Kenshi Yonezu's new single 'Yodaka' arrives as the official theme for Kingdom: The Decisive Battle of the Soul, the fifth live-action film in the Kingdom series adapted from Yasuhisa Hara's manga about Qin-era warfare. The track dropped digitally on July 13th, three days before the film's Japanese cinema release on July 17th.

Director Oudai Kojima, collaborating with Yonezu for the first time, crafted a striking visual concept for the music video. Yonezu appears as a stone artifact cracking free from its petrified crust, then walking among museum exhibits. Kojima framed the narrative around deep time: "Thinking of ourselves 2,000 years from now, when we too will one day become museum exhibits."

Yonezu wrote 'Yodaka' specifically for the film after seeing parallels between his own ambitions and those of the protagonist Shin, played by Kento Yamazaki. In the story, Shin rises from poverty to pursue his dream of becoming a Great General Under the Heavens. The song itself is a large-scale rock track, opening on breakbeats and layering East Asian instrumentation—notably the shinobue flute—to match the film's historical setting.

Yonezu, who works as an illustrator alongside his music career, created the single's cover artwork himself, continuing a practice he's maintained across most of his releases.

A companion project launched alongside the single: a special website called Karasu × Yodaka: Wild Bird Watching pairs 'Yodaka' with 'Karasu' (Raven), Yonezu's 2026 NHK soccer theme. Yonezu describes the two songs as "spiritual twins." The site lets listeners play either track through an interactive player that sends a bird into a live-updating sky shared with other users worldwide. Players can capture and share images of their personal sky moment using the hashtag #WildBirdWatchingListening.