JaME's 5th Anniversary: Partner's Comments - Overseas

In the five years that JaME has been around, we have worked with many other J-music related companies.

As a token of our partnerships, in some cases young and others several years old, we collected and present to you the comments of companies, agencies, writers and labels who are also working with the common aim of introducing Japanese music to the world at large.

In the comments that follow, they let us know their own unique JaME experiences, share behind the scenes incidents and offer hints of their future activities.


Radio Blast!, BRAZIL

My name is Hick Duarte and I'm the general administrator of Radio Blast! Radio Blast! is a Brazilian web radio that, for more than two years, has been focused on the propagation of Japanese music to the world. Everyday we broadcast a number of varied and interactive radio shows that explore the many Japanese musical styles and establish a direct and close contact with its listeners, fans of Japanese music all over the country. In the last few months, we have been working actively to divulge, promote and cover the shows of Japanese artists in Brazil.

We met JaME in 2006, when Radio Blast! was still taking its first steps. Since the beginning, JaME has been our most vital resource for information about Japanese music. In that time, having a well established partnership with JaME was like an impossible dream, but it was one of our main objectives. We sent a proposal for partnership to the team in 2007 August, and in November of the same year, when JaME brought the band Charlotte to Brazil, our partnership was finally established. It was the first visual kei band to come to our country and, therefore, the first time Radio Blast! covered a show of a Japanese band. Since that first contact, we have been always treated in a professional manner by JaME. Our work as a media was always been highly esteemed by all of the JaME's team, and during the time we prepared Charlotte's show we realized that our ideas for the propagation of Japanese music in Brazil and the world are really similar. So, in order to make our partnership official, we gave JaME a live radio broadcast that could be used as an complement of the website JaME World, and that would help in the release of official announcements in regards to Charlotte's show. With the name JaME Soundsystem, the show started in September 2007, and it still goes on air every Thursday at 22:00 (GMT -0300). Since then, the relationship between Radio Blast! and JaME has continued to grow.

After working alongside JaME on Charlotte's concert, Radio Blast! also actively took part by promoting and covering miyavi's concert, a real mark in the history of Japanese music in Brazil; JaME was also a big part of that. But the highlight of our partnership happened in December 2008, when JaME organized MONORAL's Latin American tour. This tour was very important to us both; for JaME, it was a completely new experience with wider dimensions than what they had been doing until that moment. For Radio Blast!...well, we had never been so involved with something as we were with MONORAL’s tour. Besides promoting and covering all five Brazilian concerts, we were also invited by JaME to act as press media, creating all the informative material and visual aspects of the tour - all we did at that time was truly important for us. We learned a lot, every single time. It was a real pleasure working once again with JaME and for the first time with MONORAL, who is one of the most enchanting Japanese bands we have ever met. Our exclusive interview with Anis and Ali, which happened after the last concert of the tour was held in Sao Paulo, was also very important; they were really excited about everything they had done in Brazil so far and consequently shared a very good vibe with us. What was supposed to be an interview turned out to be a wonderful, revealing and fun conversation between friends. Among the answers they gave, they congratulated us for our work and our English fluency and even invited us to hang out later that day. We could clearly see that their Brazilian tour would turn out to be a significant mark in the history of the band and also in the Japanese music scene in our country. That moment meant a lot to us, and it all was happening because of JaME.

JaME is a fundamental piece of Japanese music in the western scene. Daily, through Radio Blast!, we maintain contact with various Japanese music fans around Brazil. We believe that many Japanese musicians have no idea of how well-know their band is or that they simply have fans in our country. Our listeners find every kind of information about their favorite artists on JaME, from biographies to live reports, release news and anything regarding the band - it is all on JaME. Also, speaking on behalf of our audience, JaME is now an official repository for many bands, accessed on a daily basis by an increasing number of people who will find what they want to know about their favorite artist. Especially in Brazil, JaME's contribution to the development of the scene is even bigger. Since November 2007, the team has also been involved with producing Japanese concerts on national territory, which was some kind of utopia for many people. It's not exaggeration to say that all Brazilians around our country owe everything they've lived as Japanese music fans to JaME.

Radio Blast! believes that 2009 will be a decisive year for all fans of Japanese music in Brazil. By the end of the first half, LM.C and An Cafe, two important bands from the rock scene in Japan, will have their performances here. For the second half, several other events are being prepared and Radio Blast! will be sure to be there, keeping our work of promotion and coverage. Also, we expect to boost our station range even more. In October 2008, we broke our record with 1,000 simultaneous listeners. In February 2009, we broke our 1,800 record, and now we have an average number of 1,500 listeners.

We also realized that because of Radio Blast!, several people are getting their first exposure to Japanese music, and we will keep working seriously to expand this. Achieving its third year anniversary, we will prepare an avalanche of new activities, both in the station and on the website.

Our goal is to achieve more and more new fans with this hard and yet joyful work of promoting Japanese music in Brazil and in the world. We sincerely believe in a promissory future for our project, and, in consequence, to the whole scene.


NoiX, CHILE

NoiX is a Chilean company mainly focused on J-Music. It was created on August 5, 2004 as a group with a clear objective: spreading Japanese music in Chile. Later, it became one of the most important companies for all Chilean fans, and today, with over 42 events and 8 shows in "LIVE" format with local bands, it has made a name for itself as a producing company for events and concerts. In 2008, it was the first company to bring a J-music artist to Chile - miyavi - which led to several other artists going to Chile as well as support for South America.

It was difficult before coming across JaME; it is one of the main (if not the only) website of its kind, for fans all over the world. We were receiving for the first time, in a direct and indirect way, information that would have taken lots of time for people to find, and also, it's in each country's language. I think the level of promotion JaME has achieved with Japanese music is unique and highly positive. Thanks to that, we managed to get contacts, after years of trying to get the fans in our country known in the world. Working alongside with JaME's Brazilian team, we managed to bring miyavi to South America, and that's how our work together began. Artists have kept on coming because of that event.

Mainly, I see JaME as a great family, and I've always felt that our relationship has grown that way, starting from JaME Brazil's people, our main support, up to people from JaME Mexico and JaME USA. It was great feeling to be a part of such a strong and intense relationship, which we look forward to keeping for many years to come.

There are many stories, from being in a karaoke room to an incredible journey though Chile with MONORAL, but in particular, I remember a very special moment: after leaving a rest stop on our way back to Santiago, one of the band members noticed that he forgot his things there. Taking a turn on the highway to get his things was an odyssey, and after running across the road with Rodrigo Esper (the manager from the Brazilian team), we got back to the rest stop to check if the things were still there. It was a very stressful moment, but at the same time, very funny to remember now. Thanks to a nice lady who was in charge of cleaning the place, we were able to get the things back without any problems.

I think every day brings new stories with JaME, because making concerts possible in South America and getting to join fans and artists in a single place far from where they come from is priceless. Each day there's an intense job to be done, there are new stories to tell, and that's why sharing this experience, looking at the expressions on the faces of the fans during a concert, hearing from the artists that have been with us, how amazed they feel at finding out there are people who sing along their songs, makes us keep on doing this with more strength on every occasion.

Obviously, we believe that even without JaME, we would have kept on trying to see many of the artists that travel around the world nowadays. JaME is the main support in the world for artists to travel and find out what's going on in the rest of the world; and in the fans' case, it's the most direct connection to information and also is the most trustworthy group to count on when it comes to the projects we are involved in.

Honestly, we want to keep on supporting the Japanese scene in South America. It's a very long road to follow which we have just begun working in, along with Japan, starting from last year. We would like to create stronger relations in the current year and get more reliability from Japanese producers, companies and artists.

We are working to make more of those relationships in South America. With MONORAL's tour, which helped us generate strong bonds with Mexico and Argentina, we hope that this year we will also get Peru on board. That way, the possibilities will grow and we will become a considerable and interesting force for all of those who are interested in coming to our countries. We invite every Latin-American community to be part of this growth and obviously, we truly appreciate all the support JaME has given us. Thank you very much!


EURO JAPAN COMICS, FRANCE

Congratulations on the 5th anniversary of JaME!

To be honest, I was really surprised to hear that JaME was only launched five years ago; it's great that JaME has such a large amount of information and a network spread all over the world. It is just amazing.

Since we launched the website of EURO JAPAN COMIC, we have had opportunities to meet Japanese music artists during our various activities, and we really thank JaME staff for coming over to have interviews and write reports for articles. Moreover, whenever I need music information, I know I can always check JaME! Now, the popularity of Japanese manga and anime is spreading all over the world, and I think that J-music is also following this trend. I think that JaME plays a large role in that, too. I feel great pleasure to see Japanese culture spread all around the world as I am Japanese, so it is a pleasure to work with JaME.

I hope that JaME will continue to develop more and more over the years to come.


Soundlicious, FRANCE

Soundlicious is a label specialized in Japanese music. We've started our activities by releasing a special version of MUCC's Homura Uta (with exclusive footage on a bonus DVD) in August 2005. Our aim is to present artists we really like to the European public, and as we have eclectic tastes, we've releases various genres: hip-hop, fusion, metal.... We don't have many artists in our catalog, but we promote each band as well as we can. As a result, each artist we've released has had the opportunity to come play in Europe!

I think we started working together with JaME quite early on, for MUCC. As far as I remember, I think NoSphere (the tour management which organized MUCC's first tour) told us about JaME first.

When we had the first promotional design for GARI's tour last year, I was really happy because even while GARI is a great band, they are not visual kei, so it's quite difficult to get people interested in them. I was also very happy with the quiz contest we organized with JaME Germany for LM.C...and every other contest we made, actually!

First, thanks to JaME, people from all over the world can get information about various Japanese artists (and sometimes artists Japanese people don't even know themselves!). Secondly, for us, the labels, it offers a good way to promote artists and organize promotion campaigns like contests. And this leads us to the third point: the Japanese artists, label, records company, etc. can have proof that Japanese music is getting more and more listeners and fans overseas!

In the future, we may work on projects that won't include a CD release, as we did for Plastic Tree. For this band, we've been asked to coordinate and promote a European tour by the Japanese management, but we couldn't release any CDs. We have other similar requests and offers, so I think we will develop some kind of "tour promotion & coordination service" in Soundlicious. As for the CD releases, maybe something for Japan Expo? We'll see...

Voilou!

A+

Sae


Astan, GERMANY

We are a company that works in different areas. We produce video clips for international artists from USA, Germany, Norway, Great Britain and Japan. We are running a music magazine named "Astan," and we do concerts and tours for Japanese artists (Dio, Calmando Qual, Eve Of Destiny, etc.) We organized the first visual kei concert in Germany in 2004.

I got in contact with JaME via BLOOD’s Kiwamu, who introduced me to Reyep in 2004.

It is always nice to work with JaME, because they are the most important website in Germany, together with Animexx. But I do not want to spread stories because I do not know if the Japanese artists would appreciate it if I did so.

I think JaME is very important for the promotion of Japanese music in Europe. They do a lot of interviews, which is very important for people like me, publishing news about concerts and other activities. Also, I think that JaME has the biggest artist database, where you can find a lot of info and links to Japanese musicians. Regarding to these resources, I think JaME is the most important website for people who are interested in Japanese artists. I think it is very good that nearly every country has its own JaME: there is a big network that combines all countries. JaME thinks locally but acts globally. This kind of networking is a big plus for JaME, because I do not see any other company that works like this. You can get all the info about what is going on in your country, but you also get knowledge about what is happening worldwide. This is very cool, considering that the Japanese music scene and audience in Europe are quite small, though very well-informed and very good at networking.

Big national music stars sell their tickets at a much lower price than unknown Japanese visual kei bands do. This has kept normal audiences away from following J-rock bands. And the J-rock scene has split in two parts: bands that attract mainly young girls with an image of extreme cuteness and with so-called candy pop, and bands like girugamesh, Dio, Pistol Valve, and TOKYO SKA PARADISE ORCHESTRA, among others. I would be happy if especially the last two bands would be able to get some attention from JaME and other J-music companies. Today, everything seems to be focused on visual kei. I think the latter bands have a chance to survive the visual kei trend, because they have very good live appearances and they are not bound to a cute image, and also because the music and image is okay for Europeans. Their managers know about working and behaving in the usual European music scene, which is also an important point.

The job has to be done to introduce bands to a scene they should be part of, like the goth, ska, metal or alternative scene. This is a hard job because the candy pop bands and these bands are thrown into the same basket by the media. For me, I think I will have to promote "my" bands differently, and I think I have to promote them to a non-visual kei scene. Otherwise they will not be able to get a steady audience. So I will go on to do festivals with bands from different countries and direct bands to a music scene - not to a nationality. Goth bands combined with goth bands and metal with metal, ska with ska...I hope this way I can bring non-visual kei bands to Europe and to the ears of the general audience. This is the only way to place Japanese music in the heart of the people. I hope the main focus (even on JaME) will move away from images and cuteness, and to music. I will do some tours in 2009 and work on a complete different way to promote bands and concerts. Wait and see - we have a lot of plans for 2009. We will also release some records and DVDs from Japanese bands in 2009.


CLJ Records, GERMANY

Congratulations to JaME on the occasion of your 5th anniversary!

CLJ Records wants to extend a sincere "thank you" to you for five years of your wholehearted promotion of Japanese music! You do tremendous work and you have been the source of continous inspiration during our partnership. All the best to you, JaME, as our most important cooperating partner in Europe - collaborating with you is always motivating!

CLJ Records is specialized in J-rock/visual kei. So far, we have released CDs and DVDs from over ten different bands (Versailles -Philharmonic Quintet-, the GazettE, alice nine. and Ayabie to name just a few) in Europe and we thoroughly enjoy our ever-expanding work with Japanese artists and the growing number of their European fans!

With great pleasure, we think back on such ever fruitful and creative events as our "J-Visual[ism]" cover contest and poll!

Thank you so much, JaME! We wish you all the best and are looking forward to a sound-filled future full of J-music!

CLJ Records,
dedicated to Japanese Music


Gan-Shin, GERMANY

Gan-Shin Records wants give you our warmest regards and big congratulations to your birthday!

Gan-Shin Records is the leading J-rock label in Europe. So far, Gan-Shin has released more than 50 albums of Japanese rock acts like Dir en grey, Merry, D'espairsRay, MUCC, L'Arc~en~Ciel, Gackt and many, many more. More than 150 shows were organized by our Gan-Shin network all over Europe during the last 3 years, and we will continue to bring European J-rock fans more exciting stuff from Japan. To work with JaME is a must for our company. This fruitful partnership started three years ago when we founded Gan-Shin Records. As we have J-rock specialists in our company, of course we were aware of the JaME network, which is a perfect info-platform for all the fans of this music genre. We really enjoy the detailed information and the unbelievable devotion of JaME members to the Japanese music scene. As some of you probably know, one part of the Gan-Shin team is the crew of Brainstorm Music Marketing, which is Germany's biggest rock promotion company, and we have yet to come across any music platform in the world that provides as much information as the JaME platform.

Thanks for the great work! Keep your energy and believe in the J-rock music and lifestyle... you are wonderful people.


Weird World, GERMANY

Hi, my name is Frank, I am an agent at Weird World. Weird World has offices in Berlin and Dusseldorf and we specialize in booking bands since the mid 90's. We consist of four agents, and you can get an idea about our band roster at our website. Every agent has his own style and favorite genre. We book bands from all over the world, from punk to alternative, surf to beat, rock'n'roll to ska. I actually spend most of my time with German bands, but I also focus on Japanese bands. I've always loved them! The first Japanese band I booked was Mikabomb (actually based in London at that time). Following were other bands like Akiakane, detroit7, Dio, LM.C, Pistol Valve and Plastic Tree, and upcoming ones include Kokia, Merry and Ra:IN. And I hope there are many more bands to come!

While I was promoting shows and looking up J-music webpages last spring, I immediately found JaME. So I got in touch with JaME and asked them if they could announce the tour dates of the Japanese bands we promote. I received a quick answer and that was the beginning of, so far, a very good cooperation.

I just came back from the LM.C tour. I joined the band on the two German dates in Cologne and Munich, and I am still dazzled from the great shows. I think it will definitely be one of my favorite tours in 2009. Another highlight with JaME were the German Plastic Tree gigs last year. JaME helped us promote the shows in Germany, and I appreciate their professional way of working together. Thanks for the support and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Anecdotes, hmm...for the next tour I should try to find out what the meaning of the Japanese letters for "occupied" or "free" on the toilet door is in the night line. Can I open the door or not? (The toilet door lock was broken...)
It's actually hard to say for me how JaME influenced the overseas Japanese music scene. We just started our cooperation with JaME, but I get several offers to book Japanese bands, and I found in JaME a database with tons of detailed information about bands, releases, tour dates, hot news and stuff like that. So from a business standpoint, I give them 10 points on a scale from 1 to 10. Sometimes I need good advice and I ask JaME. Every time I get a detailed answer and statement. JaME knows them all! Crazy maniacs. Like us. We like that.

Our future activities include the upcoming acts detroit7, Kokia, Merry, Pistol Valve and Ra:IN until summer. We will keep up our focus on J-music and hope to announce, together with JaME, many more great tours in the next 5 years! Again, happy birthday and thanks for the support so far!


Ukiyo-e, POLAND

Ukiyo-e is a Polish agency that works mostly with independent bands. Actually, this is our goal, but sometimes we break this rule to work with quality major bands. Our company was created in 2006, and since then, we organized a number of world tours for indies bands and worked with many great artists. We are always open to working with interesting bands, and it doesn’t matter if they are widely known or underground bands.

We first came to know about JaME many years ago; hard to say precisely when it happened, but if you think about Japanese music in Europe, JaME is automatically one of the first things that come to mind. Our cooperation started in the same year that Ukiyo-e was founded, 2006, and we really enjoy this partnership.

It is hard to choose a single event as our favorite with JaME. I think we have the same goal, promotion of Japanese bands, and the promotion JaME's side offers was the biggest highlight in our partnership.

In our opinion, JaME did a really good job, helped a lot of people to get to know new bands and to broaden their knowledge about already known bands. For sure, without JaME, the European Japanese music fan base wouldn't be as big as it now is.

Recently we started to work also with such major artists like Plastic Tree, but Ukiyo-e is still planning to support independent bands; we will not abandon this concept. There are many good bands with whom we would like to work, as a hint we can say that they are not limited to Japanese. We hope to still be active a few years from now.

Congratulations to JaME on their 5th anniversary!


CMG Project, RUSSIA

CMG Project is a unique Russian concert agency that specializes in organizing J-music events. In less than a year, we have organized concerts and events of GOTHIKA, THE ROYAL DEAD, BESPA KUMAMERO, Tokyo Decadence and IRUMA RIOKA in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

We support Russian DJs, dance groups and shows focused on the style and performance of modern Japanese music culture. We are giving them (local artists) the opportunity to have their voices heard and to share their experiences, alongside Japanese groups and performers.

Representatives of the Russian JaME got in touch with us for press-accreditation to a GOTHIKA show in April 2008. Since our first event, we have been providing each other with information. For their part, we invite our audience to visit the information portal of JaME and give accreditation to representatives of JaME for all of our shows, allowing them to get exclusive interviews and providing all the materials for them. In return, Russian JaME advertises our events.

Our relationship with JaME was established primarily due to our common interests in the promotion of modern Japanese musical culture in Russia; its nature is rather close and friendly rather than purely business.

Unfortunately today, JaME is facing some difficulties, competing with sites copying its content and translating interviews and articles from JaME without permission, as well as the leaking of new audio and video tracks of Japanese music. But the big advantage of JaME is that everyone is perfectly aware that only they offer credible information about Japanese groups and singers today in Russia. The Japanese musical culture began to evolve not so long ago in Russia, so today it is still difficult to draw conclusions about the contribution of JaME to the local scene. However, it is obvious that JaME is a big influence and its voice is heard by many real Japanese music fans in Russia.

In the future we intend to develop this area, attracting new Japanese performers in Russia. At present, the main problem of our project is lack of sponsorship. The project was founded and is based on three enthusiasts who invest personal funds and use personal connections to ultimately organize events.


New Nippon, SWEDEN

New Nippon promotes and organizes concerts in Sweden, and we have been working closely with JaME for a couple of years.

JaME is a database of knowledge and expertise and has always been very supportive in our work.

We hope that JaME can continue to spread knowledge and help us in our ambition to promote Japanese music!


HearJapan, USA

HearJapan is a digital music store for Japanese music that knows no borders. HearJapan has the widest selection of Japanese music with detailed explanations of the artists and releases in English. All music is in high quality MP3 format, and you can come back years later to download items you have already purchased in case your hard drive crashes.

I have been following JaME for a long time. In fact, I am surprised to hear it has only been around for five years. We started working together in late 2008.
The highlight of our partnership with JaME was definitely the JaME Contest Album, where users would download the album that would have 40 second samples of songs sold on HearJapan and they would have to find which songs they were. We weren't sure how difficult to do the contest and struggled with that, but we apparently made it too easy because within the first day JaME was getting overloaded with submissions with all the answers correct. We thought it would take at least a week for one person to find the names of the songs. I guess that speaks to how amazing all the readers of JaME are.

I think JaME has contributed immensely to the overseas Japanese music scene. The sheer amount of content that JaME puts out every week is very impressive and unrivaled. What is more impressive is that that content is translated into over 10 languages, which gives accurate information to fans who wouldn't be able to find it in their native language otherwise. I meet with many Japanese music labels, and in many meetings JaME has been brought up by the label. This is the only foreign entity that ever comes up in my meetings with labels, which I think speaks loudly to the reach of JaME.

We will continue to work on HearJapan.com which includes making a catalog of 50 new artists available every week to fans worldwide. Our goal is to make it easier to get Japanese music for fans living everywhere. We are also expanding significantly beyond our store. In 2008 we sponsored three bands to play abroad, and this year we sponsored quaff to play in SXSW. We plan to make it financially possible to get bands to come overseas and let bands connect with fans overseas in new and interesting ways.


JapanFiles.com, USA

JaME has been instrumental in uniting fans from all over the world in supporting Japanese artists.

As the Japanese music community grows stronger and more diverse, the JaME team manages to keep pace and create an irreplaceable resource for industry and fans alike.


Maru Music, USA

Congratulations to JaME on five years of bringing the latest Japanese rock news and information to the fans around the world. Maru Music is grateful to JaME for letting the increasing number of fans know about Maru’s releases, news and tours of J-rock artists in North America.

Maru Music is the leader in bringing the highest quality J-rock, visual kei and J-pop to North America. Aside from making the best artist merchandise available at domestic prices, we also provide complete tour support for our artists.

Maru Music first got introduced to JaME through the interesting reviews and articles it provided to the dedicated fans on its website. Later, Maru was fortunate enough to reach J-rock fans through our banner advertising on JaME. Since then, our relationship with JaME has always been a good one.

JaME is a powerful force in the J-rock community. JaME has created a commonplace where J-rock fans can come together and unite. Being a trusted information source, fans continue to visit JaME knowing that the information is accurate.

Maru is looking forward to working with JaME in our next An Café release, US tour and many more future projects.

Happy Birthday JaME!

Regards,

Rob Kelso
Label Manager


Tainted Reality, USA

Tainted Reality is the premier source of Japanese rock entertainment in the United States. Tainted Reality hosts their own Internet radio network dedicated to Japanese musical programming and produces radio shows such as Tainted Reality and The Tainted Reality Talk Show. They often conduct interviews with some of the biggest musical artists of Japan, like YOSHIKI of X JAPAN, Die of Dir en grey, miyavi and MUCC. They also manage and organize tours for prominent J-rock bands such as BLOOD, Versailles -Philharmonic Quintet-, The Candy Spooky Theater as well as producing media such as the Darkest Labyrinth Vol.1 DVD and the Darkest Labyrinth CD.

I originally found out about JaME through Kiwamu (ex-BLOOD, GPKISM) before Tainted Reality even started. He was telling me that they were a great partner of his in Europe and were helping him find good shows on the continent. Later, as Tainted Reality was getting off of the ground, I frequently visited the site to discover new artists. After getting in contact with a member of the Brazilian street team, he got me in contact with Kay (manager of the English team). I then briefly became a member of the JaME team. It wound up not being a good time for me to take up new responsibilities as I was just starting TR, and I wound up not being a very productive member. I resigned after only two months of employment, but still maintained a good relationship with the people at JaME.

As TR became more involved with touring artists and bringing artists to America, JaME was always there to interview the artists and put information about the tours on their site. Our relationship eventually led to them co-producing our annual awards show, the J-Rock Choice Awards, in 2008. I still use the site frequently to this day, mainly to check out their extensive release schedule section.

JaME is absolutely at the forefront of J-rock news media. Their news comes up quickly, and is accurate and to the point. Most of the time when I send them a press release from my artists, it is up on the same day. Their interviews are in-depth and their live reports are always on point. It has always been a pleasure welcoming them to Tainted Reality's shows.

As for what we are up to now? Well, TR is always building and adding new features to itself. We will be adding potentially two new radio shows soon and have some exciting guests lined-up. As for tours, of course we have Takuya Angel at Anime Matsuri, but after that, it's all top secret. Let's just say we are working on bringing someone back to the US who hasn't been here in a long time.

Thank you again, JaME, and congrats on the first five years!


Râmen Events, France

We are Râmen Events, an agency based in Belgium dedicated to Japanese culture. We have had many opportunities to work together with JaME on our events and CD releases. By celebrating your 5th anniversary, it has given us the opportunity to say without hesistation that JaME is one of the largest sources of online information about Japanese culture and, more generally, Asian culture.
Since the beginning of our activities in 2007, we had the chance to meet journalists from JaME who have always held very interesting interviews with our artists. Then, each of our events or news articles was followed up by the team of editors. Substantial work has been done by JaME with the band AciD FLavoR and its leader, Ryo Fujimura, which has been extremely useful for the European development of these artists. This development is continuing in 2009 with the release of Ryo Fujimura's first solo album.

One of the biggest qualities of JaME is certainly its speed and ability to cover European news related to Japanese culture because of a very extensive network of assistants and an effective centralization of data. We have noticed this in Belgium and Greece in particular.

The Râmen Events team only wishes the best for JaME and that future collaboration will take place again.

Thank you!

Aurélie Vandecasteele
Râmen Events


J-Music Live, France

J-Music Live is an organisation based in France which specializes in the promotion of a variety of Japanese artists within Europe.

We have worked with JaME since the creation of the organisation in 2006. Our objective is the same: to focus on the development of the Japanese music scene. All of our projects in terms of distribution, CDs releases, and concerts have always been well received and highlighted by the JaME team. We hope to continue this relationship for a long time, with all this passion that motivates us both.

First of all, we note that the creation of the multilingual sites of JaME was able to unite a large global community and that JaME's journalistic presence on all Japanese events on every continent has made them different from other community sites of the same kind. Today, many of the professionals in the music scene work have a partnership with JaME, which is proof of a huge success!

As for our future projects, we can give some concrete names for 2009: RIZE, DOPING PANDA, capsule, and maybe even the return of MAXIMUM THE HORMONE! Some projects announced in January 2009 will not be possible in response to the global economic crisis, which is forcing some Japanese labels and publishers to cancel their plans for 2009. But don't worry, we will still strive to offer the best projects possible with very diverse styles!