Takuya Kimura (木村拓哉) premiered the music video for his new single “In the Light” (光の中で) on YouTube on August 12, with the clip going live at 8:00 p.m. Japan time. The song appears on Kimura’s new album Checkpoint, his first full studio release since moving to the label C&C STAGE.
“In the Light” has already topped USEN’s J-POP request chart. The music video’s thumbnail shows Kimura seated in front of a mirror with an acoustic guitar, though full details of the video were kept under wraps ahead of the premiere.
Checkpoint, released the same day, was described by Kimura’s team as a project meant to capture him taking stock of where he currently stands while mapping a route toward what comes next. The album features songwriting and production contributions from a notably wide range of artists, including comedian and musician Sanma Akashiya, Tamio Okuda, Mitsuki Kimura of Yuka Dan, Taka of ONE OK ROCK, Masayoshi Yamazaki, and Rei.
Kimura will support the album with the “TAKUYA KIMURA Live Tour 2026 Checkpoint,” kicking off September 5 at GLION ARENA KOBE. The tour also stops in Fukuoka and Chiba, with international dates in Seoul and Taipei, running through late November.
Who is Takuya Kimura?
Takuya Kimura, born November 13, 1972, in Tokyo, rose to fame as a member of the boy band SMAP from 1988 until the group’s disbandment in 2016. Beyond music, he has built a prolific acting career, starring in hit dramas such as Long Vacation, HERO, Change, BG: Personal Bodyguard, and Grand Maison Tokyo, as well as films including Love and Honor, Confessions of a Prosecutor, and Masquerade Hotel. In 2017, he won Best Actor at the 27th Japan Movie Critics Awards for his role in Blade of the Immortal. Kimura released his first solo album, Go with the Flow, in January 2020, followed by a tour of Tokyo and Osaka.
Author’s Comment
Kimura-san doing a mirror-and-acoustic-guitar cover shot at 53 is exactly the kind of quietly confident image only a former SMAP center can pull off without anyone blinking. What gets me is the guest list on this album — Sanma doing comedy AND songwriting, Taka from ONE OK ROCK, Yamazaki Masayoshi — that’s not a normal collaborator list, that’s a man calling in every favor accumulated over four decades in the business. "Checkpoint" as an album title from a guy who’s been famous since the Showa era is either very self-aware or very on-the-nose, and honestly I love that Japanese celebrities never quite decide which one they’re going for. Taipei and Seoul dates tell you everything about where the money and the fandom actually are these days.
