“UNiTE.” has dismissed their vocalist Yui as of the official announcement on April 8. The announcement states that there was a “significant issue regarding vocalist Yui that remained unsolved”, hence why they came to such a conclusion.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t made clear what the “significant issue” was by the band and members’ statements. However, drummer Sana’s statement does hint that it was Internet-related.
Due to these circumstances, the band has canceled their fan club tour “mobile FC [elite U’s] Hossoku 9th Anniversary Order Made Oneman ‘Go Chuumon wa UNiTE. Desuka?'”. The final day of this tour which takes place on May 27 has changed to a free performance with the name “UNiTE. Live ‘Korekara ni Tsuite'”. It’s been decided that this will dictate where UNiTE. go from here.
Each member apart from guitarist LiN released separate statements on different social media platforms. You can read the translated version below:
Statement from UNiTE.:
Thank you for always supporting UNiTE.
At the time of this statement, after discovering a significant issue regarding vocalist Yui that remained unsolved after discussions between members and staff, it has been decided that Yui will be dismissed from his role as vocalist and as a result, will be leaving the band as of the release of this statement.
We apologize deeply to all supporters and those involved with UNiTE for the sudden announcement.
Vocalist Yui:
I am very sorry for such a sudden announcement.
My departure from the band has been decided as a consequence of the dismissal decision taken as a sanction against me.
I express my apologies to all of the fans who supported me until now for the sadness caused.
I also apologize to each person who was involved in the band’s activities.As UNiTE’s vocalist for more than 10 years, I was granted a lot of experience, feelings, and sceneries.
I want to thank the fans who kept supporting me, the other members, the staff, and the other people involved who took care of me.
I am truly sorry and sad that I am unable to directly tell you “thank you” and “sorry”, so please let me tell you here instead.
“Thank you for these eleven years”.
Guitarist Shiina Mio:
I want to say thank you to the continued support of the fans, but also to people who supported UNiTE. even for a brief moment in all these eleven years. I am sincerely sorry for the sadness caused by this announcement.
I never thought that the day UNiTE would do such an announcement would come.
I wished that we could continue without incidents like this one.
We are a band and musicians, but first and foremost we are humans, with our individualities and own personal life, with our own thoughts and feelings.
If a band can come to life from the moment when these feelings become heavy enough, I think that the cause of what happened is that these feelings didn’t match this time.
At this precise moment, things we wanted to do were different, maybe it’s the only reason, but the fact that the order of this one was different became a crucial thing in all of this in my opinion.
It’s difficult for me to explain things in detail, it’s not something that we can easily summarize with the word “difference” that I used previously. I feel that during these last eleven years, each member felt that “difference” and gap between us many times.
I’m not an exception, and there were many times when I couldn’t overtake my own feelings.
That’s why I feel that people’s feelings can’t remain constant.
However, each time it happened everyone thought deeply, was worried about it, and in the end, we could get back on track with our initial shared goal and UNiTE. was able to keep going until now.
But this time we couldn’t find a common ground, leading to a different conclusion.
Maybe what I’m writing will make no sense to you, but I’m grateful if you’re reading this.
A lot of feelings are mixed up in my mind, but all I can feel currently is sorrow.
I’m sorry that it took me so long to post this message, I wasn’t able to put the right words in my thoughts.
I feel terribly sorry when I think of all of you in worry, anxiety, and pain while I remained silent.
We are in the middle of planning tons of things for the future, I’m still not sure about what we should do, but I’ll do everything I can from now on.
I’ll write something again when my mind and the future will be clearer, little by little.
Really, sorry.
Bassist Haku:
After a few days, I feel like I’ve returned to a state of normalcy so I’ll write the things I want to tell you here. I’m sorry it took so long.
Thank you to all of you who reached out during that time. I’m sorry that I couldn’t do enough to protect the band UNiTE. that everyone was trying their best to look after. At the same time, I’m so sorry that those feelings were not respected and I cannot forgive that.
Everyone had different thoughts and feelings at the time, but we all agreed that it was important to continue UNiTE. and to protect it no matter what. In order to do so, however, we needed to reconcile our feelings towards each other. I felt that we could no longer continue together if we no longer shared that same starting point.
I don’t know exactly how much I can or should write here, and I don’t think it necessary to put my personal feelings here but I feel like it’s irresponsable to say the least and it makes me what all those years we spent together was for.
Though there have also been times that “UNiTE. Yui” has saved me.
When I think about all of you who have supported us, I can only imagine you feel sadness, regret, gloom, a whole mixture of feelings but the only feeling I would ask you not to hold onto is hatred.
I’m sorry for so wilfully saying such a thing. I don’t know what we should do from here on or what we can do, but I will put my full effort into thinking of something. Also, I absolutely do not want for this particular case to be the reason things end.
Drummer Sana:
Things genuinely turned in a pathetic way, but more than that, I sincerely feel sorry about this. All things that I’m going to write are my own words, from my unique point of view only.
I can’t really go into details about the circumstances or the reasons here, but a lot of problems emerged from the Internet, it was the starting point of our discussions in which we decided to draw the line between him and us.
A lot of things happened during these last years. “A lot of things” includes of course many irreplaceable and precious memories, but now I can say it also includes plenty of unfortunate events.
I’ve been told that facing this kind of thing is what can make us stronger, and we kept going on to this point.
We talked to him again even on the day when we made the announcement, but he told us from his own mouth that he was not pursuing the same goal as us, so there was nothing to respond to that anymore. And to speak the truth, there was not enough room left in my heart to undertake these words.
The shape of UNiTE. you knew will change from now and I, who joined the band on August 16, 2014, express to you my apologies in this matter.
I am unsure of what is going to happen from now on, but we’ll start in order with things that we can do, and I will give my best to do everything in my power.
UNiTE. recently celebrated its 11th anniversary with a performance on March 29 at LINE CUBE SHIBUYA titled “UNiTE. 11th Anniversary one-man live [U&U’s -rìːlív-]”. The band’s final release with vocalist Yui is their 13th single titled Fuwari released on March 1. The band announced as far back as March 2021 that their sixth album was in the works with plans to release it in the fall. However, in September 2021, they indefinitely postponed its release. It’s currently unknown what will come of this album now.