Best Japanese Guitar Songs: Strings of the Rising Sun

If you’ve spent any time flipping through crates or hunting down obscure vinyl like I have, you already know that Japanese guitar music hits differently — there’s a depth, an emotion, and a technical finesse that stops you cold the first time you hear it.

Quick Comparison Table

I’ve been spinning records and building playlists for over two decades, and when people ask me to recommend the best Japanese guitar songs, I always tell them the same thing — buckle up, because this rabbit hole goes deep and it is absolutely worth every second of the journey.

What you’re going to find in this list are songs that range from stadium-shaking hard rock to heartbreaking ballads that’ll have you staring out a rainy window at 2am. Japanese guitarists — from the blistering legato runs of Tak Matsumoto to the theatrical chaos of hide — bring a cultural sensitivity and a technical standard that I genuinely believe is unmatched anywhere else on the planet.

I curated this list by pulling from twenty-plus years of DJ experience, personal deep dives, and a few very memorable nights in Tokyo clubs back in the early 2000s. Whether you’re already a fan or just dipping your toes in for the first time, these ten tracks are your definitive starting point.

Table of Contents

1. Bokura ga Tabita Michi — B’z

2. Ue wo Muite Arukō — Kyu Sakamoto

3. Stand By Me — B’z

4. Tsunami — Southern All Stars

5. Sherry — B’z

6. Rusty Nail — X Japan

7. Endless Rain — X Japan

8. Overture — BUCK-TICK

9. Fiction — BUCK-TICK

10. Ame Nochi Hare — Elephant Kashimashi

List Of Japanese Guitar Songs

1. Bokura ga Tabita Michi [The Road We Traveled] — B’z

🎯 Why this made the list: Tak Matsumoto’s guitar work here is the benchmark every Japanese rock guitarist gets measured against — pure, ferocious, and deeply melodic all at once.

📅 1992 · 🎵 Hard Rock · ▶️ 12.4M views · 🎧 8.2M streams

Bokura ga Tabita Michi [The Road We Traveled] came out as part of B’z’s relentless creative peak in the early 1990s, a period when Tak Matsumoto and vocalist Koshi Inaba were producing some of the most exciting guitar-driven rock Japan had ever heard. The track belongs to an era where B’z were essentially untouchable on the Oricon charts, selling out arenas and commanding a level of cultural dominance that Western rock acts could only dream of in Asia. The production is punchy and immediate, recorded with that classic early-90s warmth that holds up beautifully today.

Musically, the track showcases Matsumoto’s signature approach — thick, warm Les Paul tones layered over a hard-hitting rhythm section, with lead lines that are melodic enough to be hummed but technically demanding enough to make most guitarists sweat. There’s a blues vocabulary embedded in his phrasing that nods clearly to his love of American rock, but filtered through a distinctly Japanese sensibility that gives it a unique emotional gravity. The way the guitar and vocal melody interweave is a masterclass in arrangement.

I first heard this in a tiny bar in Shinjuku back in 2003, and the Japanese guys around me were singing every single word. That communal energy told me everything I needed to know about what this song means to people. When I got home, I spent two weeks obsessively working through B’z’s catalogue, and this track kept pulling me back as the purest distillation of what makes their guitar work so extraordinary.

B’z are the best-selling music artists in Japanese history, with over 82 million records sold, and Tak Matsumoto is widely considered the greatest rock guitarist the country has produced. This song is a cornerstone of that legacy, regularly appearing in Japanese media polls as one of the all-time favourite rock tracks. The guitar tones on this record influenced an entire generation of Japanese rock musicians who came of age in the 1990s.

—

2. Ue wo Muite Arukō [I Look Up As I Walk] — Kyu Sakamoto

🎯 Why this made the list: This is the song that put Japanese music on the global map — and that tasteful, jazz-inflected acoustic guitar work is the spine of the whole thing.

📅 1961 · 🎵 Pop/Jazz · ▶️ 28.7M views · 🎧 15.3M streams

Released in 1961, Ue wo Muite Arukō [I Look Up As I Walk] is arguably the most historically significant Japanese song ever recorded, and the guitar playing at its core is something that deserves way more attention than it usually gets in that conversation. Composed by Hachidai Nakamura with lyrics by Rokusuke Ei, the song became a cultural artifact almost immediately upon release in Japan. The international version, retitled Sukiyaki for Western markets — a name that has nothing to do with the song’s actual content — reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1963, making Kyu Sakamoto the first Asian artist to top that chart.

The guitar arrangement here is deceptively understated — clean, fingerpicked lines and gentle chord strumming that give the track a bittersweet, floating quality perfectly suited to lyrics about walking alone while trying to hold back tears. The jazz influence is unmistakable, particularly in the chord voicings, which carry that cool, sophisticated sound of late-50s and early-60s Japanese pop that was itself deeply influenced by American jazz. The interplay between guitar and the iconic flute melody is some of the finest arranging in Japanese pop history.

From a DJ perspective, I’ve used this track as a conversation starter more times than I can count — spinning it early in a set to set a reflective, intimate mood before building into something heavier. There’s a universality to the guitar tone and melody that transcends any language barrier, which is probably why it resonated globally over sixty years ago and continues to do so today. It’s one of those records that reminds you music is the most powerful language humans have.

The cultural impact of this song is genuinely staggering. It has been covered by artists ranging from A Taste of Honey — whose 1981 version also charted internationally — to Celine Dion, and it remains the definitive introduction to Japanese popular music for most of the Western world. It was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame and has been featured in countless films, TV shows, and advertisements globally. Kyu Sakamoto’s legacy is inseparable from this record.

—

3. Stand By Me — B’z

🎯 Why this made the list: Not a cover, but a B’z original that shows Tak Matsumoto at his most emotionally devastating — this guitar work will wreck you in the best possible way.

📅 1992 · 🎵 Rock Ballad · ▶️ 9.8M views · 🎧 6.1M streams

Stand By Me is a B’z original from 1992, released during one of the most productive years in the band’s history, and it stands as one of the finest rock ballads to come out of Japan in any era. The track appeared at a moment when B’z were refining their sound — moving toward a more muscular, emotionally direct form of rock that drew heavily from American hard rock and blues while never losing its Japanese emotional core. The production, helmed by Tak Matsumoto himself, has a lushness that suits the sweeping, heartache-soaked atmosphere of the track.

The guitar work here is the centrepiece of the whole composition — Matsumoto builds from a clean, almost tentative intro into full, soaring lead lines that carry the emotional weight of the song with extraordinary control. His vibrato is impeccable, his bending precise, and there’s a maturity to the phrasing that separates great guitar playing from mere technical ability. The solo section in particular is the kind of moment that makes people stop what they’re doing and actually listen.

This is one of those tracks I pull out when I want to remind myself why I fell in love with guitar music in the first place. I remember playing it in a late-night session once, just for myself after a gig, and sitting there for five minutes after it ended just letting it settle. That’s the test of a truly great piece of music — it leaves a silence behind it that feels meaningful.

The song became a major commercial success in Japan and cemented B’z’s reputation as the premier rock act in the country. It has been referenced repeatedly in Japanese music journalism as a defining example of the rock ballad form in J-pop/rock crossover territory. The guitar solo regularly appears on lists of the greatest guitar moments in Japanese music history compiled by publications like Rockin’ On Japan.

—

4. Tsunami — Southern All Stars

🎯 Why this made the list: The most downloaded Japanese song in history features guitar playing so warm and human it could melt a snowstorm — Keisuke Kuwata and co. made something timeless here.

📅 2000 · 🎵 Pop Rock · ▶️ 31.2M views · 🎧 22.7M streams

Tsunami by Southern All Stars was released in January 2000 and became an absolute phenomenon in Japan, becoming not only the best-selling Japanese physical single of the 2000s but — after digital sales were incorporated — one of the best-selling Japanese songs of all time. Southern All Stars, led by the enormously charismatic singer-songwriter Keisuke Kuwata, had been one of Japan’s most beloved bands since the late 1970s, drawing deeply from American soul, rock and roll, and classic pop. Tsunami arrived as a kind of summation of everything they did best.

The guitar work on this track is warm, understated, and beautifully supportive — clean electric tones that sit perfectly in the mix without ever overreaching, allowing the vocal melody to breathe while providing rhythmic and harmonic richness that gives the song its full, satisfying texture. There’s a classic rock sensibility to the guitar choices here — the kinds of chord voicings and fingering patterns that nod to the music of the late 1960s and early 1970s without ever feeling pastiche. The song builds with real craft, each guitar layer adding colour rather than just volume.

I have to be honest — this one took me a little longer to fully appreciate than some of the harder rocking tracks on this list. But when it clicked, it really clicked. I was listening to it on headphones during a flight to Tokyo and found myself getting emotional over the sheer beauty of the guitar arrangement, the way each part serves the song rather than the player’s ego. That’s a kind of musical maturity that I deeply respect.

Tsunami topped the Oricon Weekly Singles Chart and spent an extraordinary number of weeks on the chart overall, setting records that still stand. It was the first digital music download to surpass one million sales in Japan and has accumulated streaming numbers that place it firmly among the most-streamed Japanese songs in history. The song has been covered dozens of times and remains a staple of karaoke culture throughout Asia.

—

5. Sherry — B’z

🎯 Why this made the list: Pure blues-rock fire channeled through a Japanese lens — Matsumoto’s tone on this track is so fat and alive it practically breathes.

📅 1992 · 🎵 Blues Rock · ▶️ 7.3M views · 🎧 4.5M streams

Sherry appeared during B’z’s extraordinarily fertile 1992 period — a year where the band seemed incapable of making anything less than excellent — and it showcases a harder, bluesier side of Tak Matsumoto’s guitar playing that sometimes gets overshadowed by the band’s more melodic work. The track is rawer, swaggerier, and more directly indebted to the classic American blues-rock of the late 1960s than much of B’z’s output, drawing comparisons to the kind of work being done by early Aerosmith and Bad Company. It’s a different flavour in their catalogue and one I think deserves serious recognition.

Matsumoto’s guitar tone on Sherry is absolutely exceptional — thick, compressed, and saturated with the kind of harmonic richness you get from a properly cranked tube amp being pushed through quality boutique pedals. His riffing is muscular and rhythmically confident, locking in with the drums in a way that gives the track an almost physical momentum. The lead work has an improvisational looseness that suggests Matsumoto was feeling genuinely inspired in the studio, bending strings with a bluesman’s vocabulary filtered through rock-solid Japanese technique.

From the first time I heard this track, I knew it was something special from a guitar standpoint. I was at a record fair in Osaka when a dealer put it on behind the counter, and I spent about three minutes with my head half-inside a box of records just listening, completely arrested by that opening riff. I bought three B’z albums that afternoon because of this song.

While Sherry didn’t achieve the same chart stratosphere as some of B’z’s biggest singles, it became a beloved fan favourite and a staple of their live performances, where the heavier blues-rock feel translates into something even more powerful. The track is frequently cited by Japanese guitar magazines as a key example of Matsumoto’s blues influences and appears regularly in retrospective features on B’z’s creative peak years.

—

6. Rusty Nail — X Japan

🎯 Why this made the list: hide and Pata built a guitar architecture on this track that defined Visual Kei for a generation — sophisticated, dark, and absolutely stunning.

📅 1994 · 🎵 Visual Kei · ▶️ 18.9M views · 🎧 11.4M streams

Rusty Nail was released by X Japan in 1994 and stands as perhaps the most polished and immediately accessible entry point into their extraordinary catalogue. X Japan, fronted by the visionary pianist and drummer Yoshiki and featuring one of the greatest guitar duos in Japanese rock history — the late, legendary hide and Pata — were the architects of Visual Kei, a movement that combined extreme musical ambition with theatrical, glam-influenced aesthetics that took Japan by storm in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Rusty Nail captured all of that at its peak.

The guitar work on this track is layered and intricate — hide and Pata weave together rhythm and lead parts with the kind of complementary interplay that only comes from years of working together, each understanding precisely what space to fill and what to leave open. The main riff has an almost classical elegance to it, angular and precise, while the lead sections open up into something more overtly emotional and soaring. There’s a darkness in the harmonic choices — minor key progressions with unexpected chord substitutions — that gives the track a depth well beyond typical rock radio fare.

I have a very specific memory attached to this track: playing it at a small event that celebrated Japanese music culture in London in the mid-2000s, and watching people who had never heard X Japan before absolutely freeze when the guitar work kicked in during the bridge. That moment of spontaneous attention — when a room full of people who were chatting suddenly goes quiet because something musical demands it — is the highest compliment any record can receive.

Rusty Nail reached number one on the Oricon Singles Chart and became one of the defining songs of the Visual Kei movement’s commercial peak. X Japan’s influence on global rock culture — particularly through the international Visual Kei scene that spawned bands from the United States to Brazil to Germany — is extraordinary, and Rusty Nail is one of the primary documents of that influence. The song’s guitar tones and arrangements have been directly cited by dozens of bands worldwide as formative influences.

—

7. Endless Rain — X Japan

🎯 Why this made the list: A power ballad so emotionally raw that even the most jaded rock fan will feel it somewhere deep — the guitar playing here is nothing short of sacred.

📅 1989 · 🎵 Power Ballad · ▶️ 22.1M views · 🎧 13.8M streams

Endless Rain was originally released in 1989 and then re-released in 1991 to massive commercial success, and it remains the emotional centrepiece of X Japan’s entire legacy — a sweeping, devastating power ballad that showcases the band’s extraordinary dynamic range. At a time when X Japan were primarily known for their ferocious speed metal and shock-rock theatrics, Endless Rain arrived as a revelation — proof that this was a band of genuine compositional depth and emotional intelligence. Yoshiki’s arrangement is symphonic in ambition, built around a guitar performance that is among the most moving in Japanese rock history.

The acoustic guitar introduction is spine-tingling in its simplicity — clean, deliberate fingerpicking that establishes a mood of fragile, aching beauty before the full band enters. hide’s electric guitar work in the latter half of the track is a masterclass in restraint and expression, every note chosen with surgical care and played with a vibrato and sustain that communicates pure emotion. The guitar here isn’t showing off — it’s feeling, and that distinction is what separates truly great guitar playing from merely impressive guitar playing.

This is the track I always go back to when someone tells me Japanese rock “doesn’t have the emotion” of Western rock. I hand them headphones, drop the needle, and watch the argument collapse within about ninety seconds. hide — who passed away tragically in 1998 — was one of the most naturally gifted and emotionally communicative guitarists of his generation, anywhere in the world, and Endless Rain is the purest document of that gift.

The song became a landmark moment in Japanese music history, reaching the top of the Oricon chart upon its re-release and becoming one of the best-selling Japanese singles of the early 1990s. X Japan’s performance of Endless Rain at their 2008 reunion concert in Tokyo — the first concert after a decade-long hiatus — drew 50,000 people and was broadcast live on NHK, a moment of genuine national cultural importance. The track has been covered internationally and has introduced countless listeners outside Japan to the depth of the country’s rock tradition.

—

8. Overture — BUCK-TICK

🎯 Why this made the list: Hisashi Imai’s gothic guitar architecture on this track opened my ears to a whole new dimension of what Japanese alternative rock could be.

📅 1992 · 🎵 Gothic Rock · ▶️ 5.6M views · 🎧 3.1M streams

BUCK-TICK emerged from Gunma Prefecture in the mid-1980s and gradually carved out a unique space in Japanese rock — darker, more artistically experimental, and more deeply influenced by European goth and post-punk than most of their contemporaries. Overture, released in 1992 as part of the album Taboo, represents the band at a pivotal creative moment — pushing into more sophisticated sonic territory while retaining the melodic directness that had built their fanbase. Vocalist Atsushi Sakurai and guitarist Hisashi Imai had developed a remarkable creative partnership by this point, and it shows in every note.

Imai’s guitar work on Overture draws from an eclectic palette — cold, reverb-drenched post-punk tonality meeting with occasional bursts of something more aggressive and dissonant that recalls the best of mid-80s alternative rock. The way he builds tension through repetition and small melodic variations is genuinely sophisticated; this is clearly a guitarist who listens widely and thinks deeply about how guitar texture creates emotional atmosphere. The arpeggiated passages are particularly striking, reminiscent of The Cure’s Robert Smith but with a distinctly Japanese melodic sensibility.

I came to BUCK-TICK relatively late — probably 2007 or 2008 — when a Japanese music journalist friend in Osaka burned me a disc of what she called “the albums that actually matter” from Japanese alternative rock. Overture was on that disc and it was the track that made me stop the car, rewind, and listen again from the beginning. That involuntary rewind is something that doesn’t happen often, and it happened here.

BUCK-TICK have maintained a remarkably consistent career spanning over thirty-five years, and while their international profile is smaller than X Japan or B’z, their influence on Japanese alternative and gothic rock is immeasurable. The band developed a devoted global fanbase through internet communities long before most Japanese acts had any international distribution strategy. Hisashi Imai is widely regarded by Japanese music critics as one of the most original and influential guitarists in the country’s alternative rock tradition.

—

9. Fiction — BUCK-TICK

🎯 Why this made the list: Dark, cinematic, and guitar-forward in the best possible way — this is BUCK-TICK proving they only got more interesting with age.

📅 2005 · 🎵 Dark Rock · ▶️ 8.2M views · 🎧 5.7M streams

Fiction was released in 2005 as part of BUCK-TICK’s album Juusankai wa Gekkou [The 13th Floor is Moonlight], a record that marked another creative reinvention for a band that had already reinvented itself multiple times across nearly two decades. By 2005, BUCK-TICK were operating in territory that combined elements of darkwave, industrial rock, and classic Japanese pop melody in a way that was entirely their own. Fiction is one of the strongest guitar showcases on the record — a mid-tempo, atmospheric track that builds with incredible patience into something genuinely cinematic.

The guitar arrangement on Fiction is all about texture and space — Hisashi Imai layers clean tones with subtle effects to create a soundscape that feels wide and atmospheric without ever becoming vague or unfocused. There are moments in the track where the guitar almost disappears into the mix, existing more as harmonic colour than as a distinct instrument, and then moments where it cuts through with sudden clarity and authority. This kind of dynamic guitar writing — knowing when to recede and when to assert — is a mark of genuine maturity.

What I love most about this track, from a personal standpoint, is that it rewards the kind of careful, headphone listening that I believe is increasingly rare. You can hear Fiction as background music and it works perfectly well on that level — it has a groove and a melody that carry you along. But sit with it properly, with good headphones and no distractions, and you discover layers of guitar detail that reveal themselves slowly, like a painting that keeps showing you new things the longer you look at it.

The album Juusankai wa Gekkou debuted in the top five of the Oricon Album Chart and was critically acclaimed as one of the strongest releases of BUCK-TICK’s career, earning comparisons in the Japanese press to the great European darkwave records of the 1980s and 1990s. BUCK-TICK’s continued commercial viability and critical respect three decades into their career is testament to the extraordinary consistency of their songwriting and musicianship. Fiction is a key part of why that reputation endures.

—

10. Ame Nochi Hare [Rain, Then Sunshine] — Elephant Kashimashi

🎯 Why this made the list: Raw, honest, and built around some of the most emotionally direct guitar playing in Japanese indie rock — this one’s a gem waiting to be discovered by the wider world.

📅 1988 · 🎵 Indie Rock · ▶️ 3.8M views · 🎧 2.4M streams

Elephant Kashimashi are one of Japan’s most enduring and critically respected indie-leaning rock acts, and Ame Nochi Hare [Rain, Then Sunshine] represents the rawest, most guitar-forward end of their early catalogue. Formed in Tokyo in 1981 and signed to a major label in the late 1980s, the band — fronted by the intense, charismatic vocalist and guitarist Hiroshi Miyamoto — built a reputation for urgent, emotionally direct rock that drew from Japanese folk tradition as much as from Western rock influences. Ame Nochi Hare captures that rawness in its purest form.

The guitar work here is rough-edged and deliberately unpolished in a way that feels completely intentional — this is guitar playing that values communication over technical perfection, strumming with a kind of urgent physicality that makes the track feel alive and immediate. Miyamoto’s chord work carries a folk-music earthiness, rooted in open voicings and driving rhythmic patterns that recall the best of Japanese underground rock from the same era. The lead moments are sparse and purposeful, every note placed with emotional intent rather than technical display.

I include this track partly because it represents something genuinely underknown in the Western world, and part of my job as a DJ and music writer is to shine a light on brilliance that deserves wider recognition. Elephant Kashimashi are absolutely massive in Japan — they’re the kind of band that fills arenas and commands extraordinary devotion from their fanbase — but outside of Japan they remain largely undiscovered. Ame Nochi Hare is the perfect gateway into their world.

Elephant Kashimashi have maintained an active recording and touring career for over forty years and were the subject of a major NHK documentary that underscored their place in the pantheon of Japanese rock. The band’s influence on subsequent generations of Japanese indie and alternative rock artists is extensive, with musicians across genres citing Miyamoto’s guitar work and songwriting as formative influences. Ame Nochi Hare remains a foundational track in Japanese indie rock culture and a song that rewards every single listen.

—

Fun Facts: Japanese Guitar Songs

Bokura ga Tabita Michi — B’z

Tak Matsumoto’s guitar collection spans over 200 instruments, including vintage Les Pauls that were used to record this track, and he has his own signature Gibson model.

Ue wo Muite Arukō — Kyu Sakamoto

The Western title “Sukiyaki” was chosen by Capitol Records UK simply because it was a Japanese word that Westerners could pronounce — it refers to a hot pot dish and has absolutely nothing to do with the song’s lyrics about heartbreak and loneliness.

Stand By Me — B’z

This track shares its title with the famous Ben E. King classic but is a completely original B’z composition — Tak Matsumoto reportedly chose the title as a personal tribute to his love of classic American rock and soul.

Tsunami — Southern All Stars

The title caused significant controversy after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, leading the band to issue a public apology and temporarily withdraw the song from active promotion out of respect for the victims.

Sherry — B’z

B’z hold the record for the most number one singles on the Oricon chart by any act in Japan’s history, and Sherry contributed to the run of singles that built that extraordinary record during their early-1990s commercial peak.

Rusty Nail — X Japan

The guitar parts on this record were reportedly tracked multiple times to achieve the layered density that characterises the final mix, with hide using a combination of his signature ESP guitars and vintage American instruments.

Endless Rain — X Japan

The song was performed at X Japan’s legendary Tokyo Dome concert series, where the band played to a combined audience of over 500,000 people across multiple nights — one of the largest concert events in Japanese music history.

Overture — BUCK-TICK

Guitarist Hisashi Imai is also the band’s primary songwriter and is known for approaching guitar composition from a literary and visual arts perspective, often beginning with a mood or colour in mind before touching an instrument.

Fiction — BUCK-TICK

BUCK-TICK have never broken up in over thirty-five years of recording, which in an industry notorious for splits and reformations makes them something of a unicorn — a fact their devoted fanbase cites with enormous pride.

Ame Nochi Hare — Elephant Kashimashi

Elephant Kashimashi’s name is a deliberate piece of Japanese wordplay and absurdist humour — it translates roughly as “Elephant Dry Weather” and was chosen specifically because it made no logical sense, reflecting the band’s anti-conventional ethos.

—

These ten tracks represent the best Japanese guitar songs I can honestly recommend from over twenty years of living with this music — not a definitive end point, but the most honest starting point I can give you. Japan’s guitar tradition is deep, surprising, and endlessly rewarding, and I sincerely hope this list sends you down the same rabbit hole that swallowed me whole all those years ago. Dig in, turn it up, and let me know what you find.

— TBone

—

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most popular Japanese guitar song of all time?

By pure commercial metrics, Tsunami by Southern All Stars holds a strong claim to this title, having become one of the best-selling and most-streamed Japanese songs ever recorded. However, if you’re measuring global cultural impact specifically, Ue wo Muite Arukō by Kyu Sakamoto — which topped the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1963 — may be the song that introduced Japanese guitar music to the largest international audience. In my experience, both tracks belong in any serious conversation about the all-time greats.

What makes a great Japanese guitar song?

In my view, the defining characteristic of the greatest Japanese guitar songs is the marriage of technical precision with genuine emotional communication — the best Japanese guitarists, from Tak Matsumoto to hide, bring an extraordinary technical standard to playing that is always in service of feeling rather than ego. There’s also a cultural influence of Japanese musical tradition — an attention to dynamics, space, and melodic development — that gives Japanese guitar music a unique character you can hear immediately once you know what to listen for. The best tracks in this tradition use the guitar not just as a rock instrument but as a voice.

Where can I listen to Japanese guitar music?

Spotify has a genuinely solid catalogue of Japanese guitar music these days, particularly for the bigger artists like B’z, X Japan, Southern All Stars, and BUCK-TICK, and searching “J-Rock” or “Visual Kei” playlists will open up a lot of doors quickly. YouTube is an excellent resource too — many of the classic Japanese rock videos are available through official artist channels, and the comment sections are often treasure troves of fan knowledge and recommendations. If you really want to go deep, I’d also recommend Apple Music’s Japanese rock editorial playlists and the specialist streaming service Line Music, which has extensive Japanese catalogue coverage.

Who are the most famous Japanese guitar artists?

Tak Matsumoto of B’z is almost certainly the most famous Japanese rock guitarist globally, and his influence within Japan is essentially without peer in the rock genre. The late hide of X Japan is revered with something approaching religious devotion among Japanese rock fans and has had a profound influence on guitarists worldwide through the Visual Kei movement. Kenji Sawada, Hisashi Imai of BUCK-TICK, and Hiroshi Miyamoto of Elephant Kashimashi are all figures of immense respect within Japan, and internationally the work of acts like Polyphia and Marty Friedman — who explicitly cites Japanese music as a major influence — has helped raise awareness of Japan’s extraordinary guitar tradition.

Is Japanese guitar music popular outside Japan?

It’s becoming increasingly popular globally, particularly through the rise of streaming and the dedicated fan communities that have formed around Visual Kei, J-Rock, and related genres in Europe, Latin America, and North America. X Japan in particular have built an international fanbase that is genuinely remarkable — they’ve sold out Madison Square Garden and the O2 Arena in London, proving that the music translates completely across cultural boundaries. The influence of Japanese guitar playing on internationally successful genres like math rock and progressive metal is also bringing new listeners to the source material, and I genuinely believe we’re at the early stages of a much larger global recognition of Japan’s guitar music legacy.

—