With their 4th studio album Jewelry Basket arriving soon, the unique tigers of J-pop have unveiled another sneak peek: the pre-release track「チェックメイト」(English: Checkmate).
The song pairs lyrics full of schemes and psychological games with the fast-paced, pop-dance sound the group has become known for. The group has also kicked off the release with a campaign hashtag, 「狙いは君だチェックメイト」 (“My target is you, checkmate”), playing off the chess theme.
The song dropped on download and streaming services at midnight on 26 October, and it doubles as a TV tie-in. It serves as the ending theme for the Yomiuri TV drama Jotei (English: Empress), which stars the group’s very own pet tiger, Kaito Nakamura (Umi).
The series is a revenge drama about a heroine clawing her way to the top of the nightlife world. Umi plays Naoto Date, one of the show’s two announced main cast members. Date is both mentor and ally to the lead, Ayaka Tachibana (Nagisa Saito, 齊藤なぎさ), showing her the path to becoming the “empress” of the night world while climbing the ranks of the yakuza world himself.
When the role was announced, Nakamura said:
“My honest thought was, I want to become Naoto Date as soon as possible. Hearing about the work Jotei, I felt incredibly excited thinking about what kind of world I would get to live in. While facing the character of Naoto Date head-on, I want to find his charm in my own way and deliver that to all of you.”*
With Umi’s love of games, the role seems perfect for him, and the song could not be a better fit. The ten-episode series began airing on YTV on 23 October.
『Jewelry Basket』 will be released on 18 November, with physical copies available wherever Japanese music is sold. The digital version arrives the same day on all major online platforms, including Qobuz, which offers a hi-res 24-bit/48 kHz stereo download in a variety of formats.
There will be more Travis Japan soon, so…
Stay Tuned!
*Translated/paraphrased from original Japanese.
