When Mana was in school, he wanted a guitar, so his parents purchased for him a folk guitar. He says he never once played on it, and later bought an electric guitar with his own money. On stage his guitars of choice are all made by ESP, many of which are custom.

He became interested in heavy metal and punk rock about the time he reached high school, and started experimenting with new hair styles, mainly the Mohawk and other such styling as far as clothes and etc.. but his father later tried to get him to stop due to the fact he was a teacher and Mana's uniqueness was making him nervous, because his family held very highly the Japanese custom to appreciate and cater to what others think of you. Mana didn't care, to say the least. Mana hated wearing a uniform for school, so he made his unique to him. He also wore his extreme clothing styles to school events such as sporting events and things of the like.

He began to like girly things, such as dresses and makeup, and is seldom seen even in public without them. He is considered the feminine one of Malice Mizer, even though they are all pretty feminine. After high school he went to live in Osaka. He formed a small punk band there. It was unsuccessful and disbanded shortly after formation. Classical music was also a favorite of Manas. He later met Kozi in Tokyo, and they played in live houses and etc. Kozi and Mana swore that they would never let their band imitate foreign artists, because one of the big goals in Malice Mizer was to be unique with their own style and flair.

When the group started in '92 they encountered a lot of hardship. At many of their performances, there were complaints due to the morbid style and sometimes messiness of them. The group received the most complaints about the fake blood they splattered on stage. The complaints were mainly that it was hitting the audience and such, but that didn't discourage MM. They just made sure to be more careful. :)
Mana says that he does in fact like females, but he wants them to be cute, sort of like a cartoon character.

He doesn't preoccupy himself with females much, and he doesn't like to get close. He says getting to close causes the relationship to lose its freshness and get boring.

After the disbanding of Malice Mizer in 2000, Mana started another "project" band that he calls Moi dix Mois (My ten months), and their first CD is called Dix Infernal, and was released in March of 2003. I've had the luck of obtaining this CD and must say, it's very excellent. The vocalist, Juka, has a very wide range in his voice. A couple of songs I could've swore were being sung by Gackt.

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