"Boku to Hana" Release Commemorative Ustream Roundup

(I sincerely apologize that I did not manage to post about this prior to the stream. I try my best to keep up with the news but for this stream they did same-day announcement and streaming... I did not know about it until it had started, and I missed a huge chunk of it myself as I was working.)

Today it was announced that there would be a commemorative Ustream for the release of "Boku to Hana" at 9PM JST, similar to what Sakanaction has done before for the Sakanaquarium 2012 DVD.

As a short roundup for those who missed it, the stream started off with Yamaguchi Ichiro talking about each track on the single and explaining how each track was conceptualised. After that, he moved on to talk about the Boku to Hana PV, together with dancer Honaga Yoko who starred as the flower, and the music video's director Yamaguchi Yasuyuki (which I will refer to here simply as the director to avoid confusion with the surnames).

The three talked about the video's meaning, and all the preparations and difficulty in filming the video. The Take 1 and Take 2 versions of the PV were streamed again, and this time we got to hear the comments from the 3 of them.

In addition, special behind-the-scenes footage were shown. A different camera view for the final take of the PV was shown whereby viewers were able to see the staff members running around preparing each section of the set before Yamaguchi reached it. The footage revealed how the special illusions were created and the amount of effort and planning for it to be a one-shot take. Another video of the director doing a mock version of the PV during the conceptualisation stage was also streamed.

By the time the stream ended about 2 hours later, there were over 20,000 total views.

There's this particular bit of information which is worth sharing so that everyone can make sense of the lyrics and video for Boku to Hana.

You might have wondered why "flower" when you knew the song's title meant "The flower and I".

Yamaguchi revealed that "flower" in the song and video symbolises one's own heart, and the heart (the ideals that each individual has) has been damaged by society. In the video, it was a symbolic showing that no matter how hard he was trying to protect his ideals from external influences, in the end his heart was killed by society.

The deep meaning behind the song seems strongly inspired by the drama it became the theme song for. For those not following the drama, 37-sai de Isha ni Natta Boku ~Kenshuui Junjou Monogatari~ is about an idealistic 37-year-old medical intern at a university hospital who seeks to do everything he can for the patients to the point of defying his superiors' instructions and generating dislike from the profit-oriented head professor who barely cares about patients' welfare.

And not forgetting, Yamaguchi revealed recently on one of the promotional interviews with music websites, that the "flower" in the title came about from association with the name "Suzu", who is the fiancee of the main character in the drama.

In any case, it was a very interesting and insightful Ustream. Many thanks to Team Sakanaction for doing this for us fans!