The asterisk derives from the need of the printers of family trees in feudal times for a symbol to indicate date of birth. The original shape was six-armed, each arm like a teardrop shooting from the center. For this reason, in some computer circles it is called a splat, perhaps due to the "squashed-bug" appearance of the asterisk on many early line printers.

It was used as the first opening to the anime Bleach. This song stayed on the top 20 in Japan for 22 weeks and spent most of it at number one. This became the number four single of 2005 and the number one single of the year from Orange Range, selling 628,329 copies.