Fujii Kaze churches up the Music Awards Japan 2026 with a performance of “Prema”

Fujii Kaze made an appearance at the Music Awards Japan, again. Where he won a bunch of awards, again. And he also performed, again.

This year audiences were treated to a performance of “Prema”. Not the strongest song on the album of the same title. But it is one of the songs on the album which has that signature Fujii Kaze sound. And it’s smart to perform a song which shares the same title of the album. I just wish the performance were a bit better.

It’s not that this performance was bad. It’s just that Kaze gave a better performance of it on Music Station last year, which was so fun and had so much character. So it would have been cool to have seen Kaze one-up this performance, but alas. He did not. But I did like the new arrangements with the extra sax and Kaze looked great. Not everyone can pull off an oversized suit.

I would have much preferred for Kaze to have performed a different song. Given that Music Awards Japan is a celebration of music and also bridging generations of Japanese music acts, I think performing a song with a J-music icon from an earlier generation would have been really cool. “Love Like This” is one of my favourites on Prema, largely because it reminds me so much of Kazumasa Oda — who most probably know via his hit song “Love Story wa Totsuzen ni” which was the theme of the super popular J-drama Tokyo Love Story. And some Hikaru Utada fans may know of him via the duets he did with them for special performances of “Hanataba wo Kimi ni” and “Automatic” back in 2016. So, Kaze bringing him out to perform “Love Like This” with him would have been a great and memorable moment in the spirit of the show, whilst also broadening his appeal even more.

Fujii Kaze - Prema | Music Awards Japan 2026

A lot of fans continue to be lukewarm on Prema, which I do get. But it really is weird that some cite not liking the sound of it compared to his Japanese albums, feeling that it’s different. When TO ME, Prema sounds like the kind of album that Kaze probably would have made in Japanese anyway. I think that Kaze’s Pre-Prema singles were boring as hell. And I didn’t like the direction of those songs at all, because they felt like Love All Serve All leftovers instead of something new. Prema to me felt new. The album isn’t perfect. But it has some great songs and the whole thing still felt very much like a Fujii Kaze album to me and one which made sense after Love All Serve All. It’s gonna be interesting to see how he approaches music now. Whether he hops between doing English and Japanese albums, or if he does what Namie Amuro did and Hikaru Utada finally did with Bad Mode and just puts out albums with both English and Japanese songs.

I do think it’s great how Fujii and his team are stretching the everlasting shit out of the Prema promo though. I don’t even think any of his Japanese language albums have had their rollouts be drawn out like this. It’s great to see. And hopefully more Japanese acts will follow suit. Because the whole ‘Let’s release singles for a year, drop the album and then move right on with something else’ deal just doesn’t make sense any more. And the fact that an act as big as Fujii Kaze who could get away with dropping an album and being done with it is NOT doing that, speaks volumes. I really do think the move now is to release singles before and AFTER an album release.

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🎤 Performances: “Free” Live 2021 | “Me-Eh-Yo” on the Help Ever Arena Tour | Tiny Desk | Feelin’ Good

💿 Album Reviews: Help Ever Hurt Never | Help Ever Hurt Cover | Love All Serve All | Prema