Fans and reporters alike wondered whether Imai's arrest spelled the end for Buck-Tick, but in the fall of 1989, the band went back to the studio and recorded its fifth studio album, "Aku no Hana" ("Evil Flowers") which was named after Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal" (a favorite book of Sakurai's), because the album dealt with similar themes. With "Aku no Hana", the band went much further into the dark and gothic image they had begun to explore in "Taboo" and which would later become their trademark. "Aku no Hana" became their second consecutive number one album and remains the group's best-selling to date.