Trio Mrs. GREEN APPLE runs J-pop right now. Its songs rack up millions of plays on streaming services with accompanying videos matching in views. The band’s songs have monopolized every sort of chart in the country today, with the Spotify Japan Top 50 currently boasting seven of its numbers in its first 10 entries. By pure metrics, no musical act here comes close.
Yet it’s just as important to factor in all those details data fails to account for in underlining how inescapable Mrs. GREEN APPLE is. In a fragmented media landscape, this group manages to be something approaching monocultural, known by toddlers to young adults to older folks. Go around a Japanese city and you’ll hear its songs playing in the wild, while also popping up in official collaborations with Tokyo Disneyland or as themes for assorted heavy-hitter anime series.
As the 2020s reach its midpoint, Mrs. GREEN APPLE is the sound of modern Japan.
How exactly did this happen? The group — Motoki Ohmori, Hiroto Wakai and Ryoka Fujisawa — create upbeat pop whizzbangs incorporating elements of rock, theater and electronic music to make something peppy, sometimes overly so. Yet it all comes from a familiar place, with the trio’s music frequently commenting on the tough realities of existing in the country in the 21st century, whether stemming from the drudgery of work or the sense of lagging behind others in life. Whereas groups such as YOASOBI and artists like Ado drilled into the angst presence, Mrs. GREEN APPLE opt to find optimism moving forward, doing so lyrically and sonically.
It’s this emotional connection and ability to transform the drudgery of 2020s living into something hopeful that has made them a must-know name in modern J-pop, as the band itself celebrates 10 years together.
Start
What’s most important to understand about Mrs. GREEN APPLE is that the group dominating the Japanese musical landscape today is not really the same one that appeared in the mid 2010s. Ohmori put together the group in 2013, at one point boasting six members in total. The fledgling outfit attracted attention around the Tokyo area, and by 2015 the now-five-person-total project had landed a major-label deal.
Besides looking different, the Mrs. GREEN APPLE of early EP Variety and subsequent album TWELVE dabbled in a very different sound than the kaleidoscopic pop of today. It was…a pretty straightforward rock group, playing zig-zagging numbers moving at a sprint and centered by speedy hooks. Electronic touches dusted the edges, but the band sounded closer to the J-rock rush of indigo la End or the nervy KANA-BOON rather than…well, the all-dominating force it is today.
Slightly more daring sonic touches started appearing on 2017’s eponymous full-length, alongside a great centering of horns and pianos to add a touch of refinement to the group’s sound. Yet this iteration of Mrs. GREEN APPLE was still very much a festival-ready rock outfit (literally having a song called “Summer Festival” underlining this). It was working though, as the group was gaining in popularity, appearing at major events and even scoring prominent anime theme openings.
Making A Splash
Something changed in Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s approach to songwriting around the time of 2018’s ENSEMBLE. The rock pace and emphasis on guitars remained, but it was starting to be matched with a growing interest in orchestration and more eclectic sounds. Not all of it works — there’s a song playing around with EDM here called “WHOO WHOO WHOO” offering as strong an argument as possible for the outfit to avoid Ultra Music — but moments such as “PARTY” hinted at more intricate directions, while highlights like “SPLASH!!!” showcased more tasteful ways of working in electronic touches and vocal manipulation without losing the charm the band had built up.
It boiled over with its true breakout moment.
Here’s the true moment where Mrs. GREEN APPLE laid the framework for its eventual rise to the top of all J-pop. “Aoi To Natsu” strikes a balance between the fidgety rock they emerged with and a heavier emphasis on string sections, adding a dramatic flair to it all. The lyrics revolve around adolescence, but hit on what would become a core topic as the band rose up — life is tough and everything is doomed to fade, but hey you have to savor it all, make the most of it and trust in the goodness of those around you. It’s also the single where band leader Ohmori truly came into his own confidence.
Subsequent album Attitude built on this while still not going to far away from the sound they came up on, though by the time it came out Mrs. GREEN APPLE seemed poised to make even greater strides. Instead, they offered a curveball.
New My Normal
In 2020, Mrs. GREEN APPLE announced it was going on hiatus. Considering how big the band had gotten thanks to “Aoi To Natsu” and how Attitude had been its best-selling album to date, surely something bad must have happened to spur a break right when momentum seemed in the group’s corner.
Nope, it appeared to be all part of a plan. In the official announcement of the news, the band said this break served as the end of “phase 1” of Mrs. GREEN APPLE. They would use this time to plan what would come next and, as it went on, reveal that Ohmori would also release solo material…and that two founding members of the project would depart ahead of “phase 2.” Now a trio, Mrs. GREEN APPLE was prepared to take another big step ahead.
Upon coming back to the spotlight in 2022, the trio introduced an updated sound, one where guitars still lurked underneath everything but were now used as part of a larger dramatic sonic backdrop allowing them to create something closer to miniature stage productions than rock songs. “New My Normal” zipped ahead and added extra thrills via string swells and touches of digi distortion, while cuts such as “Soranji” showcased its new skill at balladry, all slow-burning and epic. Accompanying this was a visual makeover split between colorful fantasies on one end, and more cinematic presentations on the other.
This new-look project truly rose to cultural dominance with 2023’s ANTENNA, gathering most of the first batch of singles from “phase 2” alongside new offerings rounding out its newfound ethos. Central to it all was a theme that had been starting to ripen even during the first phase — these songs touch on the downer elements of life, but embrace hope and fun rather than wallow in melodrama. Perhaps that’s the message listeners in Japan were looking for.
The Sound Of J-pop
If you want to truly understand how unstoppable Mrs. GREEN APPLE is right now, look towards the trio’s lowest point. Last June, it released the song “Columbus,” a relatively ho-hum ode to going out on your own and exploring all the world has to offer. Nothing noteworthy here…but when the video debuted, finding the band cosplaying as various historical figures including the titular colonizer as they encountered an island of ape-men that they tried to “civilize,” the internet went wild. This was as ignorant of history as one could get, and less than a day after the group yanked it off YouTube.
A lesser band would have taken a big hit from this brew-ha-ha, or at least have to take some time off to let the stink subside. Yet owing to just how big they are (coupled with the members addressing and dealing with the controversy right away and in a pretty professional manner), Mrs. GREEN APPLE just kept chugging along…boasting the biggest hit of that summer with “Lilac,” a nervy rock cut that continues to dominante charts of all sorts.
As the band’s 10th anniversary in 2025 plays out, it has never been bigger. Everything they’ve released so far this year has been a smash, whether it’s a big dramatic rock number or a slightly more stripped-down dance ode to eating breakfast. That core message — of acknowledging life’s challenges but choosing happiness anyway — continues to resonate with listeners, and the group have managed something that felt impossible in modern, fractured entertainment space. It is a monocultural force, defining J-pop in Japan at the midway point of the decade.
Five Essentials
“In the Morning”
The period where Mrs. GREEN APPLE just sounded like any ROCK IN JAPAN mid-carder features a pretty similar sonic palette across. So let’s opt for one of the cuts featuring sprinkles of electronic touches throughout, hinting at where they would go while still offering up scream-along delight.
“WanteD! WanteD!”
While not all of its “phase 1” detours go smoothly, this exploration of jittery dance-pop stands out from the group’s ENSEMBLE era. Credit the big ol’ hook, built around holler-ready syllables and a welcome electronic pulse.
“Que Sera Sera”
Lyrically, the skeleton key to understanding Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s entire worldview (complete with a video starring God). Musically, a good summary of how important pianos and strings became to its sound as they became an unstoppable force. For me, though, it’s the odd little details, like the smudge of Auto-tune used on the vocals at times along with the guitar twists coming after the chorus. This is as mainstream as a group can get, yet the members do delight in having sonic fun, too.
“Lilac”
Somehow, the best guitar line Mrs. GREEN APPLE came across in its career arrived well after it was a traditional rock outfit. That opening math-rock-inspired sprint coupled with the chugging sections and the sci-fi electronic sounds overhead make for something incredibly catchy and kind of oddball when you start thinking about it.
“Tengoku”
I’ll admit here that I’m rarely a fan of big sappy ballads. Yet Mrs. GREEN APPLE offers an exception with “Tengoku.” All you have to do is slather on vocal effects and off-kilter backing vocals to transform it into something alien — or perhaps angelic — to have me on board.
