The Year in Japanese Shoegaze in 7 Songs

Looking back at the year in the genre with songs by kurayamisaka, Beachside talks, AprilBlue and more

Hi! Welcome to a year-end feature of This Side of Japan, a newsletter on Japanese music, new and old. We have guest writer and past contributor Kanra providing us an overview of 2025 in shoegaze. You can find their writing over at Substack, and you can find them on X.

Something is in the air in tiny live houses across Japan. 2025 has been a year full of treasures, where indie bands across genres have been delivering stellar work on a near-weekly basis, but the shoegaze scene in particular has been striking out big. Huge debut albums from the likes of kuyuru, Beachside talks, iVy and kurayamisaka arrived with fleshed-out visions of the future, while more established bands like Moon in June, kinoue64, RAY and The Otals continue to plant their flags on the scene. Even legacy acts wanted in, as honeydip toured for the first time in over 20 years and CONDOR44 announced reunion shows of their own for next year.

It’s a new boom period for a scene with over 30 years of history as attention both in and outside of the country grows and the wave of bands left in the wake of For Tracy Hyde’s breakup spread their wings. Shoegaze has the opportunity to become mainstream rock music in Japan, or at the very least, infuse enough of its DNA into other genres to where its influence becomes undeniable. The bands working within it are busting their asses hard enough that people are bound to notice.

Below are selections from Japan’s shoegaze scene for a quick look into a great year for the ever-evolving genre.

“metro” by kurayamisaka

At the time of this writing, kurayamisaka yori ai wo komete has only been out for two months, yet in that time, it has already felt like one of the biggest and most important Japanese indie-rock releases of the 2020s. It’s certainly made for Twitter discourse fodder the likes of which nobody else on this list would get. Are kurayamisaka a bold new band making powerful shoegaze songs or a half-baked Supercar tribute act? Are they even making shoegaze at all? Turning on the album easily lets me forget about all of that, and what I hear is a collection of some of the most satisfying rock songs of the year.

Case in point: “metro.” After the opening title track, it does a perfect job of getting you into the album’s headspace. If we are to compare to the titans that came before, MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS undoubtedly come to mind with how sharp and heavy the guitars sound. The tight drumming echoes Ahito Inazawa pounding away on a Number Girl track (even if it should’ve been a touch higher in the mix). The song’s melodic core hovers close to ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION or even tricot territory. You could extrapolate a lot from the breakup described in the lyrics, whether it be about a breakup with another person, the town you lived in or your own adolescence and innocence. Saito Nachi’s cool yet passionate performance sells any meaning you could take from it. Whether it’s traditionally shoegaze or not, “metro” weaves decades of Japanese guitar music into something uniquely kurayamisaka.

…from kurayamisaka yori ai wo komete. Listen to it on Spotify.

“Big Sky” by Beachside talks

Is “Big Sky” by Beachside talks everything I want from shoegaze? That was the question I asked myself when I heard its opening guitars for the very first time, and it’s hard to argue against it. So much of my favorite shoegaze is loud, warm, catchy, nostalgic and melancholic. A single riff on Big Sky manages to capture all of that at once. A lot of bands work in this jangling dream-pop realm, but nothing else this year quite matches the kaleidoscope of feelings “Big Sky” gives me. I’m bowled over every time this song comes on, struck with so much emotion. If you ever bemoan the state of modern shoegaze, it’s because you haven’t listened to Beachside talks yet.

…from Hokorobi. Listen to it on Spotify.

“Tropical Boy” by Cobalt boy

This song off of Cobalt boy’s second album radiates summertime vibes in a way of several shoegaze bands from this year, but it goes about it much differently than others. The bright synths ease you into a mellow, easy-going tune about traveling the world and getting the most out of a summer vacation—it’s shoegaze-y soft rock! The passionate vocals give the song an old-school feel, closer to bands like honeydip. I almost thought this was the singer of some long-ago J-indie band until looking up who this band even were. “Tropical Boy” combines past and present to give you something unique as well as an endless summer break you never want to return from.

…from Fight! Listen to it on Spotify.

“Seiza No Yozora” by RAY

Does anyone remember cruyff in the bedroom’s 2012 album hacanatzikina? It was a very interesting experiment in cruyff’s discography, crossing their signature sound over with sweeping violins and pianos to give a fantastical atmosphere fairly uncommon in shoegaze. RAY’s “Seiza no Yozora” is one more stab at the fantasygaze concept. The calmer, whimsical verses lead to humongous walls of sound in the chorus, giving this great sense of tension that makes the song a thrilling listen. It’s uplifting and heart-pumping in the way many of the best RAY tunes are, and it’s one of the brightest spots on the best shoegaze album I’ve listened to all year. As RAY reaches past the half-decade mark, “Seiza no Yozora” shows that the shoegazer idols have so much left to give and so many new places to explore on their journey.

…from White. Listen to it on Spotify.

“SUNFADED” by HATSUBOSHI GAKUEN

While I was a huge fan of the 2011 anime The iDOLM@STER, further entries in the franchise, including their music, have mostly eluded me. Even if you’re an outsider to the series, though, “SUNFADED” will jolt your attention with its wiry guitars and deep, pounding bass lines, as Kawamura Reina’s voice as Shinosawa Hiro floats just below the surface. When combined with scenes of Shinosawa alone in a sea of blurred live-action streets from its mixed-media MV, it makes for a tantalizing mixture that inspires those in the comment section to recall false memories of hearing her play in a Shimokitazawa live house 20 years ago. “SUNFADED” is like little else in the 2D-idol space, a showcase in how animation and music can meld together to bring out the best in one another, creating new universes (and new memories) all their own.

Listen to it on Spotify.

“Amarikaze” by AprilBlue

While the 2022 album Hotel Insomnia closed the book on For Tracy Hyde, one of Japan’s most beloved shoegaze bands, it also started a new chapter. As the members went back to other projects, the group’s trademark of shimmering, sometimes even theatrical indie surf-meets-dream pop made waves across the country. A song like “Amarikaze” falls neatly into that framework: The jangling guitars, Funasaki Haruki’s soothing vocals and the song’s upbeat J-pop melody are tailor-made for a summertime teen J-drama before building into a soft yet noisy roar towards the finish. The gentle balance of hope and melancholy are straight out of the For Tracy Hyde playbook—no surprise, seeing as the band’s former guitarist Azusa Suga also plays for AprilBlue. Yura is the first AprilBlue album since For Tracy Hyde called it quits, and tracks like “Amarikaze” are proof that their legacy continues in the new generation.

…from yura. Listen to it on Spotify.

“kanayagawa” by TIDAL CLUB

In the American rock scenes, there’s a strict divide between those who are “shoegaze” bands and those who are “emo” bands. The exceptions are certainly there, from Pity Sex to Peripheral Vision-era Turnover to later Title Fight. While the boundaries are slowly starting to melt away, the barriers still feel hard-kept. But TIDAL CLUB’s “kanayagawa” starts off with a simple, twinkling guitar riff indebted to fourth-wave emo before quickly dousing itself with shoegaze fuzz. The song switches between its shoegaze side and its emo side, never letting one win out but having both lovingly intersect into a compact three minute exact package. While not released as a single, “kanayagawa” is a compass pointing towards the future of Japanese indie rock, where emogaze is not just a rare oddity but a viable, visible path forward.

…from pluralpainpacks. Listen to it on Spotify.

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