YouTube videos of NewJeans’ Hanni covering an iconic Japanese song widely popular in the 1980s are going viral, conjuring up feelings of nostalgia in many Japanese fans.

The cover performance of “Aoi Sangoshou” by Seiko Matsuda was featured at NewJeans' latest “Bunnies Camp 2024” at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan on Wednesday and Thursday,bringing 45,500 Japanese fans together each day.

The performance not only saw a good reception amongst Japanese fans who lived during the song's era but also young Japanese fans of NewJeans, who went back to search for the '80s hit after Hanni's performance.

One three-minute-long fancam, uploaded on Thursday, reached 3.2 million views as of Tuesday.

“Aoi Sangoshou” became one of the trending searches on X in both Japan and Korea, and related keywords also landed high on Yahoo Japan's trending search after the performance. The song also landed at No. 253 on Melon’s real-time streaming charts, almost 600 spots higher than its ranking last month.

The five members of NewJeans each had solo performances on both days, during which Hanni performed the cover.

“Aoi Sangoshou” is known to be special place for Japanese people who lived in that era, as the song represents the height of Japan’s economic success in the '80s.

Hanni — born in Australia almost 25 years after the song was first released — took the stage with short hair, dressed in a white-and-blue striped top and long white skirt, reminiscent of Matsuda’s appearance.

“Hanni singing [‘Aoi Sangoshou’] brought the loudest cheer of the night from the audience,” Oricon News said in an article written after the concert. “A top idol singer these days performing a song sung by an '80s top idol singer in a refreshing manner melted the sold-out Tokyo Dome.”

“Even after Hanni’s performance ended and the venue went dark, the dome still saw exclamations from the audiences as an aftermath.”

Notably, Japanese artist Takashi Murakami was spotted at the concert venue, cheering while enjoying Hanni's performance. Murakami collaborated on NewJeans’ Japanese debut single “Supernatural,” released on June 21, with his signature flower characters featured on merchandise like bags and physical albums.

“Hanni time-traveled Japan 40 years back with her three-minute long performance,” said the top comment of the fan cam, which brought 24,000 upvotes.

Hanni will perform “Aoi Sangoshou” once again on Nippon TV’s special music show The Music Day 2024 on July 6 alongside Hyein’s performance of “Plastic Love.”

Hyein covered “Plastic Love,” a well-known 1984 city pop score by Mariya Takeuchi during the fan meeting, while Minji covered Japanese singer Vaundy’s 2021 song “Odoriko” and Danielle sang “Butterflies,” a song that the singer wrote herself. Haerin did a solo dance performance.

BY CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]