"Hitsujibungaku lose a drummer and gain an arena"
"Down to a core duo, Tokyo's alt-rock band spent 2026 collecting awards, scoring a Netflix series and booking its biggest hall tour, ending at Yoyogi in November."
Most bands treat a lineup change as a reason to slow down. Hitsujibungaku spent 2026 doing the opposite. The Tokyo alternative rock band, whose name translates as "sheep literature," entered the year as a duo after drummer Hiroa Fukuda's departure was announced at the end of 2025. Singer and guitarist Moeka Shiotsuka and bassist Yurika Kasai have since played their biggest rooms yet, and the year closes with two nights at Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo.
The band so far
Shiotsuka formed the group as a high school first-year, and it built its audience slowly through EPs on Felicity before moving to F.C.L.S. for five studio albums, the most recent being Don't Laugh It Off in October 2025. The sound has stayed recognisable across that run: guitars that blur at the edges, Kasai's melodic bass carrying the shape of the song, and Shiotsuka's voice sitting close and unhurried on top.
Anime opened the door overseas. "More Than Words" closed episodes of the Shibuya Incident arc of Jujutsu Kaisen in 2023, and "Burning" served as the ending theme for the second season of Oshi no Ko in 2024. Those placements put a shoegaze-leaning guitar band in front of a global audience that had never looked for one. The touring followed: a U.S. debut in Honolulu in December 2024, a West Coast run in April 2025 with former CHAI drummer YUNA filling in, and a seven-city European tour in October 2025 that went from Paris's L'Alhambra to London's O2 Academy Islington.
What 2026 looked like
The year began with a support slot that doubled as a statement of taste. Hitsujibungaku were special guests at wet leg's Tokyo show at Toyosu PIT on February 18, a pairing of two guitar bands that care more about texture than flash.
Six days later they opened their own SPRING TOUR 2026 at KT Zepp Yokohama, their first Japan tour in about a year and a half. The setlist leaned on the new album alongside indie-era songs, with YUNA on drums as a support member. In the encore they debuted "Dogs," the theme song for Kujo no Taizai, a drama series that Netflix began streaming exclusively on April 2. A Netflix drama is a different kind of placement from a late-night anime, and it widens the band's reach in a different direction.
Recognition came next. At Music Awards Japan 2026, Hitsujibungaku won Best Japanese Alternative Artist and Best Japanese Alternative Song for "Koe", with a remix of "More Than Words" nominated in the dance and electronic field. THE FIRST TIMES noted the "Koe" win when it reported on a limited summer stream of the band's 2025 Nippon Budokan concert. That Budokan show, the finale of their second Asia tour, also screened as a concert film in 66 theatres across all 47 prefectures on March 29.
A guitar band that never chased volume has ended up playing the rooms that usually demand it.
Yoyogi and the "Suuu-haaa" tour
The headline of the year is the autumn run. Announced in March, "TOUR 2026 'Suuu-haaa'" is the band's first nationwide hall tour: 11 shows in 10 cities, all reserved seating, starting on September 4 in Niigata and moving through Sendai, Kyoto, Aichi, Fukuoka, Okayama, Kanazawa, Osaka's Festival Hall and Sapporo. It ends on November 10 and 11 at Yoyogi National Gymnasium First Gymnasium, the largest venue on the schedule.
The title, a drawn-out "inhale, exhale," fits a band whose best songs work on breath and space rather than volume. Seated halls suit that. The two Yoyogi nights are the test of whether the intimacy scales.
Why it matters
Hitsujibungaku are a useful counterexample to the idea that Japanese bands break abroad only through one viral anime cut. Their route has been steadier: anime placements, then small overseas club tours, then awards at home, then bigger rooms in Japan. Losing a founding drummer could have broken that rhythm. Instead the duo kept the schedule, brought in support players and booked the biggest shows of their career.
- Next dates: Yoyogi National Gymnasium First Gymnasium, Tokyo, November 10 and 11
- Latest album: Don't Laugh It Off (F.C.L.S., October 2025)
- 2026 single: "Dogs," theme for the Netflix drama Kujo no Taizai