Shikao Suga


Shikao Suga is a Japanese musician and singer-songwriter from Tokyo known for writing the theme songs for several anime, movies and commercial ads. His name in kanji is 菅 止戈男. He uses katakana as his professional name.

Prior to career

Suga went to Kosei Gakuen Male High School in Suginami, Tokyo. After graduating from Tokyo Keizai University in 1989, he worked as a "salaryman" for four years in the advertisement industry.

Beginning and major debut

By 1993, at 27, he had set his mind on becoming a musician. He already had a number of lyrics written. He made his first indie single, "0101", which he released using his birth name in kanji.
After 2 years struggling to have a major recording label, by age 30, he was signed up by Office Augusta. His debut single ヒットチャートをかけぬけろ opened up a world of possibilities. His EP album Clover, released in 1997, shows his J-Pop music has jazz, funk and soul influence. His work in Office Augusta began displaying his name as スガシカオ, in katakana, which continues today.

Growth to International artist

"Yozora no Mukō", the song he wrote the lyrics to, and was sung by SMAP, has appeared in several Japanese music textbooks. Both SMAP's "Yozora no Mukō" and KAT-TUN's "Real Face" either debuted at or reached quickly the top spot in the Oricon charts, and sold over 1 million units each.
Several of his songs have been used in anime and live action dramas and movies adapted from manga.

Honey and Clover included songs from his album "Clover", like "Hachigatsu no Serenade", "Tsuki to Knife" and "Yubikiri".
The song "Manatsu no Yoru no Yume" appeared in the first Death Note live action movie as an insert song.
His song "Yūdachi" was used as the closing theme for the movie Boogiepop and Others, and as the opening theme for the 2000 anime series Boogiepop Phantom. "Hajimari no Hi" was used as the first opening theme to Letter Bee, and after a year and three months, he released "Yakusoku", which would be the opening for the "Letter Bee" sequel,. In 2019's live action adaptation of the manga "Yotsuba ginkō Harashima Hiromi ga mono mōsu!~ Kono hito ni kakero ~", his song "Tōi yoake" would be the first song he's written as a theme song for a TV Tokyo dorama.
He also did the theme songs to the XXXHOLiC anime series from CLAMP, including its movie xxxHOLiC: Manatsu no Yoru no Yume, its first TV series season, and from "XXXHOLiC Kei", its second season. "Sofa" was the song used in the OVA "xxxHOLiC: Shunmuki" on February 17, 2009. In February 2013, XXXHOLiC live action drama started on WOWOW, and Suga's "Aitai" was used as its opening theme song. In 2015, CLAMP made the drawings for the music video for "あなたひとりだけ 幸せになることは 許されないのよ", including in it images of characters from "XXXHOLiC", to celebrate his debut anniversary. Suga's 2013 album "Aitai" cover and artist photos were made by Photographer and Film Director Mika Ninagawa
His songs have also been included in non-manga movies, like Dark Water and Sweet Little Lies.
Other programs, like NTV's news program News Zero have also used Sugs's songs.
They have appeared as well in countless of TV ads, like those of insurance agency Sony Sompo, and some car brands and housing businesses. For Chica Umino's seinen manga series, March Comes in Like a Lion, his song "Kizashi" was used in the commercial ad for the manga, and has appeared in it, as requested by Umino herself.
His name and songs have also been mentioned in other anime, series and books.

In Gintama, his name has been mentioned on episode 115, and his song "Progress" has been included in a parody in the series' "Shirogane no Tamashii" arc 2nd season's episode 9. "Progress" has also been included in a parody in episode 69 of Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinkalion The Animation. In Arashi's program "Arashi ni Shiyagare" of June 30, 2018, a parody of "Professional Shigoto no Ryuugi" was made in the section "Sakurai Sho no asakatsu", headed by member Sho Sakurai, including Suga's song "Progress".

His name has also been included in Haruki Murakami's novel After dark, with reference to his song "Bakudan juice".

In 2019, director Makoto Shinkai twitted about his admiration for Suga, and that he "borrowed" the last name for the character Keisuke Suga from his newest anime movie, Weathering with You.

Tours at home and abroad

Suga started appearing at concert venues in 1997 as part of a caravan of artists that either were mostly invited by radio station events, like "Akasaka Live" or "Meet the World Beat", or were self promoted by the agency to which he belonged, like in all the "Augusta Camp" series, as part of Fukumimi, up until 2012, in which he appeared as guest, since he had retired from :ja:https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/オフィスオーガスタ#かつての所属ミュージシャン|Office Augusta in 2011.
His first live tour as a solo artist was in 1998, in the "Shikao & The Family Sugar Tour '98". "Family Sugar" was the name given to the support band he had from 1997 to 2007.
From 2007 on, Suga has had the support of other groups of musicians. One under the "Funk Fire" name, which was the name also of a concert series in larger venues. Another group has been supporting him from 2015 on, both for his live tours as well as other events and festival concerts.
He has also had tours playing the guitar by himself. Most of the concerts in this series are called "Hitori Sugar". The first one of the series was on October 22, 2006. For the 2020 Hitori Sugar Tour, Suga posted on his official site a series of recommendations about coronavirus health-related information for people planning to go to live concerts, mainly because of the concerns of the spread of the virus through out Asia.
In 2009 he made his first trip overseas, to London. It was to be the first time he appeared before a non-Japanese audience.

In September 2017 he made his official first appearance in the American Continent, participating in the Greenroom Festival in Hawaii, which he repeated the following year

In December 2017 he made his first trip within Asia, visiting Singapore on the 8th and Taiwan on the 17th, under the tour named "Suga Shikao Asia Circuit 2017". On the December 26 he ended the tour in the city of Tokyo.

Other activities

Suga is also a music producer, DJ, and radio personality. His radio stint began shortly after his debut.

In 1997 he headed FM NORTHWAVE's "スガシカオのヒットチャートをかけぬけろ". From October 3, 2005, until March 27, 2006, he was hosting a radio program called Night Stories Monday on J-Wave radio station, which was downloadable as a podcast. Other stations where he worked at are BayFM and FM802. He often appears as special navigator. On April 5, 2020, Suga began a new weekly radio program on J-Wave, called "Mercedes Benz the Experience".
In 2012, Suga translated the lyrics for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which started performances September 28, at Zepp DiverCity Tokyo, with Mirai Moriyama in the lead.
In 2017 he celebrates 20 years of career with a musical festival that he has named "Sugafes", which had the participation of renowned artists like Dohatsuten, Pornografitti and Mr. Children and others. Sugafes was made in collaboration with Atsushi Shikano, from Viva la Rock Festival, as an added special.
On August 12, 2017, he makes his acting debut on the WOWOW drama Plage |プラージュ He also had a cameo in the last episode of the TV Tokyo drama "Yotsuba ginkou...", appearing as himself.

Collaborations

As a songwriter for other artist

He has provided work to other artists:
He was a member of Fukumimi, a band formed by artists from the same label ; it consisted of Shikao Suga, Masayoshi Yamazaki, Kyoko, and later on Chitose Hajime, COIL, Araki Yuko, Sukima Switch and others.
During his years at Office Augusta, he toured around the country with a back up band called Shikao and the Family Sugar. The members were Suga Shikao, Mori Toshiyuki, Numazawa Takashi, Matsubara Hideki, Mamiya Takumi, Otaki Yuko and Saito Kumi. Activities stopped in 2007 , just after the celebration of his 10th debut anniversary.
In 2006 he was part of a group of singers all born in 1966. The unit was called Roots 66. And they had a special event called on 2 April. Ten years later, in 2016, they reunited again for an event called . In 2017, they lent their voices for the ending theme of the second season of the anime Osomatsu san, called レッツゴー!ムッツゴー!～6色の虹～.
In 2006 he was involved in another group, Kokua, for which he has served as vocalist and songwriter. Their first involvement was for the theme song Progress for NHK's program :jp:プロフェッショナル 仕事の流儀#テーマ曲|プロフェッショナル_仕事の流儀 . In 2016, the members reunited for their 1st official album and tour.

With other singers and singer-songwriters for radio, TV, and other commercial campaigns

In 2009 he was part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of radio station FM802. He was involved in the FM802 x Docomo campaign collaboration song Oh! Radio, written by Kiyoshiro Imawano, as part of the special unit called Radio Soul 20. The group consisted of musicians Mao Abe, HY, Shigeru Kishida, Shikao Suga, Bonnie Pink, Daisuke Yamamori, Sho Wada. The song aired April that year.
In 2015 he was part of the FM802 X Tsutaya Access! spring campaign, writing the song that was to be the campaign song, 「Music Train 春の魔術師」. Sugar & The Radio Fire is the special unit made to sing the song, and it consists of musicians Shikao Suga, Sakurako Ohara, Yohei Kawakami, Kosuke Saito, Maguro Taniguchi, Haruna, Tatsuya Mitsumura, Ryota Yamamura. Song aired in march 1 to May 31 that year.
In 2018, he returns as part of the FM802 x Tsutaya Access! Spring campaign as a singer, this time as part of the special unit Radio Bestsellers, with the song 「栞」, written by Ozaki Sekaikan. Radio Bestsellers is made up by musicians Aimyon, Sekaikan Ozaki, Kenta Kataoka, Gen, Kosuke Saito, Shikao Suga.
In 2019 he collaborated with Takeshi Kobayashi for Tokyo Metro's "Find my Tokyo" campaign in writing the song for its version. He also appears in a cameo in the video for the ad.

Discography

Studio albums