Japan is a market that rewards patience and punishes shortcuts. PRTL, pronounced “portal,” exists for companies that understand this and want someone who has already done the work.
I’m Taishi Fukuyama. Founder and CEO of PRTL. Based in Tokyo.
Before this agency, I was a music producer. My first major production credit was in 2003. By 2007, I had credits with BoA, JUJU, Tohoshinki, and Crystal Kay — household names across Japan and Korea, on major-label releases that topped the charts. I won the first Red Bull Soundclash in Japan.
I mention this not to lead with a discography. I mention it because those years gave me something you can’t acquire from the outside: fluency. Japan’s music industry runs on trust, context, and introduction. You don’t enter it with a pitch deck. You earn your position through the people who vouch for you, and through understanding the room well enough to know what can and can’t be said directly.
Around 2010, I pivoted into music technology. Japan territory roles for The Echo Nest, Consolidated Independent, and Mobile Roadie. When Spotify acquired The Echo Nest in 2014, I held the Spotify BD Japan card.
From 2013 to 2017, I wrote about music technology for WIRED Japan. In 2014, I organized Music Hack Day Tokyo, the first Music Hack Day in Asia. That same year, I spoke on a Japan market entry panel at SXSW in Austin.
By 2021, the pattern was clear. Global music tech companies arriving in Japan with presence but without fluency. They’d present, leave, and wonder why nothing moved. The deals that actually closed were the ones where someone was operating on the ground, holding context across the full cycle.
That’s PRTL’s mandate. Not a consultant who delivers a report and moves on. The operator in Japan who makes introductions that matter, structures conversations that move, and stays in the room until the deal closes.
We work across music metadata, distribution, and licensing. Small roster. Hands-on work.
Music Story’s entry into the Japanese market through PRTL has included partnerships with Sony Electronics, LINE MUSIC, KKBOX, Avex, and CEIPA — the body behind Music Awards Japan. The Avex deal, Japan’s first major-label metadata partnership of its kind, was covered by Music Ally. A feature on Music Story’s CEO followed in Musicman, one of Japan’s leading music industry publications.
ROLI’s Japan work through PRTL included a feature in WIRED Japan during their market entry phase.
Revelator’s Japan expansion through PRTL was covered by Music Business Worldwide in 2023.
Earlier engagements include Spotify and The Echo Nest during their Japan entry phases.
If you’re in music tech and working through what Japan would actually take, I’m happy to talk.
