Station Tokyo · 1952–2023 · one drum, one life

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Every place left a mark on the drum.

Three young men in black high-necked tops against a grey backdrop, black and white; the man in the centre has a straight fringe — Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1981: Sakamoto in the centre, with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. A&M Records publicity photograph by Kenji Miura. Photograph by Kenji Miura. Distributed by A&M Records · Public domain

Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1981, on the drum.

Photograph: Kenji Miura, distributed by A&M Records, 1981 · public domain. Sakamoto is in the centre, with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi.

Before the band

A Tokyo education.

7 of the 15 places are in Tokyo. The first three run from the ward he was born in to the composition class he joined at eighteen.

Bar 1 · 17 January 1952
A shopping street in Nakano, the ward where Sakamoto was born, 2025. Not a family home. Lesterin · CC0
Nakano
Nakano Ward, west of Shinjuku, Tokyo
Sakamoto was born in Nakano Ward, Tokyo, on 17 January 1952.
His father, Kazuyoshi Sakamoto, was a well-known literary editor.
A residential ward on the Chūō Line west of Shinjuku. No family home is named here; the photograph shows a Nakano shopping street.
Sources
Bar 2 · High school years
Tokyo Metropolitan Shinjuku High School, 2018. Braveheart · CC BY-SA 4.0
Shinjuku High School
Meiji-dōri, Shinjuku 4-chōme, Tokyo
At Shinjuku High School he skipped lessons for repertory cinemas and jazz cafés, at a time when Shinjuku was the centre of the city’s counterculture.
He went on demonstrations, and with classmates he barricaded the school building in a protest.
A working high school. See it from Meiji-dōri; the grounds are not open to visitors.
Sources
Bar 3 · 1970
The gate of the Faculty of Music, Tokyo University of the Arts, Ueno, 2023. N509FZ · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tokyo University of the Arts
Ueno Park, Taitō, Tokyo
He entered the composition course in 1970. His teachers included Taminosuke Matsumoto and Fumio Koizumi.
He stayed on for the graduate school, and that is where his serious musical work began.
A working university at the edge of Ueno Park. Public concerts and exhibitions are listed on its own site; the faculties are otherwise for students.
Sources

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Yellow Magic Orchestra · 1978 to 1983

The band as a programmed part.

From the start, YMO’s live backing was played in real time by a Roland MC-8 sequencer, its data loaded from cassette on stage. Run their places the same way.

The MC-8 on stage

Google Arts & Culture: How one band shaped the sounds of Japan and beyond (text by Eiichi Yoshimura)

Step 1 of 4: Alfa Records Studio A, 1979.

CH 1 · 1979
Tamachi Station's Shibaura side, 2016: the area where Alfa Records had its studio, not the building itself. Nyao148 · CC BY-SA 3.0
Studio A: Alfa Records Studio A
Studio A was on the fifth floor of a building put up by Yanase, just outside the back gate of Tamachi Station, and built with great care by Kunihiko Murai.
It was Alfa’s main studio and the first in Japan with a 24-channel mixing desk. YMO were among the acts whose hits were made there.
Hideki Matsutake, once a student of Isao Tomita, worked with the band as their programmer.
Named here, never mapped: no checked page says what stands there now. The photograph shows Tamachi Station’s Shibaura side, not the building.
Sources
CH 2 · 1979
The Greek Theatre in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, 2019. Steven Lek · CC BY-SA 4.0
Los Angeles: Greek Theatre
YMO’s first world tour, in 1979, included a show at the Greek Theatre.
That year their records came out around the world, the tour went well, and the success came home to Japan as an import craze.
An open-air amphitheatre in Griffith Park, open for concerts in season.
Sources
CH 3 · December 1980
The Nippon Budokan, Kitanomaru Park, 2018. Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0
Four nights: Nippon Budokan
In December 1980 YMO played the Budokan on four consecutive days, with a Roland TR-808 drum machine that was not yet on sale.
A working arena in Kitanomaru Park, a walk from Kudanshita Station. Inside for ticketed events only.
Sources
CH 4 · 1983
The Nippon Budokan, Kitanomaru Park, 2018. Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0
Send-off: Nippon Budokan
The band decided to stop in 1983. A last album, Naughty Boys, and a farewell tour that included the Budokan were their send-off.
A working arena in Kitanomaru Park, a walk from Kudanshita Station. Inside for ticketed events only.
Sources

On screen and on the score · 1982 to 1988

A double bill.

He acted in both films and wrote music for both. One was made in a Pacific valley, the other inside a palace; they meet at an Oscar in Los Angeles.

Both films

Bunshun Online: In memory of Ryuichi Sakamoto, part 3 (Eiichi Yoshimura, 3 April 2023)

Feature 1

Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence

Oshima · 1983

David Bowie in a striped shirt and knitted tie, looking over his shoulder, black and white — David Bowie in 1983, the year Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence came out. EMI America publicity photograph. Distributed by EMI America. Photographer is unknown. · Public domain

Green jungle slopes rising to jagged volcanic peaks under a blue sky — The Turangi Valley, Rarotonga, 2003. Patrick Nunn · CC BY-SA 4.0

1982 · The camp

Turangi Valley, Rarotonga

Inland from Muri, Ngatangiia, Rarotonga, Cook Islands

David Bowie came to Rarotonga in 1982 to film Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence; the prisoner-of-war camp was recreated in the Turangi Valley.

The camp set covered two to three acres. Bowie, Tom Conti and Ryuichi Sakamoto led the cast.

A green valley inland from Muri on the east of the island. The camp was a film set; keep to the road and ask before walking on to land.

Sources

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Rarotonga, Cook Islands

Live marketplace results for tours into Rarotonga’s interior valleys. Check each itinerary for the east side and Muri.

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May 1983 · In competition

Palais des Festivals

1 Boulevard de la Croisette, Cannes

Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence was in competition at Cannes in 1983, with music by Sakamoto, who also acted in it beside David Bowie and Takeshi Kitano.

The 1983 festival was the first in this new Palais. Festivalgoers soon nicknamed it the bunker.

The festival and conference centre on the Croisette. The red-carpet steps are on the seafront side; inside for events.

Sources

Feature 2

The Last Emperor

Bertolucci · 1987

Bernardo Bertolucci speaking into a microphone, black and white — Bernardo Bertolucci at a film festival in Salsomaggiore Terme, 1981. Collezione Biblioteca Comunale G.D. Romagnosi, Salsomaggiore Terme · Public domain

A vast red gatehouse with yellow-tiled roofs across a stone square — The Meridian Gate, the Forbidden City's main entrance, 2015. Morio · CC BY-SA 4.0

1986 · Inside the palace

The Forbidden City

The Palace Museum, Dongcheng, Beijing

In 1986 Bernardo Bertolucci was given rare permission to film The Last Emperor inside the Forbidden City: the first large film shoot the Palace Museum had opened its doors to.

About eight weeks of shooting took place inside the palace. Sakamoto was in the cast, alongside John Lone, Joan Chen and Peter O’Toole.

Main admission is 60 yuan from April to October and 40 yuan from November to March.

Open as the Palace Museum, Tuesday to Sunday. Tickets are not sold on the day: book ahead online, with a passport number. Enter by the Meridian Gate.

Sources

The Palace Museum

Beijing

The Forbidden City, where The Last Emperor was filmed. Tuesday to Sunday; 60 yuan from April to October, 40 yuan from November to March. No tickets on the day: book online ahead, with a passport number.

Plan a visit

David Byrne in a pale striped jacket, talking with a woman in a crowded club — David Byrne in São Paulo in 1986, two years before the three-way Oscar for The Last Emperor. LSToledo · CC BY-SA 3.0

A Moorish-style auditorium with domes and arches against a blue sky — The Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, 2020. Андрей Романенко · CC BY-SA 4.0

11 April 1988 · Original Score

Shrine Auditorium

665 West Jefferson Boulevard, University Park, Los Angeles

On Monday 11 April 1988 the Academy Awards were held here. Original Score went to Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne and Cong Su for The Last Emperor.

The film won all nine of the Oscars it was nominated for. Sakamoto was the first Japanese winner of the score award.

A working auditorium and hall; inside for ticketed events only. The front is on West Jefferson Boulevard.

Sources

1990 and 1992

New York, then Barcelona.

Ryuichi Sakamoto, grey-haired, in a dark jumper and scarf, seated on a stage with a microphone stand — Later photograph: Sakamoto on a panel at Japan Society, New York, 23 March 2010, twenty years after he moved to the city. May S. Young from Metro NYC, United States · CC BY 2.0

A dark modernist building front with horizontal louvres on a Manhattan street — Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, New York, 2021. Epicgenius · CC BY-SA 4.0

1990

Japan Society

333 East 47th Street, Manhattan, New York

Sakamoto moved to New York in 1990.

Nam June Paik’s All Star Video of 1984 opens on Sakamoto and records New York arts figures such as John Cage and Allen Ginsberg, many of them interviewed by Sakamoto himself.

Japan Society screened it in its Music by Ryuichi Sakamoto film series on 11 and 12 September 2026.

A cultural centre near the United Nations with a gallery, films and performances; see its own programme.

Sources

The Kitano Hotel New York

Murray Hill, New York

A Park Avenue hotel with Japanese hospitality at 66 Park Avenue and East 38th Street, with Hakubai Japanese restaurant and a rooftop bar. Japan Society names it, as the Prince Kitano New York, the official hotel sponsor of its film programme. Rates on its own booking page.

See rooms

The inside of a stadium bowl with tiers of seats around a running track — The Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys on Montjuïc, 2007. Diliff · CC BY-SA 3.0

1992

Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys

Passeig Olímpic 15–17, Montjuïc, Barcelona

In 1992 Sakamoto composed and conducted the music for the opening ceremony of the Barcelona Olympics.

The stadium was built for the 1929 International Exhibition and remodelled as the main venue of the 1992 Games.

On Montjuïc, uphill from Plaça d’Espanya. The Olympic and Sports Museum is across the road.

Sources

Natori · 2011 → Tokyo · 2017 to 2025

Let the earth play.

After the 2011 tsunami Sakamoto found a piano at Miyagi Prefecture Agricultural High School, which the wave had devastated. He felt nature had re-tuned it. He described it as the corpse of an instrument that had once been alive, and brought it back as something that gives voice to earthquakes.

With Shiro Takatani he made it sound out earthquake data gathered around the world. Hold the ground and a tremor plays it here.

Still ground. Hold it and the earth plays.

Illustration: the drift on these keys is drawn, not measured. The tremor here is made up on the spot, not real earthquake data.

The piano and IS YOUR TIME

Ryuichi Sakamoto official site: IS YOUR TIME (2017)

Hiyoriyama, a small hill on the coast at Yuriage, Natori, 2024. The coast, not the school. 印度孔雀 · CC BY 4.0
2011
Natori, Miyagi
Natori, on the coast south of Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture
The school is in Natori. Its tsunami-hit buildings were replaced by a new campus inland, finished in the 2018 financial year; it has been there since 23 March 2018.
A coastal city south of Sendai. The school has moved inland and is a working school, not open to visitors; the photograph shows the coast at Yuriage.
Sources
Tokyo Opera City Tower, Nishi-Shinjuku, home of ICC, 2018. Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0
9 December 2017 – 11 March 2018
NTT InterCommunication Center
Tokyo Opera City Tower, 4F, 3-20-2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Tokyo
IS YOUR TIME, by Sakamoto with Shiro Takatani, ran here from 9 December 2017 to 11 March 2018: its first showing.
Fourteen speakers and ten LED panels lined the gallery; the sound was music from async, rearranged, with piano tones made from earthquake data collected around the world.
ICC opened on 19 April 1997 inside Tokyo Opera City Tower.
A media-art centre on the fourth floor of Tokyo Opera City Tower, next to Hatsudai Station. See its own site for what is on.
Sources
The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Kiba, 2018. Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0
21 December 2024 – 30 March 2025
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Kiba Park, Kōtō, Tokyo
Seeing sound, hearing time ran here from 21 December 2024 to 30 March 2025: the first comprehensive exhibition in Japan of his large installations, IS YOUR TIME among them.
Here the async music was left out, as he had wished, and the piano was heard on its own.
A public museum on the edge of Kiba Park. The Sakamoto exhibition has closed; see the museum’s site for what is on.
Sources

Visit

Where it is now

14 places you can visit in Tokyo, Asia and the Pacific, America and Europe. Alfa’s old studio is named, never mapped.

Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.

General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: area · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A residential ward on the Chūō Line west of Shinjuku. No family home is named here; the photograph shows a Nakano shopping street.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working high school. See it from Meiji-dōri; the grounds are not open to visitors.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working university at the edge of Ueno Park. Public concerts and exhibitions are listed on its own site; the faculties are otherwise for students.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working arena in Kitanomaru Park, a walk from Kudanshita Station. Inside for ticketed events only.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A media-art centre on the fourth floor of Tokyo Opera City Tower, next to Hatsudai Station. See its own site for what is on.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A public museum on the edge of Kiba Park. The Sakamoto exhibition has closed; see the museum’s site for what is on.

A shopping street in Nakano, the ward where Sakamoto was born, 2025. Not a family home. Lesterin · CC0
Nakano Ward, west of Shinjuku, Tokyo
Nakano
Sakamoto was born in Nakano Ward, Tokyo, on 17 January 1952.
A residential ward on the Chūō Line west of Shinjuku. No family home is named here; the photograph shows a Nakano shopping street.
Sources
Tokyo Metropolitan Shinjuku High School, 2018. Braveheart · CC BY-SA 4.0
Meiji-dōri, Shinjuku 4-chōme, Tokyo
Shinjuku High School
At Shinjuku High School he skipped lessons for repertory cinemas and jazz cafés, at a time when Shinjuku was the centre of the city’s counterculture.
A working high school. See it from Meiji-dōri; the grounds are not open to visitors.
Sources
The gate of the Faculty of Music, Tokyo University of the Arts, Ueno, 2023. N509FZ · CC BY-SA 4.0
Ueno Park, Taitō, Tokyo
Tokyo University of the Arts
He entered the composition course in 1970. His teachers included Taminosuke Matsumoto and Fumio Koizumi.
A working university at the edge of Ueno Park. Public concerts and exhibitions are listed on its own site; the faculties are otherwise for students.
Sources
The Nippon Budokan, Kitanomaru Park, 2018. Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0
Kitanomaru Park, Chiyoda, Tokyo
Nippon Budokan
In December 1980 YMO played the Budokan on four consecutive days, with a Roland TR-808 drum machine that was not yet on sale.
A working arena in Kitanomaru Park, a walk from Kudanshita Station. Inside for ticketed events only.
Sources
Tokyo Opera City Tower, Nishi-Shinjuku, home of ICC, 2018. Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tokyo Opera City Tower, 4F, 3-20-2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Tokyo
NTT InterCommunication Center
IS YOUR TIME, by Sakamoto with Shiro Takatani, ran here from 9 December 2017 to 11 March 2018: its first showing.
A media-art centre on the fourth floor of Tokyo Opera City Tower, next to Hatsudai Station. See its own site for what is on.
Sources
The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Kiba, 2018. Kakidai · CC BY-SA 4.0
Kiba Park, Kōtō, Tokyo
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Seeing sound, hearing time ran here from 21 December 2024 to 30 March 2025: the first comprehensive exhibition in Japan of his large installations, IS YOUR TIME among them.
A public museum on the edge of Kiba Park. The Sakamoto exhibition has closed; see the museum’s site for what is on.
Sources

Stay

A room on Park Avenue.

The Kitano, a Park Avenue hotel with Japanese hospitality, in Murray Hill.

The Kitano Hotel New York

Murray Hill, New York

A Park Avenue hotel with Japanese hospitality at 66 Park Avenue and East 38th Street, with Hakubai Japanese restaurant and a rooftop bar. Japan Society names it, as the Prince Kitano New York, the official hotel sponsor of its film programme. Rates on its own booking page.

See rooms

Go there

The palace, Tokyo and Rarotonga.

The Palace Museum’s own visiting page, and marketplace tours in Tokyo and on Rarotonga.

The Palace Museum

Beijing

The Forbidden City, where The Last Emperor was filmed. Tuesday to Sunday; 60 yuan from April to October, 40 yuan from November to March. No tickets on the day: book online ahead, with a passport number.

Plan a visit

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