Casiopea: Japan’s Most Energetic Jazz Fusion Band

Fasten your seatbelts as we’re about to deep dive into Japan’s most energetic jazz fusion band: CASIOPEA. This is episode two of my «Japanese Music Discoveries» series. Subtitles are available, if needed.

Casiopea is easily one of my favourite bands of all time, so naturally I had heaps of fun making this video essay. I started writing the script back in 2019 and spent about four to five months editing it in 2021. These videos take a lot of time and effort to make, especially with a full-time job to cope with as well. So thanks for being patient, and I'm looking forward to make more videos in the future! ˙ ͜ʟ˙

00:00 Intro
02:28 The Casiopea style
08:19 Jazz fusion and video game music
11:05 History of Casiopea
15:53 What are they doing now?
17:59 Bonus: Collaborations
20:24 Conclusion

PS: I'm sorry if this video has ads, but I can't remove them due to copyright claims. Thank you for understanding.

CREDITS:
Research, script, voice over and editing by me, @T2norway.
Proofreading and support by my lovely partner, @Tofusama.

TWITTER:

WEBSITE:

STATISTICS:
This is my 196th YouTube video of all-time

[Tnorway]

Update! (2022.07.01) Casiopea just announced the fourth era of the band, named Casiopea-P4! Yoshinori Imai is the new drummer.

[SynGirl]

Japanese bassists were an entirely different breed, slap basslines on jazz and pop tracks of the era were simply incredible.

[fschk-to]

The first time I knew Casiopea was when.. they had a concert in my country and I was their translator!!!
I mainly talked with the staffs though, helping them setting up the stage etc.

My first experience listening to them wasn't through CD or anything.. it's their live concert, directly in front of my eyes.
What an experience I won't forget for a lifetime.

[ZaKi-zhlx]

Hi! I'm Japanese, huge fun of CASIOPEA and 70's-80's Japanese fusion&pop music and this video is, without a doubt, the best explanation video of CASIOPEA.
Actually, there is no video on Youtube Japan that explains it so carefully. It has been about 3 years since the Japanese city pop revival in Japan (ironically, without realizing it themselves, like a reimportation from overseas), but there are still many Japanese who are unaware of the epic fusion bands of the 70s and 80s like CASIOPEA. I am so thankful that Youtube's algorithm suggested this video to me and that I came across this channel's content!
I wish Youtube Japan had such a video like this...:(

[stephenwhite]

I seem to recall Miles Davis in his autobiography mentioning how much he loved playing in Japan because the fans were so enthusiastic and they often had superior sound systems.

[st_markito]

It is incredible how Casiopea sounds like you are on a Gran Turismo lobby tuning your cars or trying to get the Super License. It's so powerful but cozy at the same time. Love at first sight!

[wancoet]

Cassiopeia influenced a lot of Indonesian city pop and jazz bands in the 80s like 'Indonesia 6', 'karimata', 'Bhaskara', 'emerald'. Fantastic time for jazz fans in Indonesia...

edited, @bimokresno reminded me of 'krakatau', thanks bro, how could I forget them...

[BreadGod]

Can more people get into Japanese jazz fusion and city pop please omg. Everyone is missing out on this hidden gem.

[ridespeedrr]

If you know about Casiopea, then you must know about " T-Square " and " Dimension ". Both of them are Japanese iconic Jazz Fusion bands as well.

[Comet]

40 years ago a high school buddy put casiopea on a casette for me telling me to give it a listen and I became an instant fan. 40 seconds ago I started watching your video and, again, became an instant fan.

[tabahhelminonaka]

I'm 62 years old, my teenage era was colored by their music. 1985, I was in Indonesia, my dad's country, had a chance to work for Indonesia jazz association to invite casiopea to Jakarta. I really appreciate your hardwork making this video which brought me my special memories with this band. Thanks so much ! Oh ya they are now formed Issei Noro's Casiopea 4th & Katsushika Torio 2022 ( Jimsaku & Mukaiya ) !

[MarsziParszi]

A lot of people can't stand their cheesy 80s sound, but they're not about the sound. They're about the notes, harmony, interaction, fun, energy, catchyness of themes, improvisation, power and total live performance perfection, to the extent of being better live than in studio.

[Theslayer]

Something similar happened to me discovering Casiopea. The YouTube algorithm recommended to me a video called “when literally everyone wants the solo” so I watched it and my mind was blowing away, that video contains the “battle of solos” transcribed into music sheets of the song “Fightman” in the “Casiopea vs The Square Live” live recording. Inmediatly I started to search videos of Casiopea and The Square. And when I watched the Casiopea’s live performances I noticed such a good energy, amazing bass lines, very cool solos and also that feeling of discovering something new but at the same time like if I have heard this too many times before and I loved it. I have been playing videogames since I have memory and my first videogame was Super Mario 64 and I love a lot of videogames soundtracks specially the ones from games of Nintendo and Sega. After hearing all the records and a lot of live recordings I started to investigate more about Casiopea and then I knew about the songs of the Tokyo train stations that were made by Minoru Mukaiya. I got excited because I have been planing to go on a trip to Tokyo in the next year so It will be awesome to hear those melodies at the stations. Now I listen to Casiopea everyday and I am recomending their music to all the people that I know. Also the father of my grandfather was Japanese and all my life I have been so interested in these culture and the way they compose music. Thanks for this video, I loved it and I hope more people specially gamers discover Casiopea and get amazed of their music such as you and me!

P.S: I also prefer the live sessions over the studio versions.

[remarkablysquare]

I randomly found a Masayoshi Takanaka album through going down a YouTube rabbit hole of random albums that were recommended to me
Instantly fell in love with his music and now I'm starting to branch out into Casiopea and T-Square and it's all so fantastic, I think I've finally found my music taste
(Also I find that Japanese Jazz Fusion is like the best homework genre, period. It can somewhat blend into the background to let you focus but is also still upbeat and very happy so you just can't help but feel good even while doing boring homework.)

[trikronika]

Casiopea literally shaped the last four years of my life. I'm OBSESSED. It really doesn't get any better than this

[joseangeja]

Although I'm 61 and loved and played jazz for some years back in the late 70's, I found accidentally Casiopea about one year ago.
What a sound, what a technical quality of all band members, what a jazz fusion style for so many years adapting to the different tendencies since the 70's.
How did I miss these guys for almost 4 decades ??? T-Square is another pleasant surprise. I am recovering now all lost time.... Brilliant band(s) !!!

As a hint although a bit different, take a look at Mezzoforte (particularly) Mezzoforte live in Reykyavik!
Hope you like it.

[ootoot]

To me the absolute peak of Casiopea was the Sasaki years (Debut, Super Flight). His playing is just incredible and he should've made more than just 4 albums in his career. What an absolute beast.

[Afuentes]

I can't thank you enough for doing this! This band and genre as a whole need more recognition.

[JazzzRockFuzion]

As a professional musician, passionate gamer, long-time fan of Japanese jazz fusion & city pop, I want to commend you on a wonderful video presentation; it’s obvious how much effort and love was poured into this!

I learned so much about one of my favorite bands, I can’t thank you enough for your work. 🙏

[コマツデラックス]

I'm Japanese and have been listening to Casiopea's music since around 1983.
I also watched the 1984 news footage in real time, （13:34～）
Watching the news, I was moved to see that Japanese music was being accepted by people all over the world.
After that, this kind of music was treated as outdated and uncool in Japan.
I believed that only Japanese people thought that way, and that the rest of the world must be different.
Truly good things stand the test of time, and I thought their music was worthy of that.
Now, when I see people all over the world listening to their music through YouTube, I think that what I believed back then was not wrong.
Thank you for making this video.