the official one ok rock site has been updated with new information. my japanese is really rough, so here's a rough summary for the moment. a full translation is in the works. ^^
after the incident with the girl on the train, it was settled out of court and alex was not arrested. he offered to quit the band, and after a long decision, the members accepted his resignation. they're currently in the process of rearranging things and hope to resume activities by the summer.
*sigh*
i had a feeling this was what was going to come of this. hopefully they'll be able to move past it as a group and come out even stronger.
on a somewhat related note, the site did get updated with upcoming magazines before it got pulled. so far, just about every magazine that was on the list (and there were a lot) managed to get the one ok rock article pulled before it went to press. pati pati did not. so, if anyone wants to see the article for the single that wasn't, here you go.
pati pati 2009.05
[edit] translation done, thank you
mynthence :)
Concerning the future activities of ONE OK ROCK
Thank you for continuously supporting ONE OK ROCK. Firstly, we would like to apologize for the concern that we caused you all as well as our delay in reporting to you.
Concerning the incident involving Alex at this time, a portion of the information has been released via the media, but several days ago the verdict ended as a non-prosecution. We apologize once again for causing trouble and anxiety among all of the fans who have been supporting us up until now.
Having received this resolution, the staff members have continued to discuss matters in the past few weeks. From Alex himself there was a request to depart from ONE OK ROCK as a result of reflecting deeply on his responsibilities as a band member and from a feeling of apology for the victim.
The remaining members struggled to accept this decision, but in the end, they resolved to continue the band with the four of them. The conclusion was that the only thing that they could do from themselves was to continue to pass on their music to all of the fans.
As a result of a conference with all parties involved, we have decided to continue on in the preparations that are necessary for resuming activities this summer. Once the date for resuming activities has been decided upon, we will make a formal announcement.
We ask that you continue to support us throughout this time.
ONE OK ROCK Staff
Comments from the members
Firstly I’d like to apologize to all of the people who are worried for us we for delaying the release of our direct comments to the website.
To be honest, there are still so many things that haven’t been sorted out yet and even now I still feel as if I can’t quite believe everything that is happening. We cried a lot, despaired a lot and betrayed a lot. I feel quite disgusted at myself for all of this and even though I know that I need to face forward, no matter how much I laugh, right now I’m at the point where my true feelings are one of wondering “Was it really this hard to face forward?” This past month we members have talked together as much as was possible, foundered about with the conclusions that we came up with and in turn, supported one another.
The one thing that all of us members had in mind from the very beginning was that “We cannot allow this band to break apart!”. This band has everything that we are wrapped up into it and is the only purely precious thing that we have! We have now because, we love music and no matter what happened we overcame it with music, worked at it with everything that we had, made companions that could help each other out and eventually through many people we were able to support one another. But for now, there’s really too many things that we need to give back to everyone and for a stupid person like me who can’t even study properly, the only way that I can give any of that back is through music. Right now I think that no matter what the situation becomes like, this is the the only thing that won’t change.
From now on, we 4 will be combining our power together to, more than before, give these things back to you all one by one so please continue to support us just as you have up until now as we move on full throttle!!
We’re really in your hands!
Taka
I deeply regret that with the incident that occurred, we have betrayed the expectations of all the people who were anticipating our upcoming live shows and releases.
I think that I would like to strive forward with new feelings as a new ONE OK ROCK.
Please wait for us a bit more until this summer!!
Tomoya
Sorry, everyone, for making your worry.
I had problems thinking of how I should express what I want to say in words but…
We’ll start back from square one and work hard so please wait for us!
Ryota
Sorry everyone for making you wait so long.
It’s hard for me to express my current feelings in written words so I would like to send those feelings to everyone through our live shows as soon as possible!
I really want to meet with everyone soon and also want to play in the live so please wait a bit longer!
Thank you everyone!
Toru