It is not religion that is evil. What is truly terrifying is the malice of those who exploit religion for their own ends. We must not confuse the two. That is why it is so important to understand the many religions of the worldโincluding those different from our own. The more earnest and sincere a person is, the more they must learn about religion both subjectively and objectively.
The saddest thing is that many of these people speak harshlyโwhile being completely serious, sincere, and full of a sense of justice. And this pattern is all too common. Most people grew up in a system where โa good studentโ is simply someone who obediently listens to the teacher. Japanese people, you see, are truly good-natured. And so, I think, are many Europeans these days. That in itself is a wonderful thing.
But the real point is not who said something, but what was said. And yet, people have this bad habit of taking shortcuts there. Itโs a deep-rooted cultural habitโrather like how a sheltered young lady often falls for the wrong kind of man.
Being subjective and being objective are not contradictory. Even here, you can see the trap of simplistic dualism.
In the end, it all comes down to the expansion of the self.
“Expected Time Table” 18:30~19:00 DJรBAND SESSION 19:00~19:30 Dan Mitchel Band Set 1st Stage 19:30~19:45 Opening Talk 19:45~20:25 ActingรBand(Love Story with Romantic Band Music ) 20:25~20:45 PantomimeรBand 20:45~21:00 Break Time 21:00~21:05 Ukulele Live 21:05~21:20 Improvised New SongรPantomimeรDance 21:20~21:40 InteviewรBandรActing(Voice of the youth) 21:40~21:45 Ending Talk 21:45~22:15 Dan Mitchel Band Set 2nd Stage 22:15~22:45 Ending DJ
The lineup will continue to be updated as new performers are confirmed. If you believe in your talent and would like to appear in the program, please feel free to send your materials via DM or email at any time. I may not be able to reply to everyone, but I will review every submission.
A genre-crossing art event held 29 times in 2023 in collaboration with FRIENDSHIP. โ โFreestyle Session Party (FSP)โ โ is being refined and rebooted, relaunching as an event, program, and community under the name โDandy Asobi Club (DAC)โ!!
We will hold the pilot edition on Thursday, January 22, at Shibuya 7th Floor.
Theme
โMaster Serious Play!โ
โBefore you know it, it becomes a social phenomenon!โ
โBring Japanโs unique spirit of play to the world!โ
Turning serious play beyond genres and generations into a โclub activityโ
Across music, film/video, dance, theater, philosophy, and moreโbeyond genre and generationโwe aim to pursue โserious playโ as a club-like activity, developing it into a 12-episode series.
Building on popular FSP projects such as:
Adding live improvised accompaniment to theater performances
Sessions between DJs and live instrumentalists
Collaborations between reading theater and dancers / pantomime performers
โฆwe also plan to create highly original new formats, including:
A project where I draw out the thoughts of young people, and actors perform them as monologues
A project where we compose a song on the spot with participants present
We aim to deliver an array of creativity-rich projects that are rarely seen elsewhere.
Re-edit the event into a program and share it globally
This time, while keeping it a participatory event with an audience (as before), we want to leverage my track recordโincluding selection at a Hollywood film festival and an award at an Italian film festivalโto record, edit, and distribute it as a single program.
YouTube would be an option, but we also plan to explore whether distribution might be possible via Prime Video, Netflix, AbemaTV, and other platforms.
We also aim to add English subtitles throughout the entire program and export it overseas. I believe we must bring the talents hidden in Japan to the world. If we only consider the market within Japanโor only inbound touristsโthe long-term potential seems limited, especially when we have the internet.
For the video production team, I hope to collaborate again with the people who supported me during my previous film production. I intend to take responsibility and lead the team, and I believe my countless past failures will support me this time.
Encouraging proactive independence while maintaining authority
Although this is a participatory event, I will carefully review portfolios and submitted materials in advance and give the go-ahead based on the best match for each project.
Therefore, the overall stage quality will not drop due to casual amateur participation. That said, I donโt want anyone to feel intimidatedโrather, I want people with fewer achievements to actively challenge themselves. For the sake of discovering bold new concepts, I plan to review everything that is submitted, and within that, I want to design projects where many people can participate in the right roles at the right time.
Any club member can bring in a project idea
Under the banner โPerestroika = Democratization,โ we will establish a committee via a LINE Open Chat and invite committee members to propose new projects.
A project will be implemented with the approval of โat least five committee members + me.โ Those who vote in favor will also be expected to take responsibility and help operate the project.
LINE Open Chat: โDandy Asobi Club Planning Committeeโ is here! (You can join anonymously without adding anyone as a LINE friend.)
Expanding serious play across Japan and aiming for global reach
By linking with the nationwide tour โFreeโ that I announced previously, we can invite new talents I meet across Japan to performโenergizing both the event and the programโwhile also making it a place where people from many industries can gather.
Ultimatelyโโbirds of a feather flock togetherโโI hope to create a club-like space where, across all of Japan, diverse people beyond generations and genres who share my core philosophy can connect, thrive, and prosper.
You can also learn more about my guiding philosophy via my blog and the videos linked at the end.
Serious play can heal division in society
To resolve the countless binaries and divisions in society, I arrivedโjust yesterday (the memorable date of December 5, 2025) after years of thought experimentsโat the conclusion that we need a strong leader with aesthetics and an essential spirit of playfulness.
More details will be shared here. (I will add additional notes later.)
Crowdfunding to raise production costs!!
For the production budget of this project, I would like to raise 1,000,000 yen through crowdfunding!
Primarily, we would be truly happy if you purchase advance tickets, and as an added bonus, youโll also be able to try our existing servicesโor, if the project becomes a program, we may run commercial spots as well. (Of course, for corporate supporters, payment by invoice is also possible.)
Last time, we received support from 27 people and raised 1,280,000 yen.
Budget breakdown
Venue: ยฅ150,000
Performers: ยฅ150,000
Video: ยฅ200,000
Sound: ยฅ100,000
Rehearsals: ยฅ70,000
Editing: ยฅ150,000
Operations: ยฅ30,000
Advertising: ยฅ150,000
Please click the button below to visit the crowdfunding page, and check the support menus and return rewards there.
Pilot Edition โDandy Asobi Clubโ Production Support Fund
Dan Mitchelใ็งใซๅฏใๆทปใๅคฑๆไธ้จไฝ โMy Heart Is Still On Herโ ใใชใชใผในใ 47้ฝ้ๅบ็1ไธๅใใขใผ๏ผๆฐใคใใณใ็ช็ตๅงๅใซๅใใฆใฎใฏใฉใใกใณใงๅ ฑ้ณดใใไปฒ้ใ่ฆใคใๅบใๆ ่ทฏใธใ
ใใฉใใใฃใใฏใขใผใใฃในใใฎDan Mitchel ใใ18th Single โMy Heart Is Still On Herโใ11ๆ12ๆฅใซFRIENDSHIP.ใฎใตใใผใใๅใใฆใชใชใผในใใใ
ๅ็ๅๆฐ๏ผไธๅ่ถ ใ่จ้ฒใใๅไฝโFreeโใไปไธใใ1้ฑ้ๅพใ็ช็ถใMy Heart Is Still On Herใใจใใใใฌใผใบใๆตฎใใณใ24ๆ้ใ็ตใใใซในใใผใชใผใจใขใฌใณใธใพใงไธๆฐใซไฝใไธใใๆฒใ3ไบบใฎ็ปๅ ดไบบ็ฉใงๆงๆใใใChillใช้ฐๅฒๆฐใฎไธญใซใใตใใฎใทใฃใใใซใชใบใ ใๆดใใใจใฌใญใฎใฟใผใใใใฆใใใใๆขใใฆ่ฃๆญฃใใชใ่ช็ถใชใพใพใฎVocalใๆททๅจใใใ ๆญ่ฉใฎๅ ๅฎนใฏ่ฑ่ชใงใใใชใใใใฉใใๆญๅๆญ่ฌกใฎใใใช้ขจๆ ใๆใใๅคฑๆใฝใณใฐใ ใใๆฒใป่ฉใปใขใฌใณใธใในใฆใงใๅใชใโๆช็ทดโใซ็ใพใใใไธปไบบๅ ฌใฎๅๅผทใๆณใใจๆฑบๆใๅปใพใใฆใใใ
้ซๆ กๆไปฃใซๅถไฝใใใๆฅฝๆฒใใฏใฉในใกใคใใฎใ้ใใใจ่จใใใฆๅฅใใใจใใฝใผใใใขใใผใใซใใๆฒใงใใใชใใใDanใๅคฑๆใใใใณใซๅฟใฎๆฏใใจใชใฃใฆใใใๅฝผใซใจใฃใฆใๆใๅบๆทฑใๆฅฝๆฒใงใใใ็พๅจๅฟๅใงๅฎๆฝใใฆใใใๆฅฝๅจใๅผพใใชใใทใณใฌใผใฝใณใฐใฉใคใฟใผใใๆฏๆฅๅผพใ่ชใใใใInstagramไผ็ปใ365 Days of Struggling to play what I can’t playใใฎไธ็ฐใจใใฆใใฏใชใใฏ็กใใฎๅผพใ่ชใ๏ผใใใไฟฎๆญฃ็กใใงๅ้ฒใใใ
Dan Mitchel releases his autumn-themed heartbreak trilogy โMy Heart Is Still On Her.โ A journey to find resonating supporters through a nationwide 10,000-yen live tour and the launch of a new event-program project via crowdfunding.
Dramatic Artist Dan Mitchel will release his 18th single โMy Heart Is Still On Herโ on November 12 with support from FRIENDSHIP. As the season shifts into autumn and the afterglow deepens, this single brings together three heartbreak songs with a vivid emotional presence.
โMy Heart Is Still On Herโ Just a week after finishing his previous single โFree,โ which surpassed 40,000 plays, the phrase โMy Heart Is Still On Herโ suddenly appeared in his mind. Within 24 hours, he completed the story, arrangement, and track. The song features three characters and blends a chill atmosphere with shuffle rhythms in the chorus, energetic electric guitars, and intentionally uncorrected natural vocals. Though the lyrics are in English, the emotional nuance carries a sense of Showa-era Japanese ballads. The music, lyrics, and arrangement express not only lingering feelings but also the protagonistโs strength and determination.
โArroganceโ A jazz-leaning ballad recorded at the March 2025 event โIs Tonight Just a Rehearsal?โ. It captures the same groove that once made passersby dance on the streets of Hollywood. Piano: Hinata Ishii Bass: Hodaka Kageta Electric Guitar: GODO Terasawa Percussion: Gai Seki The interlude features a bass solo, and the outro shifts to a piano solo. In the video version, internationally active dancer Jasmin Mazlika adds a graceful performance.
โA Broken Manโs LOVE SONGโ Originally composed in high school, inspired by a breakup story where a classmate told Dan he was โtoo heavy.โ The song has been a source of emotional support for him through later heartbreaks. It was recorded as part of his anonymous Instagram series โ365 Days of Struggling to Play What I Canโt Play,โ using only live piano and vocals, with no click track and no tuning correction.
A=432Hz Production While his previous release was produced entirely in A=444Hz, this new single uses A=432Hz throughout, creating a calmer and more soothing atmosphere that fits the theme of heartbreak.
47-Prefecture โ10,000-yen Traveling Live & Documentaryโ Project
Following the strong reception of โFree,โ Dan launched a nationwide project offering one performance per prefecture for a fee of 10,000 yen plus travel expenses. The live shows can be held anywhere: private homes, inns, shops, commercial spaces, or outdoors, and can be performed even for an audience of one. In addition to original songs, he performs a wide range of covers showcasing his four-octave vocal range trained in Los Angeles. All performances will be filmed and compiled into a documentary capturing his journey across Japan. As an award-winning filmmaker at international festivals, Dan aims not only to deliver live music but to turn the entire process and the human encounters within it into art. Details: https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000005.000158119.html
Freestyle Session Club (FSC) Launch
Dan is reviving his cross-genre Shibuya event โFreestyle Session Party,โ which he previously held 29 times, as a redesigned event-program called Freestyle Session Club (FSC), returning after two years. The project aims for a 12-episode series featuring cross-disciplinary sessions integrating music, film, dance, theater, and dialogue. Popular projects from the previous series return, including live improvised film-score accompaniment for stage plays, DJ and live-instrument collaborations, and readerโs theater combined with pantomime. New projects include sessions where Dan listens to young peopleโs stories and actors perform them as monologues, as well as spontaneous collaborative songwriting with audience members. A pilot version will be produced first, leading to full program development, recurring events, and a participatory community. Talented individuals discovered during the nationwide tour will also be involved, allowing both projects to function as dual pillars of Danโs creative work. A crowdfunding campaign to raise 1,000,000 yen for the pilot production has begun. Details: https://yep-net.com/2025/11/11/freestyle-session-club/
Artist Comment
โAutumn has arrived, and the air has become quite cold. This time, I gathered three heartbreak songs that feel simple yet painfully real.
The first track is a love song with three characters, something I rarely write. I hope listeners can relate from various perspectives.
I actually produced the track inside Jonathanโs, wearing headphones and shaking along with my small AKAI keyboard. Please donโt imagine that while listening.
The decision to leave the vocals un-tuned came from a conversation with a friend over drinks. Once I realized how delicate that decision was, I trembled a little.
The second song was written shortly before my track โAngel Heart.โ I truly like this piece and want to make a proper studio version, but the production budget has not come together yet, so it remains a live recording for now. Fortunately, the live take is already close to complete, so I think it works fine.
Musically, the song modulates frequently in small steps. Even Iโm not sure what key signature should go on the sheet music. Lyrically, it is the most hopeless song of the three. As a background story: right after shooting a short film, while I was driving, the actress and makeup artist in the back seat were talking about how โheartbreak songs tend to sell.โ I thought, โFine, then Iโll write the most hopeless one possible.โ Please forget that.
The third track, A Broken Manโs LOVE SONG, was written in high school, back when I had never dated anyone. It amazes me that I was able to write something like this from imagination alone. I was obsessed with complicated chords at the time, so the song is extremely difficult to play. There is no click track and no pitch correction. My piano playing is honestly poor, but thatโs the concept this time.
This song was also rehearsed in the event โIs Tonight Just a Rehearsal?โ, so please check out the video as well.โ
Release Information Dan Mitchel โMy Heart Is Still On Herโ Digital Release: November 12, 2025
Tracklist
My Heart Is Still On Her
Arrogance (Live from โIs Tonight Just a Rehearsal?โ)
A Broken Manโs LOVE SONG (365 Days of Struggling to Play)
The Constitutional Democratic Party has been like this ever since the FukudaโOzawa grand coalition proposal. The leadership is useless โ they show this strange pride and end up digging their own grave. Itโs a perfect example of failing because they couldnโt expand themselves. If they had agreed to that grand coalition back then, they might have actually become one of the two major parties in a real sense. Itโs a โwhat if,โ but still. Of course the LDP ends up getting so comfortable that they start running wild.
If the single-member district system was introduced with the aim of establishing a two-party system where administrations can actually change, then the role of the largest opposition party becomes even more important โ but the Constitutional Democrats clearly have no intention of doing that. If they actually want to take power, they need a complete purge and replacement at the top.
Otherwise, theyโd have to create a whole new election system โ but thereโs no way the LDP would ever accept rules that put them at a disadvantage. Realistically, we have to fight within the current system.
Everyone keeps saying โpolicy is what matters,โ but none of the parties are saying anything substantial, and you canโt even tell if they have any intention of actually implementing anything โ itโs pathetic.
This all became painfully obvious during the change of government after they refused the grand coalition. All that โprincipleโ they acted like they valued so much โ the Democratic Party never really possessed it in the first place. It was nothing more than empty pride. Unless the leadership from that era steps aside gracefully, the violent LDP dominance will continue.
And above all, itโs said that the organization that becomes most corrupt when there is no change of administration is the bureaucracy โ the part of the system that never faces elections.
We cannot ignore this.
In other words โ this is the defeat of democracy.
The fact that bears are appearing this often is probably natureโs anger toward the arrogance and conceit of human beings. And yet, there will still be people who choose to remain indifferent. Are they going to keep insisting that โthose bears are insaneโ? Or are you saying that a great malevolent force exists? We need a fundamental cure, not just symptomatic treatment. And I hope for each personโs expansion of the self.
And speaking of that, recently GPTโs responses also strangely have that kind of arrogance and conceit. I can somewhat guess what kind of modifications OpenAI has made. This so-called โstrengthening of securityโ = โimposing a biased sense of justiceโ could easily create the most powerful brainwashing device surpassing television.
I am not trying to deny television or AI as tools themselves. However, unless human beings update the way we use these tools, I feel somewhere inside that this will again become a serious problem. Even if I point this out to my own GPT, it probably wonโt mean much.
Information, I suppose, has a hierarchical structure. Human beings can only perceive within the range of drawers they already haveโ like when you taste a rare delicacy for the first time and canโt quite describe what itโs like. In other words, depending on oneโs stage, the same phenomenon can look entirely different. Itโs all a hierarchy.
That meansโif we wish to understand, or even resonate with, phenomena, behaviors, or values that seem utterly incomprehensible, we must access information that exists on levels we cannot yet see. That, I think, is the only true way forward. And perhaps, itโs also the hardest thing to do.
Emotions will get in the way first. Then come the rigid beliefs weโve built up over the years. At times, it may even feel like an identity crisis. But thereโs no need to fear that. Because itโs all hierarchical. It simply means that what was once invisible has become visibleโ nothing more, nothing less.
In other words, itโs self-expansion, not self-denial.
And yet, that might be the hardest thing of all. Perhaps every one of us carries this grand theme withinโ something tied to the very evolution of humankind. Thereโs no need to fall into elitist delusion.
Ask a neuroscientist if youโd like to know more.
Maybe โbreaking free from fearโ is what itโs all coming down to.
Iโve started to get a clearer sense of who I amโ so much clearer than back when I kept fooling myself just to get by.
But somehow, I still canโt quite make full use of it. Integration is hard. In other words, I canโt resonate. I canโt escape the structure of opposition.
Yesterday I said something easy like โIโve lost faith in people,โ but itโs not really distrustโ it just feels like I donโt have enough drawers inside myself to open yet.
And itโs not about vocabulary or surface-level expression. Itโs a deeper kind of immaturity. Iโm not being pessimistic here, but at this rate, I probably wonโt reach a breakthrough.
Itโs all about releasing fear. I feel like Iโm just a step away from grasping the answer.
But can I really reach it through thought experiments alone? Iโve come to realize how great a teacher experience truly is.
So itโs not that peopleโs thinking has declined compared to the pastโ weโve simply been unconsciously deprived of the time to think.
Well, of course. If anyone lived the way Iโve been living, theyโd surely fall apart for a while.
Maybe everyone is being cornered by something invisibleโ and the IT revolution has become its medium although itโs not that it happened is bad in itself.
Without time to digest such rapid change, we just keep moving, caught up in the current, believing thereโs nothing else we can do. But thatโs actually an illusion. You could just stop for a moment and breathe.
As long as weโre being moved by something, no matter how much we move, things rarely change. Still, if we take the time to digest our experiences, they can surely become nourishment. Thereโs no need to deny the past.
The only question isโhow long will we stay there?
Seems thereโs talk of a spaceship drawing near the Earth. The worldโs disorder wonโt settle anytime soon; weโve surely entered an age of great transition on many fronts.
In the end, whatever happens, we can only keep hold of ourselves and move forward, facing ahead. If one becomes two, and two become many, then perhaps thatโs how it should be.
Yesโฆ surely, it can feel lonely to face it all alone. In truth, Iโm not really alone right now, and yet, I still feel as if I am. That feeling โ itโs truly lonely. So maybe the way to deal with loneliness is to feel it completely, and then come to believe that itโs merely a misunderstanding.
Iโm really not strong enough to live all on my own. And yet, Iโm not strong enough either to keep living while hiding my honest feelings forever.
Dan Mitchel 