Mr.Children started off as a band of three school friends, originally called Beatnik, consisting of Sakurai Kazutoshi on vocals, Tahara Kenichi on guitar and Nakagawa Keisuke on bass while drummer Suzuki Hideya joined in later on. The band had changed their name several times before eventually settling for Mr.Children.
Mr.Children's music was at first politically oriented amongst other topics. The band's major debut came in 1992 with the mini album Everything and their song CROSS ROAD was used as the opening theme for a very popular dorama, "Dousoukai." Their first big break came in the form of their 1994 innocent world single, which raked in close to two million copies in sales and won the Song of the Year award at the 36th annual Japan Record Awards. Their next release, the album Atomic Heart, turned out to be another huge achievement, becoming their highest selling album to date. Guided by their producer Kobayashi Takeshi who had many new conceptual ideas for tours, Mr.Children set foot upon even greater paths of success, eventually heading towards a few lives at Nippon Budokan. While touring, the band composed many new songs and their number one all-time fan favorite, Tomorrow never knows, was from that era.
Not forgetting to do their part for society, Mr.Children lent themselves to several charitable causes in 1995. They participated actively in the fight against AIDS by jointly producing Kiseki no hoshi, the theme song for the Act Against AIDS campaign, with Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars. In order to raise awareness of the campaign, the band went on a month-long tour named LIVE UFO '95 ROCK OPERA Acoustic Revolution with Orchestra Kiseki no hoshi where they performed many cover songs from artists like The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. During the tour, the band filmed a movie titled "[es] MR.CHILDREN in FILM" that made its way to theatres in June the same year, documenting their history thus far. Afterwards, the band took some time off to travel in America and Europe.
Mr.Children returned to the scene in 1996 with a new single, which was followed by the album, Shinkai. Shinkai was more or less a test of their popularity and it passed with flying colors, selling more than three million copies and clinching the Best Album award at the 11th Annual Japan Gold Disc Awards. In 1997, the band released the album Bolero and while it contained eleven songs, five of them were already released before as singles. Since the album appeared to be a best-of, rumors of a disbandment arose. Instead of breaking up, however, the members decided to take a small break. In the meantime, Nakagawa and Suzuki created a session band called Hayashi Hideo of which members from the pillows and My Little Lover participated in. The break lasted less than a year and Mr.Children got back together on October 21, 1998. That year, the band went on to release another single titled Owarinaki tabi which was used as the theme song for Japanese drama "Naguru onna" and remains a favorite hit amongst fans today.
Mr.Children started actively appearing in music shows in 1999 and released DISCOVERY, their first album in nearly two years, sweeping up the Rock Album of the Year award at the 14th Annual Japan Gold Disc Awards. I'll be, one of the songs on the album, was selected later on as an official theme for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. In 2000, their ninth album Q didn't sell nearly as well as some of its predecessors, becoming their first album since Atomic Heart to sell under a million copies. The band, however, recovered their sales figures in 2001 when two best-of albums were released simultaneously, garnering over four million in combined sales.
On May 10, 2002, which was also their 10th anniversary, Mr.Children released their 10th album IT'S A WONDERFUL WORLD which once again peaked the Oricon charts. Kimi ga suki, a song on the album, won the band the prestige of the Best Video of the Year award at the first ever MTV Video Music Awards Japan. Later on, a tour titled Mr. Children Tour 2002 Dear Wonderful World that was scheduled for July was cancelled as Sakurai was hospitalized with cerebellum blockage, causing the band to pause all group activities and go on a short hiatus. After the vocalist recovered, the band returned to the stage with a one night-only live titled MR.CHILDREN IT'S A WONDERFUL WORLD ON DEC 21, which was recorded and later sold as a DVD.
While the band remained quiet for most of 2003, Sakurai jointly launched ap bank, a non-profit organization that provides lending for renewable energy and a variety of other environmental projects with Kobayashi Takeshi and well-known composer Ryuichi Sakamoto in June. The following May, the band released the single Sign which was used for the dorama "Orange Days" and won the Song of the Year award at the 46th annual Japan Record Awards. Moving on, in 2005, they went on a tour entitled MR.CHILDREN DOME TOUR 2005 I ♥ U in November where they played at the Osaka, Tokyo, Sapporo, Nagoya and Fukuoka domes, becoming the fourth ever artist to play at all five venues in Japanese history.
Ever so popular, Mr.Children's Houkiboshi found its way to NTV's broadcasting of the 2006 FIFA World Cup as theme song. Shortly after, the band performed at two festivals, namely the ap bank fes '06 and The Mujintou Fes. 2006. Then, on November 15, the group released their 29th single, Shirushi, which later won the Best Video of the Year and Best Group Video awards at the Space Shower Music Awards '07. One of the b-side tracks to the single was a remake of Mr.Children's 2003 song Kurumi. The song was re-recorded, re-arranged and used as a theme song for a film titled "Koufuku na shokutaku."
On January 1, 2007, the band released Fake, a limited edition one-track single used as the theme song for the movie "Dororo." Shortly after its release, their 13th original album HOME hit the stores on March 14. While recording Houkiboshi, one of the songs on the album, the group had reached an impasse due to a dispute over the album's direction. They came to an eventual agreement and made an album that "pays attention to the world with a message." With HOME, Mr.Children finally charted at number one on the Oricon charts for two consecutive weeks, the group's first in nearly 13 years. One month later, it became the first album in 2007 to surpass the one million mark in sales.
Two promotional tours were organized for the album, with the first half being called Mr.Children HOME TOUR 2007 and the second half, Mr.Children HOME TOUR 2007 -in the field-. During the tour, drummer Hideya Suzuki injured his left index finger after touching a ventilator by accident, causing two concerts in May to be rescheduled for June. The DVD for the second half of the tour made it to the top rung of the Oricon charts while the main promotional track for the HOME album, Irodori, was used as the Olympus E-410 E GOES to WORLD project theme song, where the camera manufacturer had customers submit pictures to create a new promotional video for the song.
Moving on, the band released another single titled GIFT on July 30, 2008, which was used as the official theme song of the 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage on NHK. Mr.Children also got a slice of the pie of the music downloads market the same year with their first ever download-only single, Hana no nioi. The following year, the band produced their first anime theme, fanfare, for the movie "One Piece Film: Strong World." The song was digitally released as both non full-track and full-track ringtones and it debuted at first place on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart.
In May 2010, the band put out a DVD titled Mr.Children DOME TOUR 2009 ~SUPERMARKET FANTASY~ IN TOKYO DOME which hit the top of the Oricon charts, becoming their seventh consecutive number one music DVD, tying the band with Arashi and KAT-TUN for having the most consecutive number one DVDs on the Oricon weekly music DVD charts. It also debuted at first place on the Oricon weekly comprehensive DVD charts, overtaking the sales of James Cameron's "Avatar" in the week. The DVD stayed at the top for three weeks, lending them the honor of being the second artist to achieve that feat with a music DVD, the first being Arashi.
In the age where many a band come and go as quickly as the wind, Mr.Children is a shining example of how perseverance and dedication have seen them through 18 long years of a glorious career. Although they have already been in the field for so long, the band shows no signs of slowing down. On November 11, 2010, fans will be able to get their hands on Split The Difference, a documentary footage of their idols' premium live under the same name. Certainly, the future remains promising for both the band members and fans alike.
