Ryuichi Takada
Former Representative, SOUND RECORDS LLC
Born in Yokohama, Kanagawa. He took up boxing at a gym in Kamoi at his parents’ suggestion after finishing junior high school. He had set his heart on a life in music while still at high school, and went on to ESP Musical Academy, where he studied on the artist vocal course.
Band years — from ぴーしーず to Ja-boo
After graduating he was paying back his tuition while trying to keep music going, selling mobile phones by day; for a long stretch nothing quite came together. So he started a band of his own, fronting ぴーしーず — a coinage folding together “piece” and “peace” — for about three years, and contributed the track “TIME LIMIT” to a compilation CD produced by a live house. Other small projects came and went; the one that lasted was the band that came next, Ja-boo.
In 2006 he joined the rock band Ja-boo as its bassist. The band played venues across the country, among them LIQUIDROOM in Ebisu and CLUB CITTA’ in Kawasaki, and in their busiest months took the stage twenty times. Following the singer’s home ties to Ina in Nagano Prefecture, they toured Nagano and Shizuoka repeatedly. Playing Ina was a homecoming for the singer, and the shows drew coverage from the Nagano Nippo and Ina Mainichi Shimbun newspapers and from Ina Cable Television.
Before signing with an agency the band put out “Let me free Set me free” themselves, selling all 1,000 copies by hand at shows. Once signed, they released the singles “Butterfly,” “Gareki no Mannaka” and “We’ll be all right!” through national distribution, and their songs went into DAM karaoke distribution in 2007. In March 2008 they headlined Shibuya CLUB QUATTRO. He also hosted the radio program “Ja no Michi wa Heavy” on Kawasaki FM.
The SOUND RECORDS years
After his years as a player he founded SOUND RECORDS LLC and served as its representative. He produced the film “SRS: No Reason to Love,” which won an Award of Excellence at the 1st Himi Kizuna International Film Festival and screened at the Kansai Queer Film Festival and the Kagawa Rainbow Film Festival. He served as music producer on “JUDGEMENT,” released in North America by Pathfinder Home Entertainment.
Through these years he ran a regular series of in-store events at the Tressa Yokohama shopping mall under the name “Get The Count Down,” building a place where artists could play close to home. There were many such evenings; footage survives from a few of them (MADOKA, 24 July 2010 / KANACO, 25 September 2010 / charity event, 2011).
Hot Generation, a group whose dancers include children with and without disabilities, took part in those events. What he took away from meeting those children and their families has stayed with him ever since.
Where the ComyuHeru app began
Even then he wondered whether an app could help people communicate across that gap. Building one took serious money in those days, and the smartphone era was only beginning; on his own there was nothing he could do.
Today AI agents change that. The result is Communication Helper (ComyuHeru), an app that gives people who struggle to make themselves understood, and those around them, a practical way to talk.
Because he is no great speaker of English himself, he also built in features for talking with visitors from abroad. The app now helps wherever words are hard to come by, across language as much as ability — diversity made into something you can hold in your hand.
Drink, music, and the restaurants of his own neighborhood
More recently he has been working where drink meets music, developing the sake “Wakudo Junmai Ginjo” with the Sonnoh brewery in Aichi. Craft beer gets the same attention here as sake. On this blog he pairs a drink with a song, one glass at a time.
Where sake is concerned he owes a great deal to his teacher, Mr. Munakata — then a manager at Shokurakudokoro Genpachi in Nakamachidai, Tsuzuki Ward, Yokohama, and now the owner of his own place, Oreryu, in that same neighborhood. Since around 2022 he has helped run sake tastings.
He also brings musicians and magicians into restaurants as live entertainment — some twenty events so far, with the magician Schumann a particular favorite. Be-B (和泉 容), a Japan Record Award best-newcomer winner, has performed there several times as a strolling player. A few of these evenings are on video (sake Christmas party, 16 December 2023 / sake and magic, 20 January 2024 / sake dinner, 3 August 2024). The aim is simple: to keep sake culture alive in the restaurants of his own area by trying new things alongside them.
Volunteering with the NPO ZESDA
The yuzu products from Umaji Village in Kochi that featured in his 2024 music event came about because he attended an Umaji Village event in Yaesu, Tokyo. That event was organized by ZESDA, a non-profit of parallel-career volunteers who produce “glocal” businesses — local ventures with global reach.
Partly to return the favor, he began volunteering with ZESDA. He now serves as an organizer of the ZESDA Salon, while ZESDA’s representative, Mr. Sakuraba, advises him on the ComyuHeru app — a relationship in which each side can lean on the other.
He currently works on the Umaji Village project, and plans to join a project in Amami, bringing together his background in music and his experience producing sake to connect Amami shochu with singers.
Monthly meetings put him in touch with information and people from a community close to government, and he carries what he learns there back into his own work.
On staying in shape
Training matters just as much. The boxing gym he first walked into as a junior high school student is still part of his life, and he keeps his body moving. You cannot enjoy good drink without good health — training in order to drink well is its own kind of discipline.
Boxing turns up in unexpected places. “JUDGEMENT,” the film he worked on as music producer, featured the former world champion Guts Ishimatsu among its cast. That connection runs through this blog too, in the pieces written in his memory (Kanuma Musume and “Ishimatsu Otoko Bushi” / To the man who made us laugh).
Music, drink and sport, and places where people meet across all three. That is the theme now.
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