The tracklisting includes:

1. BLAZE LINE
2. a day dreaming…
3. EYES

where the first two songs are the OP AND ED (respectively) of the anime, Eyeshield 21. With reference to the interview featured in the most recent issue of pam! magazine, although the two songs are very different musical styles, they both convey the same message of:

honest “feelings of gratitude (appreciation) that are usually forgotten”

The collective thoughts of Back-on at the time were about acknowledging the people who have helped them to get where they are now, including family and friends as well as the band management team from Japan. In addition, they have also extended their thanks to the people from Houston, Texas during their trip to America for Anime Matsuri.

This is evident in their latest PVs for the single, especially in a day dreaming…, where the ending credits in particular for the ‘extended’ version features a running list of thanks as well as specially recorded video messages!

In BLAZE LINE, we get to see more footage from Anime Matsuri, where the main part of the video is the live performance of the song itself! For a bit of a previously unknown trivia, both PVs have been directed by Kats ☆ Mori, who also directed the promotional videos for Gaku-Ten, Flydom and New World.

So where can you buy this single? I can easily recommend the online shops below (each link will take you to the info page for the single) particularly Play-asia and Yesasia as they offer more competitive shipping rates for international buyers:

• Play-asia.com
• Yesasia.com
• HMV.co.jp
• Amazon.co.jp

If you have the fortune to be living in Japan, according to Back-on‘s official blog, the CDs were delivered to the stores yesterday to prepare for today’s release. The author (one of Back-on‘s management team) actually paid a visit to the Tsutaya and Hmv store near Shibuya Station, and listened to Back-on‘s music on the sample music kiosks (an example is provided below).

Alas, I still have to wait for mine to be delivered from Play-asia.com and can hardly wait! :) I will definitely take some photos so please check back for further updates! Hope you are as excited about the release as I am!

All the media can be found on the Forums, including more PV screenshots that you can see above (again provided by Sowon!) The direct link to the thread is:

http://www.backon-online.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=165

The video is unlike any of Back-on‘s previous PVs (the list currently includes Chain, New World, Kodou, and Nuts Tribe) and features scenic views of (presumably) Houston (it was filmed before their performance at Anime Matsuri) with some great closeups of all the band members, particuarly Teeda and Kenji03, although Icchan does win his arm wrestling match against a local(?) on the hood of their white truck! (Lucky guy! He gets to feature in Back-on‘s PV!)

What do you think about the PV? :D

Teeda also posted in his blog (in fact, he was the most active in updating on a daily basis :D) where I think he said he was surprised at receiving such a warm welcome in America (which he now really likes!) Teeda noted the fact that alot of cute girls (author’s note: including Ichi, Ookami and Miyu-chan) asked him for an autograph/hugs? ^^ (author’s further note: you lucky lucky people! I so wish I was there!)

On the last day, the Back-on group went for dinner late at night, only to find that the restaurants weren’t open on a Sunday! Ultimately they ended up in Subway (those lucky Subway people!) and all ate a massive American-sized sandwich. The funny thing was that Gori (and someone else?) then said that he still wasn’t full, leaving Teeda and Kenji03 speechless!

Hopefully Back-on will update their blogs with even more info at a later date! They will actually be showing a video at their next show in Shibuya on May 10th 2007, with footage from the entire weekend. Fingers-crossed that they’ll post it online as well!

Anime Matsuri Pictures and such…

The captions underneath each picture are pretty self-explanatory but they are really awesome pictures with great closeups of the band! :D Everyone in the band (especially TEEDA and KENJI03 looked even more gorgeous in these photos! This is what I’ve stayed up for! No really… the other pictures are brilliant too (I must ask about the camera) – they won the Ramune Cosplay Contest as Pocky Boxes that they worked very hard on.

Miyu-chan (a brand new member!) has also kindly shared her photos with everyone from Anime Matsuri as well! :) You can see a few of them below but again, check the link to the thread above for more pictures!

Unfortunately the Anime Matsuri website is down at the moment as it has exceeded its bandwidth (neeuu!) but I’m sure the organisers will have it back up soon. In the meantime, you can still visit their official forums at MashHarder.

In the meantime, you can still find out about Back-on‘s schedule on Back-on Online, but whilst I was looking up the George R. Brown Convention Center website, I came across a little bit of information regarding the venue. According to the GRBCC website, Anime Matsuri will be utilising the:

Exhibit Hall E / General Assembly / Meeting Rooms

If you do have lots of time on your hands and want to see what the centre looks like inside, you have the option of viewing images or a 360 degree panoramic view.

This information is brought to you by a Flick who is furiously attempting to type up Gaku-Ten lyrics on time and is taking a break by surfing Anime Matsuri related sites.

You can find out more about Back-on‘s schedule at Anime Matsuri from this post, and a variety of sources have confirmed that they will be definitely attending Dance till Dawn so hope lots of people will be there to support them as well. Remember this is Back-on‘s first international performance, so extra enthusiasm is a must! If that’s not quite enough incentive, I can certainly try and telepathically send my waves of enthusiasm across the pond from England!

For those who are able to attend the event – congratulations! Back-on fans (including myself) unable to attend would really appreciate it if those who are there could share their stories with us! Multimedia, such as pictures and videos would definitely be an added bonus :) Please feel free to post on the forums, or even contact me directly, as we would all love to hear more!
In other related news, [MC] mentioned on the Anime Matsuri Forums that:

a little birdie told me that they’re filming their next music video here in H*TOWN!!!!

This is exciting news and could explain the 10 day mini-gap between Back-on‘s stay in America and their next Tokyo gig (aside from the time-off; adjusting to time difference; and editing of the trip-to-America video to be presented by Icchan at the gig) If you’re living in Houston, perhaps this is a good opportunity to do a bit of Back-on spotting!

And finally, regarding site updates… we will (finally) be updating the Music page sometime within the week to feature Baby Rock, as well as typing up lyrics such as Gaku-Ten! We are also working on the translation of Back-on’s KERA interview, so watch this space. ^^

p/s: I leave you with another picture of Teeda and his new hair style, taken with his cousin at the latter’s birthday, straight from his very own blog.

If they are appearing at Dance till Dawn, the event will begin at 12am on Saturday morning at the Galaxy Arena. The Q&A Panel (with the main band) is scheduled for 3pm on the same day in Panel Room 1, and the Autograph session is at 2pm on Sunday in Panel Room 2&3.

The (probably) most important part of Back-on‘s schedule is of course the Main Concert, which is set to start from around 7pm on Saturday in the Room of Ages (as its the main event) after the end of Showdown Live! I’m sure everyone is just as excited as I am (even if I can’t attend the actual event) and I really hope people will be kind enough to send in their experiences of the event – please do let me know if you are happy to do it as we can then publish it on the main site as part of a collective! Don’t forget you can now also discuss everything about Back-on at our brand new forums as well!

You can find out more about the actual dance event by clicking here, but essentially what this means is that those attending can see Back-on for two days running! Why? The dance event is on Day I (Friday), and the main concert is on Day II (Saturday).  Lucky lucky people!

Visit the website or click to read the original post announcing Back-on’s international debut!

Back-on‘s live performance will feature on April 28th 2007, which is a Saturday, so ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for anyone in Texas to miss out on Back-on’s FIRST EVER debut outside of Japan.

The extra bonus, of course, is that Back-on have said (if I have interpreted it correctly) that they plan to have autograph session(s) as well as hold interviews with the local media – local being, presumably, America.

Anime Matsuri‘s website introduces Back-on under their ‘Guest’ section:

After the huge success of their theme song “Chain” for the popular anime Air Gear, Back-On is performing for the first time in the United States at Anime Matsuri. The busy band is working on numerous projects and are excited to bring their music and electrifying live performance to Anime Matsuri’s Main Event. Please check out thier website at www.back-on.com for more info on this fantastic band!

Now I really wish I lived in America! Back-on have said that they will visit the UK at some point (check out the Q&A section on their website) so am really very much looking forward to it! If you are going to be at Anime Matsuri, Back-on Online would love to hear from you!