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This article is translated from an interview done with Otsuka Ai by Oricon Style.
Translation by sljinu

Oricon: The title Kurage, Nagareboshi is quite a peculiar title so I was wondering, how exactly did you come about with it?

Otsuka Ai: It’s not all that special (laughs). Like, when I wrote Sakuranbo, I had this idea that the cherries are kinda like two people next to each other. In this case, I turned the image of a shooting star upside down.

Oricon: Ooh…it’s a jellyfish!! Your imagination is quite impressive! Your title definitely shows your character and the song is quite unique…and if you listen to it, you could cry to it. This song is about long-distance love, right?

Otsuka Ai: Yep. It’s a song that I wrote quite a long time ago. At that time, I was separated from quite an important person. It doesn’t matter if that person is a friend or a lover; it’s just that we were separated so far away so that even if we wanted to meet up, we couldn’t. It’s also harder to understand each other so the bad tends to outweigh the good in such cases. However, I also felt that those bad things can cause your love to deepen so it kinda creates this magic where you don’t want to give up on them. So with that in mind, I wrote away the lyrics.

Oricon: I also felt that there were those feelings of overcoming the distance and its obstacles so I definitely sympathized with these lyrics.

Otsuka Ai: Well, even if there wasn’t this distance, obviously, the bad sides of the other person are revealed as their relationship gets better. Then there are things like, “I want you to change this or that” or maybe they complain a lot but still like them. They may see another friends’s lover and say “Just what’s so good about him?” but they still like him as a friend. So with those hypocrisies all lined up…in a way, it actually even kinda felt like a love song.

Oricon: After a serious theme, we move on to the brighter H2O.

Otsuka Ai: This song is about the chemistry that forms during the meeting of two people for the first time. Someone x Someone = H2O. That’s because whenever you fall in love, your body always releases liquid in some form right? Like tears or sweat.

Oricon: That’s amazing! Deep as always! Then afterwards, we finish with the painful Ame no Tsubu, Waltz ~LOVE MUSiC~. It creates quite a nice flow. This song is also connected to Kurage, Nagareboshi isn’t it?

Otsuka Ai: Well, initially there was no intention to have the two related so I was quite shocked when I realised what the title was going to be. In actual fact, this song is about the part of me that I’m afraid of the most. Of course I feel hate as well as love but you don’t know when that love will also turn into hate…it’s that sort of really scary situation. It also doesn’t sound too elegant if I just say it out straight, so I put it as delicately as I could to build that tension like the sound of the calm before the storm.

Oricon: I thought it was a song about wanting to have your feelings reach that person you love.

Otsuka Ai: It could seem that way if you briefly look at its lyrics but it actually has a background to it. Take for example your boyfriend is actually cheating on his girlfriend with you and you know it’s wrong but still, you’re always like “I don’t want to break up with you!” then isn’t it a little bit scary? Without this background, the lyrics are quite open to interpretation aren’t they? However, I wrote this song with quite a negative tone to it.

Oricon: Oh really…I see. These three songs really fit the season perfectly don’t they?

Otsuka Ai: It no longer feels like summer in September and even though it sometimes is still hot, the summer is ending. That’s why to fit that mood, I added that touch of pain in this single.