My name is Shiba Takumi. I'm a second-year high school student, and on paper, I'm painfully average.
At school, I'm a loner. At home, my relationship with my family barely exists. I don't see the point in making friends, let alone chasing after a girlfriend.
By most standards, that would already put me below average.
But only if I were that kind of average.
If I were one of those otaku who spend their nights jerking off to light novel illustrations, binging anime, secretly dreaming of becoming a game developer or novelist while never actually doing anything.
If I were a typical Japanese teenager obsessed with domestic trends, never bothering to look beyond this country's borders.
If I were one of those creatures who live comfortably in the dark, never reaching for anything unfamiliar.
But I'm not.
I see further than they do. I always have.
I'm a Western enthusiast.
My English grades are flawless—not because of school, but because I speak the language fluently. Years spent on international forums forced me to learn it properly, not the neutered version they teach here.
And somewhere along the way, my dream was born.
A few years ago, I stumbled onto a Kendrick Lamar mixtape—YHNIC. That was my first real exposure to hip hop. I fell in love instantly.
Then came metalcore: Bullet for My Valentine, Killswitch Engage. Heavy riffs, raw emotion. Rock music grabbed me just as hard.
When you love music the way I do, there comes a moment where listening isn't enough anymore.
You want to create.
That realization hit me like a truck.
I started with rapping. No training, no sense of flow—just mumbled, off-beat lyrics over an old-school instrumental. I uploaded the video to YouTube without thinking twice.
Looking back, it makes me want to kill myself.
The video got 743 views. I still remember the numbers clearly: 42 likes, 17 dislikes, and a flood of hate comments. I never deleted it. I told myself I'd keep it there—to remember where I started when the day finally came that I became a star.
So I practiced. And practiced harder.
My grades dropped to the point where barely passing became a victory, but my music improved. Better flows. Slightly less embarrassing lyrics. Still—no exposure. None at all.
I pushed further. Took singing lessons, trained my voice so I could finally land melodic hooks. I improved again. And again, it meant nothing.
Still, I believed.
Someday, I'd sign a major deal. I'd leave Japan and pursue music in America. That dream stayed with me for as long as I could remember wanting anything.
Whenever I asked strangers online for feedback, they told me the same thing:
Stop copying foreign artists. Find your own sound.
Artists in Facebook groups said I needed better audio quality. A dedicated producer. Exclusive beats. Stop using free instrumentals from YouTube.
To a junior high student living on a monthly allowance of 2,000 yen, it felt less like advice and more like mockery.
Seriously—what was I supposed to do?
I recorded everything on my phone. Cheap headphones. No soundproof room. No equipment. Mixing and mastering on free PC software only made everything sound worse.
In other words, my dream was 99.9% unreachable.
Still, when I discovered Lil Tracy in 2016, something clicked. Emo trap. A fusion of everything I loved—hip hop, rock, sadness. It fit me perfectly.
Of course, knowing what I wanted didn't magically make me successful.
But I believed that if I kept going, someday the sun would shine through my back door.
So far, it hadn't.
I shook those thoughts away. I was in my room, playing an RPG on my computer. It was the day after I dropped my latest track on YouTube. I'd shared it with every online acquaintance I had.
Time to check the damage.
I opened the browser and accessed YouTube Studio.
Disaster. As expected.
Fifty-six views in fifteen hours.
Maybe I'd never make it.
The frustration burned deep. Three years of effort, and I was still stuck in the shadows.
Others blew up in a year. Some in less.
Industry plants could drop a debut track and explode overnight—backed by labels that owned their sound and their souls.
I didn't hate labels. I wanted one. I needed one.
But only if they believed in my vision instead of forcing theirs onto me.
That's why I aimed for organic growth, no matter how impossible it seemed.
Fifty-six views. Whatever.
I checked the rest of the stats. Four likes—not terrible. Two comments, too. Generic encouragement. Keep up the good work.
Yeah. Sure.
I leaned back and sighed.
I know aiming for an international audience with deep lyrics and meaningful themes might be beyond my reach.
But I don't fake anything. Every word I write comes from something real.
Meanwhile, some Japanese female idol sings about love she's never experienced, over a bubbly instrumental, and builds a massive fanbase.
Sex appeal sells. Message doesn't.
It's the same in every genre now. Music is fast food. Either sing off-key and let an engineer fix it, or have actual talent and still be forced to perform whatever shallow garbage the market demands.
In Japan, it's even worse.
Put on cute clothes. Dress like a Western doll. Dance, smile, sing in front of an audience that doesn't care about your voice—only your face and how much skin you show. Pose in swimsuits for teen magazines.
Boom. Instant success.
That's why I hate idols.