Musical Carrier
In the 7th grade, Shinya and his friend from elementary school decided to start a band. His friend told him to play drums (even though he only played trumpets before in the school's instrument club) so Shinya took all his New Year's money and bought a new drum set. He knew how to play on the drums right away! After that, Shinya went to a new school, so this band disbanded, but when he came back, and as a drummer, he was sought by many bands. His first live show was in the community hall they've borrowed. He played on the drums for five bands, about 100 people came to watch their shows.

His first "real" band was called Jinkou Tenshi, the band members were Shinya's friends from high school. A year after, he was in Siva, a new band. They played in livehouses at night, so Shinya had a hard time keep up with school. He also had a part-time job, but the money he earned still wasn't enough. So he stopped buying food, and saving up his lunch money his parents gave him. He stayed 6 months with Siva, but he really had a tough time there.

Then Shinya was invited by Kisaki to join a new band (Ruby), so he decided to move to Tokyo along with the old band members of Siva (except the bassist). Eventually, both Kisaki - and later - Shinya left Ruby. Shinya joined Kisaki's band 廃人黒薔薇族 (Haijin Kurobara Zoku), Kyo was already in the band as a vocalist. Kyo had made a deep impression on Shinya with his singing style! In 1995, Kisaki, Kyo and Shinya left Haijin Kurobara Zoku to form La:Sadie's. The rest is history >_<

About Shinya
Shinya's parents were relatively rich by Japanese standards. When Shinya was 14, he had a room of 20 tatami mat's size (~30 square meters, ~323 square feet). When Hikaru Genji was a popular band, Shinya loved them so much he even went out to buy rollerskates for himself from his New Year's money; he had the intention to sign up as a Johnny Junior when he went to high school. At the time, he felt the best kind of image for a boy is to be a "pretty boy" >_<

When he was younger, he was quite a talker - not like nowadays, he barely says anything in interviews - he even run for student president, and elections to be in the student comittee, because he wanted to be popular!

Shinya's first part-time job was to stick posters of an English school in shops and such. But after a month he realized he wasn't earning much as he thought he would be, and stopped working there.

His mother taught him how to put up make up before Dir en grey's live show. He always wanted to dye his hair brown, but his school's rules were strict, so he couldn't dye it until he finished school. After the graduation ceremony, he went to Kyo's house and he dyed his hair brown. It didn't really turn out well, so he went to a hair dresser and got his hair dyed properly.

When he was in high school, there were no people with earrings, but he felt that earrings add a "ROCK" feel to a person. The rockers around him were smokers, but he didn't smoke, so he decided to represent it through ear piercing. In his hometown, there wasn’t anywhere where he could go to pierce his ears; hence he had to use safety needles for that. He succeeded after 5 tries, it was extremely painful and he bled a lot. The hole in his ear stayed for 3 years, but after a while he got bored of wearing accessories, he ignored it and the hole closed up.

The first and the last time he actually smoked was when he and his friends blew the smoke into bubbles. He thought it looked cool and he wanted to try.

When their 2000 tour ended, Shinya decided to work out to strenghten his muscles. He started training 6 times a week, but if he didn't have enough time, he'd go only 1 day a week, before he went to work. He also started a healthy diet, eating more meat and protein, also as much vegetables as possible. His body's fat content was only 6%! [2000 data].

Shinya is very fond of dogs, he said he lived with small dogs since his childhood. He had a a papillon named Puppy which lived with his parents, but it died in 2002. Dir en grey was touring at that time, and Shinya became depressed, but he felt Puppy would be angry in heaven if he was too depressed to preform on the lives well, so he kept on performing. He wanted to have another dog, but at that time, his apartment was too small. In February 2000 he moved to a new house in Tokyo, and he got his little Chihuahua. He named it Miyu. Miyu is very spoilt: she even slept with Shinya in his bed, and he took her with himself to photoshoots too! Miyu only eats Caesar dog food ^^. Now Shinya lives with Miyu and Miyu's puppy, Yuyu.

He likes to read mystery novels. He's especially fond of the novels written by Orihara Ichi.

When the band went to their Europe tour, Shinya's tooth began to ache terribly when their plane took off. His pain tortured him during the whole tour, even though he took medicine. In the Columbiahalle live, Shinya almost fainted because it was too hot on the stage. The next days they went sightseeing in Berlin; he found the architecture wonderful.

When he was in school, he didn't like to study English. Later though, he decided to learn it when he came accross Doraemon written in English. He found out it was a bad idea to learn the language from the comic book because he couldn't understand it. So he bought a textbook for English learners, and was able to learn a few easy sentences from that; however, he tends to forget them easily! He tried to use his English when the band was in Europe, turned out he couldn't understand what others said if they didn't speak slowly; and others couldn't understand him at all because of his pronunciation!

Shinya is the "baby" of Dir en grey, him being the youngest and most serious member. Allegedly he is the most stubborn in the band, so the others allow him to do almost everything he wants. I find it amazing to hear him playing on the drums, such a powerful sound coming from a seemingly small person. He is the only one in the band who doesn't smoke, and likes to keep a healthy diet; he also likes to solve riddles.

It is quite hard to get to know anything about him, as he doesn't give straight answers in interviews. Because of his quiet nature, he never volunteers any information about himself. In fact, it was 6 months before the others found out what his phone number was! Also it is a rare occasion to see him flashing his pretty smile.

His ideal is Yoshiki, the drummer of X Japan, who became the manager of Dir en grey. He also rarely speaks about his childhood nor love-life: his every answer was "normal is good" to interview questions in the latter topic.

He loves his fans, on lives he often throws his drumsticks or waterbottles into the crowd. Shinya loves pop-music, especially girl pop. This is rather ironic, since he is in a J-Rock group ^_^.

Fun facts: His whole body is ticklish. He is near sighted, he wears contactlenses. He likes to drink all kinds of alcohol. When he travels, he carries with himself the "Shinya sama travelling set". He admires Yoshiki. He learns Kung-fu since 2nd grade. In his school he liked the music class, and hated English. He likes spring and autumn, because neither are hot nor cold.
Even though Shinya not really talks about his love life, he said once that he wouldn't consider himself to be truly "grown up" until he will be a dad.
The first and the last time he actually smoked was when he and his friends blew the smoke into bubbles. He thought it looked cool and he wanted to try.
When Shinya started to perform on lives, he had no idea how to do the stage make up, so his mother helped him with that!
Black is his most favorite color. He used to prefer burgundy to black, but now his all time favourite is black. All his furniture is black; all hispersonal belongings are black, even his cash-card (except for the drum sticks. They are white lest they should coalesce in the darkness.)
Die had a crush on him because he actually thought Shinya was a girl O_O