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Ikimono-gakari Guitarist Hotaka Yamashita Leaves Band This Summer
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The three-member band Ikimono-gakari announced on their website on Friday that guitarist Hotaka Yamashita will leave the group this summer. Yamashita will leave the performance arts industry in general after his departure. Guitarist Yoshiki Mizuno and vocalist Kiyoe Yoshioka will continue on as the two members of the group.
The band entered a hiatus in January 2017 so that the members could freely pursue their own activities, and then returned from that hiatus in November 2018.
The group formed in 1999, and made their major debut in 2006. The band have performed theme songs for anime such as Naruto Shippūden, The Seven Deadly Sins, Bleach, Big Windup!, Ghost Slayers Ayashi, Detective Conan: The Eleventh Striker, and Pokémon the Movie: Genesect and the Legend Awakened. Additionally, the band performed the theme song for the live-action Ao Haru Ride (Blue Spring Ride) film. Most recently the band performed the theme song that debuted in January for the Boruto: Naruto Next Generations anime.
Source: Ikimono-gakari's official website
