| Live Tour: Continues | ||||
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| Live album / video by | ||||
| Released | January 10, 2018 | |||
| Recorded | September 9–10, 2017 | |||
| Venue | Saitama Super Arena, Saitama Prefecture, Japan | |||
| Length | 4:02:00 | |||
| Language | Japanese | |||
| Label | Speedstar | |||
| Gen Hoshino chronology | ||||
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Live Tour: Continues (Japanese pronunciation: [ɾaibɯtsɯꜜaː kontiɲɯꜜːzɯ]) is the fourth live video album by Japanese singer-songwriter and musician Gen Hoshino. It was released on January 10, 2018, via Speedstar Records in DVD and Blu-ray formats. The album is a video release of the final show of Hoshino's Continues live tour, filmed at the Saitama Super Arena from September 9 to 10, 2017. The second disc includes the original tour documentary To Be Continue(s), following Hoshino throughout the tour's behind-the-scenes.
The tour shares its name with Hoshino's song "Continues", commissioned for SKY PerfecTV!'s broadcast of the 2016 Summer Paralympics. He wrote the song with themes of following and continuing, inspired by musician Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra after he told Hoshino to take care of the future. Similarly, the live tour was conceived as a concept tour about connecting music history. As an example of this theme, the setlists included covers of Martin Denny's "Firecracker", the "Firecracker"-inspired Yellow Magic Orchestra song "Mad Pierrot", and the "Mad Pierrot"-inspired Hoshino song "Tokiyo". The tour featured an original voice drama written by Hoshino, depicting characterizations of kayōkyoku (Akio Otsuka) and J-pop (Mamoru Miyano) attending a concert of yellow music, Hoshino's description of his own music.
Performances of "Amaoto" and "Sun" were uploaded to YouTube to promote the album. The tour and video release were received positively by music critics, who praised the performance and theme. Live Tour: Continues reached first place on Oricon's Blu-ray and DVD charts, tying Hoshino for the record of most consecutive number ones on the charts as a solo male artist. It was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for surprassing 100,000 sales, and was named at numbers 16 and 25 on Oricon's year-end DVDs and Blu-rays charts, respectively.