Cobcro has started the pre-release of "THIS IS MY HOMETOWN," the title track of their first major label mini-album to be released on July 16, and released a music video filmed on the theme of "hometown!

Kobukuro will release their first major label mini-album, "THIS IS MY HOMETOWN," on July 16, and the title track "THIS IS MY HOMETOWN" has started to be distributed in advance today. The music video was released along with the album.

The music video for "THIS IS MY HOMETOWN" was shot on the theme of "hometown," which is the theme of the song, in Sakai Higashi Ginza Street Shopping Arcade in Osaka, where Kobukuro was formed and where they performed street live when they formed in 1998. and in Obuchi's hometown of Miyazaki.

It expresses how the two, born and raised in different places, met in Osaka and walked together as Kobukuro, and also uses 14 photos carefully selected from those of their hometowns solicited from fans. (Hokkaido (Hakodate), Fukushima, Chiba, Mie, Ishikawa (Noto), Osaka, Wakayama, Kyoto, Kagawa, Shimane, Ehime, Kagoshima, Okinawa (Miyakojima), Overseas (USA))

In the music video, the two are strikingly portrayed singing in front of "September 8th," a yakiniku sandwich shop that Kuroda opened for one year only in the Sakai Higashi Ginza Street shopping district in Osaka to give back to his hometown Sakai in celebration of Kobukuro's 25th anniversary last year, and this is exactly where the two were singing some 27 years ago. On the shutter of the store, Obuchi drew a picture of the two of them back then, with cardboard boxes and a guitar case on the floor, singing as they did in their street days at this place after a long time, the ramen shop they used to go to when they were doing street live performances, and the shop that has supported them since those days. The ramen stores they used to go to when they were performing on the street, and the people from the stores in the shopping arcade who had supported them since those days appeared.

Filmed in Obuchi's hometown of Miyazaki, the video features many places and people associated with Obuchi, including his beloved local udon shop "Shigenoi," a local best friend, and the Goto River Greenway Park where Obuchi's family home was located.

The mini-album "THIS IS MY HOMETOWN" was produced by Kobukuro, ambassadors for the 2025 Japan International Exposition (Osaka-Kansai Expo) and singers of the official theme song for the Osaka-Kansai Expo, "Kono Chikyu no Hoshi no Koto ni Tsuite" (Continue on This Earth), with Osaka, the place where they were formed, as its theme.

The CD includes "This is my Hometown," a song about love for one's hometown, "Kono Chikyu no Hoshi no Tsugoro," the official theme song for the current Osaka-Kansai Expo, and "Osakaniwa," a rare song created in 2002 that has only been performed live a few times. The song was recorded for the first time on CD over the past 23 years. In addition, the live performance of "Osaka Koi Monogatari," a cover of Yashikita Kajin's "Osaka Koi Monogatari," which was performed at the "400th Anniversary Music Festival of the Battle of Osaka" in 2014 and became a hot topic of conversation, is included in a new arrangement.

MV Publication Link