Our Story
NIPPON MUSIC LIFESTYLE — from Tokyo, across the ocean.
KAISHU VINYL is a company that carries Japanese music culture from Tokyo out into the world, through records.
Music made between the Showa era and the early Heisei years — music that once played in someone's everyday life, in someone's memory. We bring it out again, to a new place, to new listeners.
What we care about is more than the records themselves. Opening the box, learning the story behind the music, lowering the needle, meeting Japanese music you had never known. We aim to deliver that whole stretch of time as a single experience.
This page introduces the two founders of KAISHU — two people from completely different backgrounds — and the path the company has taken so far.
Two Different Backgrounds
Tsuji grew up in Japan and has never lived abroad. Maya spent about two years working in Australia.
Tsuji received classical training from early childhood. Maya taught himself, working through the shelves of a rental CD shop one album at a time.
Tsuji has never worked in a record shop. Maya worked at a well-known, long-established record shop in Tokyo, where inspecting records and assessing condition were part of the daily job.
One brings a listener's perspective, judging records as music rather than by market value. The other brings professional record expertise and first-hand experience of how Japanese products are received overseas. Every record KAISHU VINYL ships is selected through both perspectives.
Tsuji — The Pure Listener
Takehiro Tsuji, Founder
Born in Japan in 1998. His mother played violin, and the house was always full of music — classical alongside pop, Beethoven alongside Michael Jackson. He grew up enjoying music without sorting it into genres.
He began piano at a music kindergarten and continued until the end of middle school, winning top and runner-up prizes at prefectural competitions. Beethoven was his favorite composer then; these days he listens most often to Debussy. Spending long stretches of time with a single piece taught him to take music slowly and listen with care.
In high school he joined the light music club as a singer and guitarist, leading the club in his final year and performing at school festivals and local live venues. J-ROCK was his main listening at the time.
After high school he moved to Tokyo, where he discovered records. His first purchase was a Wilhelm Backhaus recording of Beethoven's three great piano sonatas, found at a long-established shop in Kichijoji. Although the record had been made decades earlier, the moment the needle dropped it felt as though the performance were happening right in front of him. That experience convinced him that listening to a record is not background music — it is time deliberately spent with music.
Tsuji has never worked in a record shop and has never traveled abroad. He came up through the music an ordinary Japanese listener naturally encounters. Because of that, he understands how it feels to come to this music for the first time, and he evaluates records as music, independent of market prices. And as someone who grew up in Japan, he can convey the background and appeal of Japanese artists as they truly are.
Maya — The Music Otaku
Maya Fukuyoshi, Co-Founder
Born in 1998, the same year as Tsuji. He grew up with his father's jazz fusion records playing at home. In elementary school he attended an invention club, building his own creations and entering contests — an early taste for turning ideas into something real.
As a teenager he was a regular at the rental CD shop, borrowing his way through the shelves in alphabetical order and listening on a Walkman. For albums he loved, he photocopied the lyric sheets and filed them away. He didn't just listen to music — he collected it, read it, and built up his own archive of it. His life as a music otaku began here.
In 2014 he met Tsuji in high school. They talked about music and Japanese culture almost daily, and came to share a goal: to absorb culture in Tokyo and one day put something of their own out into the world.
In 2017 he moved to Tokyo, playing in a band while working at a well-known, long-established record shop. Handling everything from new releases to older and independent pressings, he built practical expertise in records — how to assess condition, how grading works in practice. He was particularly drawn to Showa-era music, which takes on a distinct character when heard on vinyl. Throughout this period, he and Tsuji dug for records together, sharing music the other didn't yet know.
In 2021, Maya moved to Australia, drawing on his studies at an international university, and spent about two years working for a company dealing in traditional Japanese crafts. He went to learn first-hand what value Japanese craftsmanship holds overseas, and what earns customers' trust. He returned with a perspective Tsuji doesn't have: a first-hand understanding of how people overseas receive things that arrive from Japan.
How KAISHU VINYL Came to Be
In 2021, the two chose to build experience in separate places. Those years apart were also time spent preparing to meet again in the same place.
Around that time, the City Pop revival was spreading worldwide, and Japanese records were climbing speculatively in price. Watching the price outrun the music — from two different countries — left both of them uneasy. That unease became the starting point of KAISHU VINYL.
In 2022, they founded KAISHU VINYL in Tokyo. The OBENTO BOX was born as a way to bring music still little-known in Japan to listeners overseas.
In 2023, sales began in Australia, and warm messages started arriving from people meeting Japanese music for the first time. The same year, the brand took part in three Melbourne-area events:
- The 80's Disco Ball (Monash Japanese Club × University of Melbourne)
- The Japanese Vintage Winter Market in Collingwood
- The Japan Festival in Box Hill
And, visiting local shops one by one, KAISHU VINYL came to have the OBENTO BOX carried by stores including:
- Kazari + Ziguzagu
- PLUG SEVEN RECORDS
- Wabi Sabi Salon
- Picture Search Video & Vinyl
From late 2023, sales expanded to the United States, and continue today. Every record is still selected, inspected, and cleaned in Tokyo, and shipped from Japan.
About the Name
KAISHU takes its name from Katsu Kaishu, who crossed the Pacific from Japan roughly two centuries ago. He believed Japan had something worth carrying across the ocean — a conviction we share. In our case, what we carry is records.
What We Believe
A record's value is in what happens when you listen to it.
We judge records by what the music gives the listener — not by auction prices or rarity. Having watched Japanese records become objects of speculation during the City Pop boom, we made this the company's standard.
Shine a light on music that hasn't been found yet.
Japan holds many records that are musically and culturally excellent but still unknown overseas. We exist to deliver them.
Be an entrance for first-time listeners.
KAISHU VINYL is not only for record lovers. We want to be a place where someone encountering Japanese music for the first time can enjoy it with confidence, and go deeper at their own pace.
Where KAISHU VINYL Is Headed
We haven't mapped out exactly where we go from here. Still, there are a few things we picture.
Reaching a few more countries, little by little — places far from Japan, where people haven't yet encountered Japanese music.
Widening the range of music we handle. Starting from the Showa and early Heisei years, we want to introduce more of the Japanese music that hasn't yet had its light.
And creating, beyond the form of the record, new ways to encounter Japanese music and culture as an experience.
All of it points to a single wish: to add a little more time spent meeting Japanese music, somewhere in the world, into someone's daily life. That is the role we see for KAISHU VINYL.
KAISHU VINYL — Registered with the Tokyo Metropolitan Public Safety Commission, No. 308932317931