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hololive VTuber and virtual idol Hoshimachi Suisei has announced her first new album in two years, SHINSEI MOKUROKU.
Ever since her debut, her slogan has been “A shooting star that appeared from diamonds in the rough,” and that slogan was embodied by her first album, a refreshing work with a true idol feel. She followed this up with a very different album that took her music to the next level, expressing the struggles and tumult she faced in her musical career. Now, she is releasing an ambitious third album with the theme of “revolution.” In an interview with Billboard JAPAN, Hoshimachi said, “Virtual artists have been seen as oddities. People don’t look at me as a person, but I sing my own songs and I dance my own dances. Gaining recognition for that is, to me, a revolution.”

Her appearance on a massive billboard in New York’s Times Square is a sign of the steady progress she is making in that revolution. The Spotify advertisement is unusual, as the company has done few collaborations with Japanese artists, and it is their first time collaborating with a Japanese indie artist. When Hoshimachi first heard about the project, she thought they were talking about an advertisement on Shibuya Scramble Square.

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Hoshimachi says she ultimately decided on the concept for the new album around the time she released the lead single “BIBBIDIBA” in March 2024. The theme of the song, written by Vocaloid producer Tsumiki, is a strong-willed woman—a Cinderella who isn’t content to sit back and wait for her prince to come but who goes out to seize her destiny herself. It became the first-ever VTuber song on the Billboard JAPAN charts to reach 100 million streaming plays. That same concept was also part of “AWAKE,” a Hoshimachi song written by the team of Giga and TeddyLoid, whose other credits include Ado’s “Odo.” “Modern women are drawn to and want to become strong women. I’m particularly fond of the lyrics ‘Clichéd storyteller, don’t pass the mic.’ I don’t like falling into clichés, either. I want to explore my own way of doing things. I’m singing about how people can’t leave the direction of their own lives to others who just live cookie-cutter lives.”

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The music on the album was written by a wide range of artists at the vanguard of J-pop and rock, such as Soichiro Yamauchi (Fujifabric), Enon Kawatani (indigo la End, Gesu no Kiwami Otome, etc.), Deu (PEOPLE 1), Natori, and Haruno. Hoshimachi discussed how she chose these artists. “A lot of the artists on my second album were creators active in the online scene. That’s because I’ve also always been heavily online, and those were the artists I was listening to. With this third album, I decided to take a step outside the bounds of the online scene.”

The music videos for the album’s songs are also unique. The videos for “BIBBIDIBA” and “AWAKE” combine anime and live action. Hoshimachi explains, “I really want to break into the real world. I thought about how I, as a virtual figure, could get closer to 3D people, so I went with this approach of fusing our worlds.” The entire video for “Venus Bug” is live action, a rarity for a VTuber.

“Kireigoto,” for which Hoshimachi wrote both the lyrics and music herself, is of particular note. This marks her first time writing her own lyrics and music. “I wanted to do that on my second album, but I ran out of time. Or, I guess I should say, I had a hard time getting myself going. When I was talking to someone on the staff, I mentioned that for sure I wanted to do it on my third album, and they started making concrete deadlines and plans, like ‘okay, have this done by that time’ or ‘let’s have these folks work on the music video.’ That’s when I knew I simply had to make the song, and I set my mind to it. I ended up going way over the deadline, though.”

The lyrics to “Kireigoto” include the line “I sing because I hate spewing platitudes.” It expresses a dilemma that Hoshimachi herself often confronts. “I’ve been online for a long, long time, and a lot of the people in the online communities I’m in live in big cities. That meant it was easy for them to meet up, but since I lived far from anywhere, I could never attend. Then, years later, after I finally made it to the city, I’d reach out to my friends from back then and they’d say ‘I can’t, I’m not young anymore, it’s just too tiring.’ These were people who were already adults back when I was a kid. It made me really sad to see that people changed like this as they got older.” Looking back on this experience, she spoke about how she always wanted to remain lively and young at heart, giving up as little as possible. “But I know that’s just painting a rosy picture. I hate platitudes, and I hate when I’m the one saying platitudes, so I just sing. That’s what the song is about.”

On February 1, she will put on a solo show at the Nippon Budokan. Back before she joined hololive, when she was on her own as an artist, she talked in her very first self-introduction video about her dream: playing at the Nippon Budokan. Reflecting frankly about her feelings at the time, she shared, “I was a little worried that if my dreams came true I’d lose my drive. I also worried that perhaps my listeners would be left with the feeling that they’d watched my story through to its very end and they’d drift away. But now, I’ve actually got my sights set on a lot of things after I play at the Budokan. I’m going to be really busy (laughs). My schedule is packed, so I don’t think there’s ever going to be an end. And I now trust my listeners to stick with me.”

The Nippon Budokan is known as one of Japan’s most prestigious concert venues, but the way Hoshimachi talks about it, it is just one point in her journey. She shared her vision for what lies beyond. “I’ve talked about this for a long time, but I want to create a world in which virtual beings are part of everyday life. I like science fiction set in the near future, like Coil – A Circle of Children. I hope we can see that kind of future in our own lives. That’s why I want to help bring in a new era.”

“There are a lot of people who speak negatively about virtual beings. Whenever I see that, I think ‘they’ve got low resolutions.’ People will say things like ‘all they do is push a button to dance or sing,’ and I just think ‘that’s not true.’ But if people are going to be that way, then, fine, I don’t care, I’ll just become even more active. I’ll force my presence down their throats, like ‘Here, eat up, this is the virtual world.’ If I do that, their resolution might just improve. That’s why I hope to create even more opportunities for people to be exposed to me.”

—This article by Takuto Ueda first appeared on Billboard Japan

BAND-MAID kicked off 2025 with a new digital single called “Zen,” released Jan. 13. The track is being featured as the opening theme song for ZENSHU, an original TV anime series produced by MAPPA. The collaboration between the all-women rock band and animation studio hailing from Japan with fans around the world is poised to gain a wide global audience suitable to celebrate the start of a new year.

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The five members of BAND-MAID chatted with Billboard Japan about the production process of the new single, the tracks on Epic Narratives, their first studio album in three and a half years, and their outlook for what is already looking to be a super-busy 2025 for the group.

“Zen,” your new single, has a different flavor from the songs on the Epic Narratives album. Did you start working on it after you finished the album?

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Miku Kobato (Guitar/Vocals): It was around the same time. We were asked to write it when we were still working on the album. KANAMI started off by coming up with a number that fit the requirements for the tie-in while also having a different feel from the album.

KANAMI (Guitar/Vocals): I was given the script for the main story and received quite specific requests regarding the music, so I simplified the image I had in mind to create the track.

MISA (Bass/Vocals): When I listened to the demo, I thought that this song had a strong melody, so I made the bass line feel solid to bring it out. I usually tend to play bass lines that move around a lot, but this time I tried to really focus on the melody and held back on being too technical. 

AKANE (Drums/Percussion): I was also very aware of making a melody-oriented beat. Since many of BAND-MAID’s songs have fast BPM, this one might sound a bit mid-tempo, but I tried to avoid making it sound simply like a chilled-out mid-tempo track by adding little details, like creating beats with fills, that would become the hook. Basically, though, I wanted people to listen to the vocals throughout the song, so it’s a simple beat that supports the vocals.

It might be a little simple for BAND-MAID, but when you compare it to songs by other rock bands, it’s not laid back at all.

AKANE: Right. [Laughs] When the melody line is extended like this and the drums are keeping a simple eighth-note groove, it sounds mid-tempo when our band does it. But I didn’t want to erase its speedy feeling, so was conscious of creating a beat that wouldn’t get boring. In terms of the anime, it’s like being reincarnated in another world. I added a furious drum fill before the final chorus, and had these two themes of another world and the real world in my mind when I recorded it.

Kobato: I’ve felt that there are surprisingly few songs with a simple feel recently, so I’m thinking of playing the guitar parts in our live shows [the band calls its concerts “Okyuji,” meaning “to serve”] in a way that would complement the catchy melody, po. SAIKI sings in a way that really brings out the story, so I tried to sing the chorus in a way that would support her from behind, changing the nuances and singing with a lot of range. The chorus work is rich, so I tried to sing it with that in mind, po.

SAIKI, when you wrote the lyrics, what did you focus on in the work it accompanies?

SAIKI (Lead vocals): The title “Zen” was there from the demo stage, and the ZENSHU team were like, “Perfect, that’s great,” so we kept it. I was able to really get into the work by watching all the episodes as moving images, and picked out words from the story and incorporated them into the lyrics. ZENSHU taught me all kinds of things about being an animator, the profession of the protagonist, and thought it’d be nice to convey how creators like that feel. I think musicians and animators are the same in that we both create, so there were lots of parts I could relate to as a musician, and the lyrics in the chorus also reflect how we feel as BAND-MAID.

When (an anime) is based on a work that exists, you might already like it and be able to get into it right away, but since ZENSHU is an anime by MAPPA with an original story, I imagine it must have been difficult to grasp its worldview and reflect that in the lyrics.

SAIKI: It was. [Laughs] But I went over the plot and script and everything many times and worked on it after becoming a fan before anyone else. I felt that the song was “kayou [vintage Japanese pop music] rock.” We don’t often do songs in that style, and because of that, I figured my lyrics would reach people without sounding off, so I did pretty much what I pleased. As a vocalist, I recall recording it in a simpler way. In the first verse, I did simple chorus work, and from the second verse I tried to show off my own quirks, and added more and more harmonies to each chorus.

In terms of the performance, the descending part at the end of the chorus is memorable. What was the inspiration for that arrangement?

KANAMI: I wanted to create a kind of conclusion to the song. I also considered ending all together with the members, but since the work is about reincarnation, I wanted to include a fantasy-like image.

Your guitar solo, on the other hand, has an ascending, chaotic nuance that’s cool.

KANAMI: Thank you, I like it myself. It’s quite difficult technically, but I always want to play melodies that stick in your ears, and I think I’ve created a guitar solo that leaves a strong impression.

On the Zepp tour last year, you also performed songs off your new album Epic Narratives. How do you feel about the album now?

Kobato: After we “served” them live, we were like, “This album is really good after all,” and our masters and princesses [fans] have told us that that they felt the album was even more wonderful after hearing it live, so that made me happy, po.

SAIKI: It really struck me once again how much we love performing live, and felt that our music is something that is completed by “serving” it to the audience.

The music video for the song “Memorable” off your new album features scenery from overseas. It’s a song you feel strongly about, isn’t it?

Kobato: Yes, po. After COVID restrictions were lifted and we were finally able to go on another overseas tour, we thought it’d be a good idea to write a song about how we felt then, so KANAMI wrote the chorus during the tour. From there, we filled the song with memories of our U.S. tour, like including the English phrases we spoke on the stage and making it so that the people who came to see us at the time could envision the scenery when they listened to the song. The song turned out like that because we decided to write a straightforward ballad with a tempo we’ve never done before as BAND-MAID, po.

Lastly, please say a few words as a New Year’s greeting to your to your masters and princesses.

KANAMI: Happy New Year! I’m really looking forward to 2025, especially because we’ll be able to “serve” [play live] in lots of different places. I’ll write more songs this year and work hard so that we can entertain everyone. Thanks in advance.

SAIKI: This year we’ll be releasing not only the new single “Zen” but also an EP, and there’s more good news to come. I hope you’ll all stay healthy and look forward to it!

AKANE: Last year we were able to perform with some bands we respect, like Incubus and The Warning, and our dreams are steadily coming true. I hope we can continue to make the dreams of BAND-MAID as a whole come true again this year.

MISA: I think we’ll be able to “serve” a lot this year, so I plan on cherishing each show. I want to grow personally and grow as a group and make it a fun year.

Kobato: We’ll be “serving” in lots of different places this year, and there are also lots of things we haven’t announced yet, so I think the year will really pass faster than the last, po. I’m really excited about it, and think that 2025 will bring joy, surprise and all sorts of other feelings to our masters and princesses, so I hope you look forward to it, po. One of our strengths is that we work both in Japan and abroad, so we’d like to continue doing projects that our masters and princesses overseas can enjoy too. I’m looking forward to meeting lots of masters and princesses in 2025, po.

Anything else you want to add as a message to your masters and princesses outside of Japan?

Kobato: We’ve received lots of passionate requests from overseas for us to come and “serve” them, and we also really want to meet lots of people everywhere. We hope masters and princesses from outside Japan can come see us “serve” at Billboard Live this year, and we’ll be “serving” on many other occasions as well, so we’d love for you to plan a trip to Japan and come and see us, po!

—This interview by Takayuki Okamoto first appeared on Billboard Japan