Midori Tatematsu

is a Japanese heavy metal musician and fitness competitor. She is best known as a guitarist of the all-female band Lovebites since their founding in 2016. She was previously in the all-female band Gekijo Metalicche from 2013 to 2016. Midori began weight training in November 2021 during a hiatus in Lovebites' activities, and has since earned two silver medals in fitness competitions.

Early life Midori Tatematsu was born in Takamatsu, Kagawa on May 28, 1988. She started to learn piano at around two or three years of age and electric organ at eight. She moved to Kyoto when she entered university and gave up both instruments but started to learn guitar at 20. Her first time playing electric guitar on a stage was with a brass band. Eventually, after trying various things, she decided she wanted to be in a metal band. He was a fan of all-girl bands, but, as he is a man, told Midori to form one and he would provide the music. Because they are Japanese Zen did not want to use English in their band's name, therefore it is a mix of kanji and hiragana. She coined "metalicche" as a cute version of "metal", Midori added "gekijo" which means "passion", and Migaki wanted to add a "★". The band then signed with major record label King Records and released Upgrade (Kari), their first and only studio album, on May 13, 2015. Gekijo Metalicche disbanded on February 12, 2016, after Midori and Tsubasa decided to leave the band.

Later that year, Midori was announced as a member of the newly formed all-female heavy metal band Lovebites. She already knew bassist Miho, drummer Haruna, and guitarist Miyako, but the four chose vocalist Asami based on a demo she made. They had their first concert on November 18, 2016, at Tsutaya O-West as part of the Girls Band Next Generation event. It was released in the United Kingdom and in North America later that year. At the time, Midori was the only official guitarist in the band. Support musician Miyako officially became their second guitarist in August 2017, and they released their first full-length album Awakening from Abyss that October. Lovebites played their first gigs outside Japan in London, England at the end of November 2017, and won the Metal Hammer Golden Gods Award for Best New Band in 2018. Over the next two years, the group released an EP and two studio albums while continuing to perform overseas, including major festivals such as Wacken Open Air, Download Festival, and Graspop Metal Meeting. After releasing their third EP Glory, Glory, to the World, Lovebites had a year-long hiatus between the departure of Miho in August 2021 and the joining of Fami in October 2022. Their comeback album, February 2023's Judgement Day, became their highest-charting record to date when it reached number 5 on both the Oricon and Billboard Japan charts. and a guitar solo to Masahiro Aoki's 2025 song "Everfall", which was created for the video game Sixtar Gate: Stargaze and included on Aoki's album Chronicle II.

Musicianship

Midori is known for her technical proficiency and the use of various techniques in her guitar playing, such as legato, string skipping, sweep picking, tapping, eight-finger tapping and use of vibrato arms. Andrew Daly of Guitar World wrote that, "Guitar hero status seems to have come naturally to Tatematsu, whose feats of death-defying alternate picking and neoclassical arpeggios are routinely astonishing." Midori has said that she is conscious of playing with emotion and that this can be seen in her facial expressions, which she noted not many female guitarists do. She also always writes her own guitar solos. Generally speaking, Midori said that she plays the "flashy and aggressive" guitar solos in Lovebites, while Miyako plays the "slower, more melodic" ones.

Midori became interested in heavy metal music from Galneryus and visual kei metal bands such as Deluhi. The black E-II Horizon is nearly the same, but has a Seymour Duncan Sentient pickup in the front and is kept in drop D tuning. She has since used two of them live; one that is based on the ESP Arrow shape, and the other that is a combination of an ESP Ultratone and Snapper.

In April 2026, ESP released Midori's signature model based on the E-II Horizon, the Horizon-FR Midori Custom. It has a hard maple top with mahogany back, a three-piece hard maple neck, an ebony fingerboard with stainless steel frets, and a "Glitter Storm Violet" paint job. It features gold-colored hardware, including Seymour Duncan SH-1n and SH-14 pickups, and a Floyd Rose bridge. At the same time, ESP also released a more affordable version under their Edwards brand, the E-Horizon-FR Midori Custom. Midori began weight training that November. She also took sixth place in the Under 158 cm bikini fitness class of the 7th Kanto Bikini Fitness Championship on August 6, 2022. Midori earned her first medal when she took second place in the body fitness category at the 14th Kita-ku Open Bodybuilding Fitness Tournament on October 30, 2022. On July 2, 2023, she took fifth place in the Under 158 cm body fitness class of the 2023 Eastern Japan Fitness Championship. She won her second silver medal in the Under 158 cm body fitness class at the 58th Tokyo Bodybuilding Championship on July 16, 2023.

Discography

With Lovebites Awakening from Abyss (2017) Clockwork Immortality (2018) Electric Pentagram (2020) Judgement Day (2023) Outstanding Power (2026)

With Gekijo Metalicche

I Yassaaa (September 6, 2014)