J-pop label ASOBISYSTEM opens a US base in California

ASOBISYSTEM, the Tokyo entertainment company that has spent nearly two decades exporting Harajuku culture, has opened ASOBISYSTEM U.S.A. INC., headquartered in Culver City, California, to handle business development, partnerships, marketing, publicity and artist support across North America. The company calls it its biggest investment yet in the region.

The subsidiary is led by Yusuke Nakagawa, who founded ASOBISYSTEM in 2007 and keeps his role as CEO of the Japan headquarters. Nakagawa said the company has seen "incredible growth in global interest for Japanese entertainment" and that now is the right time to establish a permanent US presence.

The office gives a permanent base to the J-pop acts ASOBISYSTEM has been touring across the US, including ATARASHII GAKKO!, which debuted worldwide in 2021 through US label 88rising, played Coachella in 2024 and returns this fall for Seattle's Bumbershoot festival, and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, who has completed multiple North American tours. The roster also includes producer Yasutaka Nakata of electronic duo CAPSULE and the seven-member group FRUITS ZIPPER.

The move follows, on a smaller scale, the path South Korean company HYBE took into Western markets when it spent $1.05 billion to acquire Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings in 2021. ASOBISYSTEM is opening an office rather than acquiring a company, and joins a cluster of Japanese firms, including BMSG and And Music, backing the Los Angeles company Nebula17, launched in 2025 to break Japanese talent in the US.

Japan is the world's second-largest recorded music market, and Japanese-language music's share of the world's Top 10,000 streaming tracks climbed to 2.1% in 2023 from 1.3% a year earlier, according to Luminate. ASOBISYSTEM frames the new office as a long-term investment in that growth. The expansion tracks a wider push by Japanese pop companies into the US market.