When I broached the idea of writing more posts for Happy Disco, my friend Chiima of Okay! Musume Time suggested I write a post about RYUTist, one of my absolute favorite idol groups who I had just been tweeting about at the time. When thinking about how I could write a post like that, I decided to start a tentative series of posts about idol music and groups I love and that I think you should pay attention to. Because at the end of the day, being positive is one of the main objectives of Happy Disco, and I want to share things I think readers of mine could like. So here’s an overview of RYUTist, a local idol group in Niigata with a lot to offer fans, especially international fans who want to broaden their Japanese music horizons
RYUTist was formed in 2011 in Niigata Japan and performs primarily in Niigata, though they do perform elsewhere at times. They currently have four members, Ikarashi Muu, Sato Nonoko, Uno Tomoe (my oshimen!) and Yokoyama Miku, with the first three being in the group since its formation and Miku joining in 2016. That same year they moved labels to Tower Records’ Penguin Disc, and with it have been able to release more music that’s more internationally available and put out more things like music videos.
Being a local group, the group performs primarily at Livehouse Ryuto Showcase in Niigata, which they call their home lives. During normal circumstances they perform most Sundays, and as such have done over 300 home lives (and I would really love to go to one of these lives!). They perform at other venues in Niigata and across Japan, but these home lives are really at the core of RYUTist. These are also often streamed to YouTube and some of them are available to watch after the fact as well.
Musically is where RYUTist shines. I mean, I think they succeed in many areas, but for being a relatively smaller local idol group they have always put a lot of attention on having good music and have produced a lot of great songs over the years. They are a bit more polished under Penguin Disc, but their earlier tracks are also very well put together and remarkably catchy. They explore a lot of genres and styles of music, but a big part of their musical appeal is a more retro sound, with often a jazzy feel to some of their music. They’ve also covered a lot of artists that aren’t necessarily idol-y over the years, so they clearly put a lot of care and thought into producing quality music that is likely to appeal to an idol fan who cares a lot about music.
What should you listen to first?
If what I’ve mentioned before sounds good to you (and honestly it should), you might be wondering where to get started with following RYUTist. I don’t think there’s a bad place to start, but I would first and foremost recommend their album Ryutogeigi which is available on Spotify. Each song on that album is pretty perfect, with songs all having a more retro feel to them often moving from cute upbeat songs like Koishite Marmalade to more laidback songs like Sandy to a fast paced swing song like Furumachi Boogie Woogie Dori. Namida no Yesterday is another highlight but I have to emphasize how much I love every song on this album.
After that?
Check out their other music! They have released several singles after Ryutogeigi that are all quite good, like Aozora Signal and Majime ni Koishite, and their music before Ryutogeigi is also great. Unfortunately not all of their music is easily available on Spotify or iTunes, but their recent songs are all fairly easily accessible and a lot of their best older songs are available as well. I personally love the song Nichiyoubi no Summer Train (put above) which has a perfect sax solo. I also would recommend Arrivals and Departures and Beat Goes On from their earlier songs, but it’s also hard to go wrong with RYUTist.
What next?
RYUTist’s YouTube is another great resource as an international fan, particularly for watching their home lives. Due to the current pandemic they’ve also put up some of their older shows to watch. I’ve attached this video because it contains Koishite Marmalade which I particularly love but there are some other performances on their YouTube that are very fun to watch as well as smaller clips of their live performances. These performances really show just how talented the members of RYUTist are and the energy they put into their performances.
Another video I think shows off just how great a group RYUTist is is their “seriously RYUTist Home live” where they are actually performing from their homes. It involves some live instrumentation from some of RYUTist’s frequent collaborators as well as RYUTist performing live harmonies. It’s a really fun video to watch and shows off some of their best music. And since it’s listed as being the #1 in a new from home series, hopefully we’ll see more videos like these from RYUTist!
In Summation
If you like the idea of indie idols but have been wanting to find indie idols that both have a lot of fantastic music and make it pretty easy to follow from abroad, RYUTist is perfect for that. They have a wide variety of good music to listen to and things to watch, and all of that has made them incredibly fun to follow for the past several years. The members are all sweet, hardworking and talented, and are an absolute blast to watch and listen to.
As a small aside, I was lucky enough to see RYUTist perform at Idol Matsuri in Washington back in 2014. The members were all very sweet to meet there and were also fun performers. While I haven’t been able to meet Miku yet, I hope I can see this group again someday. Until then, I’ll keep following them from afar, and hope that this post could convince at least some of you to give them a shot!
Oh hey it’s me and RYUTist in 2014 <3