This story was initially written at the beginning of March 2020, when a lot of us (including myself) had not grasped the scale of the pandemic that was about to turn our world upside down. There were, though, artists and thinkers who were already raising awareness about the underlying issues in our society. After a few weeks of observing the state of politics and culture, I grew convinced that now is actually the perfect time to share this story. I hope the readers draw from it inspiration and a sense of hope in these difficult times. - Yuko Asanuma

On a chilly Sunday afternoon in January, I stood in front of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, the busiest railway hub in the world. Its west side is largely a business district with skyscrapers and very little life on the weekends. The commercial east side, on the other hand, attracts a mass of consumers of all kinds. On Sundays, to accommodate the shoppers pouring in from all corners of Japan and beyond, the front road is blocked off to create a pedestrian zone. Tokyo, and particularly Shinjuku, is the epitome of materialism. You can find everything here. Every fantasy imaginable is available. Every surface visible to human eyes is overloaded with advertising encouraging you to consume.

This is where the second edition of Protest Rave took place. After gaining support following last year's launch, which took place on Halloween weekend in front of Shibuya Station, the organisers accepted an invitation from three political activist groups that were planning a joint demonstration against the current Japanese administration under the slogan #OccupyShinjuku0112. Following a march through the streets with a soundsystem-equipped truck, the final destination was the exact spot of the public party. The main faces of Protest Rave, the local DJs Mars89, Miru Shinoda and Mari Sakurai, were joined by JACKSON kaki, 1017 Muney and a special guest from Osaka, Yousuke Yukimatsu.

Kick drums and heavy bass echoed through the small square and busy pedestrian zone. Most passersby didn't pay much attention, but some stopped to try and figure out the source of this unfamiliar music. It came from a makeshift DJ booth, with MC ONJUICY agitating the crowd on the mic as if he was in a basement club. Behind the DJ, a large banner with the words "We Dance Together, We Fight Together" had been hung in solidarity with the Tbilisi protest rave in 2018. The swelling crowd was made up of people similar to those you see in clubs. There were many familiar faces from different generations of the party scene.

Sign 1, Sign 2, MC ONJUICY, Mars89, Miru Shinoda, Yousuke Yukimatsu

Aki Okuda, cofounder of M/ALL Festival, was present, as were all four members of the popular band GEZAN, who swung by on their way to rehearsal. Together, they are key figures in a new socio-cultural movement starting to take shape in Tokyo. This network of artists and activists have disparate backgrounds and are associated with widely different music styles. They are all committed to their own separate projects while organically overlapping and staying connected.

"It was Okuda who connected us," Mars89 told me several days later when I sat down with him, Miru and Mari. "DJ 1-Drink and I had an idea of a sound demonstration last year and Okuda had heard from Miru that he was having a similar thought as well. So he introduced us, and that's how we met."

Mars89 has been a DJ in Tokyo for around a decade, playing bass-heavy music inspired by soundsystem culture and other forms of street dance music. He gained more attention following three EPs on the Bristol label Bokeh Versions and his residency on Noods Radio, which began a few years ago. Last year, his career made a dramatic leap when one of Tokyo's high-fashion brands, Undercover, commissioned him to score their runway show for Paris Fashion Week.

Miru Shinoda began his music career as a member of a James Blake-inspired indie pop band called yahyel. He's been DJing out for about a year, though mostly he's been focusing on producing music for himself and others. "I became less comfortable with the band scene where most people avoided touching on any political issues," he said. "Instead, there was a sense of escapism evident in the revival of the city pop sound and ambiguous utopian tendencies. I couldn't relate to that at all."

Mars89 and Shinoda brought in Mari Sakurai, a techno DJ who's been outspoken about gender issues in a strongly male-dominant scene. "I didn't want to be loud about it, but I wanted to take actions within my capacity to subtly show how I want the parties to be," she said. Sakurai organises occasional parties such as I/O at Vent and Krue at WWW alongside another active female DJ, Mayurashka.

Mari Sakurai

"After the [great earthquake and Fukushima power plant accident] 3/11, all of us were attending numerous political demonstrations separately as students," Mars89 explained.

"We didn't know each other back then, but we were in the same places," Sakurai added. "I didn't know Okuda personally but we attended the same university." They were all around the age of high-school seniors when the catastrophe hit in 2011.

Anyone interested in social movements or political activism after 3/11 will have come across Okuda's name. He was the cofounder and leading figure of SEALDs, AKA Students' Emergency Action For Liberal Democracy. SEALDs organised a series of large anti-administration demonstrations (mainly against Shinzō Abe's attempt to amend the constitution, which could potentially allow Japan's Defence Force to be deployed overseas, among other issues) between 2015 and 2016. The most extraordinary of these protests was on August 30th, 2015, when an estimated 120,000 people gathered in front of the National Diet Building to rally against the government's national security bill.

"I never planned to be an activist," Okuda, who looks like a casual raver, told me in a cafe in Shibuya. He admitted that, at the time of the interview, he was going to clubs pretty much every weekend. "I wasn't even particularly into politics, but 3/11 urged us all to change. I visited Fukushima and went to watch anti-nukes demonstrations, and I believed that Japan was on its way to a dramatic change. But the result of the following nationwide election was shocking. Instead, it shifted radically towards conservatism, and there was no sign of positive change in politics. I really felt like this country was going to fall if we didn't speak out and take action."

As a student, Okuda was into hip-hop, but he never got too involved in the scene because being the leader of a nationwide student activist group took up so much time. "I got to know music people at the demonstrations," he said. "I met Mars89 there before I ever saw him DJ. I also met people like the rapper ECD (RIP), DJ Nobu, the band DYGL, the graphic designer Masakazu Kitayama and many others. It was weird. But someone told me, 'music people are just fast [to act].' They definitely have a different rhythm and tempo compared to, say, university academics. And they are far better at designing demonstrations and communicating effectively, too."

Okuda received a DM on Twitter just before the 2015 August demonstration. "It said, 'My name is Sakamoto. Is there anything I can do to help?'" It turned out to be Ryuichi Sakamoto. "I had never met him, but I replied, 'I want 100,000 people to join the demonstration. Could you meet us in front of the National Diet Building?' He said 'OK,' and just showed up on the day. We met for the first time in front of 100,000-plus people, and he got up on the podium to give a speech for us."

Sakamoto is a staunch anti-nuclear advocate and has been organising the No Nukes festival since 2012. After his and Okuda's dramatic encounter, SEALDs were invited as guest speakers to the festival's 2015 edition. Leveraging this friendship could have been an easy win for Okuda to start a new festival. "But I wanted to see and show what we can do by ourselves," he said.

This is why, in 2018, Okuda started a free, two-day festival in Shibuya called The M/ALL. The name stands for MAKE ALL and is a manifestation of the DIY spirit. In its first year, it was run by crowdfunding. The following year, revenue from their online t-shirt store helped.

"The gap between the rich and the poor is ever growing," he said. "Those who could afford can purchase the t-shirt to support us to pay the artists and staff, but I wanted the music experience to be accessible for everyone. Music is something I want to be by the side of those most in need."

Mall Festival

Okuda invited Mars89, Shinoda, Sakurai and Yukimatsu to DJ at the 2019 edition of The M/ALL. The indie rock band GEZAN headlined. GEZAN was formed in 2009 in Osaka, where a strong freeform, experimental and often extreme music culture had existed for decades, giving rise to bands like Boredoms. The four-piece outfit was gradually making waves defying the norms of the music industry. Stylistically, their sound lies somewhere between punk, dub and psychedelic guitar rock, combined with unexpected high-toned, spoken-word style vocals from the frontman Mahito, AKA MahiToThePeople. They operate completely independently, using their own label, Jusangatsu, as a platform.

"Osaka's underground scene always had a strong appreciation for deviancy," Mahito said. "There were a lot of experimentation and improv sessions going on at venues like [Namba] BEARS and Bridge back then—and that culture definitely influenced us a lot. But we felt like we were hitting the wall after a couple of years. Apart from us and Hino's [AKA YPY] bands Goat and Bonanzas, there weren't many ambitious bands that inspired us. Hino started to find more audiences abroad, but GEZAN was more locally rooted. Bands like Afrirampo, Oshiripenpenz or Zuinoshin were the embodiment of that spirit and direct successors of Boredoms. We came out around the time that whole scene passed its peak. In retrospect, I think I also developed a kind of approach that refuses to give meaning to the music. I was against the idea of using music as a tool or weapon to express one's opinion."

It all changed for Mahito and GEZAN after 3/11. "Musicians in Tokyo reacted really fast to the social change, particularly hip-hop artists such as ECD, while artists in Osaka seemed to still be living in fiction," Mahito said. "We felt like we were left behind and distant from reality. So I went to Fukushima to see what was going on. I felt the strong urge to act. I think that was the main reason we moved to Tokyo soon after."

Typically, because Tokyo has always been the centre of the music industry, most musicians from other regions ended up relocating to the capital. But with GEZAN it was different. "To win within the capitalist mechanism no longer appealed to us," Mahito said. "When you try to foresee where human civilization is heading and what the world will be like in 20 or 30 years down the line, it's our 'wavers' or 'margins,' including errors, that makes us unique and separates us from AI. Something that's the direct opposite of productivity and efficiency that we are forced to pursue all the time in modern life."

In 2014, GEZAN launched a one-day, open-air festival called Zenkankau-sai (translation: All Senses Festival) on the outskirts of Tokyo. It was the band's first attempt at a free, open-participation and donation-based music festival. It grew slowly every year, and in 2017 they took the festival to Osaka. The 2018 edition, again in Osaka, was a huge success. Though entry was still free, they raised around €40,000 in donations. They always raised enough to pay all the performers without getting into debt.

Last year, the team announced that the next festival would take place in both Tokyo and Osaka and that, during both events, they would serve meals for free. Mahito later admitted in his online column that they only thought about how to make this happen after the promise had been made. Of course, it was no easy task. Approximately 10,000 meals had to be prepared for between 2,000 and 3,000 people at each event. Nobody knew how, but they managed it. Farmers and food suppliers from all over the county donated ingredients, products or skills to Zenkankaku-sai in support of their vision.

After the Osaka edition in late September, some of the participants said they'd suffered from food poisoning. The cause was later proved to be external vendors from the neighbourhood, but it still devastated the team. Plus, they had to make the difficult decision of cancelling the Tokyo edition due to one of the largest typhoons ever in early October (it was the same weekend as Labyrinth). The day after the cancellation, the team revealed Shibuya Zenkankaku-sai - Human Rebellion, scheduled for the following night. Within a couple of days, they got some of Tokyo's main music venues, including WWW, O-East and Quattro, to host this free festival (with free food) in the city's commercial centre.

"If we hadn't pulled that off, I would have been fucked," Mahito laughed. "I wouldn't be here right now for sure!" Earlier, he told me that he had fallen seriously ill for three weeks after the festival. He was under enormous pressure. "The concept of Zenkankaku-sai is to create an occasion where everybody can let go of their usual social profile, bring their personal energy to share in whatever form they like. Because people saw our desperation, so many offered us help regardless of their usual occupation or position. For example, venue managers from other areas of Tokyo came down after they finished their work to volunteer as security for our festival. It was unbelievable."

Gezan at Zenkankaku-sai

Mahito and GEZAN's activities remind us of important values, and proving that other ways are possible. "I hope to tolerate and welcome even the things that could often be neglected as noise or glitch in our current society, and make them visible and accepted by those who can see beauty in them," Mahito said. "I'm also far more interested to see people change than just connecting with already like-minded people. So I want to keep our activities open for anyone even if they have different ideologies—unless they have a clear intention to discriminate or harm others. This is based on the acknowledgement that I'm imperfect and I make mistakes too. Everyone makes mistakes but can learn from them."

The more you speak to Mahito, the more it becomes clear that all this forms the foundation for GEZAN and his artistic vision. It's very personal. The band's music speaks to their generation from the same eye level.

This is a cautionary tale for the revolution that this era must now begin

A rebellion of the lost resistance and a cheap seal of approval attached

In short, this dissonance, as a poison, melts bones over blood and destroys the borrowed ethics

It's not a recommended listen for those who still want to be intoxicated with fantasies that city pop has always symbolized

It's not too late.

Press the stop button and reject this voice now

"KLUE" by GEZAN

This is how GEZAN's fifth album, KLUE, begins. The title is pronounced in the same way as a Japanese word that means "going insane." When it landed at the end of January, 2020, it was praised as the new rebel music Japan needed. It clearly resonated with a broader audience, who felt a social anxiety as the world delved further into a dystopian state. Listening back in the midst of the current pandemic, it's almost prophetic.

Imagine, Tokyo
How do we get through this new form of violence?

Impatience, confusion and superiority measures
We live our lives in exposure to

Tell me your answer, Tokyo

"TOKYO" by GEZAN

"Imagination" is a word you hear often in Mahito's lyrics, as well as when he speaks. "Our society is increasingly systemised to make us not think," he said. "If everyone starts to think of the background of each item we consume, every action and decision becomes too heavy. That's why we are only shown the Photoshopped surface, so we can ignore what's behind it. But what you don't see doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Imagination is the key to see the invisible. This is the most beautiful ability of human beings. Everything GEZAN does is all about that."

Since the pandemic took a serious hold of Japan, the basis of these rebels' activities—namely music venues, street and outdoor gatherings—have been taken away. But of course they are not giving up. Mars89 and Miru Shinoda were among those (including DJ Nobu) who started a movement called #SaveOurSpace, which managed to collect over 300,000 signatures in four days to demand financial aid to the Japanese government for cultural venues in response to the its advice to suspend their business in order to prevent the spread of the virus. They also immediately took the Protest Rave online.

Mahito and GEZAN started a video documentary series entitled WASH and its sequel, WiSH, which are intended to evaluate the impact of the crisis and seek a vision of the post-pandemic era by interviewing figures in the music industry. They are also working on a relief compilation for the Osaka music venue Namba BEARS, and on May 30th they launched Jusangatsu Farm, located on Liquidroom's rooftop, as a form of Zenkankaku-sai 2020, accompanied by a 30-hour live music performance streaming.

"Rather than feeding into the mechanism of evil regime while we're brain-freezed and only despair installed, we're going to change the landscape of our life from a one-metre radius," Mahito explained. "Unlike the cities of today that only manifest the human ego, the design for the new era should be more nostalgic and beautiful in color.: He calls it a "tiny revolution," and is distributing the plant seeds as well as the harvests from festival partner farmers for free while calling for donations. Meanwhile, the king of city pop, Tatsuro Yamashita, commented on a radio show to encourage his mass followers to "take a break from the political conflicts and unite instead to support each other. We can condemn and pursue responsibilities (of the politicians) after the pandemic is over."

Music has always served both realms: fantasy and reality. Given the current moment, it seems the latter resonates more strongly. Here we must lay our hopes for the post-pandemic world.

I'm done with reading pretty poetry and taking sanctuary in fantasy, the reality is here and now

These days of battle, you're already wounded all over

But this fight will continue a bit longer
"I" by GEZAN