Back-On debuted in 2002, making them 20 years old at this point. I haven’t watched any of the animes they made songs for, so I was unaware of them until I made my 50+ Bands for Anime Songs article, but they are quite big in Japan!
According to Wikipedia, “Kenji03 and Gori have been friends since childhood, having attended the same school in Adachi, Tokyo. In their sixth year in school, they realized that they wanted to start a band, though in the beginning they did it all separately. While in high school, Kenji03 met Teeda while Gori met Shu. They each started out in separate bands, but eventually ended up uniting with each other to form their own band. Shortly after their formulation, Kenji03 met his brother’s friend Macchin, who joined the band as its drummer and rounded out the quintet.”
“Back-On made their first international appearance at Anime Matsuri on April 28, 2007 in Houston, Texas and were invited back for Anime Matsuri 2010. Since then they’ve also appeared in Vancouver, Canada for Anime Evolution in August 2007, and Anime USA in Arlington, Virginia in November 2007. They were also the guest judges for Anime Idol 2007 at Anime Evolution.”
“They formed a new band called BAReeeeeeeeeeN with the 4-man band GReeeeN, and their debut single “Ashiato” was released on October 1, 2008. The song reached No. 1 in the USEN and chaku-uta digital download charts.”
The band has since released more music and has continued to perform around the world, even in places like Germany, Taiwan, and Brazil. They even got to perform at Anime USA in 2013, were star guests at Pacific Media Expo a bit after. and even were the headliner at Otakon Matsuri in 2015.
The band has had some member changes since, but they are still active, so don’t miss out on this band!
Also, if you’d like to discover other Japanese music and artists, check out my playlists on Youtube!
And if you’re interested in learning more vocabulary and kanji so you can watch anime and dramas, read manga, sing J-pop at karaoke, or play raw Japanese video games, check out my 250+ Kanji for Japanese Media (+Sentences) article and my Japanese Study Guide!