KOMATSU JUNYA
KOMATSU JUNYA
A condensed timeline. For the full, unabridged story (in Japanese), see the Japanese edition of this site.
Born in Osaka Prefecture.
Born on August 8, an auspicious number in Japan, yet welcomed at first as an unlucky child.
As a toddler, he suddenly began reading picture books at age two. Before starting school, he developed an unusual fascination with encyclopedias and the Bible, and pondered questions like “what does it mean to live?”
An intelligence test around this time recorded an unusually high score, including a perfect mark in logical reasoning.
His childhood nickname was “Little Conan” (after the boy detective): his tone of voice changed depending on whether adults or classmates were present, and he was famously bad at singing.
Inspired by Osamu Tezuka, Fujiko Fujio, and Takashi Yanase, he began drawing manga.
He was moved to tears watching a music video of singer Hideaki Tokunaga that his mother secretly watched late at night in the living room.
Struck by the thought “there is a man this beautiful, in voice and appearance,” he fell completely for Tokunaga's work and worldview, a turning point for his values and his life.
He stopped drawing manga and began writing songs on a guitar and keyboard his grandmother had bought him.
Not getting along with his mother, he entered the entertainment industry in order to live independently.
The president of his talent agency happened to be a huge fan of Hideaki Tokunaga, and generously shared materials that Junya devoured.
After making an on-air remark exposing certain uncomfortable truths, he was effectively blacklisted from the entertainment industry due to industry politics.
He met his adoptive father, a businessman in Ginza, and moved to Tokyo to help with the family business.
His street performances began drawing a following among Tokyo's downtown youth, and he traveled the country as a wandering musician around this time.
He made his nationwide indie-label debut.
However, jealousy and harassment from fellow musicians led to depression, which he continues to live with today.
He put his music career on indefinite hold.
He obtained the equivalent of a high school diploma via the national proficiency exam.
Inspired by entrepreneur Takafumi Horie, he became interested in business.
He won an award at a new-business competition hosted by Livedoor.
He began working as a street fortune-teller near a train station.
Local high schoolers and their families lined up, and he became something of a local sensation.
Frustrated that so few people acted on his advice, he gave it up.
Around this time he apprenticed under a management guru and began dabbling in business consulting.
He also started a self-run web business.
While continuing his own business, he resumed helping his adoptive father's company after his father's health declined.
He also began spending weekends in Shizuoka, restarting his street-live activities in earnest.
He became a director and founding member of a new company established by his adoptive father.
The Great East Japan Earthquake dealt a heavy blow to his business.
He paused the business and traveled the country with an acoustic guitar, volunteering in recovery efforts along the way.
July: his business collapsed almost entirely, and he lost nearly everything he owned.
All that remained was the room he lived in, a fifty-thousand-yen emergency stash, a MacBook, and an iPhone with no active line.
August: he was hired as an executive-track staffer at a staffing agency and put in charge of a branch office.
An old friend returned a guitar he had lent out, and he began performing on the street after work.
Fans of his became registered staff, forming a remarkably strong team, and branch sales doubled.
November: resentment from a veteran employee, jealous of the results, led to a falling-out with the president, and he quit.
He began burning CD-Rs and living entirely off street performance.
December: under a self-imposed rule, once he had earned ten times the train fare he could move on, he traveled as far as Utsunomiya for the first time.
May: he launched a YouTube venture, which flopped.
Still, he once again became something of a local hero to the youth of Kawagoe, living frugally while performing on the street for about a year.
Around this time he began distributing music on streaming services.
“The All-You-Can-Eat Yakiniku Song” became a surprise hit.
Related videos:
April: he launched a YouTube project called “Sengoku Shimanagashi” (Warring-States Exile) with a friend known as Mr. Saito (pseudonym).
The premise: roll two dice, get exiled to a major city in the Kanto region, and earn ten times the return fare through street performance to get home.
The project built up his nerve to perform in all kinds of unfamiliar places.
August: he was turned down by a woman he had wanted to marry.
October: determined to turn things around, he and Mr. Saito began a project to travel north to Morioka, the northernmost prefectural capital on Honshu, earning ten times the fare as they went.
He reached Morioka in ten days.
Related videos:
December: he shared the story of this journey at a networking event.
One of the companies present began a collaboration with him.
That company had just acquired a staffing agency, and he joined its management team as an executive.
While running the company, he occasionally set off on impromptu tours around the country.
He released the single “Komorebi” (Dappled Sunlight).
He expanded “Sengoku Shimanagashi” into a nationwide version called “Jigoku-hen” (Inferno Chapter).
He adventured through Sapporo, Kagoshima, Yamagata, Niigata, Hakata, and more.
During this period he discovered the legendary Aomori Prefecture.
He also discovered the fabled utopia said to exist between Iwate and Aomori: Hachinohe.
It was around this time he subdued a rowdy drunk in Hachinohe.
During this journey he met Kosuke Miura, a lifelong friend and rival.
He also met and became a disciple of the legendary vocalist known as SAM of Hakata.
He clashed with his company's president over management philosophy, particularly the poor treatment of staffing employees.
He left the company and spent a period living it up at parties.
Late August: he began performing on the street in Ginza.
March: hearing that a fan he had met in Kagoshima had a serious illness, he set out on a journey in the middle of the pandemic to encourage her, adopting the alias “Jun'nosuke Maeda” for an undercover, wandering tour.
That fan made a full recovery and remains in good health today.
October: after Mr. Seishiro had to give up his family home, Junya once again set out as Jun'nosuke Maeda, this time aiming for Beppu, stopping in Kagoshima along the way.
While working part-time, he resumed street-live activities in Kawagoe.
He began producing the artists Yuka-emon and Kurimaro (Kuri-emon).
Related tracks:
The “Alexandria NEET Plan” succeeded, reaching fifty million cumulative streams.
To visit Mr. Saito, who had returned to his hometown, he began a project called “Street Race.”
He reached Kushiro in about ten days.
He nearly suffered his first defeat after misjudging the valid period of his rail pass.
He avoided it thanks to what became known as the Miracle of Tomakomai, keeping his undefeated streak alive.
He began a project to attend every stop of Hideaki Tokunaga's concert tour, and made it to nearly all of them.
December: he hit a career-high month for street-live earnings.
He held several two-man shows with Kosuke Miura.
April: he set a new personal record for tips earned in a single day.
That record still stands as his career high.
October: the first person ever to give him a cashless tip on the street was, notably, a well-known public figure.
He surpassed 100 “home runs” for the year, his term for ten-thousand-yen tips.
He began a trial run of the Fan Club.
The Fan Club officially launched.
He is currently working on a two-disc album titled “succession.”
Alongside it, he is producing a Hideaki Tokunaga tribute cover album, “tribute of respect,” and a Junya Komatsu best-of album, “The World I Was In, The Time I Spent With You.”