Soroban

The members of Soroban had already started making music by the time they were in their early teens. They began learning to play instruments around the age of 12 and through groups at school such as music clubs they got to know each other.

In April 2002, the four of them decided to start a band together named Primrose. Despite their young ages, when they started they were between 14-16, they managed to gain quite a bit of success. Yumehito, who wrote all of the music and lyrics for the band, wrote a dozen songs and they released a single (through mail-order only). They performed a lot from the very beginning with talent shows for teenagers and later they participated in bigger events. For a while another guitarist named UZ played with them but he was only part of the band for a short time.

Two years later, in April 2004 they changed their name to Soroban (which is Japanese for 'abacus'). With Primrose they had participated in smaller events and didn't appear in any magazines but with Soroban they seemed determined to make it big. So, with a new name, a new look and new songs they started over.

On June 17th, they had their first performance as Soroban at the Ikebukuro Cyber where they distributed their first single Shirokuro radio for free. They produced this single together with Shun of Duel Jewel, one of Yumehito's favourite bands.

They continued to perform at various events and on October 6th they had their first one-man at the Akasaka lan. This one-man completely sold out through pre-orders! A month later, on November 1st, they released the single –RAM-/Orange Tegami. It ranked 7th on the Oricon indies charts and sold out pretty fast. As a result a second press was released about a month later. It was with the release of this single that the band received more attention, not only in Japan but abroad as well.

The band had a lot of performances in 2005, performing with more well known bands in the VK indies scene. During these performances they started to sell a few singles, often mini-discs instead of normal CDs, which were only available at the concerts. After Soroban released four of these live-only singles they finally released a 'normal' single again, Sora ni Hanabi, in August.

Around late 2005 they joined the label Danger Crue (the former label of L'Arc~en~Ciel) and started their own sub-label on it, Sky Crue records.

Many releases followed in 2006, all on their own label and starting with a mini-album, which compiled the songs from the live-only releases. Following that were three singles which all contained one track. These were accompanied by various one-man concerts to promote them.

Unfortunately after Spring 2006, the band suddenly became silent. They still had a few concerts but there was no news about new releases or future concerts. In July, the band announced on their official website that they would disband in August and their last concert would take place at an event on August 2nd.

It was an abrupt end for a band that seemed so talented and promising. The four musicians continued their music career though: Yumehito joined the band Ayabie officially after he had been their support guitarist for a few months and Ryuuji, Tatsuhi and Yuuya started the band Zoro.