How The Weeknd Dominated Tokyo
The Weeknd│© Sebastien Nagy
Over the past two days, The Weeknd transformed the Belluna Dome, home of the Saitama Seibu Lions, into a post-apocalyptic Tokyo to kick off the Asian chapter of the After Hours Til Dawn Stadium Tour.
Abel Tesfaye’s creative roots run pretty deep in Japanese subculture. Leading up to the concert, we got a first glimpse of a series of artworks created by legendary illustrator Yoshitaka Amano, quickly followed by a new release with Tomoko Aran. All of which turned out to be only the beginning. What followed was a full takeover of Tokyo, with new releases, a Harajuku pop-up, limited-edition merch, exclusive album releases, and more.
We took a deep dive into The Weeknd’s takeover of Tokyo.
Yoshitaka Amano Artworks
The first major piece came in August, when The Weeknd announced a Japan-exclusive After Hours Til Dawn Collection bringing together four albums from the last seven years of his career: After Hours, Dawn FM, The Idol, and Hurry Up Tomorrow.
The artwork was created by Yoshitaka Amano.
For anyone who grew up around Japanese games, anime or novels, Amano needs little introduction. His career stretches from Final Fantasy to Vampire Hunter D and Angel’s Egg.
Abel has mentioned that Amano’s has been very important to him since he was a teenager. In his own words, Amano’s work, especially on Angel’s Egg, completely changed the way he looked at anime and film, and influenced the way he listened to music.
Both artists had met before, with Amano gifting Abel a self-portrait. What started as a friendship grew into a creative collaboration where Amano reimagined The Weeknd’s musical world through his own visual style.
Amano described The Weeknd’s music as “beautiful, yet somehow unsettling,” and used that as a starting point for the new pieces. A pretty fitting description of both artists’ work. He also revealed that one of the newly created original artworks incorporates silver leaf, a material that changes with time, gradually darkening as it ages.
These four albums become the DNA and backbone of the After Hours Til Dawn universe, representing the musical story The Weeknd has built over the seven years since his last Asian tour.
The custom artwork for Dawn FM│© Yoshitaka Amano
Tomoko Aran
Alongside the announcement of Yoshitaka Amano’s new artworks came another Japan-specific addition to The Weeknd’s world: a new version of Out of Time featuring the original artist behind the song that it sampled, Tomoko Aran.
In 1983, Tomoko Aran released Midnight Pretenders as part of her album 浮遊空間. The song never became a major hit in Japan, but decades later it found a completely different life overseas as city pop began spreading beyond Japan. Abel encountered it during a visit to Japan in 2012, and eventually sampled it, which became the foundation of Out of Time.
Fourteen years later, Abel and Aran finally met in person. During their meeting, Aran asked whether the lyrics of Out of Time were written with the woman in Midnight Pretenders in mind. According to Aran, Abel put his hand to his chest and nodded deeply, as if to say, “Of course.”
Aran then re-recorded her vocals in Japanese for the new version of Out of Time, released digitally on August 28 as Out of Time (with Tomoko Aran). The track also appears as a bonus track on the Japan-exclusive Dawn FM (After Hours Til Dawn Collection).
The next step was to take that connection into the heart of Tokyo’s street culture.
Tomoko Aran & Abel Tesfaye
The Weeknd Harajuku Pop-up
The After Hours Til Dawn Tokyo Pop-Up Store opened in Harajuku on September 11, spread across three floors.
The first floor was built to fully immerse you into the visual world of the tour. Upstairs came the merchandise and physical releases, including Japan-exclusive products, tour pieces, and the Yoshitaka Amano four-album collection.
The third floor pushed further into the world behind the show, with stage-related objects, costumes, masks, and other artefacts from the production.
Needing to reserve your spot in advance to prevent an absolute flooding of the space, you got invited into a place somewhere between a record store, exhibition and tour archive. The pop-up runs until Wednesday, September 23, although all tickets have already been reserved.
The Weeknd Pop-Up at Universal Music Store Harajuku
VERDY meets XO
On September 17, just two days before the first Belluna Dome show, a new VERDY × XO collection landed at the Harajuku pop-up.
The Japanese visual artist brought his VICK character into The Weeknd’s world across four pieces: an After Hours Til Dawn graphic T-shirt, VICK and XO T-shirts in black and white, and a VICK/XO zip hoodie.
VERDY’s involvement makes sense beyond the obvious connection to Japanese streetwear. His work has always moved between music, characters, fashion and graphic culture, while XO has developed its own visual identity around The Weeknd’s music.
XO x VERDY
Hajime Sorayama’s Golden Robot
This one isn’t Tokyo-specific, but we can’t not mention the collaboration with the legendary Hajime Sorayama. Long before the tour reached Japan, The Weeknd commissioned the Japanese artist behind the iconic Sexy Robot series to create a colossal gold sculpture for the After Hours Til Dawn show. Standing at the centre of the stadium, the robot became one of the tour’s central visual pieces, complete with laser-illuminated eyes and smoke effects.
A smaller version of the sculpture was brought into the Harajuku pop-up, while the robot also appeared across different pieces of merch. Seeing the full-sized version arrive in Tokyo just completed the circle.
© Sebastien Nagy
‘Cruel Angel’s Thesis’ at the Belluna Dome
Creepy Nuts opened both nights, while ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U also appeared for the second evening. The set moved through songs from House of Balloons, Kiss Land, Beauty Behind the Madness, Starboy, After Hours, Dawn FM and Hurry Up Tomorrow.
On the first night, The Weeknd premiered his new track Tokyo, which samples Yoko Takahashi’s A Cruel Angel’s Thesis, the iconic opening theme of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The one and only Yoko Takahashi then joined him on stage to perform A Cruel Angel’s Thesis.
In the background we saw visuals combining Evangelion with NieR:Automata, with visual direction from Yoko Taro, the creator and director behind the NieR series. Takahashi’s vocals were then incorporated into a new The Weeknd performance, bringing one of anime’s most recognisable themse into the middle of his stadium show.
The Weeknd & Yoko Takahashi│© Sebastien Nagy
And that’s where the story of The Weeknd’s Tokyo takeover comes to an end. A series of creative connections that stretched from Amano’s illustrations and Aran’s 1983 recording to VERDY’s VICK, Sorayama’s robot, and finally Evangelion and NieR inside the stadium itself.
They all exist within the same world The Weeknd has been building around his music for years. Tokyo just happened to be where all of them came together.
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