The archive · Content & Film · Product decision · 2019–2020
YOASOBI turns web novels into hit songs, opening the no-CD era
Every YOASOBI song adapts a short story — the debut 'Yoru ni Kakeru' became the first song ever to top a year chart without a CD release.
YOASOBI · Sony Music Entertainment (Japan)
What it had to solve
monogatary.com, Sony Music Japan's short-story submission site, had stories stuck inside the writing community; its staff proposed a unit that turns those novels into music.
How it works
In 2019, staff from monogatary.com — Sony Music Japan's short-story posting site — approached Vocaloid producer Ayase with the idea of 'a unit that turns novels into music'. Ayase recruited ikura, a college-age singer-songwriter found through her Instagram cover videos, and named the duo YOASOBI. The concept became the entire catalog rule: every song adapts a short story, usually one submitted to the site, and the lyrics are distilled from the story's text.
The formula worked immediately once the algorithm tipped. Debut 'Yoru ni Kakeru' (streaming from Dec 15, 2019) buzzed on TikTok, entered Oricon's weekly streaming chart at No.62 in March 2020 and hit its first No.1 on June 1; its music video passed 25M views by mid-June. The second single 'Ano Yume wo Nazotte' was picked up by Fuji TV's news show Tokudane, and continuous monthly digital releases kept the song at the top of Billboard Japan's HOT 100 for three consecutive weeks from June 1, 2020.
The digital-only strategy paid off where the industry hadn't: at year-end, 'Yoru ni Kakeru' became the first song ever to top Billboard Japan's annual HOT 100 with no CD single release, overtaking Higedan's CD-backed 'Pretender' in October on 270M streams. In May 2025 it became the first song to pass 1 billion cumulative plays in Oricon streaming ranking history — a record built entirely on the subscription economy the concept was designed for.
Why it lands
- The story-first pipeline gives every song a source text: lyrics already carry a narrative, which feeds music-video storytelling and fan interpretation without extra songwriting.
- Promotion is pre-built: monogatary.com's writers and readers are day-one fans, and the site's contests keep supplying new material indefinitely.
- A digital-first, CD-less release cadence matched streaming and TikTok economics ahead of the Japanese industry's habits — no physical inventory, no TV campaign required.
- The two-person unit keeps overhead near zero per release: a label-scale concept at indie-scale cost.
What it did
'Yoru ni Kakeru' won Billboard Japan's 2020 year-end HOT 100 — the first year-No.1 ever achieved without a CD single, on 270M streams — and in May 2025 became the first song ever to exceed 1 billion cumulative plays in Oricon's streaming ranking history.
What you can take
Give content a provable upstream: when each song adapts a story fans already read, every product ships with pre-built attachment. The medium leap — novel into song — is itself the creative act.
Since then
YOASOBI grew into one of Japan's defining acts of the 2020s — repeated year-end chart wins, a fixture in the NHK Kohaku lineup, and later hits like 'Idol' (2023) built the same way: novel first, song after. The story-to-music pipeline is now a recognized format of Japanese pop, and the partners behind it formalized the model with the Echoes label venture in 2024.
Sources
- ＜インタビュー＞YOASOBIが語るユニット結成の経緯、音楽と小説を行き来する面白さ
- 【ビルボード 2020年年間HOT 100】YOASOBI「夜に駆ける」史上初のCDリリースなしで年間総合首位を獲得
- YOASOBI「夜に駆ける」、オリコンで新記録 累計再生10億回突破【オリコンランキング】
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