JUDY AND MARY's WARP TOUR FINAL at Tokyo Dome, March 8, 2001

About the artist

JUDY AND MARY were YUKI on vocals, TAKUYA on guitar, Yoshihito Onda on bass and Kota Igarashi on drums^[1]. The band formed in 1992 at Onda's prompting, built around Onda and YUKI, and TAKUYA joined in 1993^[2][3]. Their debut single, “POWER OF LOVE,” came out on September 22, 1993^[4]. Onda, the band's leader, wrote most of the early songs; over the years, more and more of them came from TAKUYA^[2][5].

The breakthrough was “Over Drive” in 1995^[4][5]. “Sobakasu” (“freckles”), released in February 1996 as the opening theme of the TV anime Rurouni Kenshin, went to No. 1 on Oricon's weekly singles chart^[6], and that year the band made its first appearance on NHK's Kohaku Uta Gassen^[7]. The 1997 album THE POWER SOURCE sold 2.8 million copies^[4]. Their producer, Masahide Sakuma, recalled first seeing them at a Shibuya club and finding the lineup, two young members and two seasoned ones, an odd balance^[8].

Why this was the last show

On December 26, 1998, JUDY AND MARY played Tokyo Dome for the first time, then took a year off. They returned on February 23, 2000, with “Brand New Wave Upper Ground,” and their first best-of album, FRESH, released that March, has sold 2.4 million copies^[4].

The end was announced on January 9, 2001^[4], in a full-page ad in the Asahi Shimbun. Beneath the headline “Judy-Mari breaks up” and a photo of the four waving handkerchiefs, a short message said the band would break up in March 2001 and thanked fans for their support. No reason was given, and BARKS found the whole thing strikingly offhand. The same announcement set out a new single, “Rakkī Pūru” (“lucky pool”), on January 24; an album, WARP, on February 7; and the JUDY AND MARY WARP TOUR, starting at Zepp Sapporo on February 7 and taking in the Fukuoka and Osaka domes before ending at Tokyo Dome on March 7 and 8^[9]. WARP became their sixth and last studio album^[4].

In a 2026 interview, TAKUYA explained how it came about. The first person to raise a breakup was the head of their management company. The companies they worked with talked only about sales, and with a large staff on the payroll, the band had to decide whether it was carrying on or not. Yet the members had talked about splitting up in style after a big success ever since the pre-production camp for their first album. When the day came to discuss it for real, TAKUYA said, all four agreed that this was the moment: break up now, and they could become a legend^[5].

What is known about the day

March 8, 2001, was the last date of the WARP TOUR and the second of two nights at Tokyo Dome^[10][4]. The two shows are known as WARP TOUR FINAL, also the title of the video of the final night^[3][11]. We have found no figure for the attendance.

Tetsuya Karasuma of BARKS, who saw both nights, wrote that the show opened with strings: two violins, a viola and two double basses. A pink bear roamed the stage, and YUKI's hair, green the night before, was now pink^[10]. On the video, too, the first track is an opening built on a string version of “PEACE”^[12].

The band played 22 songs, 21 in the main set and one encore. They began with “Rainbow Devils Land,” the first track on WARP, closed the main set with “motto” and came back for “Over Drive”^[10][13], the song that had made their name^[4]. It is also the last track on the video^[12][11]. By BARKS's list, the first night had gone differently: 19 songs in the main set, then two encores ending with “Yūgure” (“dusk”), and neither “Over Drive” nor “Myūjikku Faitā” (“music fighter”)^[10]. Sakuma later said that a popular band putting out a song like “Myūjikku Faitā” as a single was unthinkable, a sign of how freely they were working then^[8].

Karasuma wrote that the dome's acoustics were poor, yet YUKI's voice reached every corner. TAKUYA, he added, had been imagining how guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei felt when BOØWY broke up at Tokyo Dome^[10]. At 16, TAKUYA had watched that farewell show and decided he would stand on the same stage himself^[5]. After the encore, in the silent hall, YUKI thanked the crowd without a microphone^[10].

What the show left behind

A two-disc DVD, WARP TOUR FINAL, with all 22 songs of the final night, came out on May 9, 2001, two months after the show^[14][15]. A two-disc DVD issued on November 19, 2003 (ESBL-2117), holds the complete final night in 23 tracks, string opening included^[11][12].

YUKI made her solo debut on February 6, 2002, with the single “the end of shite”^[16]. On May 6, 2012, a show marking ten years as a solo artist took her back to Tokyo Dome for the first time since the farewell. Billboard Japan reported that no woman before her had headlined the dome both with a band and on her own^[17].

JUDY AND MARY 15th Anniversary Tribute Album, released on March 18, 2009, brought together 15 acts, among them Ikimonogakari, Tamio Okuda, PUFFY and Shoko Nakagawa^[18]. Natalie described them as friends of the members' own generation and younger artists who grew up on the band^[19]. At TAKUYA's birthday show on September 9, 2013, Onda, Igarashi and Sakuma joined him on stage, and the four closed with “Sobakasu”; before it, TAKUYA remarked that YUKI was missing^[20].

The songs are still heard. “Sobakasu,” available digitally since May 27, 2015, passed 100 million cumulative streams in February 2026, the band's first song to do so^[6]. In April 2026, TAKUYA said there would be no reunion. He likened the band to a team of athletes: getting back together would be an old-timers' exhibition match. Because they quit while they were still cool, he said, only good footage remains^[5].

A breakup announced in a newspaper ad ended two months later with “Over Drive,” the song where it had all taken off.