Abracadabra! and Other Magic Spells

At last, after many delays and much anticipation, Buck-Tick have announced that their 22nd studio album, Abracadabra, will be released on September 21st, 2020, which also happens to be the exact 33rd anniversary of Buck-Tick's major debut. When the band released Atom Miraiha No. 9, Imai Hisashi claimed that numerology had nothing whatever to do with his choice of album title... but he also claimed that use of the word "Atom" in the title had nothing whatever to do with Tezuka Osamu's Tetsuwan Atom (known in English as Astro Boy), yet shortly thereafter, he appeared onstage with his hair styled just like Astro Boy, and the band released officially licensed Buck-Tick x Astro Boy collaborative tour goods, so y'all can decide for yourselves whether to believe everything that comes out of Imai Hisashi's mouth. Buck-Tick then followed Atom Miraiha No. 9 with the album No. 0, adding further evidence to the claim that they have absolutely zero fucks to give about numerology. 

Fun fact about No. 0: the reign of the new Japanese emperor, Naruhito, which began on May 1st, 2019, is titled "Reiwa" (令和). This name was announced in March 2019, after much top-secret deliberation. The first kanji, 令, means "command of God," while the second kanji, 和, means "harmony," and is also used to refer to Japan and Japanese culture. So the meaning of Reiwa could be seen as "harmony [in Japan] under the divine order," or "the gods declare, thou shalt create harmony [in Japan]". However, Reiwa has a second double meaning: "zero-zero." Why? Because "rei" (零) is the word for "zero," and "wa" (輪) means "circle" (and of course, a zero is a circle). It was a Shinto priest who explained to us just how much there is to unpack here - one could imagine the gods ordering humanity to "reset to zero" for a new era, and create harmony in the image of the world's people holding hands in a circle around the earth. In numerology, the zero represents coming full circle, the end of an old cycle and the beginning of a new one, the alpha and omega in one, the emptiness of the void out of which arises all of creation. Meanwhile, as we discussed when Atom Miraiha No. 9 was released, in numerology, 9 represents the ending and completion of a cycle. That Buck-Tick followed No. 9 with No. 0 is definitely not a coincidence. But what's even more intriguing is the fact that No. 0 was released in March 2018, a whole year before Reiwa was announced. It's almost like they knew in advance. Spooky!

Now, they're releasing their 22nd studio album on their 33rd anniversary. This is an unusual move - in Japan, new musical releases are nearly always released on a Wednesday, and Buck-Tick has stuck with this release schedule for the entire length of time we've been following the band, and probably much longer. However, September 21st, 2020 is a Monday, and not only that, it's a national holiday - Respect for the Aged Day (Grandparents' Day). Buck-Tick have released a lot of albums in September - One Life, One Death (September 20th, 2000), Tenshi no Revolver (September 19th, 2007), Yumemiru Uchuu (September 19th, 2012), and Atom Miraiha No. 9 (September 28th, 2016) - but you can see that never before have they bothered to time the release date exactly to their anniversary. Why this time? 

It might have something to do with numerology. For the most part, numerology only uses the single-digit numbers 0-9, but the exceptions to this rule are the so-called "master numbers": 11, 22, and 33. In numerology, the master numbers are considered to have higher, more powerful vibrations. The 11 is the number of intuition, inspiration, awakening, and non-duality (the push-pull of the yin and the yang). The 22 is called the "master builder," because it is the number of taking the ideas inspired by the 11 and making them into realities. The 33 is called the "master teacher," because it is the number of transmitting messages from higher dimensions of the cosmos to the earthly realm. 

The number 33 is found throughout the lore of many religious, mystical and esoteric traditions. Lunar calendars, such as those used to calculate the timing of various religious holy days such as Ramadan, operate on 33-year cycles - that is to say, it takes 33 years for the months of a lunar calendar to return to their original position in the year. There are also 33 bones in the human spine - significant because many mystical traditions speak of spiritual awakening as the vital force rising up from the base of the spine to the pineal gland in the brain (the actual "third eye" structure in the brain), opening one up to experience of higher consciousness. The 33 can also be seen to represent the two triangles of the merkaba or Star of David, which in turn represent the principle "as above, so below" - the micro reflected in the macro, and vice versa. The upward-facing triangle represents the flow of energy downward from heaven to earth, while the downward-facing triangle represents the flow of energy upward from earth to heaven (or was it the other way around? or does it even matter?), with the human consciousness in the middle, living bound by earthly reality, while seeking for higher awareness. The 33 is a doubling of the 3, the triangle, considered the most basic magic number by magicians, witches and alchemists of all stripes since ancient times... and intimately connected to the magic of "Abracadabra," but we'll get to that in a bit.

The Star of David / Merbaka (3D Star of David, two interpenetrating tetrahedrons, said to be the structure of the human aura)

Then there's the whole study of the mystery of "angel numbers," also known as synchronicity numbers - those numbers you just keep happening to notice everywhere. Does this happen to y'all? Like every time you happen to look at the clock, you see that it's 11:11, or 2:22, or 4:44, or what have you. Or you pay for something in a shop and the total comes out to be 11.11 or some other repdigit. Or you see repdigits on you social media accounts, in the number of likes on your tweet or views on your video. Or you see them on license plates, billboards - the list goes on. And it seems to happen a lot, completely spontaneously. Maybe you see the same non-repdigit numbers over and over, for example, double numbers like 1313 or 2020, or palindrome numbers like 3223 or 4884. Maybe you keep seeing the digits of your birthday, or some other personal lucky number. It's not just you. It happens to lots of people, often far too often to be mere random coincidences (do random coincidences even exist? We're not sure they do. If you want to have fun with this, speak this spell out loud, and mean it: "Hey, universe, show me 2357!" Watch and wait for 2357 to show up. If you meant what you asked, it will.)

As the name "angel numbers" suggests, many people believe that these numbers are messages from guardian angels or higher dimensions, and numerologists, occultists and psychics have used the principles of numerology to attempt to translate the meaning of the messages (for in-depth further reading on this topic for those interested, we recommend this site). Because of the fact that the 33 is a higher octave of 3 (the Trinity), and the fact that 33 represents the link between heaven and earth, 33 (and longer sequences of 3's) as an angel number is seen as indicating the protective presence of angels (or spirit guides or whatever you want to call them). As we discussed in our article on "Datenshi," angels and heaven are a major theme in Buck-Tick's work, going right back to Seventh Heaven and "Angelic Conversation" (which is jam-packed with esoteric symbolism, but that's a topic for another article). Not directly relevant, since Buck-Tick are probably not scholars of synchronicity number meanings, but interesting all the same. The foundational belief behind numerology is that numbers express the fundamental truth of the universe - a belief shared by quantum physicists, just not in the same way. So, maybe it's not necessary to have overt knowledge of the numbers in order to employ their meaning. Maybe they just come out.

All in all, 33 is one special number! It might just be coincidence that Abracadabra is Buck-Tick's 22nd original studio album, but since they have the chance, it seems like a one-of-a-kind chance for some magical hoodoo that they should release their 22nd album on their 33rd anniversary. The 22 - building inspirations into realities. The 33 - sharing transcendental magic with the world. That's exactly what B-T do, right? And Abracadabra is magic that goes back a long, long time.

These days, when most people hear the word "abracadabra," they think of stage magic - the guy in the fancy suit waves a black stick over his silk tophat, says "abracadabra!" and pop! out of the hat comes a rabbit. Everyone knows that stage "magic" isn't magic at all - just deftly worked illusion. Real magic - that's an entirely different idea, spanning thousands of years of occult study, and in fact, "abracadabra" was once used as a serious magic spell.

In fact, the word "abracadabra" is so old that no one knows where it originated from, and some even claim that it pre-dates Babylon and the mythical Tower of Babel, and is therefore a word from the universal language which humanity supposedly spoke before the destruction of Babel. The reason cited for this is that "abracadabra" even today is used more or less universally across human languages without being translated. Obviously, evidence doesn't support the idea that everyone spoke a universal language before the time of Babylon - language is constantly evolving, and groups of people separated from one another will naturally evolve different languages over time, that's just how language works. But the idea of an ancient language of the universe, handed down by mystic scholars and used to work magic, is an idea that surely goes back to before Babylon, so the notion that "abracadabra" is a word from such a language isn't as silly as you might think.

There are various other theories about the origins of abracadabra, though none of them can be substantiated, because the archaeological evidence is long gone. According to one theory, abracadabra comes from the similarly ancient magic word "abraxas" or "abrasax," found in Gnostic texts and on ancient carved stone talismans. Just like abracadabra, nobody can say for certain where abraxas originated (Greece? Egypt? the Middle East?). The seven letters are thought to represent the seven planets that were known to the ancient world, and the word itself was used to refer to the "Archon of the 365 heavenly spheres," the Gnostic supreme being. The word itself may have been derived from the Ancient Hebrew words "ab, ben, ruach hakodesh," or the similar Ancient Greek words, "ab, ben, rouach, hakadōs," meaning "Father, Son, Holy Spirit"... which brings us back to abracadabra, because another theory is that abracadabra was derived from those words, and rather than abracadabra being derived from abraxas, abraxas was derived from abracadabra.

Another theory posits that abracadabra was derived from the Aramaic phrase "avra kehdabra," meaning "I create as I speak," or "I create like the Word." That's a powerful idea, considering that real magic is, in its essence, the act of directly reality through force of will. Alternatively, others believe that abracadabra was derived from a similar phrase, "avra kadavra," meaning "let it be destroyed." Whether these are actually two different phrases, two different translations of the same phrase and one of the translations is wrong, or they're two different meanings of the same phrase and both of the translations are right is not something we've been able to discover, and perhaps nobody knows - Aramaic is a very old, very dead language. But if "avra kadavra" makes you think of avada kedavra in Harry Potter, you're right on the money - this is indeed where J.K. Rowling got the idea for her killing curse incantation.

So, were the ancients using "abracadabra" as a spell to kill each other? Far from it! In addition to divining the future, one of the most important applications of magic in pre-modern times was for protection and healing. Since pre-history, healers, witches and shamans were often one in the same - the people with knowledge of both medicinal herbs and of the unseen realms of spirit and energy. These days, we've been taught to laugh at the crazy or silly-seeming medical practices of the past - but there was often a lot more to them than Westerners brainwashed by Big Pharma like to admit, and not only are the effectiveness of herbal remedies and traditional therapies such as acupuncture and sound healing being verified by high and mighty modern research, but the real therapeutic value of plant medicines such cannabis and magic mushrooms, which were used by shamans since ancient times, is being re-acknowledged. (Did y'all know that used correctly, psychedelics can be far more effective at treating depression than any anti-depressant ever? Studies in peer-reviewed journals show! No wonder Imai's so happy!) This ancient healing magic was not all hooey, not remotely.

However, "abracadabra" was most likely not effective at what it was designed for - as a ward against the plague. Yes, you heard right. That's why the original meaning of the phrase may be "let it be destroyed." The aim was to destroy the plague. The first known appearance of "abracadabra" in print was in the writings of Serenus Sammonicus, physician to the Roman emperor Caracalla in the 2nd century C.E. Sammonicus recommended that sick people should wear an amulet around their necks with the word abracadabra inscribed as an inverted triangle, losing one letter per line. The gradual reduction in the letters was supposed to slowly drive the sickness from the body. This triangle is called an "abracadabrangle." (And you thought "abracadabra" was an awesome word!)

The concept caught on, and these abracadabra talismans were all the rage throughout Europe during plagues, even as late as the 1700's, when Daniel Defoe scoffed at them, writing,

"People deceiv'd; and this was in wearing Charms, Philters, Exorcisms,  Amulets, and I know not what Preparations, to fortify the Body with them against the Plague; as if the Plague was but a kind of a Possession of an evil Spirit; and that it was to be kept off with Crossings, Signs of the Zodiac, Papers tied up with so many Knots; and certain Words, or Figures written on them, as particularly the Word Abracadabra, form'd in Triangle, or Pyramid...

How the poor People found the Insufficiency of those things, and how many of them were afterwards carried away in the Dead-Carts."

We can only imagine what a field day he'd have had in 2020, smugly looking down his nose and feeling superior both to conspiracy theorists and people who dare to go outside and have fun alike. (It's a fact that complaining about the behavior of others so that you can feel superior provides 100% immunity to the coronavirus!!!)

Honestly, Danny (can we call you Danny?) If you're gonna die of the plague, you might as well do it in style... and these abracadabra charms are stylish as fuck! They're even more stylish than Buck-Tick printed masks! And they're still in production today, based on the old designs.

(Please, guys. Tour goods. Even if there's no tour. Please make us some silver Buck-Tick Abracadabrangle necklaces. We will gladly wear them even if it means we get smugly sniffed at by Daniel Defoe. You will pry our gothic occult jewelry from our cold, dead bodies as they lie pickled in hand sanitizer in refrigerated morgue trucks in the queue for another slapdash coronafuneral... just kidding, goths are immune to the coronavirus!)

Abracadabrangle charms were also often put over the doorways of houses to keep the plague out, possibly in a nod to the final plague of Egypt in the Bible.

Anyhow, it wasn't until much more recently that "abracadabra" became adopted as a word of choice for stage magicians. In a now-scientific world, with the microbial causes of disease understood, magic wards against illness began to seem silly (then again... people in 2020 are drinking bleach and dying, to try and stop themselves dying of the coronavirus, so... compared to that, an Abracadabrangle seems quite sane and logical.) Anything resembling "real" magic came to be ridiculed by the global hegemony of materialist science. Abracadabra and other magic words are lol. Let's cut naked ladies in half with saws, pull rabbits out of hats, and drink to the fact that now, at last, we know everything there is to know, go to bed snug at night knowing that no witches, ghosts, gods, or aliens exist, and they never have. We are very smart, with very selfish genes. Ancient peoples were primitive and superstitious savages.

The thing is, it's actually a big, mysterious world out there, full of a vast number of things we don't understand. We don't even understand gravity! So many years and so many particle accelerators later, and physicists still have not a clue what made Newton's apple fall. What we call "matter" is 99.9999% "empty space." Why? What is the universe, really? Those primitive and superstitious savages claimed it was a living, breathing, conscious being. So did Sakurai Atsushi, on Yumemiru Uchuu. Can we be so sure that they're wrong? 

Meanwhile, the US government just announced last week that UFOs are real, and that the extraterrestrial explanation appears to be the most likely one, and we have exactly zero idea what the UFOs are or how they work. And guys... didn't we tell you at the beginning of the year that 2020 was going to be the year the aliens landed? Keep your eyes, hearts, and minds open, and your alchemical homunculus flasks at the ready. The world just might turn out to be far more magical than you think. Buck-Tick knew Reiwa was coming. The ancient wisdom of Buck-Tickistan is a very, very deep well. What else do they know that they have yet to reveal?

Whatever it is, it's surely not on the English version of the special website promoting the release of the Abracadabra album. This website, which in addition to being the most boring, lazily designed site we have ever seen, was very definitely NOT written by Cayce, tells us:

"The latest album "ABRACADABRA" released by BUCK-TICK, a rock band that has been shocking many times with its own musicality, on the anniversary of its 33rd debut.

Along with the rapid changes in the way music was delivered, the band continued to evolve as an immobile and lonely entity."

Here, kids, we're going to teach you another cool-sounding word: "gobbledygook." The definition: "language characterized by circumlocution and jargon, usually hard to understand." What exactly does that mean, "immobile and lonely entity"? Do they mean like a lone UFO just floating up there in the sky, not moving? We're pretty sure Buck-Tick *did* come from outer space, so that's plausible, but... no. What they were trying to say is "unshakable and fiercely independent." Translators: proving to you that yes, words ARE magic, every day of the year. Have a word problem? Hire a translator today! (Real talk, it actually hurt us with physical pain to read the English version of this site. Buck-Tick badly need a different web management team.)

Anyway, the big news about the release of this album is that, for the first time since Taboo, the album will be released not only to CD, but also to cassette tape and *drumroll* VINYL! (And, you know, digital download and streaming services, yawn, snore. But oh wait... it was because of us putting pressure on them that they did that! You rock, Blog-Tickers! And for overseas fans in this age of no-international-shipping-from-Japan, it's a damn good thing they took our advice or they'd have lost out on a lot of potential money from their overseas fanbase.)

As far as the vinyl thing goes, we have a personal confession to make. After every Buck-Tick concert, the venue staff pass out feedback questionnaires about the show to all the fans, and we've noticed over the years that they really take this feedback to heart. Over the course of the past few tours, we've been consistently offering three specific suggestions on the questionnaires: 1) release an acoustic album or play an acoustic show, 2) offer a fanclub-sanctioned ticket trading service, 3) if you want to play something catchy and repetitive, please play "Ai no Uta" instead of all those bop-bop songs, 4) release commemorative LP versions of your post-Taboo back catalog.

The ticket trading service is a shambles, but they did it. The acoustic section of Locus Solus was almost as surprising and exciting as finally hearing "Ai no Uta" for the first time in our thirteen years of following the band on every tour. And now, an LP version of Abracadabra!  Knowing the Japanese fanbase, we find it unlikely that many other fans besides us, if indeed any at all, would have made these same suggestions. The type of Buck-Tick fan who goes to shows and writes questionnaires is, to put it politely, not the kind who owns record players. Yeah, vinyl is having a major comeback and all the cool kids are doing it. Maybe it's all coincidence. And it's not like we signed our questionnaires "Hocus Pocus, Alacazam, Love, Cayce." But we kind of don't believe in coincidences. We're pretty sure that words are magic. Abra-ca-fucking-dabra!

All told, the album will be released in five versions, one for each of the five band members. They are, as follows:

Special Precious Limited Edition CD (Acchan version because he's the most special, precious band member said all the fangirls who will buy this version of the album)

5,500 yen + tax / with BluRay

5,000 yen + tax/ with DVD

(ooh look it's a 555 Abracadabrangle! Acchan-chan's life path number is 5! Spooooooky!)

The BluRay/DVD will contain a music video for the new YOW-ROW mix of "Kemono-tachi no Yoru," otherwise known as "Night of the Beasts ~tryhard fanboy mix~". It will also contain a multi-angle version of the music video for "Moonlight Escape," with one cut for each band member, as well as the music video for "Kogoeru."

In addition, the limited edition will come with special packaging, as well as a lottery ticket to enter to win goods signed by the band members* (please please please let it be a signed Abracadabrangle!) and a link for streaming the contents to your love, companion, and codependent addiction in this time of social distancing especially smartphone until September 30th, 2021.

*Please note that though the Buck-Tick members are immune, YOU can get coronavirus from signatures. Enter this lottery at your own risk.

**That was a joke don't take it seriously also don't microwave your mail.

Regular CD Edition (Toll version, because he is simple and honest, and the regular CD was the older brother of the limited edition CD)

3,000 yen + tax

No frills on this one - just the album, on high-fidelity SHM-CD that can be played in all players. Also contains a lottery ticket to enter the lottery to win signed goods, and a link for streaming the contents to your smartphone until September 30th, 2021.

Analog LP Edition (Hide version because of that fake or are they real wall of records he keeps getting photographed in front of, and because he's a trendy hipster)

4,500 yen + tax

Contains a 2-disc set of 180 gram vinyl LPs, with the whole album on four sides. Also comes with a special poster, a lottery ticket to enter the lottery to win signed goods, and a link for streaming the contents to your smartphone until September 30th, 2021. Doesn't contain a free download code like every other record released these days, because the B-T management are money-grubbing bastards, and they want you to punish you for wanting the album on vinyl by forcing you to buy the album twice if you want it in high-fi digital instead of ripping it by hand from the vinyl to your computer. Yes, Cayce has software for digitally ripping vinyl. Yes, digitally ripping vinyl is a pain-in-the-ass process that requires manually dividing up the tracks in a DAW (for those of you laypeople, that's a Digital Audio Workstation, sound-editing software). Yes, Cayce will also buy the limited edition CD in order to get the DVD. But come on.

Cassette Tape (Imai version because the curly reels of tape look like the curlicues on his guitar, and on his shoes)

2,800 yen

Contains a lottery ticket to enter the lottery to win signed goods, and a link for streaming the contents to your smartphone until September 30th, 2021. And super hipster bragging rights that you bought the album in the cheapest physical format and that format is a cassette tape. Listen to it on your Walkman. (Fun fact: yes Cayce has a cassette tape player. Yes, we also have software for digitally ripping cassette tapes. No, we're not going to rip the Abracadabra casette tape and those cheap fucking bastards should have provided a download code.)

High-Resolution Streaming (Yutaka version. Yutaka himself is a high-resolution stream.)

48kHz 24-bit format, close to the original master tapes. To be streamable by special software apps: Rekochoku, mora Hi-Res, and mora qualitas. No word on the price but they'll probably make you pay 500 yen each time as if it were a gacha-gacha. Because if you are gullible enough to buy into the scam of streaming, you deserve to be scammed.

Digital Download/General Streaming Services (One streaming service per B-T behind-the-scenes collaborator, including Yokoyama Kazutoshi, Cube Juice, Yow-Row, Mr. Tanaka, etc. - they couldn't do it without you) 

No word on the price, but the album will be available on major digital download and streaming platforms starting September 21st. For details on the streaming and download platforms, go to the Abracadabra official site.

Whoops, that was six formats, not five. Numerology is hard work!

As we mentioned before, the Japan Post is not currently shipping internationally, less out of a fear of the virus and more out of a lack of sufficient transportation, it seems. However, it's unlikely that this lame situation will continue forever, so if any of y'all are interested in ordering any of these items through Cayce, shoot us an email. We will purchase them for you and hold them for you until international shipping to your country resumes.

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As if that weren't enough new info already... Buck-Tick have also released the new album's song titles and writing credits, though they say that the order of the tracks has yet to be determined. So, in no particular order, here goes.

PEACE（SE） (music: Imai Hisashi)

"SE" stands for "stage entrance." This is the instrumental music that plays while the band comes on stage during live shows. Raise your hand if you, too, wish Buck-Tick would release an SE compilation album. That's a questionnaire suggestion we made that they haven't taken us up on.

URAHARA-JUKU (lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi / music: Imai Hisashi)

Ura-Harajuku, or "backstreet Harajuku" is the internal area of Harajuku between Omotesando and Meiji-doori, away from Harajuku station. For many years, especially in the 80's and 90's, this was one of the edgiest, most interesting fashion spots in all Tokyo. These days, it's gentrified as hell like the rest of the district, and its glory is mostly gone, though a few vestiges remain here and there. This title is a pun, however. "Urahara" means "reverse" or "contrary," and "juku" means "cram school." A cram school on how to be punk? Yeah, Buck-Tick could definitely teach that school.

Datenshi - YOW-ROW ver.  (lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi / music: Imai Hisashi)

I know, you know, I know this song already. (Singable with the original melody!)

MOONLIGHT ESCAPE  (lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi / music: Imai Hisashi)

Reportedly a catchy, retro number in which Sakurai passes on some wisdom from his hard-knock life to the sad boys and girls of the world. More on this one soon.

Kogoeru ("Frozen") - Crystal CUBE ver. (lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi / music: Hoshino Hidehiko)

Mixed by Cube Juice. A Hide song that gets its own PV. Amazing! We have our fingers crossed that Sakurai wears a pale blue sparkly dress and lets it GO!

Kemono-tachi no Yoru ("Night of the Beasts") - YOW-ROW ver. (lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi / music: Imai Hisashi)

Cube Juice already had his way with the song and proved himself to be an artistic, tender, and passionate lover. We bet Yow-Row's version is full of dubstep and finishes fast, like a teenage boy. The robot who writes the English version of the official site translated the title of this song as "Beasts' Night," because not only do robots have no sense of poetry, they also don't read Not Greatest Site.

Tsuki no Sabaku ("Desert of the Moon") (lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi / music: Hoshino Hidehiko)

Reportedly a medium-tempo number with a Japanese-style tribal beat (according to Sakurai).

Maimu -Mime- ("Dancing Dream") (lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi / music: Imai Hisashi)

Another pun here - Sakurai spells "mime" with the kanji "mai" (dance) and "mu" (dream).

Villain (lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi + Imai Hisashi / music: Imai Hisashi)

Interesting title! Must be about the past life in which Acchan-chan was a Romanian vampire and Imai was Hugo Ball.

Dance Tengoku ("Dance Paradise") (lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi / music: Hoshino Hidehiko)

A dance number by Hoshino Hidehiko. This one must be tropical rock for sure.

Que Sera Sera Elegy (lyrics: Imai Hisashi / music: Imai Hisashi)

"Que sera sera, whatever will be will be? The future's too hard to see, que sera sera" - go the lyrics to the original song. If this is an elegy for that philosophy, does that mean we get to learn to see the future?

SOPHIA DREAM  (lyrics: Imai Hisashi / music: Imai Hisashi)

Omg is Imai dreaming of another woman? How dare you cheat, Imai! Shame! And with the Goddess of Wisdom, no less! Then again, given that Sophia is known for her wisdom, not her sensuality, perhaps it's a merely intellectual affair. Or perhaps, this is about Jung's archetype Sophia, the most highly evolved stage of anima integration, in which a man has fully integrated his feminine aspect to the point that he sees women as fully developed individuals with all the same range of qualities as men. A man at this level of anima integration has fully accepted, and can make full use of, his feminine energy. See what we wrote about the Divine Feminine in this article.

Eureka (lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi + Imai Hisashi / music: Imai Hisashi)

Ancient Greek for "I've found it!" Famously, Ancient Greek polymath Archimedes ran out of his house naked shouting "eureka!" after stepping into his overflowing bathtub gave him the idea to measure the purity of gold alloys through displacement of water (other metals are less dense than gold, and thus take up more space than pure gold, and thus displace more water - this is how you tell if the goldsmith is cheating you.) Imai says that he wrote this song last, and it took him about five minutes. He says it was born out of his nebulous sense of rage and frustration at the pandemic. Rage, Imai, rage!

Boukyaku ("Forgotten") (lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi / music: Imai Hisashi)

The official album site has this translated as "oblivion," but the kanji literally mean "forgetting and retreating," so this is only oblivion in the sense of something completely forgotten, not the nothingness of the great void. Therefore, we're better than "forgotten" is a better translation. But we'll have to see the lyrics to know for sure.

So that's the album! There are a total of 14 tracks, which is generous of them, though we don't understand why "Rondo," masterpiece as it is, was not included... but who knows, maybe it just didn't fit the vibe. We'll have to wait and see.

More info on the other news from Buck-Tickistan coming soon.

Luna Park / Datenshi

Sorry for the wait, but in our old age, we like to take our time with these translations, knowing that y'all will wait patiently for us on the strength of our massive internet fame (that was a joke, we know the Internet waits for no man, woman, or non-corporeal genderless entity such as ourselves). In any case, the kanji, romaji, and translations for "Datenshi" and "Luna Park" are now up over at This is NOT Greatest Site, so feel free to go check them out, and leave your thoughts on the songs in the comments section below.

As depicted in the jacket photos, "Datenshi" is a song dealing with duality/non-duality. For those of you not familiar with the concept of non-duality - non-duality is the metaphysical understanding that every binary is in fact a whole, two opposite poles of the same energy, each incapable of existing without the other. In a space with no light, no shadows can be cast. Without shadow, how would we define light? Male and female exist to merge and recombine with one another - that is the entire purpose of sexual reproduction, so how could one exist without the other, or be superior to the other? Positive/negative, up/down, black/white, thing/nothing - all are relative, all are one. Buck-Tick have been exploring this theme for a long, long time, most notably on Six/Nine, which is easily described as a concept album about rinne, the Buddhist soul cycle of death and rebirth, but which is also a concept album about non-duality - turn over the six and you've got a nine, and vice-versa. The band expressed this theme visually in the series of largely black-and-white music videos which accompanied the songs, occasionally accented with splashes of red, representing the raw passions of the heart and the blood we spill on account of them, as well as the flowering of love from the heart and the fire of life kindled by this love (see the notes on "Rozen Kreuzer" for more on that). 

Buck-Tick returned to this visual theme in the music videos for "Keijijou Ryuusei" and then "New World," representing the way in which our actual experience of life is an eternal instant, every new moment we experience a whole new world of being - sometimes you see, sometimes you don't, and if it's all just like shadows on the walls of Plato's cave, all you can do is feel your way through with your heart to guide you. 

Now, with Datenshi, they have returned to the same theme yet again - on the back of the single, the band members are seen embracing white cutouts against a white background, while in the booklet, they are seen embracing the same cutouts, only this time they're black on a black background. Other self, other half, higher self, inner woman, shadow self - the symbolism of these images is deep. We are the sum of all our emotional experiences, positive and negative. Sakurai wears a jacket made up of white and black panels as if to illustrate that fact, with a flowered tie over his heart - there's that flowering of love again. In the music video, the band swirl through a darkened studio in front of a wall-sized projection screen flashing phantasmagoric yet quotidian images of Tokyo - views from train windows, closeups on cars and graffiti and trash, Shibuya's Scramble Crossing, green summer trees, a blurry split-second wink of hardcore porn on that smutty line about "Oh baby thrusting You & Me." 

Buck-Tick have long asked the question, what is reality? Is it as physical and material as self-styled "hard-headed modern scientists" would have us believe? Or is it a projection of consciousness out of the larger conscious Universe, more like a dream or a role-playing game, more subject to our feelings and desires, projections and fantasies than we've been allowed to believe? If we took a drink for every lyric Sakurai has ever written about life being a dream, we'd be too drunk to keep blogging, so we'll put our money on him coming down on the metaphysical side of this debate (remember how they made a whole album called Dreaming Universe?) The "Datenshi" PV exemplifies this subjective view of reality as individual experience in typically elegant, simple Buck-Tick style - they're in the same studio the whole time, wearing the same costumes - it's just the backdrop that changes. 

As in the music video for "Detarame Yarou" (off Six/Nine), Sakurai's wearing red lipstick, copiously smudged, as if he's fresh from a wild makeout session or vicious devouring of raw, fresh-killed prey, evoking all his many previous exhortations to devour life and feast on love. However, for all that he called "Datenshi" a nihilistic song, we found it quite sensual and romantic - just look at the first stanza. Love's a magic spell, love is joy, he sings. It's like he's frustrated to be here, amid so much hurt and chaos, when he knows that the higher self, the one casting the shadows on the cave walls, is more like an angel of love than a carnivorous beast. From our earlier post on "Datenshi":

Nearly all religious and spiritual traditions tell of the existence of an immortal spirit or soul which survives physical death. Death is seen as a gateway, a transition, or a return to a higher plane of consciousness, which is often described as the angelic realm. In the Japanese Buddhist tradition, souls reincarnate many times in order to hone love, wisdom and compassion against the pain of the three-dimensional physical world. In each life, the soul must temporarily lose its memories of its previous lifetimes and realms beyond, in order to make a fresh start and get the most out of each new life of experience. Buddhism is not a mono-theistic religion - anyone who attains a high enough level of spiritual enlightenment becomes a Buddha, and it is believed that the process of seeking this enlightenment takes many lifetimes. From this perspective, the idea of the fallen angel could be seen as an allegory for the human condition.

This certainly does seem to be the theme of the song after all, summed up in the repeating phrases "tell me who you are" and "tell me who am I." Love lies at the center of these lyrics as it lies at the center of existence, the red rose amid all the black and white. Stories abound across space and time of amnesic, reincarnated or destined lovers who have forgotten the beloved's face and identity, yet still gravitate toward one another, pulled by the force of the love itself, which transcends space, time, and memory, and therefore cannot be forgotten. 

But how to trust your feelings, when you have nothing concrete to rely on? Ancient peoples believed fully in unseen worlds, but our modern society is obsessed with visible material reality to an unprecedented degree - can't see carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or acidifying oceans, guess that means they don't exist, huh? Can't see viruses, guess that means we don't need vaccines, eh? Show me the money! This capitalistic and unhealthily over-masculine world view demonizes the feminine energy of intuition and emotion (by the way, for those of y'all still hung up on little things like pronouns, masculine and feminine are qualities of being which every person of every gender inhabits and expresses to varying degrees. They are polarities of energy and they have nothing to do with chromosomes or genitalia, so please be kind to and love yourselves and your bodies). We're taught not to trust our feelings and intuitions, not to express our emotions, and it's even worse for men than for women. 

So here's Sakurai, an increasingly openly gender-queer man in lipstick and nail polish, singing in the first stanza of the chorus, "love's an illusion." It's abundantly clear from all his previous work, and even from the rest of this song, that he doesn't actually believe that. The universality of love, the primacy of love, the inherent meaning, value, and importance of love - if Buck-Tick's work has one over-arching theme, that's it (look at the lyrics to "Cosmos," "Yumemiru Uchuu," and just about every other Buck-Tick song ever.) The question is, am I allowed to believe in this love? Am I allowed to feel this love? Am I strong enough to overcome the pain of this hell I've fallen into, and express this love? Will I deny everything and kill myself by punishing myself for everything I feel I've done wrong? Or will I open myself to forgiveness, forgive others, forgive myself, let myself be healed? The concept of non-duality recognizes that we are all connected, and that just as any hurt you inflict on me is also a hurt you inflict on yourself, to forgive yourself is to forgive me (and vice versa).

In the second stanza of the chorus, he takes a stand:

This is love yeah You & Me

Oh baby thrusting You & Me

Pressing my lips all over you

Tell me who am I

He admits it - the love is real. He tastes it physically. He realizes that through our love for each other, we define each other. The love is his true identity, it can show him who he is.

On a more metaphysical level, these lyrics and this kind of story can also represent the re-integration of suppressed or fragmented elements of one's own soul, self, consciousness, logos or whatever term you prefer (because words are always subjective) - in Jungian terms, re-integration of the shadow self (re-acknowledgement and acceptance of repressed, despised aspects of oneself), or in New Age spiritual lightworker terms, re-integration with the higher self (tuning in to the layer of your own consciousness which resides in higher dimensional vibrations of reality outside three-dimensional physical incarnation and transcending three-dimensional life and death).

If you found all that very abstract and metaphysical, well, welcome to Buck-Tickistan. Lots of Japanese Buck-Tick fans admitted that they didn't even know the word "keijijou" ("metaphysics") until Buck-Tick released "Keijijou Ryuusei" ("Metaphysical Meteor") in 2014. The meaning of life, death and love are the Piscean deep ocean waters in which Buck-Tick swim. We encourage all of you to go ahead and ponder these questions more, and probe the ways in which they relate to your own feelings and experience. Don't be afraid to feel. Don't be afraid to be guided by your heart and your intuition. Don't be too shy to get your feet wet. Life should be about diving in deep. The deeper you go, the more precious the treasure you find sunken at the bottom.

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And after that punch-packing three minutes and thirty-three seconds (Was this deliberate, guys? Imai, are you back to smoking caterpillar hookahs again? Real talk: who else here sees repeating number sequences all the time? Please discuss.) Anyway yeah, after that punch-packing three minutes and thirty-three seconds of minimal electro-punk, we get three minutes and forty-four seconds (jeez Hide are you smoking caterpillar hookahs too?) of shimmering sugar-synth shoegaze dance-pop: the long-awaited "Luna Park." This is every bit as simple and beautiful as we expect a Hide ballad to be, evoking shades of "Mugen," "Love Parade," and "Ophelia" like wisps of memories while still being entirely its own new thing, every bit as minimalist as "Datenshi" and true to Imai's promise that the new post-No. 0 Buck-Tick will return to the electronics, but also pare back the layers to focus on negative space. No. 0 was a major achievement for Buck-Tick and certainly one of their most mature and well-developed albums of all time (though Thousand-Armed Kannon knows they set a very, very high bar), but if it had one flaw musically, it was that the mixes were so crammed with noise and buzz that at times, the main thrust of the melodies could recede too far into the background, or end up too dry. 

Heading back into a more minimalist direction corrects for this, and if there's one thing "Luna Park" is not, it's dry. The whole song glitters with a gentleness like morning dew or tears of joy, floating and shimmering like the bubble in the lyrics over a deep, grounding, propulsive bass line. Sakurai is free to let loose the full expressive power of his voice as he likes without fear of being drowned out by too many guitar effects, which can only be the right choice, because what would Buck-Tick be without that voice? Free, too, is Cube Juice, whose use of bell and sugar synth tones evokes both recent popular trends in soft electro-lounge music and also ultra-retro 70's and 80's analog sounds, creating a layered, pastel-colored, modern-yet-nostalgic cotton candy musical dreamscape through which you can practically smell the caramel apples and cinnamon donuts, taste the wine, blink back tears against the brightness of the colored lights.

True to his word in the latest FT interview, Sakurai was clearly heavily inspired by the works of Marc Chagall, who painted just as many circus scenes as he painted flying blue lovers. But the circus and the parade have long been one of Buck-Tick's other central themes. If love is the rose at the center of the Universe, the circus is the way we should all be living our lives - in the moment, tasting, drinking, dancing, flying, feeling joy, not fearing what-ifs and worst-case-scenarios. Bubbles burst, but does that mean they're not worth enjoying while they last? This is an old, even ancient, Japanese literary theme, and personally, we think this may be one of Sakurai's greatest lifelong accomplishments as an artist - taking ancient Japanese literary themes and images and reworking them, in all their beautiful simplicity, into his own personal, heartfelt, immediately-experienced symbolic lexicon for the modern era, taking timelessness and making it timely., then timeless again.

The subtlety of these lyrics is as lyrical as Chagall's paintings. The song opens with a line about a flying teacup - surrealist, gentle and fragile as bone china, evoking the fanciful shapes of amusement park rides. Sakurai uses irregular kanji for "tobu" (containing the radical for feathered wings) and "odokeru" (meaning "tawamureru," to play or joke in a carefree manner - no cruel japes here). In the second verse, the kanji in "yume yume" is repeated in full twice, rather than using the doubling character 々 as is common, as if he'd like to underscore that each lover is fully present, a fully realized dream himself/herself, or perhaps that he'd like to re-live this dream again. The line "we close our eyes," which he's so often used as a gentle expression for death, here evokes the freedom to dream and imagine. "Hold your girl in both your hands," he sings - "te" can mean both arms and hands, so this is much less of a passionate grab and more of a gentle, reverent reaching out, as one might to a dream come true, something beautiful beyond imagining, mindful to take care not to break it, just like the teacup. And then there's the line about the wine glass - like the glasses at one of the Jewish weddings which Chagall loved painting, drained and then broken underfoot, so the happiness of the wedding toast might never be tainted. Too often, Sakurai uses "oyasumi" ("good night") to mean death, but here, we can't help but feel he's encouraging everyone to dream that dream, or maybe even just to take time to space out and rest, as he reports doing last summer. The negative spaces in between things are what makes the things themselves pop.

And now, let's take votes on which of these Chagall paintings y'all think Sakurai has on the walls of his house. Leave your vote in the comments below.

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"Lovers over the Town," one of the paintings Sakurai refers to in the first line of "Luna Park."

"Over the Town," one of Chagall's most famous works.

"Blue Lovers," another one of Chagall's early famous works. 

"Green Lovers," a similar painting with a similar theme but different color scheme.

"Couple Over the Town" - look, this one has some sexy boobs!

"Aleko and Zemphira," a study for one of the sumptuous ballet backdrops Chagall painted. Note the recurring red rooster motif - no matter how magical the night, the dawn will always come (but not before the cock crows ehehe).

"Lovers in the Sky of Nice." With a full moon, bass-playing horse, and another red cock. Nice.

"Lovers with Half Moon." The cock is blue here and the only sign of other colors are in that lovely bouquet. The lovers look conspiratorial here - the dude is definitely making an Acchan-chan-approved "you don't know half the sexual tacos I'm thinking about eating right now" face. The half-moon is a fish, the new moon a dark circle. This one's sexy. Is it this one?

"The Lovers" - here the horse is pulling a saucy yellow cock in a sleigh but the lovers are dancing ballet. Is that a circus below? This is a nice one! Maybe it's this one! 

"Arabian Nights" - is it this one? Arabian Nights is the first phrase in the lyrics to "Goblin." Horse and cock still there, but the only non-blue color is the light of the moon. Or is it the sun? Did y'all know Mr. Sakurai is born in the year of the horse?

"L'air Bleu" - Oh now these saucy non-conformist lovers are dressed in red, on a bed of lilacs, symbolizing first love. The cock is playing the fiddle while the city sleeps. Instead of the horse, there's a goat, symbolizing animal desires. Mm-hm. Somehow we don't think it's this one, but this is a good one anyway.

"Lovers" - One red, one blue, very No. 0 or Japanese bathroom sign colors. (Women are represented with red in Asia because Periods are Power). Many other people appear to be floating in the sky with the lovers. Perhaps they are other dreamers or dreaming couples. The fiddler's on the ground this time. It's always nice to make out to music, eh?

"Newlyweds with Paris in the Background." They're not even floating anymore, they're just chilling with some nice red flowers, the moon, the Eiffel Tower... this is the best of life. Kids, never marry unless you feel this good about your partner. Your partnership shouldn't be a prison of mediocrity. Never settle for less than passion. Chagall and his wife were madly in love till she died.

And now, some circus paintings! First, "Le Cirque." Tell me that hoop isn't just a teeny bit Arui wa Anarchy.

Next, "The Blue Circus." Horse ogles sexy lady in red dress on trapeze while moon looks on, cock plays drums and fish tries to cop a feel. This is definitely something Acchan-chan would hang on the wall of his boudoir.

We're not sure about the title of this one, but that girl is definitely feeling up that lute-playing clown's tights-clad thigh as if she's a crazed fangirl at a Buck-Tick concert.

"The Grand Circus." Buck-Tick saw this one and started the Parade Festival, for sure. There's even a 13kai ballerina! Lovely use of rainbow colors, disembodied hands. This was probably also an influence on The Beatles' Yellow Submarine film.

And last but not least, "The Concert." The lovers are in the center and the musicians are playing for them under a full moon! The cock-fiddler is now some kind of yellow canary fairy! And the lovers are in a canoe that looks suspiciously like the cover of Yumemiru Uchuu. We bet Acchan-chan has this one on his wall, for sure. That band on the left are probably Buck-Tick.

Now, if you're not sick of us yet, as a bonus, some fab photos of Luna Parks, new and old. First, the original Coney Island Luna Park (now long gone).

Luna Park Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, complete with moon-surmounted gate and "Japanese Theater."

Luna Park, Sydney, Australia (still operating).

The surreally beautiful Volare ride at Luna Park Sydney.

Luna Park Sydney with the iconic Sydney Opera House in the background (in fact the opera house was Photoshopped in. This is actually a photo of Buck-Tickistan.)

Luna Park Palavas-les-Flots (this is an actual photo of the inside of Imai Hisashi's brain).

Photos of the defunct Festival Gate amusement park, built more or less on the remains of Osaka's own Shinsekai ("New World") Luna Park and surmounted by Tsutenkaku Tower, taken personally by Cayce circa 2009. If you're in Osaka and you like fried food, for sure head to Shinsekai to eat some kushi-katsu (deep-fried skewers of just about anything). If you need to stay overnight in Osaka on a budget because you spent all your money on Buck-Tickets, you can stay over in Spa World, an indoor hot spring theme park resting on the ashes of Luna Park. Don't ever stop dreaming.

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Buck-Tick 2020: the New News

Happy New Year, Blog-Tickers! Here's hoping your 2020 is off to a nice lazy, sensual start full of cat pics and chocolate-eating, and that you popped the champagne instead of letting it pop you. As promised, we bring you the updates from Buck-Tickistan, in chronological order, and boy (seven deadly sins) are there a lot of them!

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Ongaku to Hito

Messrs. Sakurai and Imai will appear on the cover of the February issue of Ongaku to Hito, to be released on January 7th. The magazine will feature a cover interview with the two, plus the usual monthly update from Yutaka. Those of you wishing to order this magazine through us, send us an email. In the meantime, enjoy the cover. 

Fine lipstick, Mr. Sakurai! Very fine! (Won't you tell us the color, please? We promise we won't give it away...)

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Tower Records

Also on January 7th, the latest installment of the Tower Records Buck-Tick Cafe will open in the cafe space at Tower Records Shibuya, to be followed by Tower Records Buck-Tick Cafe events opening at the Tower Records Cafe Umeda NU Chayamachi in Osaka, and the Tower Records Cafe Sapporo Pivot in Sapporo, Hokkaido.

The Shibuya event will run for a whole month, from January 7th to February 7th, in two sessions: the first running from January 7th to January 20th, and the second from January 21st to February 7th. Just in time for the 14th anniversary of This is NOT Greatest Site, y'all! (Our anniversary is January 27th). Shucks, how cute! The Umeda and Sapporo events will also run in two sessions, the first from January 21st to January 29th, and the second from January 30th to February 7th. Not only that, but the menu has already been announced! Let's take a look at it, shall we?

First, we have the obligatory Buck-Tick beer, this time with two different labels, one featuring the Datenshi promo photo, and the other featuring the Datenshi single cover. At 1000 yen per bottle, this beer isn't cheap, but we've drunk it many times before and we can say that it tastes great. No loss here. If you drink the beer in the cafe, you get to take the bottle home with you, and it's also possible to purchase unopened bottles of the beer to take home with you for later.

Next, we have the band member cocktails, starting with Mr. Sakurai's "Fluff Fluff" Viennese coffee, "inspired by the warm, soft, fluffy belly of his beloved cat, Maru." Doesn't say whether this is alcoholic coffee but for 890 yen we sure hope it is.

Mr. Imai's offering is, surprisingly, also coffee, which Tower Records is calling "Irish Coffee," and yet they say it contains cognac, not Irish whiskey, so please Japan, study your Europe a little harder. 900 yen.

Mr. Hoshino, yearning as ever for tropical paradises full of surfing mermaids and boys in bikinis, brings us 980 yen worth of banana juice, which is supposedly going to be the Next Hot Shit in Japan once the bubble tea craze bubbles out (jeez, kids, bubble tea was sooo 2004!)

Yutaka, sticking to tradition, brings us a Serious Bear houji-cha latte for 850 yen. All we can say is that if you haven't tried houji-cha, you should try it. It's a very different flavor from green tea, extra warming in the winter.

And finally, Toll brings us the Bulldog, another sake cocktail from Musubi-bito, the sake brand behind his signature sake "Doramu," which, we hate to say it, tasted terrible. But this is mixed with grapefruit juice, so maybe not so bad? 900 yen.

Next, the food menu for the first round, inspired by tracks from Parade III.

"Lullaby III," inspired by the European bar vibe of the song, is Navarin, or French mutton ragout with turnips, for 1890 yen.

"Iconoclasm" is a prosciutto and burrata salad, featuring five ingredients (five for Japanese babies). Burrata, for those of you who don't know, is an Italian cheese that spills out cream when you cut into it, for that "clash and clash" vibe. Or Sexual XXXXX vibe. Your choice.

"Tenshi wa Dare da" is ringo apple Tarte Tatin with strawberry sauce, to evoke that "ai ai love love" feel of the song lyrics... but don't they know that Shiina Ringo covered Uta?

"Just One More Kiss" is a parfait that will "explode" in your mouth, just like that deep, heavy bass from Buck-Tick's Victor CDian commercial all those years ago! (Oh yeah, Tower, NOW we're talking. Explode in your mouth! This sounds more like the B-T we know! Keep going!) After you eat those "firecracker-shaped" Pocky sticks, mix in the "carbonated ice" (what carbonated ice say what??) with the jelly below to enjoy a wild diversity of taste sensation ;)

When you visit the cafe, you also get a free A3 sized place mat, with a different design for session one and session two.

Session 1:

Session 2:

You also get different business-card sized calendar cards for each order of food or drink. There are also a bunch of Datenshi-themed collaboration goods for sale, which you can check on the official site here (just scroll down below the menu). If anyone wants to order any of these goods through us, just let us know.

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Datenshi & Parade III

Buck-Tick's new single Datenshi and third tribute album Parade III will be released simultaneously on January 29th. If you'd like to order them through us, drop us a line. The third track on the limited edition of Datenshi will be the live version of the song the band performed in Takasaki on December 3rd at the opening show of The Day in Question 2019. This is the first time the band ever performed the song live. What a treasure!

Datenshi covers

Parade III cover

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Neko Kikaku

Small news, big news, who's to say? For some people, this may be the biggest news on the list: in spring of 2020, the animated film Neko Kikaku (The Cat Plan), in which Mr. Sakurai appeared as a voice actor, will be released on disc. Check the official site here for details.

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Fish Tanker's / Love & Media Portable Members Only Tour 2020

In a break from tradition, Buck-Tick are mounting a standalone standing tour in advance of the release of their new album! This time, the tour will be open to both Fish Tank members and Love & Media Portable members, but NOT to the general public. For overseas fans, that means that unless you're a Fish Tank member, you cannot buy a ticket to this tour. We cannot help you get tickets to this tour. If you want to attend this tour, you must join Fish Tank. Tickets to Fish Tank only tours are non-transferable, which means that you can't buy them for someone else. At the door, you are required to present both photo ID and your Fish Tank ID card, and the staff check carefully to make sure that the name on the ticket matches your Fish Tank ID and the name on your photo ID. Under the new ticket trade system, it may be possible to trade your ticket to another fan club member if you become unable to attend, but we've heard tell that overseas members aren't allowed to participate in ticket trades (please, someone, confirm or deny this. And if it's true, write to Fish Tank and complain!)

Anyhoo, the ticket lottery for this tour opens on January 18th at noon and closes on February 17th at 2PM Japan time. In order to attend the tour, you must join Fish Tank before that period. The tour schedule is as follows:

Saturday, May 23rd: Zepp Tokyo - open 17:00 / start 18:00

Sunday, May 24th: Zepp Tokyo - open 17:00 / start 18:00

Sunday, May 31st: Zepp Fukuoka - open 17:00 / start 18:00

Saturday, June 6th: Zepp Osaka Bayside - open 17:00 / start 18:00

Sunday, June 7th: Zepp Nagoya - open 17:00 / start 18:00

Saturday, June 13th: Sendai GIGS - open 17:00 / start 18:00

Sunday, June 14th: KT Zepp Yokohama - open 17:00 / start 18:00

Sunday, June 21st: Zepp Sapporo - open 17:00 / start 18:00

Please, kids. Come to this tour and dance up a storm. Dance your socks off. Dance your ass off. Dance the soles off your 30cm giant goth boots! Annoy the hell out of those prissy pursed-lipped "no dancing" fangirl biddies, just like Acchan-chan asked you to do. Because it's now the Roaring 20's again for the first time in a hundred years, and in the Roaring 20's, dancing is what they lived for. Dance like a flapper and flap your freak flag. Wear your Imai pajamas as regular clothes. Because that's the truth of life in Buck-Tickistan and no angry, jealous fangirl hatred can ever quench the firecrackers that crackle in your soul. Be like Sailor Moon, and crack up all the monsters with the fireracker of your love.

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Buck-Tick's New Album

It's coming in summer 2020. According to Imai, he wants it to be a clean break for the band, something "outside Buck-Tick's previous image." His keywords: "minimalism," "electronics." Our keywords: A lady-killing werecat with a fetish for red lipstick, a hyper-intelligent human-sized praying mantid from the Andromeda galaxy, and a Cosmic Surfer Dude in a Space Suit in the Nude pick up a pair of baseball-loving brothers from Planet Baseball in the Hanshin Star System for a tour of the Milky Way in their hyperdimensional interstellar zeppelin, lose a game of Truth or Dare, have to take the dare and descend to the little-known planet "Earth" disguised as rock stars and try to make it big... but nobody ever guessed how big they'd make it! Will anyone discover their true identities? And do they have an ulterior motive? And if so, what is it? And what are all these mysterious numbers we keep seeing everywhere? Two, Three, Five, Seven, Wake Up, It's 11:11 (Seven Eleven, oh thank Heaven!) Coming soon to a Tower of Babel Records near you. Bonus extra: random Egyptian hieroglyphs, because random Greek letters were so last-season. They're 500 yen each and you can't choose the hieroglyph so if you want the Eye of Ra, you have to just keep buying more till you get it.

Release date? We're guessing early July. But we could be wrong.

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The Mysterious New Album Tour

Buck-Tick (or the squad of aliens disguised as Buck-Tick) will be holding a hall tour to support their out-of-this-world new album in fall of 2020. We have to assume it won't start before September, and possibly not till October, because we're guessing that they, like us, don't want to touch the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with a hyperdimensional ten-foot pole. But what this really means is, y'all who prefer hall tours, or who want to hear the new album live, or who can't save up money in time for spring, or who don't want to join Fish Tank, will have a chance to see a Buck-Tick tour later in the year. They've given you the choice this time, to choose your tour. How nice of them!

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The Day in Question 2020

And finally, last but not least, Buck-Tick have confirmed that they will be playing The Day in Question 2020 at the Nippon Budoukan on December 29th. As the Budoukan was closed for refurbishment in 2019 in advance of the Tokyo Olympics, this will be a welcome homecoming. Fun as the Yoyogi National Gymnasium was, it just doesn't have that same Day in Question vibe. In fact, in all likelihood, Buck-Tick's December 29th 2020 show will likely be a final for their Mysterious New Album Tour, rather than a standalone DIQ. But no worries that they've given up their tradition of commemorating Imai's release from his not-quite-jail-sentence for doing a special kind of hugging with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Aliens in disguise or not, the day Buck-Tick stop making drug jokes is the day they stop being Buck-Tick.

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And that concludes our news for now! To answer a last question, yes, we still provide our shopping service! If there's anything you like, feel free to contact us any time.

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