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Rythem Duo to Disband After February Live Concert

The two members of the musical group Rythem announced on Sunday that they are disbanding after one last album and a live concert. The two singer-songwriters, Yui Niitsu and Yukari Katō, made the announcement at 9:00 p.m. to over 15,000 viewers via a live stream on the Ustream website — the first time that a Japanese group announced its disbanding this way. By 10:15 p.m. on Sunday, the Hashtagcloud website reported that Rythem topped the overall and entertainment hash-tag ranking charts for Japanese Twitter posts.

Niitsu and Katō, or Yui and Yuka as they are known to their fans, will continue to make music separately.

Rythem's last single, "A Flower," will ship on November 10, and the last album, simply titled, Rythem, will ship on December 8. The two will hold a nationwide "Acoustic PoP Tour'11~Live Tree" tour next January, followed by a final "Final Fantasy Live~Rythem Shijō Saikō no Rythem!!!" live concert at the Zepp Tokyo hall on February 27, 2011.

The duo made their debut, while they were still high school seniors, with the second Naruto ending theme song "Harmonia" in 2003. That song sold over 70,000 copies. They then performed the theme song for the live-action television of adaptation of Keiko Tobe's With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child manga. They also performed the theme songs for Deltora Quest, Hamtaro, and Yakitate!! Japan.

Source: Barks