NEMOPHILA began with a singer who wanted a band. Seven years later, the singer is still there, and most of the band has changed.
2019
mayu had been in the rock band LIPSTICK. In 2019 she put together a new group, finding players through personal connections and magazine advertisements: guitarists SAKI and Hazuki, bassist Haraguchi-san and drummer Tamu Murata. It started as a session band that August, and played its first show in September 2019 at METAL WEEKEND at Zepp DiverCity in Tokyo.
The band’s own description of its music joins two things that don’t usually meet: hard sounds in the vein of metalcore, and yurufuwa, a Japanese word for something soft and easygoing.
The Rise
The albums came yearly: REVIVE in December 2021, Seize the Fate in December 2022, EVOLVE in January 2024, Apple of My Eye in January 2025.
The stages grew just as fast. The first overseas show was in July 2022 at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. That October the band played the Aftershock festival in Sacramento. On 17 February 2024, for its fifth anniversary, NEMOPHILA played the Nippon Budokan.
The Departures
Six weeks after the Budokan, on 31 March 2024, SAKI left, citing differences in direction. The band continued as a four-piece.
In August 2026 came a second announcement. Tamu Murata had stepped down as a member at the end of July, staying on as a support drummer for the remaining dates. Hazuki would leave on 12 October 2026, after a final show by that lineup at EX THEATER ROPPONGI in Tokyo.
The same announcement said what would happen next. NEMOPHILA will continue, with mayu and Haraguchi-san, the two who remain from the original five, and with its sights on audiences overseas.
Why It Matters
A band that reaches the Budokan in five years and then loses three of five members could reasonably stop. The person who started it has chosen not to. Whatever NEMOPHILA becomes, it will be the second band mayu has built under the same name.
Start with REVIVE, then Apple of My Eye.
