Dingwalls, the long-running live venue in Camden, London. On Friday, October 2, the man on its stage was someone who has transformed the Pretty Cure heroines hundreds of times on Sunday-morning Japanese TV: Yasuharu Takanashi. The composer behind NARUTO Shippuden, FAIRY TAIL and Hell Girl is right in the middle of his second European tour, "The Battle for Glory EU Tour 2026," leading his own band FAR EAST GROOVE from behind the keyboards.
The tour kicked off in Helsinki on September 30, then hit London and Warsaw, and today, October 5, it lands at SO36 in Berlin. Munich, Milan, Yverdon-les-Bains in Switzerland, Paris and Barcelona follow, before the final show in Madrid on October 14. Ten cities in eight countries. An anime composer not bringing an orchestra along, but storming the continent with a band at this scale, is hard to find a precedent for.
A Bridge Between Anime Scores and Heavy Metal
FAR EAST GROOVE was launched by Takanashi in 2024, mainly for his activities overseas. Even the name is a treat for longtime fans: as Takanashi himself revealed on X, it comes from the title of the second album by Musashi (六三四), the band he once played in. A man who stood on the front line of hard rock before becoming a soundtrack composer has come back as a "band guy," carrying a quarter-century of scores with him.
And the lineup is seriously heavy. According to Anime UK News and other outlets, the band is:
- Keyboards: Yasuharu Takanashi
- Violin: Tuomas Rounakari (ex-Korpiklaani)
- Vocals: Juno Luke
- Guitar: Nozomu Wakai (Sigh, DESTINIA)
- Bass: Jesper Anastasiadis (Turisas)
- Drums: Tino Jäntti (Wolfheart session member)
- Synthesizer: Funta7
Finnish folk-metal players anchor the rhythm section and the violin, while the guitarist of Japanese extreme-metal veterans Sigh lays down the riffs. The project calls itself "the bridge between anime soundtrack and heavy metal," and one look at this roster tells you that is no empty slogan.
Why Takanashi's Scores Transform on Stage
The set centers on NARUTO Shippuden and FAIRY TAIL, alongside signature works such as the Pretty Cure series, Hell Girl, Kengan Ashura, Zombie Land Saga, BORUTO and Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal. Line them up and the essence of Takanashi's writing becomes clear.
His battle tracks were written in the grammar of a rock band from the start. Distorted guitar riffs carry the melody, layered with taiko, shakuhachi, Celtic-style fiddle and strings. Think of the FAIRY TAIL main theme, its Irish melody ringing out like bagpipes while double-kick drums race underneath. That was always "band plus folk instruments" music. Which is exactly why, played by a violinist from Finland, the home of folk metal, it gets closer to its true form than the studio recordings. The tour's tagline, "orchestral drama meets driving rock and the energy of a real live band," describes how Takanashi's sound was built in the first place.
The track record backs it up. The first tour in 2025 covered Finland, Italy and Spain, including a main-stage slot at Spain's Rock Imperium Festival. According to J-Rock News, that made him the first Japanese soundtrack composer to take the main stage of a major European rock festival. Takanashi has also received the JASRAC International Award eight times, an honor for the works earning the most royalties from overseas, which says a lot about how widely NARUTO and FAIRY TAIL keep being played around the world. That the London show was billed as the band's first-ever UK performance, with cosplay encouraged, shows how his music has become the soundtrack of youth for European fans.
When Soundtrack Composers Become Touring Musicians
Overseas performances by Japanese soundtrack composers have clearly increased in recent years, but most take the form of film concerts with local orchestras. What makes Takanashi's approach interesting is that he is touring club-sized venues night after night with a band, structured exactly like a rock tour. There is merch and VIP packages with meet-and-greets and autographs; the composer himself is presented as the artist.
Music that once played behind the picture now reaches fans directly, through the composer's own face and performance. Now that streaming carries soundtracks worldwide, the next step, a model where composers earn through touring, is starting to look real. Takanashi and FAR EAST GROOVE are running that experiment on the front line. No Japan dates have been announced yet, but we would love for fans at home to someday hear NARUTO's battle music hit with this lineup. The tour runs through Madrid on October 14.
