🎒 They wear sailor school uniforms, scream-sing about dysfunctional families, and snap into a crisp "attention, bow!" that sends overseas crowds into applause. Eleven years in, ATARASHII GAKKO! still call themselves "Japan's representatives of youth." In a new Billboard JAPAN interview, the four members explain the one-word philosophy that holds it all together — and why hitting double digits feels less like a victory lap than a fresh start.

The sailor-suited group that talks back

If you spend any time on TikTok, you have probably seen the dance even if you never learned the name: four young women in dark sailor uniforms, heads snapping side to side in unison to a funky, retro groove. That song is "Otonablue," and the group is ATARASHII GAKKO! — known in Japan as Atarashii Gakkou no Leaders, which translates roughly to "Leaders of the New School."

Their rise reads like a checklist of milestones J-pop acts rarely complete. They signed with the Asia-focused label 88rising in 2021 and made their international debut. "Otonablue," originally a modest 2020 release, exploded on Japanese TikTok in 2023 and has since racked up more than 3.3 billion views in related videos. They made their U.S. television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, headlined a stage at Coachella in 2024 across both weekends, and completed a headline world tour that drew roughly 110,000 fans. In 2025 they marked a full decade with their largest-ever solo show and an 18-city run across Japan, Asia, and Australia.

So when Billboard JAPAN sat down with all four members — SUZUKA, MIZYU, RIN, and KANON — for its "Music and Us" interview series, the obvious question was whether a group this far along still has anything left to prove. Their answer, in short: they think they have barely started.

"It's not 'marudashi' — it's 'hamidashi'"

To understand the group, you have to understand one word. Their guiding concept, printed on everything from album titles to tour names, is hamidashi — sticking out, spilling over the edge, refusing to fit neatly inside the lines.

In the interview, SUZUKA draws a distinction that is easy to miss in translation but central to who they are. Hamidashi, she explains, is not the same as marudashi — letting it all hang out, breaking the rules outright. Breaking school rules is just a violation. Hamidashi is something subtler: finding how much individuality and joy you can squeeze out while still inside the rules. Shift your viewpoint, she says, and even within the rules there is room to push right up to the edge — and that edge is where the adventure happens.

It is a distinctly Japanese idea, born in a culture where conformity is a real social force and school uniforms are a daily symbol of fitting in. The group does not reject the uniform — they wear it on every stage. They just refuse to let it define how loud, strange, or alive they are allowed to be inside it.

That nuance matters more in year 11 than it did at the start. The members describe 2026 as a deliberate "restart." Hitting double digits, SUZUKA says in the interview, made them want to return to their beginnings while picturing a more aggressive version of themselves. The April 2026 solo show leaned hard into that idea: RIN describes a deeply conceptual concert built around the imagery of a Japanese school entrance ceremony — the red-and-white curtains, a towering ceremonial podium, the audience welcomed in with applause. For anyone who grew up in the Japanese school system, it was designed to pull at a very specific memory.

When words don't land, the body does

Performing for crowds who don't speak Japanese could be a problem for a group whose lyrics are this specific. ATARASHII GAKKO! treat it as the opposite.

RIN's view, as relayed in the interview, is blunt: language may not cross over, but performance is a weapon that always does. So the group leans into bigger expressions and broader movement abroad — the same full-throttle energy they bring in Japan, just dialed up into something closer to overacting, so a crowd in Berlin or Santiago can read exactly what is being communicated without a single translated word.

The sailor uniform, ordinary to a Japanese audience, becomes an icon overseas. And some of their most Japanese gestures travel the best. SUZUKA notes that the familiar schoolroom call of "attention, bow!" — a reflexive ritual for anyone raised in Japan — draws a wave of applause abroad simply on the strength of the posture. At home the audience tends to do it along with them; abroad, the cultural gap is exactly what makes it land.

That cultural gap also demands homework. KANON explains in the interview that rules differ sharply from country to country, down to individual dance moves: a gesture that is perfectly fine in Japan can carry a different meaning elsewhere. When that happens, the group asks local staff and rewrites the choreography the same day. Respecting the rules of each place they visit, she says, has always been part of how they earn a new audience — which is, fittingly, hamidashi in action: pushing the edge, but reading the room first.

Four pieces that keep clicking together

A group can survive a viral hit. Surviving each other for over a decade is harder.

The four have known one another since around their second year of middle school — roughly twelve years, through the most formative stretch of adolescence. "Our bones literally grew," SUZUKA jokes in the interview. That long shared history shows up in how they describe their chemistry now. MIZYU says the foundation never changes, but each member keeps sharpening the individuality they pick up from their separate adventures, then finding a new way for those sharper, odder pieces to fit back together — every piece updating while still locking into place.

RIN traces the durability back to a single moment: the first time the four met and burst out laughing together, twelve years ago. The respect for that moment, she says, is why they can change and still want to stay these specific four people. KANON puts it more plainly — emotions shift, someone's shape changes, and somehow the group still fits, with no gap left open.

For new fans, the four are also an easy invitation to pick a favorite. Each has a fixed visual signature inside the matching uniforms: MIZYU, the leader, with her twin tails; RIN with her ever-changing styles; SUZUKA with a blunt bowl cut and round glasses; KANON with long, flowing hair. They write all their own choreography, blending influences from butoh to heavy metal to hip-hop — which is part of why no two members move quite alike.

Next stop: an all-women stage, then the world

The immediate reason for the interview is a one-night show on June 9, 2026: Women In Music – EQUAL STAGE, presented by Billboard JAPAN and Spotify in Tokyo. ATARASHII GAKKO! share the bill with rapper Awich, rock band Hitsujibungaku, and rising artist LANA — four acts spanning different generations and genres, all led by women.

RIN frames it in the interview as a chance for fans to stumble into something new: someone who came for ATARASHII GAKKO! might walk out struck by a female rapper's force or another act's crystalline voice. SUZUKA's instruction to first-timers is simple — no preparation required, though she suggests stretching your neck, a wink at the head-snapping "Otonablue" choreography that became their signature.

After that, the calendar barely pauses. The members mention a packed 2026: Lollapalooza Berlin and a stop in the Czech Republic in July, an 11th-anniversary show in London, Seattle in September, and a December run through Chile, Brazil, and Mexico — the group's first-ever Latin American tour. For a group that insists it has barely started, the itinerary makes the argument for them.

SUZUKA closes the interview the way the group closes its shows — by signing off as "Japan's representatives of youth." Eleven years in, the title still fits, precisely because they have never treated youth as an age. For ATARASHII GAKKO!, it is a decision you keep making: to stay curious, to keep adventuring, to spill a little further over the edge.

So we'll ask the question the group practically invites: is ATARASHII GAKKO! a name people know where you live — and if you had to choose, which of the four would be your favorite?

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