HANZAISHA
War Metal from Japan
WAR METAL FROM JAPAN
Hanziasha is a black metal band hailing from Shiga, Japan.Hanzaisha started in the summer of 2023 under the name Gouniromech, after Black Infestation’s solo death metal project Aerst was abandoned. Black Infestation at the time, named himself “Red War Of The Blackened Mask”, and shortly after, the original second guitarist of the band “Seven Peaceful Lights Of The Three White Hearts” joined the band. This lineup eventually split-up on good terms in March of 2024, leading to Black Infestation changing his stage name, changing the band’s name to Hanzaisha, and recruiting Alcoholizer of Disisto as a live drummer near the start of 2025.From their very beginnings in that summer of 2023, they were among one of many extreme metal and hardcore punk bands to form in Shiga Prefecture, specifically in Nagahama City, a city not well-known for having a die-hard extreme metal inner circle. This ensured that only the most maniacal of metalheads and punkheads based within the prefecture would follow them.Along with By-Pass, Murdiena, Disisto, and a handful of other bands from the region, Hanzaisha during their Gouniromech years, played a primordial style of punk-metal fusion influenced by powerviolence, grindcore, and thrash metal. Disisto in particular would lean towards crust punk and label themselves “crustviolence”, while Murdiena gained a local following for their intense thrash metal sound, and By-Pass gained their own underground following for their maniacal punk-leaning grindcore. Gouniromech would opt for heavy black metal and thrash metal influences with their punk-metal fusion, creating a style that nicely fits within that inner scene of punk-metal fusion in Japan.However, as time progressed during 2024 and 2025 after the original line-up disbanded, and Black Infestation’s creative style was improving bit after bit, Gouniromech, during their transition into Hanzaisha, eventually transformed their earlier primordial style of black metal and thrash metal-influenced crust punk, into pure old-school black metal, specifically a heavily crust punk-influenced variation of the Blasphemy style, that also features the unique use of a noisier approach to songwriting that leans itself towards a heavier grindcore influence.This stylistic transition had evolved them from a simple black metal and thrash metal-inspired crust punk band, into an aggressive and bestial black metal machine. There are still a lot of punk-metal fusion undertones present in this new style (partially due to the fact that they still associate themselves with their earlier local scene of Japanese punk-metal fusion), but they have now stabilized on hyper-aggressive black metal with a greater focus on death metal and grindcore elements + strong undertones from D-beat, crust punk, and their earlier sound. The band had also found their own unique message, due to their obsession with themes relating to the horrors of war, corruption, and social issues. They also started to use a Satanic presentation of those themes, both visually and musically. This decision was perfectly suited to the band, who were taking influence from Canada’s Ross Bay Cult at the time. Given the evil and over-the-top edge they started to exhibit, they now consider themselves the beginning of War Metal in Japan.Although “Blackened Domination Christ” demo served as the first time the original Gouniromech sound and style officially debuted, as Gouniromech never officially made a recording with the original lineup during its one year activity, it was after Alcoholizer departed from Hanzaisha that Black Infestation fully transitioned into the newfound, darker, war-themed black metal direction. In this new direction, Hanzaisha released “Unholy Emperor”, which upon its original Bandcamp release, proved the band to be Japan’s crust punk-influenced answer to the most hyper-aggressive variants of black metal. Somewhere in-between Blasphemy, early Sepultura and Disrupt, Unholy Emperor is a very aggressive release that punishes the listener with might, but still has many catchy undertones in the wild. The demo was also released through German label Iconoclasm Conquest, much to the effect of spreading Hanzaisha’s influence from Japan to other metal scenes.Following their one show as a one-man project opening for Deiphago alongside fellow comrades Iron Bludgeon, Hanzaisha released a series of more devastating recordings, from the third demo Judas Hell, the debut album Antichrist Supremacy Violations, and the self-titled EP, which evolved upon the direction Hanzaisha took, adding more death metal influences with slow, brutal, dissonant riffing, mixed with the grindcore and crust punk like approach to writing.After the release of the self-titled EP, Hanzaisha went to work on a new release. This time however, the crust punk influence had finally transformed into something far more chaotic and violent, the head-banging, catchy undertones abandoned and replaced with an unholy atmosphere as a consequence. This stylistic shift would later be announced in the form of an upcoming EP called “Liberated Chaos Machines”.On “Liberated Chaos Machines”, the chaos and noise aspects of the Hanzaisha sound are amped up to an absurd degree, arguably transforming the crust punk undertones into more chaotic, unholy, and violent directions, exacerbated by a production quality that considerably emphasizes percussion and noise over everything else. It has proved to be so chaotic that comparisons to Tetragrammacide, Revenge, Conqueror, Damaar, and Deiphago are warranted. It is by far one of the most unrelenting and brutal things Hanzaisha had ever released, proving even further that they had finally found the sound they wanted.Shortly after recording the EP, during September 2025, Hanzaisha finally hired Jared Moran as their official studio drummer. After a series of releases featuring re-recorded versions of Hanzaisha’s earlier material, even including a fully developed cut of Judas Hell and going up to the self-titled EP with the release of Demonarchy with Jared doing studio drums, Hanzaisha finally released their second album “Triumphant Devastation of the Empire” on the Japanese Emperor’s birthday.The sound on the second album has been given more diversity compared to Liberated Chaos Machines, featuring sludge metal influence, highly grinding rhythms from
Jared’s contribution, and more textural atmospheres, while not compromising on the chaos of Hanzaisha’s sound.BIWAKO STREET CULT ETERNAL
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