Chapter Forty-Eight: Starting a Company

The recording of the new single lasted a total of seven days. With Izumi Sakai’s participation, the youthful melody of track one was given a new meaning. When Sakai sang this short segment, Ye Zhao had only one request: to sing as if she were humming while strolling, relaxed and unburdened, not with the tense seriousness of a studio recording session.

“Just have fun with it—be as casual as you can.” This was the same instruction Ye Zhao gave to the musicians involved in the recording, and even the arrangement strove to embody this sense of spontaneity. While extreme looseness can sometimes lead to a careless result, track one clearly gained a unique vitality from this relaxed approach. When the product was finished, even Akio Akashi, who had initially been dissatisfied with the song, had nothing to add. But that was still in the future. The recorded tracks had just been sent to the mixing room, and it would be a little while yet before the final product emerged.

During the days spent preparing for the single, Ye Zhao also managed to accomplish something significant: he established his own agency. When he first entered the entertainment industry, BEING had allowed him to sign only a recording contract, so he hadn’t bothered selling his rights twice. After his debut single became a huge hit, everything went smoothly, and Ye Zhao put the idea aside. But after the recent events, he realized just how exhausting it was to fight alone in this industry. Even for the sake of not having to manage every detail personally, it had become necessary to set up his own company.

Signing with a record label and a management company is like opening a door to opportunity. The opportunities behind that door might not belong to you, and you might leave with nothing or even suffer losses, but if you don’t find a way to open that door, those opportunities will never have anything to do with you.

Registering a company in Japan isn’t difficult; even with only one yen in capital, you can apply, provided you rent an office. Creating a company seal and providing valid documents are basic requirements. Though Ye Zhao was a solitary founder with no partners or staff, the existence of company registration agencies meant these tasks didn’t consume much of his time.

By the time all the tracks were completed, a company named ZYE had quietly put up its sign in an office of a Roppongi building in Minato Ward. Ye Zhao had originally wanted to use the English spelling of the “Ye” in his name as the company’s title, but a game company had already claimed “LEAF.” At a loss for a name, he finally just slapped together some letters—ZYE. It was, truth be told, rather perfunctory.

In 2005, Softstar released a game called “Superstar Dream 3,” where, at the start, the protagonist Jin Haoxun’s agency consisted of just himself and a secretary. Ye Zhao had started from an even lower point—he didn’t even have a secretary yet. Strictly speaking, he was still recruiting. He had sent out a job posting to an employment agency, but whether anyone would show up was anyone’s guess. At that moment, ZYE looked for all the world like a suspicious shell company.

During this difficult beginning, Maki Ohguro came to Ye Zhao’s rescue by introducing him to his first employee: a forty-year-old man named Shun Takeda.

“He’s a fellow Hokkaido native. I met Mr. Takeda years ago at a Tokyo hometown association before I debuted. He worked as a manager at Yoshimoto for ten years—his experience is impeccable. So, Ye, would you like to meet him?” Maki offered, as Ye Zhao mentioned his search for staff at a nearby café.

Of course, Ye Zhao wanted to meet him. With his current connections, finding a few assistants wouldn’t be hard, but finding someone capable of managing his affairs as an experienced agent was a rare opportunity.

Shun Takeda was of medium build, with a buzz cut and strong brows, and had two sharp lines etched by his mouth, giving him a stern appearance. During their conversation, Ye Zhao learned that Takeda had left Yoshimoto Kogyo two years before, and due to a confidentiality agreement, had only just resumed work as an agent. The reason he was willing to talk with Ye Zhao was simple: Maki Ohguro told him Ye Zhao’s offered salary was twenty percent higher than the industry standard for his level.

During their thirty-minute conversation, Ye Zhao was quite satisfied with Takeda’s abilities and attitude, but out of caution, he asked directly about the reason for Takeda’s departure. Coming from Kansai’s most notorious talent agency, Ye Zhao could not risk hiring someone who’d offended the wrong people.

Takeda understood this and explained succinctly, “Two years ago, my five-year-old son fell seriously ill. I resigned to care for him.”

“How is your son now?”

“He’s recovered,” Takeda smiled for the first time in their meeting. “So now, to pay back the debts from those medical bills, I have to work hard.”

With that, Ye Zhao had no reason not to hire him. If nothing else, Takeda’s decade at Yoshimoto Kogyo meant he’d dealt with TV stations large and small across Japan and was intimately familiar with the industry’s inner workings—exactly the person Ye Zhao needed at this stage.

Takeda quickly took up his post and found several more candidates with entertainment industry experience. Ye Zhao kept three of them: Hiroshi Nanjo, who had been a PD at Fuji TV for three years; Yuki Uemura, who had trained new talent at AMUSE for two years; and Yuki Tamura, a twenty-year-old girl with short hair and a baby face, who had assisted idol Yoko Minamino for over half a year. Objectively, there was little reason to keep Tamura—Takeda had only included her to fill out the list—but Ye Zhao’s whimsical side took over. Since he’d compared himself to Jin Haoxun from “Superstar Dream 3,” he figured he might as well have a secretary in his office. And so, Yuki Tamura joined ZYE as a mascot, handling routine communications and phone calls. With that, ZYE had finally taken shape.

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On November 22nd, after a wait of five long months, WANDS fans finally received their new single, “Let’s Go Wander.” Even before its release, the title track had become well-known as the theme song for RB TV’s baseball broadcast. In this baseball-loving nation, landing a theme song for such a program was as effective as any promotional campaign. When the single hit the shelves, even people who had never heard WANDS’ music before went to the record stores to buy it. When they turned to the single’s credits and saw Ye Zhao’s name listed as both lyricist and composer, many were surprised—this singer known for gentle tunes had written such an intense song?

That Friday, WANDS performed “Let’s Go Wander” on MS. Unlike new artists who had to prove themselves before getting an invitation, established acts with a track record and guaranteed sales were often invited even before their singles dropped and could perform in their release week. Super idols like Hikaru Genji from Johnny’s appeared on MS nearly every week during their heyday, racking up 234 appearances, the most in the show’s history. For small artists, performing on MS was a hard-won opportunity; for Johnny’s talents, it was like strolling through their private garden.

During the interview, Tamori deliberately shifted the topic to Ye Zhao. “I just received your single backstage and noticed that the song was provided by Ye Zhao?”

“That’s right,” Noboru Uesugi nodded. “Actually, he wrote both the lyrics and the music. But when I got the song, I felt the last line wasn’t quite right, so I contacted him. To my surprise, not only did he readily agree to let me change it, he insisted my name be added as a lyricist.”

“What a reasonable person.”

“He really is.”

“Come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve heard you talk so much, Uesugi,” Tamori teased with a smile.

Among the performers that night was SMAP. Hearing this exchange, Takuya Kimura, sitting in the back row, picked up his microphone and interjected, “That last line was changed for the better.”

“Oh? You’ve already heard the song?” Tamori turned to him.

“Yes. It has a certain flavor—a sense of ‘give me liberty or give me death.’”

Uesugi gave a small bow. “Thank you.”

“By the way, what was the original last line Ye Zhao wrote?” Hiroshi Ikushima asked.

“It was, ‘If you’ve never wandered, it would be a shame to die in vain.’”

“So what did you change it to?” Tamori inquired.

“‘If you’ve never wandered, you might as well just die now.’”

Tamori laughed. “That’s a rather blunt revision. So, Uesugi, are you really someone who’d rather break than bend?”

Uesugi only smiled, saying nothing. Ikushima picked up the thread, “Now, let’s enjoy the performance by WANDS. Everyone, listen for Uesugi’s indomitable spirit in ‘Let’s Go Wander.’”

This episode of MS received an excellent response. Uesugi’s vocals and Okuda Tamio’s composition created a powerful chemistry, and many listeners felt the song seemed tailor-made for Uesugi and WANDS. The freedom and carefree spirit conveyed in “Let’s Go Wander” struck a deep chord with the RB audience—people bound and suppressed by social rules, yearning for a liberty they could never quite attain.

With this powerful single for WANDS, the doubts about Ye Zhao’s musical abilities quickly diminished. BEING seized the opportunity to announce the release date for Ye Zhao’s new single, laying the groundwork for the upcoming competition. As for WANDS, Ye Zhao’s surprise contribution had delayed their transition to a new style, but while the song wasn’t the classic BEING-style pop-rock fans might expect, it wasn’t so radical as to alienate them. Thus, with one move, both sides benefited to the maximum degree—a testament to Daikichi Nagato’s shrewd strategy.