“Blue Jeans” is positioned by the label as HANA’s first love song, built around ordinary objects such as blue jeans and old sneakers as shorthand for unvarnished, everyday romance.
That’s straight from Sony Music Japan, which also calls it a mid-tempo ballad balancing bittersweet feeling with hope and a fresh-meets-nostalgic guitar sound.
HANA are a seven-member Japanese group, Chika, Naoko, Jisoo, Yuri, Momoka, Koharu, Mahina, formed via CHANMINA’s No No Girls and managed under BMSG’s B-RAVE division.
“Blue Jeans” was released digitally on 14 July 2025, with the CD following on 16 July.
Drop the needle and you get bright, strummed guitars up front, a clean mid-tempo pocket, and a topline that breathes without being thin.
The hook rises on major-key lift rather than volume, the percussion sits light, and the blend is the point.
Studio credits place CHANMINA in the writer-producer chair alongside Ryosuke “Dr.R” Sakai, which squares with how tidy the mix feels and how naturally the melody sits for seven voices.
The lyrics expand that idea into a late-night, slightly vulnerable encounter where messy hair and scuffed shoes are part of the attraction.
Lyrically, it’s the unglamorous bits that do the work. “Blue jeans, old sneakers” repeats like a mantra for unvarnished affection; a 1 a.m. setting, messy hair, makeup running, and the soft plea to stay until sunrise sketch a night that moves from spark to hush.
On The First Take, the song reveals its bones. Acoustic guitars and bass carry an arrangement that exposes breath control, tight unison-to-harmony shifts, and consonants that land clean on cadences.
The cut confirms what the studio hints at: HANA sell closeness without leaning on backing.
The video keeps it small and summer-real: rehearsal rooms, a live-house corner, dance-studio mirrors, and a storyline that tilts from friends into something that suddenly matters.
Viewers clocked the cheek-kiss beats with male partners, an unusually candid touch for a just-debuted group, and the choreography reads like a conversation rather than a stunt reel.
One r/kpop thread called it “laid-back rock” with a dance-duet twist; others loved the acting and the way the chorus lifts without blaring.
A minority missed the bigger hook they expected after “Rose” and “Burning Flower,” and a few heard a brush of country-pop in the guitar figure.
The song didn’t just move; it surged. “Blue Jeans” debuted at No. 1 on Billboard Japan Hot 100 for the chart week published 23 July 2025, then ran up a string of Streaming Songs wins, including four and five-week streaks into mid-August.
The r/kpop threads skew warm, praising the chorus lift, the acting, and the gentler tone; some posts flag the K-pop vs J-pop classification debate and the novelty of a cheek-kiss in a brand-new act’s MV.
Another thread around The First Take zeroes in on harmony work and the sense that they aren’t hiding behind tracks.
HANA trade fireworks for eye contact. “Blue Jeans” is a guitar-lit mid-tempo that treats ordinary clothes as an invite to be seen as you are.
The studio cut is tidy and warm; The First Take strips it back to show how their seven voices lock without a net.
Fans call it sweet, laid-back, even a little country-pop in its twang; if you wanted another high-gloss banger, this is gentler on purpose, more summer diary than victory lap.
