Discovering Classical, Metal, and Anime Songs-I would like to ask you about your personal experiences with music and entertainment culture. What experiences do you think have had a large impact when you look at yourself today?
Yashiro: I took piano lessons at the Yamaha Music School when I was four years old. I disliked practicing a lot, but playing the piano itself was already a normal part of my life.
I wasn't aiming to win competitions, but I was one of the better piano players at school, and I was asked to play accompaniment at choir competitions and graduation ceremonies.
It was a kind of half-hearted self-affirmation that satisfied my need for recognition, and I had some small successes with the piano, so music was positioned as a very positive thing in my mind.
When I was in elementary school, I listened to J-pop through anime and music TV shows and, for a few years, I went to TSUTAYA (CD rental chain) and rented the top popular CDs .
-Oh, yeah! Disc Guide! !Yashiro: I never listened to Western music at all, but I read the D isc G uide and started to rent and listen to what caught my attention at TSUTAYA when I was in the eighth or ninth grade.
Around that time, I got an acoustic guitar and started playing along with a magazine called "Go! Go! GUITAR.” In the black and white pages of the magazine, there was a series of articles on legendary guitarists.
One of the interview articles was about Yngwie Malmsteen. For some reason, I was attracted to the phrase "the man who pioneered the neo-classical genre" (laughs).
I went to TSUTAYA on the same day, rented his album, listened to it, and thought, "This is amazing. What is this?” Apparently, there’s a thing called heavy metal. That's when I started to become more into metal music like Children of Bodom and Arch Enemy.
Melodic death metal suited my nature, and I fell in love with it. I joined a band music club at my university and played metal songs and it just so happened that all of my friends around the first cover band I formed were all hardcore anime fans
- Really!?Yashiro: At the first concert of the club, the other members said, "Let's play some anime songs." They decided to do it without any regard to my opinion (laughs).
We played songs like “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis,” " Genesis of Aquarion, " “God knows..." (a featured track from the anime "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya).
I knew about “Evangelion” and “Genesis of Aquarion,” but I had never heard of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya." I watched it because I was going to play the song, and I got hooked on late-night anime, and I started following anime songs and voice actors.
Around the same time, Vocaloid and Niconico started to become popular. I was exposed to "iM@S" (Idol Master), TVXQ, and other doujin music on Niconico and t I came across Vocaloid and became completely absorbed in the culture. This was my musical journey from childhood to schooling.
-That has led you to your current work, hasn't it?Yashiro: Yes, that's right. I came across Ayase as a Vocaloid listener and, as a result, it all leads to YOASOBI today. The way we engage with our fans is the same .
As I became a voice actor enthusiast, I developed a new persona on X(Twitter) and made many friends all over the country. I spent a lot of time traveling around, eating and drinking together. I think that experience is probably reflected in how we manage our current X (Twitter) account. I have a certain instinct about what might resonate with that community, like, 'If I introduce something like this, it'll spread,' or conversely, 'This might not be well-received.' So, that sense plays a role in what we do today.
- Traveling? Do you mean that you went to a lot of live performances?Yashiro: Yeah, I went to a lot of live shows. I went to most of the live performances of voice actors. Including anime events, doujin events, Comiket-like events, and other small events, I went to about 250 shows a year. Even now, I often go to idol sites, so my life hasn't changed much (laughs).
-Wow. I heard that you are a fan of GANG PARADE. Do you still go to live performances?
Yashiro: Basically, I go to all the tours when I can, and I also go to the release events.
-From the point of view of your friends who have been geeking out on GANG PARADE (Gyanpare) together for a long time, t hey must be proud that you’re in charge of YOASOBI, aren’t they?Yashiro: Nah, I don't know about that (laughs). But I do have otaku friends from Gyanpare who also like YOASOBI and came to see our live performances.
-That’s nice. It's nice to have otaku friends like that.
Yasuda: Many of my friends have been together for about 10 years. I think this has enriched my life as well as my experiences. We share common interests, but our generations and environments are completely different.
Most of them probably wouldn't have become friends if we had met at school, but we became friends through one thing we love. I think it's great that music artists are at the center of that, and I hope YOASOBI can be that kind of presence for someone.
-I think it is reassuring that they’re inclined to enjoy those kinds of live shows .
Yashiro: Fortunately, I have made it this far without losing that kind of feeling as a fan at all. I think there are things that I can say (as a hardcore a nime o taku fan) to artists . That makes me valuable, and artists recognize that in me , so I think my words are persuasive.
-What do you expect from your artists now, including YOASOBI?
Yashiro: I want them to work hard and keep making and releasing good music, but I also want them to never stop accumulating new knowledge. There is a lot of information coming to us nowadays, even if we don’t seek it. However, if artists select and take in good things and use them as fuel, I think they will probably be active even 10 to 20 years from now.
-What kind of development do you have in mind for YOASOBI in the future?
Yashiro: Our opportunities to be known overseas are gradually increasing, such as our appearance at Head In The Clouds Los Angeles in August and being invited to support Coldplay in Japan in November.
However, rather than saying that we will expand overseas, we would like to challenge ourselves to see how far J-pop can go. And if it's called J-pop , it should be loved by Japanese people first. Then I want to do my best to expand the base of that very same J-Pop , which Japanese people love, by having people overseas say it is interesting.
So, while we don't want to change what we do too much, “Idol” has shown us that there’s always more we can do. So we’ll try everything, one by one, without shying away from what’s in front of us.
Photo by Mitsuru Nishimura
Japanese Unit: Hiroo Nishizawa
（StoryWriter）、Takayuki Okamoto
Planning cooperation：Kazuo Okada
（ubgoe Inc.）English Unit: Edit by Patrick Balfe / Translation by Yukie Liao Teramachi
