Southern All Stars' 'Itoshi no Ellie' Used as Key Song in Netflix's 'Gas Human'
The selection of a decades-old Southern All Stars hit as the emotional anchor of a dark, original Netflix series from Toho shows how a carefully chosen licensed song can define a show's core rather than just decorate a scene.
Reporting from 1 sources: Cinema Today.
Southern All Stars' classic song 'Itoshi no Ellie' is used as an insert song in the Netflix series 'Gas Human,' a reboot of Toho's 1960 film 'The First Gas Human.' The 8-episode series, directed by Shinzo Katayama with a screenplay by Yeon Sang-ho, streams worldwide on Netflix. Yeon Sang-ho pushed for the song, calling the match fateful.
Southern All Stars' 'Itoshi no Ellie,' a song that has charted across the Showa, Heisei, and Reiwa eras, now plays a structural role in a Netflix original. The series 'Gas Human' reboots Toho's 1960 special effects film as an 8-episode story about a gas human (UTA) who issues theatrical serial murder warnings. Shun Oguri and Yu Aoi play a detective and a journalist pursuing the case, while Kento Hayashi and Suzu Hirose play video streamer siblings caught in the chaos. Executive producer and screenwriter Yeon Sang-ho ('Train to Busan') pushed for the song, saying its emotions overlapped so well with the series that it became the emotional center. Director Shinzo Katayama said the song's meaning shifted across episodes during editing. All eight episodes stream on Netflix.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.