Perfume debut a performance of their song “Nebula Romance”, in partnership with NTT for Expo 2025

A screenshot of the IOWN x Perfume performance, featuring Perfume performing “Nebula Romance” in a digital space consisting of a black and white grid, similar to the one seen in their music video and live performances of “Polygon Wave”.

Perfume once again gave us a live with real time cool effects performance and debuted a brand new song with it. I don’t know why I was surprised that Perfume debuted a new song, given that whenever Perfume have done these types of performances before, it’s always been with a new song. But seeing the “Polygon Wave” grid made me think ‘Oh nice. We’re getting a “Polygon Wave” performance’ — which I’m always here for, because that’s a song I never tire of Perfume performing. And then the music started and it was a WHOLE NEW SONG. “Nebula Romance”.

I really like how all of the choreography that I’ve seen of songs from Nebula Romance seem to have a style, where they feel connected. It’s like ‘Oh, this feels like Nebula Romance.’ And I wonder if that was the intention of Perfume’s choreographer (Mikiko) from the start, when the plan for the tour came together and it was decided that Perfume would perform both parts of Nebula Romance as they’re sequenced. Or if it was a result of Perfume’s producer (Yasutaka Nakata) just cranking out the album within a set space of time and being able to hand all of the songs to Mikiko as albums, which allowed her to see everything as a whole. Maybe this is what made Mikiko say ‘Maybe the tour should just be you performing the entire album.’

And once again, we get a Perfume routine which feels like it pulls from their others. The first time I heard this song, I thought ‘This would work great in a tour setlist sandwiched between “Ima Ima Ima” and “Night Flight”’ and then I watched the performance a second time and realised that the routine for “Nebula Romance” features moment similar to “Ima Ima Ima” and “Night Flight”. Whether it’s all intentional or not, it’s working and doing what it needs to. Too bad we’ll probably never get the trinity of “Ima Ima Ima”, “Night Flight” and “Nebula Romance” sequenced together on a tour. Because we know how Perfume are raggedy with their tour setlists and seem allergic to putting songs together which actually make sense.

HENNYWAY.

As was the case with Perfume’s Future Experiment Vol. 1 in when they debuted a performance of “Fusion”, this performance of “Nebula Romance” is once again in partnership with telecommunications company, NTT. This all took place in Osaka, which is where Expo 2025 is taking place. This Expo kicked off on 13th April 2025 and will run until 13th October 2025. So thoughts and prayers to anybody who is holidaying in Osaka during this time. Cherry blossom season, overtourism AND an Expo!? I would not be able to cope.

IOWN x Perfume

The theme of the Expo 2025 is ‘Designing Future Society for Our Lives’. And the purpose of Perfume’s performance was to showcase the speed of data transfer on NTT’s IOWN — Innovative Optical ans Wireless Network. Not only was Perfume’s performance being livestreamed, but there are all manner of effects, 3D tracking and pre-recorded visuals being used, which required data to be sent back and forth at a speed which is as close to real time as it can possibly get. The technology behind all of this is really cool. How telecommunication works in general is really cool. We take being able to use our phones and watch things online for granted and probably feel the technology behind it isn’t interesting. But it truly is fascinating and so much within the world and our lives is dependant on it. It’s a shame that NTT didn’t release a video which really gets into how IOWN served Perfume’s performance. Perfume talked about it a bit, but didn’t get into anything too in depth. NTT’s official YouTube channel has some really cool videos about how their network and tech is used in different facets of life. They really should consider providing multi language subtitles for them. But, ya know. Japan innit.

Perfume and NTT did make the news though, which also featured footage from the performance, some info on the tech used and how it was being livestreamed for local viewing at the Expo.

At the very least, NTT has a website which talks about their partnership with Perfume a little more, and also features the names of the talented individuals who helped make Perfume’s performance happen. Names that Perfume fans may recognise include Daito Manabe, founder of Rhizomatiks — a team of masterminds behind many of Perfume’s performances which include cool wizardry and technology. Takafumi Tsuchiya, professionally known as TAKCOM — a director who has helmed the music videos for Perfume’s “If You Wanna”, “Moon” and some of their stage visuals. And of course, Mikiko — Perfume’s choreographer who is also an artistic director. And there’s also a couple of creatives from Dentsu, who is Japan’s largest advertising agency and one of the the fifth largest advertising agencies in the world. Naturally, they work with a whole bunch of Japan’s biggest companies, including Uniqlo. And they’ve worked with Perfume for years. If you look at the credits for a lot of Perfume’s tours, you will see Dentsu, Inc. pop up pretty frequently.

IOWN x Perfume

It’s nice that we have a partnership here where everything comes together and makes narrative sense from all angles. Whilst the visual theme of Nebula Romance up until this point has been that of a Sci-Fi adventure. The theme of all of the songs has been about looking back on the past, thinking about the future and making a connection with somebody through space and time. So a telecommunications partnership here makes A LOT of sense. I actually think this entire performance and song does a great job of summing up the core of Nebula Romance — regardless of how Nakata saw the songs in his mind. So it’s a shame that “Nebula Romance” wasn’t made a single with the themes of the performance visuals being carried over into a music video, to really hone in on the theme of the album, which is connection.