GHEE Returns to São Paulo Roots for Historic Anime Friends Set
For Wolf Howl Harmony’s GHEE, this was never going to be just another tour stop. The singer spent part of his childhood in São Paulo, and two weeks ago at Anime Friends 2026, he finally performed there in front of a crowd that had been messaging him online for years without ever getting to see him in person.
“Coming back to Brazil and standing on that stage meant more to me than I can really explain,” GHEE says. “I got to reconnect with the local LOVERED community in person for the first time, and it felt like paying something back to my family here.”
Group Leans Into Local Culture for Emotional Set
The set opened hard with “BAKUON -爆音-” and “Gachi Funk,” both built on Brazilian funk influences, before the group broke into Portuguese greetings and bilingual chat about their favorite anime. HIROTO, who grew up watching Brazilian football, says the trip finally gave that admiration somewhere to land.
“Being here in person, feeling how warmly people welcomed us, made that admiration real. This is a connection I want to keep building outward,” HIROTO says.
When the group moved into acapella snippets of Dragon Ball and Naruto songs, the crowd picked them up instantly, one of several moments where the show turned into a full singalong. Then came “PLEASE,” a new track built around the group’s own path, with four people carrying each other through doubt and hope in equal measure. It opens on a four-part acapella, and when that hit live, the noise in the room dropped to near silence before building back into something bigger.
Throughout the set, the group wove in dance styles currently trending in Brazil, a deliberate nod to local culture that closed the distance with the crowd rather than performing at them.
Fans Sing Every Word, Sparking Solo Tour Talk
SUZUKI calls it one of the best shows the group has played. “People who’d never heard our music before were moving to it immediately, and that’s when I really understood what people mean when they say music has no borders,” SUZUKI says.
The group also performed its latest single “ココニイル Kokoniiru,” the ending theme for the anime Iwamoto-senpai no Suisen, sung entirely in Japanese. The crowd sang every word back anyway, not because it was unexpected, but because that’s what a fanbase already invested in this music does when the artist finally shows up in person.
RYOJI says the connection was already there before he even stepped on stage. “I actually felt confident even before stepping on stage, because GHEE had been building a connection with fans in Brazil online, and we’d felt that connection too. Once I was actually up there, the energy and love went far beyond what I imagined. A lot of people were discovering us for the first time, and I already know I want to come back,” RYOJI says.
The encore closed on “LOVE RED,” the song the group’s fanbase takes its name from, one they’ve performed since before they even debuted. One local media attendee at the show said Wolf Howl Harmony has carved out something genuinely distinct, not just within J-pop but among Asian artists more broadly, and suggested a solo Brazil tour, or a wider Latin America run, might not be far off.
