I've been wanting to create this blog post for a while now, but I never got around to it. The year 2025 was great for many reasons.
As an administrator of the Shocking Lemon fan website, I rarely talk about my personal life—I only focus on the band and the music.
Today I'd like to give a little insight into my personal life and how I came to own and run the Shocking Lemon fan website, and how I ended up meeting Hideki Taniuchi.
Like many others, I discovered Shocking Lemon through the anime Hajime no Ippo. I believe it was 2008 when I started watching, and I was hooked. One thing that caught my attention was the intro songs "Under Star" and "Inner Light." Around this time I was in my second year of university, and I found myself listening to the few songs available on the internet very often. Content online at this time was very limited. YouTube was in its infancy, watching anime was not as popular as it is today, so it was hard for me to connect with other fans of the band.
For years I wondered why the band wasn't more popular or why access to their music was so limited. Still, I just kept listening to the same songs over and over again, which I believe were from Denimhead, Sometimes Alone, and Solvent Echo. That's all I knew about the band.
Fast forward to June 5th, 2021—I was able to buy a physical copy of Sometimes Alone. For the first time I owned something related to the band. But then I asked myself, why stop at just one album? From there I started collecting anything and everything related to Shocking Lemon: CDs, magazines, posters, etc. Eventually I had the opportunity to buy shockinglemon.com (at a very high price, but I was willing to pay it).
Finally I had a chance to gather all the content related to Shocking Lemon in one single place and share it with the world.
But one thing was missing—I still didn't know much about the members of Shocking Lemon.
Then, in 2025, through a mutual internet friend living in Japan, an opportunity presented itself to meet Hideki Taniuchi, the guitarist and composer of Shocking Lemon.
Our mutual friend and Hideki agreed to meet with me and my fiancée in Tokyo for dinner. I didn't know what to expect. I was excited and nervous at the same time.
We finally met and it went better than I expected. Hideki was very friendly and we had a great conversation. During dinner we talked about pretty much anything, from music to life in general. I couldn't believe how good Hideki's English is—so much better than the little Japanese I can speak. I was able to understand him perfectly and he was able to understand me perfectly.
After dinner he was nice enough to sign a few CDs for me, including a magazine he's featured in (Sound Designer Magazine). He also gave me a few items from the previous Shocking Lemon fan club.
That night went so well we decided to meet again for coffee a couple days later. We met at a local coffee shop in Shibuya and had a great conversation again. One thing Hideki and I have in common is enjoying great food and bakery items. I showed him photos of all the dishes I cook at home and he seemed to like them. We also talked a little more about music and the history of Shocking Lemon, and he gave me some unique items from his personal collection.
Backstage pass for the last Shocking Lemon concert
Hideki talking about the history of Shocking Lemon
Some of you might have heard the saying "Never meet your heroes"? Well, I can say that's not true. I met one of the heroes that defined my musical taste while I was in college and it was a great experience. Hideki is, on top of being an extremely talented musician, a very nice and charismatic person, and I'm glad to have met him.
I went to Japan again in November 2025, and I wanted to meet with him again, but unfortunately our mutual friend stopped responding to my messages—and that's the only way I have been able to contact him—so I was unable to meet with him this time.
So Hideki, if you're reading this, I hope you're doing well and I also hope one day we can meet again. You're missed and we always talk about you. You can always reach out to me at hello@shockinglemon.com and you know I can hop on a plane anytime to come visit you in Japan.
Danny