HAGANE
Biography and full discography of HAGANE, with a page for every album, on METAL BOOST.
Biography
Female Melodic Speed Metal Bearing the Name of "Steel":
The Trajectory and Restart of HAGANE
Profile
| Formed | June 23, 2018, Tokyo |
|---|---|
| Current Members | Sakura (Guitar / founder) / Sayaka (Bass) / Nagi (Vocal) / JUNNA (Drums) |
| Origin | Japan |
| Styles | Melodic Speed Metal, Heavy Metal, Power Metal (self-described "harmonic metal") |
1. A Female Metal Band Bearing "Steel"
HAGANE is a Japanese all-female metal band formed in Tokyo in 2018. As the band name "hagane" (steel) suggests, they aim for music that is hard, sharp and supplely strong, with driving melodic speed metal at its axis. Early in their career they described themselves as "harmonic metal," emphasizing a harmonious sound image woven by multiple voices and guitars. As one of the accomplished acts supporting the depth of the Japanese female metal scene, HAGANE has steadily built up its journey.
HAGANE's history is also a story of "resilience," having achieved a restart after overcoming a major line-up change. Facing the difficulty of member turnover, the band was rebuilt around founder and guitarist Sakura and continues its activity with a new formation. This article outlines HAGANE's formation, its early works, its 2024 restart after the 2023 line-up change, and its recent expansion at home and abroad.
2. Formation and Early Years (2018-2022)
HAGANE was formed in Tokyo on June 23, 2018, by guitarist Sakura. Gathering members through an online musician-recruitment platform, Sakura launched HAGANE as an all-female metal band. Its musicality, balancing drive and melody, radiated a distinct presence in the Japanese girls' metal scene, and it broadened its support through live activity.
In 2022, HAGANE released its first studio album, Code; 9021. Becoming a milestone in the band's early period, the work clearly inscribed HAGANE's individuality as driving melodic speed metal and laid the foundation for later activity.
3. Line-up Change and Restart (2023-2024)
In 2023, HAGANE reached a major turning point. Three members left, and the band stood at a crossroads of survival. But founder Sakura and bassist Sayaka chose not to stop. The two welcomed new vocalist Nagi and drummer JUNNA, rebuilding HAGANE as a four-member unit.
In 2024, the new-formation HAGANE resumed activity in earnest. On May 29 of that year, they released the EP Life Goes On!, showing the will of a reborn HAGANE moving forward beyond hardship, true to the title. On June 27 they returned to the stage at Shibuya ReX, and on July 9 they released the EP METAL QUEST and the CD single "Amour Chain," demonstrating the momentum of their restart through successive releases.
4. Top of the Tower and Expansion Abroad (2025-2026)
In 2025, HAGANE released its second studio album, Top of the Tower. Becoming a culmination after the restart, the work showed that the new-formation HAGANE was aiming not merely at revival but at even greater musical heights (the top of the tower). And in 2026, HAGANE expanded its live activity to Europe. Standing on overseas stages as a Japanese female melodic speed metal band, this journey proves that HAGANE is a band with ambition reaching beyond the domestic scene.
5. Detailed Member Profiles
Sakura — Guitar (founder)
The founder of HAGANE and the guitarist carrying the band's musical core. Having formed HAGANE in 2018 by recruiting members online, she is the central figure who did not stop even amid the crisis of the 2023 line-up change and rebuilt the band. She leads its driving melodic speed metal.
Sayaka — Bass
A bassist who continued to support HAGANE alongside Sakura even through the line-up change. Carrying the band's low end, she is an important presence forming the foundation of the new formation after the restart.
Nagi — Vocal
A vocalist who joined at the 2024 restart. As the vocal face of the new-formation HAGANE, she places a sure voice atop the driving metal sound.
JUNNA — Drums
A drummer who joined at the restart. With powerful, precise drumming she drives HAGANE's speed-filled songs.
6. Discography
| Year | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Code; 9021 | First studio album |
| 2024 | Life Goes On! | EP (restart) |
| 2024 | METAL QUEST | EP |
| 2024 | Amour Chain | CD single |
| 2025 | Top of the Tower | Second studio album |
7. Conclusion
Bearing driving melodic speed metal worthy of the name "steel," HAGANE has built a distinct presence in the Japanese female metal scene since its formation in 2018. Overcoming the difficulty of the major 2023 line-up change through reconstruction centered on founder Sakura, and powerfully restarting as a four-member unit in 2024, its journey embodies the "unyielding strength" symbolized by the band's name. Expanding to Europe after Top of the Tower, the story of HAGANE will continue as the figure of a female metal band that keeps moving forward, turning adversity into a springboard.
Trivia
HAGANE supplied both the opening and the ending theme for the game CRAZY CHA!N -Elpis no Kusari-, and Sakura wrote the words, the music and the arrangements for both on her own. The opening, "Amour Chain," is French for chain of love; the ending, "Avenir," means future. By Sakura's account "Amour Chain" was built around the heroine — a seventeenth-generation Joan of Arc — as a forceful, unruly woman, while "Avenir" was written from a man's point of view, looking at that same heroine. Because the story carried the idea of fighting, she steered the ending away from an outright love song and toward the warmth of daybreak. She has also written that when it was finished she was startled it had come out of HAGANE at all.
Sakura — Sakura Yoshida — who founded HAGANE, started playing guitar at seven. By middle school she was posting covers of Western rock to YouTube, and after finishing high school she took guitar appearances and support work while recruiting members, getting HAGANE moving in 2018.
HAGANE began with guitarist Sakura working her way through a musician-wanted site called OURSOUNDS, contacting players one at a time and booking studio sessions with each of them. She refused to settle, and the search dragged: from the point she started looking, around her final year of high school, to the day the first vocalist was finally in place, roughly two to three years went by. Her stated first criterion was not musicianship but visual presence, followed by compatible personalities and a narrow age range — a generation gap, she reasoned, would leave everyone walking on eggshells.
Three members left HAGANE at once after the one-man show ZERO on 26 May 2023, leaving only guitarist Sakura and bassist Sayaka. The open call for a new vocalist that followed set a specific audition piece: "BlackCult," from the previous year's first full-length Code ; 9021. Applicants filmed themselves singing it and sent the video to a dedicated address; those who cleared the paper round were invited to a studio session in Tokyo for the practical stage. The posting asked for women roughly in their teens to twenties, resident in Japan.
On TOP OF THE TOWER, the song "Kagome" quotes the melody of the Japanese children's song "Kagome Kagome." Sakura has said she checked in advance that the melody was clear from a copyright standpoint before building it in. The lyrics are by Sayaka, who was handed a one-line brief by Sakura: a hell-festival for the kenshi — kenshi, meaning swordsmen, being what HAGANE call their fans. Sayaka mapped the inescapable wheel of reincarnation onto the cage in the old song, and wrote the words around a single conclusion: the only way out of the cage is to burn it.
Every track on the EP METAL QUEST was mixed by a different engineer. The songs pull in different directions — LA metal on one, British metal on another, a fusion of metal and Japanese traditional music on a third — so Sakura picked a separate mixer for each, chosen for what that person would bring out. "Gekko -TSUKIKAGE-," the track built on traditional instruments, went to an engineer on the strength of their work mixing Wagakki Band.
HAGANE played abroad as a band for the first time in April 2026, at Epic Fest 2026 in Denmark. Individual members had worked overseas before, but never the band. The four have said, in more or less the same words, that they still cannot work out how people in countries they had never visited came to know them.
The single "Amour Chain" was written to order as the theme song for the Nintendo Switch title CRAZY CHA!N -Elpis no Kusari-. It was the first time Sakura had composed against a story that already existed. In the production meetings she was the one who raised the idea of alternate versions, and when the game's director took to them, an orchestral version ended up on the release as well. Nagi has said the offer arrived close to two years before the interview, in the middle of the first Tokyo–Nagoya–Osaka tour the current four-piece played together.
News
HAGANE To Release New Album 'Through the Night' On December 2
Announced on the band's official site. The album arrives on Wednesday, December 2, 2026; further details are to be announced.
HAGANE Announce 15-Date 'Through the Night' Full Album Release Tour, Finale At Zepp DiverCity
The tour runs from Saturday, December 12 at HEAVEN'S ROCK Saitama Shintoshin VJ-3 through Saturday, February 13, 2027 at Nagoya DIAMOND HALL, with the finale on Friday, February 19, 2027 at Zepp DiverCity (TOKYO). Door times and ticket details are to be announced.
HAGANE Release The Official Music Video For Their New Song “TSUKIKAGE”
The band's official site announced that the video for “TSUKIKAGE” is now up on HAGANE's own YouTube channel.
Play MVHAGANE To Livestream Their August 29 Tour Final Exclusively On Niconico
The final show of the METAL QUEST EP release tour, at EX Theater Roppongi in Tokyo, will be streamed from 17:00 on Saturday, August 29. Online tickets are ¥3,500 including tax plus a ¥350 service fee, and the archive stays up through 23:59 on September 5.
[Japan] HAGANE’s NAGI Announces Solo Show “NAGI PIANO NIGHT vol.2” On October 10
The solo concert takes place Saturday, October 10, 2026 at Gran Stein in Okubo, Shinjuku, Tokyo, in two parts (16:00 and 18:00 doors), with advance tickets at 5,500 yen and Haruyoshi Furuya on piano; ticket details are to be announced.
[Japan] HAGANE Announce Headline Show "HAGANE HALLOWEEN LIVE 2026" In Shibuya On October 27
The Halloween-themed headline show was announced on the band’s official site.
[Japan] HAGANE Open Orders For JUNNA Birthday Goods Plus One-Of-A-Kind Lottery
The official shop has started taking orders for the 2026 birthday goods, along with a lottery for one-of-a-kind items.
Current Members
Current lineup verified from the official artist source on 2026-07-10. Official profile
Albums
A melodic-metal EP that links fantasy-adventure imagery with bright speed, heroic guitar work and the renewed identity of HAGANE.
A full-length statement from HAGANE’s renewed line-up, combining Japanese melodic color, speed, weight and direct choruses.
An EP that reignites HAGANE’s melody, speed and optimistic force around the theme of survival and forward motion.
HAGANE’s first full-length album, expanding the band’s twin-guitar sparkle, speed, heavy riffs and dramatic storytelling.
HAGANE’s debut EP, condensing clear melody, speed and technical guitar work into a concise first statement.