TAKA

Birthday: 10/6
Blood type: B
Weight: 52 kg (121 lbs)
Height: 177 cm (5'10")
Birthplace: MIE Prefecture
Shoe size: 25.5 cm
Eyesight: 20/20
Waist: ?
Favorite Cigarettes: non-smoker
Siblings: older sister, younger brother

Taka is La'Cryma Christi's frontman; its his pretty face you'll probably see front-and-center on all their merchandise. As the most visible member of La'Cryma, he spends most of his time trying desperately to look sexy. But unlike some other vocalists, he seems a little uncomfortable and clumsy in the role. Which is one of the reasons I love him. Instead of having Taka hog the spotlight, all of La'Cryma's members usually get equal camera time!

Taka has been a member of the band since its earliest formation. He met Hiro when he was 19 years old and attending Osaka University. The two hit it off, began talking about music and before you know it were roomies. Together they started the hard rock indies visual band "Strippe-D Lady" and began recruiting other members from Kansai. Later, in order to reflect a change of members and music style, Taka renamed the band "La'Cryma Christi" (Latin for "Tears of Christ").

He writes most of the band's lyrics, drawing inspiration from artbooks, exotic locales, astrology, current events, prophecy, and interpretation of his own dreams. Shuse and Hiro have also collaborated with him on lyrics with great results. Most recently, Taka seems to be giving Shuse a lot of room to explore lyrically, offering him guidance in putting his own visions down on paper. 3 of the 4 songs included on the last 2 singles were written by Shuse and Taka. It's a fantastic balance: Shuse gives the lyrics a raw, almost primal feel while Taka's influence adds delicacy and poeticism. He seems to be quite the talented musician as well. The band's 1st single off of the "Lhasa" album, "With-You" was written and composed by Taka.

Taka is a generally well-respected person without a lot of cutesy nicknames or friendly pet-names. He's just "Taka-san" or "La'Cryma Christi no Taka-san". But while traveling in Italy with the band to shoot the "Glass Castle" video, Taka made friends with an Italian girl who told him that in Italian, his name had a feminine ending ("a") and pointed out that the equivalent in Japanese would be "Tako"... while the name didn't stick with Taka or his band-mates, lots of overseas fans still call him "Tako" (not to his face of course ^^;;;)

Taka is also an artist and an aspiring actor. While he's fairly private about his artwork, doing it mostly for stress-relief, he seems to enjoy being a visible tv personality. So far acting his resume is pretty modest: TV Asahi's 10 episode drama "Tengoku no Kiss" (A Kiss from Heaven). It's a highschool romance about promises transcending even death. Taka plays a secondary character, the hopelessly suicidal (and incredibly cute) musician Shu. His girlfriend is played by SPEED's Hiroko (but don't worry, she dies in the first 10 minutes and then he's all ours!) Granted, it won't win him any academy awards... but he did his best! It would be cruel to say that the drama's creators created this character solely as an excuse to cast him and use "Eien" as the theme song... but... well, they did and he ~is~ esentially playing himself ^^;;; Hell, they use clips from the "Lhasa" tour as footage of a "Shu" concert. Shuse even gets a bit of screentime thanks to pre-recorded La'Cryma clips sliced in. Still, Taka thinks he's acting. And he does throw the keys to a gorgeous new sports car into Tokyo Bay without flinching. For that he gets brownie points.

Taka has a very quiet voice and calm mannerisms when he's offstage, but don't mistake him for shy. He just needs a little jump-start sometimes. It doesn't help that he's often overshadowed by his famous friends. In particular, the obscenely lusted after Camui Gackt and his "aniki" Ryuichi Kawamura ^^;;; Taka doesn't seem to mind though. I think he'd rather be part of something than the center of it. He has also developed a close friendship with the J-pop singer Yamazaki Masayoshi and seems to enjoy the company of fellow Sweet Group member-bands SHAZNA and Pierrot.

Taka owes his famous friends a lot. It's LUNA SEA's influence that gave La'Cryma Christi the momentum they needed to make a major label (the band refers jokingly to LUNA SEA members as "sempai"). The band Eins Vier helped La'Cryma Christi to organize the very first SWEET TRANCE back in 1996. And TAKA's immense vocal range has been attributed, by some, to Gackt. Indeed, the then-Malice Mizer vocalist did offer Taka some private voice lessons after Taka complimented his voice.

For awhile, there seemed to be a very disturbing Gackt-Taka connection. For a two year period, whenever Camui got a lousy haircut... Taka did too ^_^;;; But they're a good match: both are obsessed with romantic old world locales, mysticism, and driving around at night (looking for nightscapes no doubt ^_^;) The song "tsuki no mabuta" (eyelids of the moon) talks about a midnight drive through Yokohama with a special someone... Gackt maybe? *ducks thrown objects* ^^v

But Taka's no fruity recluse who whines about his terrible childhood and sees dead people; he's actually a normal anime-watching, video-game playing, beer-drinking guy... who just happens to like interior design... ^^;;; ...Okay, so he's a little fruity... but I still love him! ^_~

Multi-talented Taka is also accomplished in Ikebana (a traditional art of Japanese flower arrangement), plays the guitar (he sometimes takes over Koji's position in the band for short sets in fan-club only lives), and is rumored to be an excellent cook.

Of interest to yaoi fans: Taka likes to molest his bandmates. Especially his guitarists. Not that Hiro and Koji seem to mind any ^_~ Of course, Taka doesn't seem to mind being Shuse's favorite victim either... the two of them can be quite frisky when given the opportunity (or the right song... "Mirai Kouro" *coughcough*) There's a much maligned moment on the ZERO video where the two of them are only centimeters away from locking lips--and the camera spins away to follow Hiro. That cameraman found himself on the shitlist of a great many TakaXShuse fans.

Taka has also had a number of weekly radio shows, his own BS ASAHI tv music show called "HEART ROCK CAFE", and has published a book of essays. He took a short break from band activities during mid-2001 in order to concentrate on being a tv-personality. But now he's back to concentrating fully on La'Cryma Christi.

Live, in front of a crowd of fans, Taka is surprisingly mischievous. He loves to tease the crowd. At JUMPING FLASH in Osaka, he pretended to forget about the 1st balcony's existance entirely until they screamed louder and longer than all the rest of us combined ^^ He then asked for volunteers from the audience to spend Christmas with him in a love hotel, invited girls up to touch his legs (much to the security guards' dislike), and led the crowd in a very egotistical bilingual Taka-love chant ("Taka suteki! aishiteru Taka! Iluffyou Taka!"). But it's all in fun. In the end, he's always very gracious, very sweet and very inclusive.