Perfume, iconic for blending electronic-dance music with precise choreography, high-tech live performances, and futuristic fashion, has a documentary set for release May 15.

 

It centres on the group’s last live arena performance before their public announcement to take a “cryosleep” hiatus from it all, at a defining crossroads in their career:

 

 

Perfume is a trio of former classmates: Kashino Yuka (Kashiyuka), Nishiwaki Ayaka (Ā-chan), and Ōmoto Ayano (Nocchi). Kashiyuka and Ā-chan were attending Actors School Hiroshima, a talent-training academy, when they first formed the group in 1999 with Kawashima Yuka. The name Perfume was inspired by the fact that all three original members had the character 香 (“fragrance”) in their names. Kawashima later left, and in 2001 the lineup took its current form, with Nocchi joining. Incidentally, the trio were all part of the school’s inaugural class.

— text by Kobuchi Akira for https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g02564/

 

Chronicling the rise of Japan’s most forward-thinking synth-pop group is best left for native speakers of Japan, but I’m more than happy to add to their legacy by openly sharing my love for them, and give a brief glimpse into why their creative activity is a cut above other artists.

 

The MV below, ふめつのあなた / Fumetsu no Anata is a beautiful song, paired with a beautiful music video. Released on Valentine’s Day 2026, Fumetsu no Anata is a fragrant love letter and, in my humble opinion, Perfume’s magnum opus. In an age where people have to question if the visuals they are enjoying were created by procedural-image-generating-machines or by human creativity, I am soo pleased that this MV was lovingly put together without the use of AI.

 

こちらのMVはボリュメトリックキャプチャで撮影された映像で、本人不在の CGやAI生成ではないです！ 3人が表現した姿を3D空間上にキャプチャして編集した映像です。 演出は土谷貴史さんとのこと [This music video was shot using volumetric capture, and it’s not CG or AI-generated without the actual people present! The video was edited by capturing the three members’ expressions in a 3D space. The director is Takafumi Tsuchiya]

 

Gaussian Splatting is a real-time rendering technique that transforms photogrammetry or videogrammetry imagery into a 3D space, (similar technology to how Google Maps renders 3D streets from still images) only more advanced than I’ve explained, so advanced in fact that it’s actually 4D (length, width, height, and time integrated into space-time). It is the most revolutionary thing since CGI, and I wouldn’t expect any less from music producer Yasutaka Nakata and Perfume, whose 25+ years in the spotlight has been mapped with advances in technology; performances that are pop, high-spectacle; and have presented audiences with artful windows into speculative wonders of a real near future today.

 

I really wanted to share this with you; Perfume’s ふめつのあなた / Fumetsu no Anata is beautiful music:

 

 

I’m not crying, you are! 😭

 

Here is a better view of what the rig may have looked like, and a clue as to where 4D-GS is heading, in other words, an early application of cutting-edge technology (and hardly anyone mainstream is even addressing it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯):

 

 

More Gaussian Splat content for you learners in the house:

 

 
Perfume announced in an official statement last September 2025 that in 2026, they will go on hiatus to concentrate on their personal lives:
 

 

The center of all Perfume activities lies in our live shows.

We have given out everything to share that time and place together and resonate with you. Every show, we went up on stage thinking this might be the last time the miracle happened and ignited our hearts.

Time spent with you means the world to us.

“Marking our shining legacy in history”. This has always been one of Perfume’s dreams.

To capture this moment that we can proudly call a “shining legacy”, we have decided to put Perfume to cryosleep starting 2026.

No matter what shape or form, as the three of us, we will forever be Perfume.
To spend many more years together, to become better and more sophisticated Perfume, to face new challenges, we have decided to pause our milestone.

We have continued to improve and polish ourselves every day for the past 25 years so we are always ready to go as Perfume and this break will be the time that we, for the first time, will face our lives as individuals to find the new us. We have never experienced a time like this, nor have we never even thought about something like this so we will probably start with rehab. LOL But the three of us all agreed that we are ready to face that challenge.

Many beautiful landscapes we created together will continue to push us forward and if we ever feel down, we’re sure that they will keep shining upon us. We appreciate every one of you who has supported us thus far, from the bottom of our hearts.

Since we came this far without taking a break as Perfume, we hope you support our decision to give ourselves little break time. Please continue to lend us your support as we chase our new dreams.

We are doing all this just to come back as “new Perfume.” We all want to be more powerful than ever so we would be delighted if you could kindly look forward to that day when we meet again.

 

You will be missed. Rest is a healthy and good thing to want (also, congrats to Ā-chan (Nishiwaki Ayaka), who announced her marriage on November 11, 2025). Having a documentary to bookend a long and successful career is a neat thing for the fans. In the art direction of ふめつのあなた / Fumetsu no Anata, I see homages to Perfume’s earliest mainstream successes “Polyrhythm” & “Chocolate Disco” (2007). Might be coincidental? **hits replay button**

 

Ending this post with “Spring of Life” (2012) seems appropriate.

 

 

Have a good slumber🧴✨🌸 all the best!!!!