There are now two full-blooded Japanese young men bidding for adulation from the multitude of Pinoys as members of a band signed up recently by AltG, a sub-unit of GMA Music. The boyband is known as Sky Garden.

The two are Hiro and Iwa, who have been living here for more than a year now upon the invitation of the band's founder Ryu (pronounced as Rio), who is a Pinoy-Japanese brought up in Japan, finished college there and worked for a few years at Toyota in Japan.

Ryu's mother is from Isabela. When the pandemic unsettled the world, he decided to move to the Philippines where he easily landed a work-from-home job. He also landed a scholarship for a one-year course at the Ateneo de Manila University.

Ryu, Hiro and Iwa (for easier recall they use their very short nicknames as their showbiz names) are very close friends from Nagoya, Japan. They have another friend — but he took his own life sometime after he lost his job due to the economic constraints and contractions brought by the pandemic virus.

Ryu was already in the Philippines when he learned about the tragedy. As casually and as briefly as he could at the launch of Sky Garden in Quezon City, Ryu revealed that he got very worried Hiro might fall into depression, too, since the latter eventually lost his job, too, and so did Iwa.

Ryu convinced Hiro and Iwa to join him in the Philippines and he would take care of them until the pandemic subsides, and new jobs and financial opportunities open in the Land of the Rising Sun.