Princess Princess's last concert before the breakup: Nippon Budokan, May 31, 1996

About the artist

Princess Princess were Kaori Kishitani (vocals, guitar), Kanako Nakayama (guitar), Tomoko Konno (keyboards), Atsuko Watanabe (bass) and Kyoko Tomita (drums)^[1][2]. They were brought together in 1983 by an audition held to find members for a women's rock band^[3]; the five first met on February 20 that year, and they debuted in 1986^[4]. Kishitani wrote most of the songs. At the time she performed as Kaori Okui, and she took her real name, Kishitani, in 2001^[3].

In January 1989 they became the first all-female band to headline the Nippon Budokan, playing four nights^[3][4]; the film of those shows, LET'S GET CRAZY LIVE AT Budokan, was back in cinemas more than three decades later^[4][5]. The music site THE FIRST TIMES credits the huge success of "Diamonds" with making them a household name, followed by a run of million-selling albums^[6]. Over 13 years they released 21 singles and 15 albums, best-ofs included, and drew around 1.9 million people to their concerts^[3][4]. Their ten original albums run from KISS de Hanzai to The Last Princess^[7].

Playing live had its rituals. From the PANIC TOUR '89-'90 "FOR LOVERS" tour, which ran from December 1989 into January 1990, the band played a New Year concert every year until the breakup, including the Budokan in January 1990^[8]. Summers were recorded too: a seaside show at North Pier in Yokohama on August 31, 1988, and an outdoor concert at Fujikyu Conifer Forest on August 4, 1991, were both broadcast by the regional station TV Kanagawa^[9][5]. According to Watanabe, the band put live playing first and did not run backing tracks on stage^[1].

Why this was thought to be the end

The breakup was announced on October 20, 1995^[10]. For the seven months that followed, the band kept playing. New Year 1996 went ahead as always, with three nights at the Budokan on January 2, 3 and 4; the January 4 show stands as their last New Year concert^[8].

Then came the farewell tour, PRINCESS PRINCESS PANIC TOUR '96 Kaisan o Asobō. The title puts the word for breakup, kaisan, right up front: roughly, "let's play at breaking up." Between January and May the band played all 47 prefectures, 50 shows in all, to about 160,000 people^[1][11]. The April 3 show at Kanagawa Kenmin Hall was filmed for a TV Kanagawa program and survives as LIVEy 1996^[9]; its performance of "Diamonds" was released as a live video for the first time thirty years later, in 2026^[12].

Why they chose to end the band is harder to pin down. The wording of the original announcement could not be confirmed for this article. What survives are the members' own later words. In a 2022 conversation, Kishitani recalled that she was 29 when the band split. Princess Princess had been her band since she was a teenager, and at the farewell concert she felt she had seen it all the way through^[13].

Nakayama told fans at the farewell concert that she would live in a way that showed the breakup had been the right decision. In Jōnetsu Tairiku, the documentary series that followed the band's reunion, she said those words had stayed with her ever since^[2]. Asked in 2023 what she would say to her younger self, Tomita recalled a line the members used to tell one another, that the rest of their lives would be longer than what came before, and said plenty of good things had happened after the breakup^[14]. Arata Oshima, a producer on the documentary, describes the split as one that left people wishing the band had gone on^[15].

The tour was set to end at the Budokan on May 31. That night became the five women's breakup concert^[6][16].

What is known about the day

May 31, 1996, at the Nippon Budokan was the closing night of the tour around Japan's 47 prefectures, and it was the band's breakup concert^[6][11]. Seven years earlier this was the hall where they had become the first all-female band to headline^[3], and they had played three New Year nights there only five months before^[8]. The show ran to 35 songs and roughly 175 minutes, all of it kept in the concert film The Last Live^[6].

The film opens with rehearsal footage and clips from earlier shows. Then the members walk on, and the first song is "SEVEN YEARS AFTER"^[14]. The next four, "OH YEAH!," "GO AWAY BOY," "Sekai de Ichiban Atsui Natsu" (roughly, the hottest summer in the world) and "Julian," all appear on the band's video collection VIDEO SINGLES 1987-1992^[11][5].

After those five songs, Kaori Okui (now Kishitani) told the crowd that the day of the breakup had finally come, and the band launched into the PRINCESS PRINCESS MEDLEY: 19 songs strung together for more than 20 minutes^[14]. It ran from "TOKYO Kanojo" through "Natsu no Owari," and its closing song, "Aibō," is listed on the official track list as the "Budokan 5.31 version," the date of that night written into its name^[11].

After the medley the five sat down on chairs for a long talk segment^[14]. The film also catches Watanabe telling the hall that they had made it to number one as a women's band^[1]. Shō Wada of the rock band TRICERATOPS, who watched the breakup concert on television, said in a 2022 conversation with Kishitani that he still remembered her red outfit and her remark that she would turn 30 the following year. His own band was then preparing for its debut^[13].

Before "M," Okui spoke about the next generation and asked the audience to keep listening to Princess Princess after the band was gone^[14]. The second half leaned harder into rock, with "ROCK ME" and "GUITAR MAN" played under a shower of silver streamers^[14]. The main set went on through "Hetchara" and "Pairotto ni Naritakute" and closed with "Fly Baby Fly"^[17][14].

For the encore, Okui looked back on how nervous she had been the first time she stood on the Budokan stage, and the band played "GET CRAZY!" and then "Diamonds"^[14].

They came back once more for a double encore, now in white. They thanked the crowd again and again, and the last song they played was "19 GROWING UP -ode to my buddy-"^[14]. It is also the final track of the concert film^[17].

The film's end credits show a crowd of about 10,000 still calling for another encore^[1]. Tomita has said that all five spent that night together in the same hotel room. The saddest moment, she said, came later, when she got home and was alone^[14].

What the show left behind

The Last Live came out as a two-disc DVD on December 17, 2003, with everything up to the medley on the first disc and "M" through the final song on the second; the retail description calls it the complete final night of the tour^[17]. In 2006 it took up two discs of THE BOX-The Platinum Days, a DVD box marking twenty years since the band formed and collecting all their video releases^[10]. On March 8 the same year it was also part of 10 Years After ~PRINCESS PRINCESS Premium Box~, a limited set released ten years after the breakup. The same day saw 14 Princess ~PRINCESS PRINCESS CHILDREN~, an album of the band's songs covered by 14 women artists on Sony Music; one of them, ikimonogakari, sang "GET CRAZY"^[7].

What brought the five back together was the earthquake. On January 6, 2012, Princess Princess announced their first reunion in 16 years. A few days after March 11, 2011, the members had swapped emails checking that everyone was safe, and the long conversations that followed led to the decision. Their statement said they had remembered that the five of them together could give the kind of help none could give alone, and that they had decided on a reunion they had been sure would never happen. The aim was to raise money for the disaster areas, and the activity was limited to 2012^[18]. Kishitani has said she did not want it to feel like a class reunion, so the band worked with a new crew rather than its old staff^[13]. Their average age was 46, and all five had other jobs and families by then^[2].

Over 2012 they joined the relief concert ALL THAT LOVE, played Tokyo Dome, the first women's band ever to do so, received a special award at the 54th Japan Record Awards and made their first appearance on NHK's New Year's Eve show Kōhaku Uta Gassen^[19]. The concert films show that the reunion tour's Budokan show ended, like the night in 1996, with "19 GROWING UP -ode to my buddy-," while the Tokyo Dome show, PRINCESS PRINCESS TOUR 2012 ~Saikai~ "The Last Princess," closed with "Diamonds"^[5].

The money raised came to about 510 million yen, donated to Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima and other areas. About 310 million yen of it built Team Smile Sendai PIT, a live music venue in Sendai. The band explained that it chose a venue because the support would not be a one-off: it would go on for as long as the venue stayed open^[19]. At a press conference in Sendai on August 27, 2015, Kishitani described the opening show there not as a second reunion but as the close of the first^[20]. On March 11, 2016, five years to the day after the earthquake, the band played Sendai PIT, with the show beamed live to cinemas across Japan^[19]. The official profile dates the end of the reunion to March 26, 2016^[4][16]. The "after-party" show at Toyosu PIT in Tokyo came out on DVD in 2017, and it too ends with "19 GROWING UP -ode to my buddy-"^[21].

The film of the breakup night has kept finding an audience. For the 40th anniversary of the members' first meeting, the 1996 master was restored in HD with 5.1 sound for cinemas^[6][14]. It screened for one day on January 29, 2023, in 21 cinemas in 16 cities, and Tomita, appearing in Osaka, laughed that she had found it hard to watch footage from 27 years ago^[14]. A high-resolution audio version went on sale in February^[22], and on March 22 the night filled one disc of DIAMONDS STORY, a 12-disc Blu-ray box^[5].

On May 31, 2026, thirty years to the day, The Last Live played for one night on 30 screens in 24 cities to about 3,000 people. Watanabe, appearing at a cinema in Shinjuku, said she had never imagined watching the breakup concert with so many fans. When "Diamonds" played as she came out, the audience stood to cheer, and at the end their applause mixed with the 1996 crowd's encore calls on screen. Kishitani sent a recorded message and a letter, and Watanabe closed by telling the crowd she hoped they would all meet again somewhere^[1]. As of October 2026, a screening of TV Kanagawa live footage billed as the band's first "New Year" in 31 years is scheduled for January 4, 2027^[8].

The song that closed the night of May 31, 1996, also closes the films of the Budokan reunion show sixteen years later and the Toyosu show about twenty years later.