2018
On January 20, Hide participated in the 13th annual Onsyuhai (Sound Kick Cup) soccer tournament, which has a mix of musicians and pro soccer players. He was again part of the entertainment team TFA in the Over 40 Legend League. Other team members included Teru (Glay), Ai Ishigaki (formerly of The Mad Capsule Market's), etc.
From February 20-March 18, there was a collaboration with Tower Records Cafe Omotesando in Tokyo where the cafe was decorated with Buck-Tick photos, had Buck-Tick music playing in the background, and featured a special menu of food and drink with selections chosen by members. The collaboration cafe then moved on to Sapporo Pivot in Hokkaido on May 8-27. The collaboration cafe is your chance to get a bottle of beer with Buck-Tick on the label.
In February, bottles of Drum sake (do-ra-mu in kanji) were released. The kanji characters were chosen to phonetically spell drum in Japanese, which is "doramu." The characters chosen mean path + comfort + dream. The name of the sake is obviously because he is a drummer. The sake was available for pre-order in late 2017 and was a collaboration between Toll and Musubito. It was brewed at Yanagisawa Sake Brewery in Maebashi, the capital of Gunma prefecture, which is only 12km away from Toll's hometown of Takasaki, Gunma. The 720ml bottles were reasonably priced at ¥3,500 each.
On February 21, the second single from the forthcoming album was released. It was entitled "Moon Sayonara Wo Oshiete." The song's lyrics were written by Atsushi and music by Hisashi. This makes No.0 the second album where both singles were written by Atsushi/Hisashi. The B-side was also from the forthcoming album. This was considered the second single from the 30th anniversary project.
On March 8, U-ta appeared at the third "Ongaku To Hito" magazine sponsored talk event Oretachi, Pro Yakyu Daisuki Musician Desu! (meaning We Are Musicians Who Love Pro Baseball!) held at Shinjuku Loft Plus One. The event consisted of pro musicians discussing their love of pro baseball. (Not sure which Tigers jersey U-ta wore as I couldn't find any photos from this event.) Other musicians who appeared include Atsushi Inoue (New Rote'ka), Koji Ueno (The Hiatus), Takuya "Moby" Okamoto (Scoobie Do), Kyosuke (Bakudan Johnny), Great Maekawa (Flower Companyz), Shin'ichirou Satou (The Pillows), and Die (Dir En Grey; supporting Yomiuri Giants). Fun fact: even though U-ta and Die support rival baseball teams, they have gone to games together on multiple occasions.
The long awaited new album No.0 was released on March 14. Perhaps the band is obsessed with numbers to have 2 albums in a row with numbers in the title and 5 previous albums also having numbers in the title. I feel that this album has a running theme, though it isn't as obvious as it was with their gothic album Juusankai Wa Gekkou. Perhaps it is as simple as love and peace in contrast to hate and war. Sonically, this may be Buck-Tick at their most experimental. In summary, I think this is one of their most ambitious albums to date.
On March 24, Atsushi and Hisashi appeared on the FM Cocolo radio show "The Majestic Saturday Night" to promote the new album.
The supporting "Tour No. 0" began on March 31 in Kanagawa and ended on July 26 in Tokyo. It lasted a total of 29 dates. The tour dates were mostly on the weekend so I suspect that this was done purposely as most of the members are married (and some have children) so this schedule allowed them to be family men during the week and earn money on the weekends as rock stars. Also interesting to note is that the last 3 dates of the tour were in Tokyo, but not at the same venue. The last time Buck-Tick played 3 tour dates in a row in the same city consistently was during the mid-1990s. They played Osaka 3x in a row during the Somewhere Nowhere Tour in 1995 and Red Room 2097 tour in 1997. Though both times in Osaka they played the same venue for all 3 gigs. They also played Tokyo 3x in a row during the Chaos Tour in 1996.
As part of the tour merchandise, there was a collaboration celebrating the 55th anniversary of the animation company Tatsunoko Production. The company logo is a seahorse so Buck-Tick members were drawn as seahorses (B-T T-P) but also as characters from the classic cartoon television series "Kagaku Ninja-tai Gatchaman" (meaning Science Ninja Team Gatchaman), flying teenage superheroes that have the names of birds and are led by a professor/scientist. The show originally aired in 1972-1974 and is known in the English-speaking world as "Battle of the Planets." There have since been other versions released, including films and video games but the most recent revival was in 2011-2013 and the character banter is quite humorous. (Honestly, if you speak Japanese it's worth watching a few clips of "Ohayou Ninja-tai Gatchaman" for a chuckle.) Atsushi was portrayed as Oowashi No Ken (Ken the Eagle; team leader), Hisashi as Condor No Joe (Joe the Condor; second in command and the tallest character when Hisashi is not the tallest band member), Hide as Mimizuku No Ryu (Ryu the Owl; the fattest character), U-ta as Tsubakuro No Jinpei (Jinpei the Swallow; the youngest and smallest character), and Toll as Shiratori No Jun (Jun the Swan; the only female character).
During April 10-22, there was a multi-part collaboration with the mobile multi-player fantasy video game Crystal of Re:union. First, 3 signed copies of the "Moon Sayonara Wo Oshiete" single were given away via Twitter. Second, Atsushi appeared as a demon king inside of a castle. Third, all users receives items within the game that were inspired by Buck-Tick. The first item was hair that pierces the heavens (Toll's hairstyle). The second item was a blood-stained guitar (Hisashi's signature Mai Mai guitar). Fourth was illustrated portraits of all members to use as game profile icons. And the final part of the collaboration was that the song "Salome" became the new chapter of Crystal of Re:union theme song.
In April, Buck-Tick announced a collaboration with Cheero for a B-T branded rechargeable mobile battery for use with USB and MicroUSB, compatible with many mobile phone models for your mobile life.
On April 28 and 29, there was a special memorial concert for the late Hide(to) Matsumoto of X Japan held at Odaiba Yagai Tokusetsu Kaijou in Tokyo. It was entitled Hide 20th Memorial Super Live 'Spirits' and commemorated 20 years since his passing. Each show had Hide with Spread Beaver play, which was comprised of Spread Beaver reunited with the deceased Hide being shown on a video screen. Buck-Tick appeared on the first day and other bands that appeared include Oblivion Dust, Zeppet Store, D'erlanger, and Mucc. On the second day, the bands that appeared include Kishidan, J, Ziggy, defspiral, and Tomoyasu Hotei.
Meanwhile, about 360km north just outside of Sendai, on the same days of April 28 and 29 there was another music festival happening called Arabaki Rock Fest. It is an annual event held at the campgrounds within Michinoku Koen (park). Since Buck-Tick appeared on the first day of the other festival, the band appeared on the second day of Arabaki. Buck-Tick was the headliner on the Hatahata stage and other bands performing on the same stage included 9mm Parabellum Bullet, Soda!, coldrain, brainchild's, Band-Maid, and Totalfat. There were several other stages and the headliners included Elephant Kashimashi, Clammbon, The Pillows, Kyuso Nekokami, and Sambomaster. The headliners on the first day of the festival included Straightener, Sunny Day Service, Eastern Youth, and Kenichi Asai & the Interchange Kills. This is just a small sample of the many artists that appeared.
At the end of April, the band announced a special Atsushi produced merchandise item that the fans went absolutely crazy over. It was a Sakurai style maneki neko limited to 500 with a serial number. Each were to be handmade in Seto City in Aichi prefecture where they have over 1000 years of experience making ceramics and 100 years making maneki neko. Quite often maneki neko are sold as piggy banks for little kids but this Atsushi cat was for adults so you lost your money instead of saved it. If you're not familiar, maneki neko are like fortune cats but they're often translated as beckoning cats. They sit with one arm up to bring (beckon) you good luck or money or someone to swipe right on your dating profile. They're as ubiquitous as tanuki with their testicles out. (If you're not familiar, tanuki have giant testicles and those racoon statues in front of sushi restaurants aren't their feet.)
The Climax Together movie and the third Climax Together show were packaged as one and finally released on June 27 as Climax Together On Screen 1992-2016 / Climax Together 3rd. (Someone really needs to help the band get creative with their video titles.) Buck-Tick usually release a special concert on home video within 3-6 months of the concert. In retrospect, 2 years wasn't a long time to wait but at the time waiting that long for a concert you know the band was going to release for home video was excruciating and perhaps some thought it would never see the light of day.
On August 19, Toll released his autobiography 1977, which also happened to be his birthday. Hide and U-ta have already done it so now it was Toll's turn. Just as each member has revealed additional information about themselves or their family exclusive to the book, so did Toll. He gave more details about his family growing up and how happy he was as a child when he discovered he had siblings he didn't know about.
Also on August 19, Toll performed his annual birthday gig It's A Now! with his band Blue Sky. The members once again included Kenta Harada (guitar/vocals), Kaname (bass), and Masato Yagi (guitar/vocals). They were joined with special guests Shime, Keiichi Miyako (Rayflower), and Tetsu (D'erlanger). Shime performed on all the songs, Keiichi on 9 songs, and Testu on 1 song. This time Blue Sky performed only one show at Shimokitazawa Garden in Tokyo. The first part was devoted to Toll talking about his autobiography and the second part was the live performance. They performed 14 cover songs. The bands covered included The Beatles, Carol, Cream, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Eagles, Grand Funk Railroad, Steppenwolf, T-Rex, Neil Young, Kiyohiko Ozaki, and Elvis Presley. This is the first time they cover a Japanese artist that isn't Carol.
In September, it was announced that rock apparel company Amplifier would be selling t-shirts with Hisashi's portrait on them. There were 5 different portraits offered and each were available as a solid black or solid white t-shirt. They were sold for ¥6,296 each. Then they announced they would sell 2 more designs in collaboration with Black Sense Market (BSM). These 2 designs would only available in black and they sold for ¥6,800.
On September 18, a special edition of "Kadokawa" magazine devoted to Buck-Tick was released. The band lists this as a book in their discography but it's questionable to me to count this as a book.
On September 21, The Parade ~30th Anniversary~ was released on video. This concert took place over two days one year prior.
Hisashi and Hide had new models of guitars made for Buck-Tick's 30th anniversary and samples could be seen in person across the country starting October 10. Hisashi's model was called Gustave and was a new take on his mai-mai style that he has been using since late 1989. Hide's model was called TXL-HH and it was a long neck telecaster. Fernandes Guitars held a special event to showcase Hisashi and Hide's guitars. It took place only in Tokyo on November 3-18 and Osaka on November 25-December 2. There were photos of the members playing the new guitars live on stage as well as mannequins displaying their stage costumes. I think this event was smaller than those in years past.
Just as the main "Tour No.0" in the first part of the year had dates spread apart generously, so too did the second tour "Tour No.0 -Guernican Moon-" held at the end of the year. Technically the tour began with fan club only shows (October 13 in Tokyo) but the band's website prefers to credit the first non-fan club date as the start of the tour (October 20 in Okinawa). Originally 6 Fish Tanker's fan club only shows and 1 Love & Media Portable mobile site members show were scheduled in the midst of the tour. However, several dates were rescheduled after Atsushi became ill with gastrointestinal bleeding. The band took 2 weeks off for Atsushi to heal so they could perform the tour final and then play 4 rescheduled shows in 2019. On December 29, the album's supporting tour came to an end with Tour No.0 -Final- at the Nippon Budokan. Since some dates were rescheduled, if we count the final tour date as part of the Guernican Moon tour, then Buck-Tick again played Tokyo 3x in a row. It is very unusual to have both supporting tours for their albums to achieve this.
On November 8, U-ta again appeared at the fourth "Ongaku To Hito" magazine sponsored talk event Oretachi, Pro Yakyu Daisuki Musician Desu! (meaning We Are Musicians Who Love Pro Baseball!) held at Shinjuku Loft Plus One. U-ta once again wore his yellow Tigers official fan club jersey. Other musicians who appeared include Koji Ueno (The Hiatus), Takuya "Moby" Okamoto (Scoobie Do), Kyosuke (Bakudan Johnny), Great Maekawa (Flower Companyz), Shin'ichirou Satou (The Pillows), and Die (Dir En Grey).
The animated movie Neko Kikaku was released in theaters on November 30 and Atsushi was a guest voice actor. (The title means "Cat Planning.") The film would eventually be available on DVD in mid-2020. The film was written and directed by Jun Awazu, who previously directed Planzet (2010). The main voice actors are Haruka Tomatsu, Akari Kito, Sakura Tange, and Yuji Mitsuya. I have not seen this movie but I think Atsushi's role was very small, possible just a meow or two. He's not even featured in any of the promotional videos and in the cast he's listed under special appearance. The story is set in Nagoya and features local dialect and landmarks.
On December 26, the previous year's final concert was released on video and entitled quite simply The Day in Question 2017. Both the December 28 and 29 shows were included as separate discs rather than editing this down to one disc.
