A Deep Dive into the Nationally Beloved Anisong Singer Hironobu Kageyama! Exploring the Reasons Behind His Current Status

In 1978, at age 17, “Our third single, ‘Akazukin-chan Goyoujin,’ was super cute and sold like crazy. But there were disagreements. When I was scouted by Kamayatsu-san, he told me that even if our debut was a cute song, since everyone was skilled, we’d soon be doing hard rock songs—which I also intended—but because the first and second singles barely sold, the third ended up being even poppier. I was saying, ‘Isn’t this too cute? I want to do something more rock,’ but the record label and management kept changing the formula, pursuing a direction that was even cuter and would please the female middle and high school fanbase. We continued despite the disagreements, but four years was the limit,” he said, recalling the conflict between band members wanting to pursue rock and the management and record company wanting to release catchy, cute songs for commercial success. As a result, four years after their debut, LAZY disbanded, and in 1981, at age 20, Kageyama made his solo debut.

In the next and concluding part on Hironobu Kageyama, the program will delve into how Kageyama, who said, “The industry never took notice of us even once,” managed to rise to his current prominent status.

Furthermore, the program infiltrated "Machi★Asobi vol.28," held on May 10th and 11th around Tokushima Station, which attracted 58,000 attendees over two days. Various crowd-pleasing contents were introduced for anime fans, such as talk shows for "The Apothecary Diaries" and "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba," as well as booths where fans could directly interact with anime production studios.

The program also gave a special introduction to talk events hosted by anime production company staff. This time, "ShibuAni" featured a discussion event with Manabu Otsuka, President and CEO of MAPPA Co., Ltd., Hiroya Hasegawa, Executive Vice President, and director Kōnosuke Uda.