The above photo is of the massive Shidax karaoke emporium in Shibuya, Tokyo. I never went to that particular branch (or judging by its size, tree) but some of us did go to the one in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture not too far away from my apartment. Not that I was ever a rabid connoisseur of karaoke boxes during my time in Japan, but comparing the Big Echo franchise with Shidax, I usually saw Big Echo as the family favourite whereas Shidax was kinda like the Beverly Hills of karaoke. When we went that one time to the Urayasu branch, I felt like I was in some sort of Las Vegas showroom hotel right out of "Ocean's Eleven" (2001). Luckily, I didn't have to pay anything that night.
When I checked out its website, though, I found out that Shidax had gotten out of the karaoke business in 2018 although its pages show that the company still has plenty of fingers in plenty of other businesses. Apparently, one complaint that it was too expensive. It certainly looked expensive inside.
Anyways, I hadn't realized that I would be able to squeeze out so much story out of that one photo. The reason for the photo is that I wanted to bring in another Shibuya-kei song since I hadn't featured one in several weeks, and this time around, I was looking for a new band other than Pizzicato Five or Fantastic Plastic Machine. Indeed, I did find one through the J-Wiki article for Shibuya-kei, Roboshop Mania, although the band's J-Wiki page identifies it as a Neo-Acoustic group. Consisting of university classmates, vocalist/guitarist Takayuki Tonegawa（利根川貴之）, guitarist/back chorus Takashi Manabe（眞鍋卓嗣）and drummer Ryoji Abe（アベ・リョージ）, Roboshop Mania had its time from 1995 to 2002. They came up with six singles and eight albums.
Their fourth album from July 1999 was "Pop The Question?" and I discovered one of the tracks, "Secret Words". Actually, it's the first track and I think when it comes to any potential debate about its status as either a Shibuya-kei or a Neo-Acoustic band (of course, the genres can overlap as in a Venn Diagram), I believe that "Secret Words" fairly firmly falls in the former although I've yet to hear the rest of the album. It's quite the rollicking song, thanks to the guitars and percussion, created by Tonegawa and the overall effect is reminiscent of an even-higher pitched Flipper's Guitar.
Following the breakup of Roboshop Mania in 2002, although I don't know what happened to most of the band, Tonegawa has continued songwriting but has also become a music producer and director. He's also provided music for a number of game apps for smartphones.
Hi, Brian. Happy Holidays to you as well. I think Shidax probably went a little overboard on the glitz so in all likelihood, they couldn't go too far outside of the cities. Maybe it was more of a Kanto thing. I can imagine that during the worst of the pandemic, it was pretty much down to hitori karaoke which won't generate a lot of income for the boxes.
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