and Clavinet (performed by Mabanua); fourteen types of analog synthesizer (Hoshino, Mabanua, and Tadataka Unno); theremin (Hoshino and Mabanua); and electric guitar (Ryosuke Nagaoka). It was recorded by Mabanua, Shojiro Watanabe, and Shu Saida. Mixing was handled by Watanabe and mastering by Takahiro Uchida. Satoshi Goto and Hiroshi Manabe are credited with assistance.[5] [7]
Lyrically, Hoshino sings of connecting the worlds of humans and ghosts; in a press release, he said that he wanted "I Wanna Be Your Ghost" to break the barriers of different worlds and allow humans and ghosts to dance together.[3] A reporter for Oricon wrote that the scary-but-funny theme of Yokaipedia is followed in the song, in which Hoshino sings "Japanese: Obake ga deru zo" .[3] The word Japanese: urameshiya also appears in the lyrics, which signifies the emergence of ghosts.[3] [8] Background vocals are performed by Hoshino, Nagaoka, and voice actors Rie Kugimiya, Hiro Shimono, and Tomokazu Sugita, who portray the ghosts in the Yokaipedia film. According to Hoshino, the voice actors visited him during production, which resulted in their addition to the song's chorus. On his official website, the actors are credited under their character names.[3] [7]
Alongside its announcement on May 25, 2022, "I Wanna Be Your Ghost" was showcased in a trailer over scenes from Yokaipedia.[3] On July 13, Hoshino announced that the song would be released as single,[9] and two days later unveiled its cover art: a mixture of illustrations onto a real-life photograph.[10] "I Wanna Be Your Ghost" was released as a digital-exclusive single by the Victor Entertainment subsidiary Speedstar Records on July 18, 2022, four days before the premiere of Yokaipedia.[11] [1] To promote the release, Kugimiya, Shimono, and Sugita – the film voice actors featured in the song's background vocals – were announced as guests for the July 26 broadcast of Hoshino's All Night Nippon radio program.[12] Yokaipedia technically marked Hoshino's first on-screen appearance with his wife Yui Aragaki since their marriage in 2021, since Aragaki portrays the film protagonist's schoolteacher.[13]
The animated music video to "I Wanna Be Your Ghost" was one of the earliest projects of animation studio Outline, headed by director Yūki Igarashi, noted by Natalie.mu writers for his work on the ending visual to the first season of the anime series Jujutsu Kaisen (2020–23).[14] [15] The music video was premiered at 0:00 JST on the day of the song's release,[10] following a teaser of a dancing ghost released alongside the single's announcement on July 13.[9] The full video sees a young boy dancing with ghosts.[14] [15] It was both directed and storyboarded by Igarashi, who handled character design with animation director Huang Chieh. Direction of choreography was handled by Shingo Okamoto and Elevenplay dance troupe member NON.[16] The video was praised by animation journalist Tadashi Sudo of industry publication Animation Business, who wrote that it evokes the feeling of youth through "simple" lines/color and "appealing" choreography.[15]
"I Wanna Be Your Ghost" received positive reviews from Japanese music critics, who primarily noted its music production. Writers for Rhythm & Drums Magazine thought that the song features feelings of detail, human power, and a "pleasant" hi-hat within the programmed drums.[5] Barks Fumiaki Amano thought that a blend of pop with evolution in Hoshino's music featured within the song, which he believed demonstrated a classical style of Hoshino's writing. Amano opined that the song appealed to a multilayered recording with the wide arrange of credited equipment, whilst the overall sound maintans a simple grooviness.[17] Both lyrically and musically, the song drew comparisons to Hoshino's preceding single "Comedy" (2022). The writers for Rhythm & Drums Magazine thought that "I Wanna Be Your Ghost" provided a different programming style to "Comedy";[5] meanwhile, Amano thought both songs were similar for demonstrating imagination. He theorized that lines on "I Wanna Be Your Ghost" could be an attempt by Hoshino to convey the hope brought to him by creating: "Japanese: Nageku tami ni / Tayō no kami ni / Iki zumaru kono chikyū ni / Kimi ga tsukuri bake deru" .[17]
Commercially, the song received 12,539 paid digital downloads in Japan upon release,[18] taking first place on both the Oricon Digital Singles and Billboard Japan Top Download Songs charts.[19] [20] On the Japan Hot 100, the song charted for five weeks and peaked at number six during its opening week with 5,500 "combined points"; it placed behind only Snow Man's "Orange Kiss", Tani Yuuki's "W/X/Y", Official Hige Dandism's "Mixed Nuts", Sekai no Owari's "Habit", and NiziU's "Clap Clap".[21] [22] It reached number twenty-six on the Oricon Combined Singles Chart, where it charted for two weeks.[23] "I Wanna Be Your Ghost" was reported by Billboard to be the most-aired song on Japanese radio upon its release, but saw less successful immediate streaming numbers with a peak at number sixty-four on the Top Streaming Songs chart.[24] [25] After the song's choreography gained popularity on the video sharing service TikTok in August 2022, the song charted for eight weeks with a peak at number two on the Billboard Japan TikTok Weekly Top 20, Hoshino's only song to enter the chart.[26] [27]
Hoshino gave a debut performance of "I Wanna Be Your Ghost" alongside "Fushigi" (2020) and "Comedy" in August 2022 via Spotify's Go Stream video series, directed by Kyōtarō Hayashi (who had previously worked with Hoshino on some of his music videos). The series was filmed in a small room with Hoshino and his supporting musicians, under the concept of creating a private feeling.[28] Subsequently, Hoshino included the song on his timeslot for the CDTV Live! Live! Christmas special at the end of 2022,[29] and performed it as the final song of his Reassembly tour in January 2023, which celebrated the opening of physical venues after the COVID-19 pandemic. During Reassembly, Hoshino performed the song as his alter ego character Akira Nise; it concluded with confetti tape shot across the stage as Nise struck a pose.[30] [31] Nise's cover was described as comical in style by Natalie.mu writers;[32] Billboard Japan Rumi Miyamoto and live reviewers for Barks dubbed the live version "feat. Nise" instead of "feat. Ghosts".[30] [33]
In what Hoshino described as his first time properly performing the song live, it was most recently featured at the Summer Sonic Festival on August 17, 2024, where he performed the urameshiya pose (putting one's hands to around the neck level and letting them hang slightly) in conjunction with the chorus.[34]
Music and production credits adapted from Hoshino's website;[7] video personnel taken from the Music Video Tour 2: 2017–2022 credits booklet.[16]
| + | Chart (2022) | Peak position |
|---|---|---|
| Japanese Combined Singles (Oricon) | 26 | |
| Japan Hot 100 (Billboard Japan) | 6 |
| Region | Date | Format | Label | Catalogue code | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Various | July 18, 2022 | Speedstar Records | VE3WA-19785 | ||
| South Korea | July 21, 2022 | J-Box Entertainment | [35] |