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Cloud Nine’s Takuya Chigira Talks Ado’s WME Deal, J-Pop Event Zipangu & Paving the Way to the World for Japan’s Artists
In 2025, more than 500,000 fans flocked to see Ado’s second-ever world tour, Ado WORLD TOUR 2025 “Hibana” Powered by Crunchyroll. In May this year, Cloud Nine staged Zipangu in Los Angeles — the largest festival exclusively featuring Japanese artists to be held outside Japan. Why did company president Takuya Chigira commit to a festival that disregarded profit? He spoke candidly about the structural challenges facing Japan’s music industry and about his sense of crisis over the outflow of talent overseas in this interview with Billboard Japan.
The Zipangu festival took place in Los Angeles in May. How did it go?
Our reason for holding Zipangu had nothing to do with festival ambitions or profit — it was about giving Japanese artists a push to challenge themselves abroad. So if the artists who performed came away thinking, “Let’s try a North American tour next” or “Let’s play a show in the U.S.,” then I’d call Zipangu a success.
From a business standpoint, we could have put on a show with Ado as headliner for about a fifth of the cost and in an even bigger venue. But last year, even with three of Japan’s top-tier artists on the bill, CEIPA’s matsuri ’25 was kept to a scale of just 7,000 — that’s how cautious people still are about putting on shows outside the country. Unless someone proves, “This is how far we can go,” Japanese artists won’t move, and local promoters will lose faith in Japan’s potential. With Ado on our roster, I felt this was the moment to hit the gas, and that’s why we decided to do it.
Our staff really moved for us on this one. We’d never even organized a domestic festival before, and our first one was in Los Angeles. On top of that, we had a team of fewer than ten people, all handling it alongside their regular jobs. On top of their daily primary responsibilities, I’d say five or six people actually ran Zipangu. They truly pulled it off beautifully.
Comparing streaming numbers in L.A. for the eight performing artists on the day of the event versus a week prior, we saw an average increase of about 2.4 times.
Everyone gave incredible performances. I’m glad to see that reflected in numbers like that.
Could you tell us about the breakdown of the audience?
Thirty percent were fans of Japanese culture. Not fans of any particular artist, but people who love anime, games, food, and Japanese culture in general. If you go, there are plenty of fans who’ll welcome you with real enthusiasm.
Alongside that enthusiasm, were there difficulties specific to holding an event abroad?
Holding Ado’s world tour made this real for us — how you get a visa differs by country, how much gets withheld in taxes differs by country. Even getting four speakers set up meant completely different wiring, sound systems, and ways of communicating depending on the country. But once you’ve done it, you understand. We learned some things in Los Angeles this time, and we’ll learn other things by holding events in other countries. Honestly, what we want is to increase the number of Japanese people who understand the rules and common sense of each country around the world.
It’s something you can only learn by doing.
What’s common sense for the local staff is just that, so they never bother to explain it. They’re careful to walk you through anything irregular, but don’t say a word about what they consider obvious. There were plenty of times during the world tour where we walked straight into a show without even noticing that gap between what was normal for us and what wasn’t. Once you go through it, though, they realize, “Oh, this isn’t obvious to Japanese people,” and we realize, “This is something we need to ask about in advance.” Experience matters, so we want to keep creating opportunities like that for our staff as well.
How do you plan to continue Zipangu going forward?
As a festival built to generate demand, I’d like to continue putting it on in Los Angeles every May. And we’re also thinking about bringing it every September or October to countries where there’s already a demand for J-pop and Japanese things, places where Japanese culture is already thriving.
Ado’s representation deal with WME (William Morris Endeavor) was recently announced. What are you hoping that brings?
We have an office in North America, but most of our staff are based in Japan. We’re going to work together with WME to cover the areas we can’t reach from our Japan-based team and the resources we don’t have. On Billboard’s annual touring revenue ranking, Ado came in at No. 94 for 2025. I’d like to push that ranking even higher going forward.
Starting next year, the Grammys will introduce a Best Asia Pop Music Performance category. Do you think creating an award that unifies Asian music will benefit Japanese music?
I think it will benefit Japan’s music industry as a whole, but for us it’s a bit more complicated. We’ve always wanted to win a Grammy, but we’re not trying to be the best in Asia. If this ends up categorizing Asia separately, there’s a risk that we might get funneled off into that section instead, even as we’re pushing for the main ones.
So even with the new category, you won’t be aiming for that and will still go for the ones like Record of the Year or Album of the Year.
Yes. Though honestly, we don’t intend to aim for any award as an end in itself. It’s a wonderful award and it would make us happy if we win, but we’re not doing any of this to win awards. We’re working toward a purpose, and if we happen to be recognized along the way and receive an award, that would be nice, but an award will never be our top priority.
I’d like to ask about the state of Japan’s music industry, including the na...
The Cloud NineJapan'sBillboard JapanAdoAdo WORLD TOURHibanaPoweredCrunchyrollIn MayCloud NineZipanguLos Angeles
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