Perfume to release a documentary in cinemas and have fans crying into their Nebula Romance towels

THE Japanese girl group that is / was Perfume will be releasing a documentary titled Perfume “Cold Sleep” 25 Year Document. [Sighs at the raggedy name]. But, hey. At least it wasn’t titled Perfume “Cold Sleep” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Year Document.

The film will touch on Perfume’s 25 year career to date, but it will likely be in the context of the announcement of their hiatus — with Perfume and members of their inner circle speaking about how they feel about Perfume taking time off, all the cool things they’ve gotten to achieve with Perfume over the years and having to find new jobs. And I’m real about that last point. Because imagine 10+ years of your life being working primarily on Perfume shit, and then being pulled into a room and watching a-chan struggle through tears to announce that Perfume will be going on an indefinite hiatus. I would throw up.

I say all of this to set an expectation for anybody reading this, that this film will not be an in depth documentary on the ENTIRE history of Perfume’s career. So do not expect it to go in detail about each of their albums, each of their music videos and each of their tours. There will definitely be footage of Perfume in their earlier years and moments which touch on their past. But I think a lot of the focus will be from 2019–2025. Navigating the cancellation of their last Tokyo Dome date for P Cubed, which was supposed to be closing the chapter on a celebration of their career and trying to put on shows whilst the P COVID tour was happening. Right up to Perfume making their decision to go on hiatus, and how they handled putting together the Nebula Romance: Episode Tokyo Dome show in the wake of that.

Perfume “Cold Sleep” 25 Year Document | Directed by Taketoshi Sado

There isn’t a HUGE marketing push for this film, which is a shame. But there are small bits ‘n’ bobs happening for fans to engage with and hand over their yen. There is a new T-shirt available exclusively for P.T.A members. Perfume Closet has a new collection in collaboration with Sanrio, which will be available at a pop-up in Laforet Harajuku from 13th May–19th May. And the 2015 We Are Perfume documentary and Perfume’s 2019 concert Reframe have also been re-released theatrically, exclusively at selected Toho cinemas nationally for a limited time. There’s no Perfume popcorn buckets though, which seems like a missed opportunity. A popcorn bucket which is just a box with each side featuring some of Perfume’s album covers or single cover arts and there been multiple variants would have gone down a treat and become collectible. One thing about Perfume fans in Japan, they gon’ buy up that merch. So trust that Perfume popcorn buckets would have been snatched up.

Perfume “Cold Sleep” 25 Years Document releases theatrically in Japan on 15th May. It would be nice if an English subtitled version was released on a streaming service somewhere down the line, especially given the likelihood of the Code of Perfume gig in London being in this film — but I can’t see it happening.

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