L'Arc-en-Ciel is a Japanese rock band, formed in Osaka in 1991 by bassist tetsuya and vocalist hyde. Following the departure of original members hiro and pero, guitarist ken and drummer sakura were recruited to replace them in 1992 and 1993, respectively. While they first got their start as a visual kei band, L'Arc-en-Ciel have not had any association with the movement since their major label debut in 1994. sakura left the band in 1997 and was replaced by yukihiro in January 1998, completing the current line-up.
Takanori Nishikawa is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, voice artist, radio personality, and businessman. He performs under the stage name T.M.Revolution (TMR), which stands for "Takanori Makes Revolution", stemming from the famous '80s pop electronic band TM Network. Despite most of his songs being written by Akio Inoue and composed/arranged by Daisuke Asakura, T.M.Revolution is considered Nishikawa's solo project. Nishikawa is also known for contributions of ending and opening themes to many notable anime and game series.
Visual kei is a movement among Japanese musicians that is characterized by the use of varying levels of make-up, elaborate hair styles and flamboyant costumes, often, but not always, coupled with androgynous aesthetics, similar to Western glam rock.
Hideto Takarai, known by his stage name Hyde, is a Japanese musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor. Best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band L'Arc-en-Ciel since 1991, he is also the lead vocalist of Vamps and has a solo career.
Eric Lee Martin is an American rock singer and musician who was active throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, both as a solo artist and as a member of various bands. He earned his most prominent success as the frontman for the hard rock band Mr. Big, which scored a big hit in the early 1990s with "To Be with You", a song that Martin wrote during his teen years.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment was an American record company owned as a 50–50 joint venture between Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann. The venture's successor, the revived Sony Music, is wholly owned by Sony, following their buyout of the remaining 50% held by Bertelsmann. BMG was instead rebuilt as BMG Rights Management on the basis of 200 remaining artists.
Monoral is a Japanese alternative rock band signed to Sony Music Japan. The band consists of Anis Shimada and Ali Morizumi
Danger Crue Records is a Japanese visual kei independent record label located in Tokyo, Japan. It was originally the record label of the Danger Crue music office, both founded in 1981. According to D'erlanger drummer Tetsu, Danger Crue was formed for the heavy metal band 44Magnum. In April 2000, the office changed its name to the Maverick D.C. Group but continues to run the Danger Crue Records label.
Nami Tamaki is a Japanese pop singer. As a teenager under the Sony Music Japan label, she had four top-ten albums, two of which reached number one. Her singles were used as theme songs for animated shows such as Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, Gundam Seed Destiny, and D. Gray-man, as well as being representative of the J-Pop music trend. She has various commercial tie-ins with the anime and games industry, and has also performed in stage musicals and a movie.
Acid Android is the solo project of Yukihiro, drummer of the Japanese rock band L'Arc-en-Ciel. They are signed to yukihiro's Tracks on Drugs label, a division of Ki/oon Records. Acid Android releases, as with the other L'Arc-en-Ciel members' solo projects, take place when they are on hiatus. To date Acid Android has released three albums, one mini album and EP, two singles, and three live DVDs. The band, in contrast to L'Arc-en-Ciel, uses a harder, faster sound, more stage-lighting and mechanics to further energize their concerts.
Mucc is a Japanese visual kei rock band, formed in Ibaraki in 1997. Named after a character from the children's TV show Hirake! Ponkikki, the band is also known by the nickname "69" since the numbers six and nine can be pronounced "mu" and "ku", respectively, in Japanese. As of 2020, the band has released 15 studio albums, two live albums, three EPs, 41 singles and 21 home videos, some of which were also released in Europe.
Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., often abbreviated as SMEJ or simply SME, and also known as Sony Music Japan for short, is a Japanese music arm for Sony. Found in 1968 as CBS/Sony, SMEJ is directly owned by Sony Group Corporation and is operating independently from the United States-based Sony Music Entertainment due to its strength in the Japanese music industry. Its subsidiaries include the Japanese animation production enterprise, Aniplex, which was established in September 1995 as a joint-venture between Sony Music Entertainment Japan and Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan, but which in 2001 became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan. It was prominent in the early to mid '90s producing and licensing music for animated series such as Roujin Z from acclaimed Japanese comic artist Katsuhiro Otomo and Capcom's Street Fighter animated series.
Kioon Music is a Japanese record label, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan.
SID is a Japanese visual kei rock band, formed in 2003 and signed to Sony Records.
Yukihiro, stylized as yukihiro and previously stylized as YUKIHIRO, is a Japanese musician, best known as drummer of the rock band L'Arc-en-Ciel. He also sings and plays bass for his solo project, Acid Android. Before joining L'Arc-en-Ciel he was in the popular visual kei bands Zi:Kill and Die in Cries.
"Niji" is the eighth single by Japanese rock band L'Arc-en-Ciel, released on October 17, 1997. It reached number 3 on the Oricon chart. It was their first release after Sakura's arrest and Yukihiro joining as the band's support drummer. The title track was used as the opening theme of the animated movie Rurouni Kenshin: Requiem for the Ishin Shishi, making them the only artist to contribute more than one song to the franchise. The single was re-released on August 30, 2006. The song is one of the band's signature songs, often played at the end of concerts.
The following is a list of episodes 28–62 of the anime series Rurouni Kenshin. Directed by Kazuhiro Furuhashi and produced by Aniplex and Fuji TV, these episodes ran in Japan on Fuji TV from October 30, 1996, through to September 17, 1997. These 35 episodes are based on volumes 7-18 of the manga series of the same name by Nobuhiro Watsuki, and depicts the fight of the former assassin named Kenshin Himura, against his successor Makoto Shishio, who aims to conquer Japan.
Dead End is a Japanese heavy metal/hard rock band formed in Tokyo in 1984. They were one of few Japanese metal bands who had international exposure in the United States during the eighties. Originally disbanded in 1990, Dead End reunited in 2009 after almost two decades.
Alexandre Destrez is a French pianist, keyboardist, composer and musical arranger. He is particularly well known for his musical collaboration on the Tourist and Boulevard albums of St. Germain.
Japanese rock, sometimes abbreviated to J-rock, is rock music from Japan. Influenced by American and British rock of the 1960s, the first rock bands in Japan performed what is called Group Sounds, with lyrics almost exclusively in English. Folk rock band Happy End in the early 1970s are credited as the first to sing rock music in the Japanese language. Punk rock bands Boøwy and The Blue Hearts and hard rock/heavy metal groups X Japan and B'z led Japanese rock in the late 1980s and early 1990s by achieving major mainstream success.
