Still fresh from the release of Oasis, his joint EP with Bad Bunny, J Balvin continues to use his star power to push the limits of where he can go with his talent, and now he’s coming to us via a very unexpected art form: anime. We’ll say that again: anime.
As the style of Japanese animation’s popularity is increasing all over the world, the Colombian singer collaborates with Tokyo hip-hop trio M-Flo on the title track for the upcoming movie Human Lost, developed by Polygon Pictures and adapted from Osamu Dazai’s 1948 sci-fi novel Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human).
While the animated movie is set to hit the theaters in the U.S. in fall this year (before doing so in Japan, oddly enough), it had its world premiere last Friday at the Anime Expo 2019 in Los Angeles. M-Flo made a surprise appearance at the event to announce their involvement in the movie’s main theme, which features Balvin. They both shared bill on last year’s Summer Sonic Festival in Japan.
Coinciding with the film premiere, M-Flo shared an English-subtitled trailer on their YouTube channel that features a song snippet. From the sounds of it, the track is a heroic-sounding mix of EDM, pop, and R&B, very much in line with other recent anime theme songs, and we can briefly hear Balvin trading verses with M-Flo singer Lisa in Spanish and Japanese, respectively. This isn’t only new ground for the reggaeton star, but also for any Latin American artist so far.
Check out Human Lost’s trailer below.