Unlucky Morpheus BIOGRAPHY

Unlucky Morpheus
Biography

Overview

Unlucky Morpheus, known to their audience as Ankimo, are a Japanese metal band formed in 2008. Their own profile page says it was started by the vocalist Fuki and the guitarist Shiren, and that in the beginning the work was mostly done on a computer: the group turned into a playing band by degrees.

The band describe what they do as melodic metal built on how well the members play, taking in what they have absorbed from game music and anime songs. The line-up is unusual for a Japanese metal band in that a violin sits alongside the two guitars as a permanent part.

There are two catalogues here, and they behave differently. One is a long run of records arranging the game music of the doujin series Touhou Project; the band state plainly that these are 二次創作 — derivative works — and that they may only be distributed the way the original author permits, which means doujin shops. The other is Shiren's own writing, and those records go into the ordinary trade through Disk Union, Amazon and Tower Records. The twenty records carried on this site are the second kind.

2008 to 2013: a computer project arranging game music

Fuki and Shiren met around 2007. In a 2017 interview Fuki described it: some of the instrumentalists from Light Bringer, Shiren and herself put together a relaxed band to play anime songs, and that was where she first met him. The covers band lasted about a year; when it broke up the two of them wanted to keep working together, and Unlucky Morpheus is what came of that.

The first release, Hypothetical Box, was sold at M3-2008 Autumn on 13 October 2008: catalogue number ANKM-0000, a CD-R burned by hand. Fuki has said that all two hundred copies went at the first event they attended. Three more records followed in 2009 — REBIRTH, Amazement Park!! and Jealousy — and through to 2013 the band kept up a pace of two or three releases a year, moving between vocal arrangements, instrumental guitar arrangements and a Eurobeat remix record.

A guitarist who is not in the later line-up, Yukimura Hirano, was with them in these years. The band's own discography records that at Comic Market 84 in August 2013 they sold a two-disc collection of his independent material, and the site's menu at the time linked to his account. No official announcement of when or why he left has been found.

Shiren was playing in Yousei Teikoku and Denkishiki Karen Ongaku Shuudan around the same time, and Fuki used a separate name, Tenge Fuyuki, for this band alone, singing in Light Bringer under her own. That split ended between the spring and the summer of 2020; she has been credited as Fuki here ever since.

2014 to 2017: turning to original material

In the band's sixth year, on 16 August 2014, affected was sold at Comic Market 86: the first album made entirely of their own songs. Its catalogue number continues the same ANKM- run, so the arrangement records and the original ones share one numbering. Disk Union put it into the ordinary trade on 22 October and it reached the shelves of ordinary record shops.

The second album, VAMPIR, followed at M3-2015 Spring on 26 April 2015 — German titles such as \"Vampir\", \"Opfer\" and \"Angreifer\" beside the French \"La voix du sang\", with the vampire holding the record together — and reached national distribution on 13 May. At Comic Market 88 that August came their first original single, Wings, an odd little record carrying the song and four versions of it with the vocal, the guitar, the bass and the drums taken out in turn.

At Comic Market 91 on 29 December 2016 they sold the EP Black Pentagram. The music video made for its title track is the oldest upload on the band's YouTube channel, and everything they have filmed in the decade since starts from it.

2018 to 2020: ten years, a first headline tour, and a first show abroad

On 28 March 2018 the EP CADAVER / REVADAC went into national distribution. Its two title tracks are the same piece of music read forwards and backwards — read the score of CADAVER the other way and you get REVADAC, as the band put it — and one of the two official videos puts the score on screen so a viewer can watch the trick work.

The album CHANGE OF GENERATION followed on 19 September, in the band's tenth year. Its thirteen songs take in the two from the EP and re-record \"Kyobo no Koibito\" from affected and the 2015 single \"Wings\", so the record rearranges the catalogue much as its title suggests. The tour behind it was the first headline tour the band had ever run; up to then, members have said, they played a one-man show about once a year, if that.

On 5 October 2019 they played abroad for the first time, headlining the second day of Metal Matsuri at the O2 Academy Islington in London on a bill with Bridear, Fate Gear, Blood Stain Child and AYA1000RR. The bassist Hiroyuki Ogawa later said it felt like a school trip, and that he was taken aback by how well a crowd responded to a band with no anime tie-in who had done little more than put videos on YouTube. From that same October their songs became available on the DAM karaoke system.

The EP Takiyashahime arrived on 29 April 2020, three songs written in old Japanese around the figure held to be the daughter of Taira no Masakado, and the third album, Unfinished, on 29 July. It was a difficult year to play; the band streamed a concert on 30 August and kept films from it on their channel. Six of the album's nine songs ended up with footage of some kind, more than any other record they have made.

2021 to 2023: Toyosu PIT, Zepp, and a first streaming release

On 27 January 2021 the four instrumentalists released a covers album, Loud Playing Workshop, under the separate name QUADRATUM From Unlucky Morpheus: instrumental readings of Yngwie Malmsteen, Dream Theater, the Michael Schenker Group, Tony MacAlpine, Racer X, Van Halen, Steve Vai and Impellitteri. One reason the project happened at all was an injury to Shiren's arm, which Ogawa said had not healed at the time.

On 12 September that year came \"‘M’ Revolution\", which the band's own discography calls their first digital single: until then their recordings had only ever been sold as discs. On 1 October they headlined Toyosu PIT with a show called “XIII”, for their thirteenth year, and that night was released on 9 March 2022 as a two-CD set and a Blu-ray.

The fourth album, evolution, followed on 27 April 2022. Music videos were made for four of its songs — \"‘M’ Anthem\", \"Amaryllis\", \"Welcome to Valhalla\" and \"The Black Death Mansion Murders\" — which is as far as the band's filming has gone. The tour finished at Zepp DiverCity on 19 August, and that concert came out on 8 March 2023 as EVOLUTION & DIVERSITY LIVE 2022 at Zepp DiverCity.

On 1 April 2023 they put out \"U.F.O. - U Feel Overjoyed! -\". The song had been released under the name of the singer Tokoyami Towa, sponsored by Nissin's Yakisoba U.F.O., and it was written by Shiren with words by Fuki — so when the band recorded it themselves their own video called the result a \"Self Cover Ver.\"

2024 to 2027: FABTONE, an anime theme, and two gates

On 31 July 2024 the single Sekai Rinne was released as the opening theme of the television anime Naze Boku no Sekai o Dare mo Oboete Inai no ka?. Shiren called it the band's first anime theme on their official note. FABTONE Inc. is the label from catalogue number ANKM-0046 onward — but a label is not an agency, and in an interview that same year the members said they work independently, with no agency behind them. Their concerts are promoted by Udo Artists.

2024 also brought Unholy Orpheus, a melodic death metal project made up of the band minus Fuki. Shiren has described it as a place to gather the heavier side of what Unlucky Morpheus does; Fuki guests on one song.

It was their fifteenth year, and they ran a thirteen-date tour called REINCARNATION from Nagoya Electric Lady Land on 1 June to Kobe Harbor Studio on 16 November, with Unholy Orpheus opening every night. The Toyosu PIT show of 8 November came out on 4 June 2025 as a two-CD set and a Blu-ray, with the opening act's set included. The Blu-ray reached number 10 on the Oricon weekly chart, the band's best placing for any release; their best for an album is number 15, for Unfinished in 2020.

2025 brought the single SAKURA chevalier on 5 March — the theme song for the KADOKAWA Sakura Knights of the professional mahjong M.League — and the digital single Convergent Rays on 24 September. The fifth album, Gate of Heaven, followed on 26 November.

That album is the first half of a pair. Shiren has said he was telling musician friends he meant to make two albums as early as January 2025, and that the whole idea began with releasing \"Sekai Rinne\" in the summer of 2024: rather than put the catchy songs and the violent ones on one record, he thought both would be better served by being set apart. The second half, Gate of Hell, arrived on 3 June 2026, announced by the label as the darkest and most chaotic world the band have written. Between them the two records carry four re-recordings from affected, the 2014 debut.

On 6 June 2026 the band staged their first festival under their own name, UNLUCKY FES 2026, at CLUB CITTA' in Kawasaki, with JILUKA, Sable Hills, NEMOPHILA and Unholy Orpheus. The tour behind the two albums, HELL or HEAVEN, ran from 14 June to a final night at the Ebisu Garden Hall on 23 August.

The Kichijoji CLUB SEATA date of the one-man tour Gate of Heaven, originally 31 January 2026, was postponed to 17 November, with Unholy Orpheus opening. Further dates were announced: JILUKA presents MAD PIT FES 2026, a fifteen-act bill at CLUB CITTA' in Kawasaki on 9 October, and the two-man DEVI BATTLE TOUR Unlucky Morpheus × DEVILOOF, announced by DEVILOOF on 22 September 2026, with nights at 246 LIVEHOUSE GABU in Osaka on 11 February 2027 and at clubasia in Shibuya on 28 February 2027.

Current line-up

Member	Role
Fuki	Vocals, chorus, lyrics
Shiren	Guitar, screams, composition and arrangement
Jinya	Guitar
Jill	Violin
Hiroyuki Ogawa	Bass
FUMIYA	Drums
Kasumi	Vocals, chorus

These seven are the line-up the band's own profile page gives. The member credits printed by the music press from 2025 onwards usually name six, leaving Kasumi out.

A note on sources

This article was written from the band's own site at sound.jp/ankimo — its profile page and its discography page; the official note written by Shiren and Fuki; the release pages of their label FABTONE; the show pages of Udo Artists, who promote their concerts; the run of interviews and live reports Gekirock published between 2017 and 2026; JPU Records' announcement of the Metal Matsuri line-up on 21 December 2018; Oricon's artist profile; the product pages of Tower Records Online and Amazon.co.jp; and the release data MusicBrainz holds for artist a6fd2c10-cc3e-41f2-8323-28851e6a48f0. Release dates, labels, catalogue numbers and prices come from the Tower Records and Amazon product information and from FABTONE's release pages; running orders were taken from the MusicBrainz release rows and checked against each record's own Spotify page. Every video was verified by its uploading channel, and no fan re-upload is included. Nothing is said here about where the band's name or the nickname Ankimo came from, because no first-hand or second-hand source stating it could be found.