The Ventures' 1962 trip to Japan sparked the "eleki boom." Thousands of young men bought electric guitars and taught themselves how to play. As a movement it worried their elders, who believed such distractions were an obstacle to schoolwork, or worse.

It wasn't the first time Western pop music rumpled Japan's social fabric. The short-lived "rockabilly" craze of the late '50s introduced sexually charged aspects of American rock 'n' roll to Japanese pop, mainly in the form of outrageous stage movements. The eleki boom's ramifications were more commercial, since it prepared the ground for the coming Group Sounds (GS) fad that solidified the position of talent agencies in shaping the direction of Japanese pop.

The two central performing figures of the eleki boom were Takeshi "Terry" Terauchi and Yuzo Kayama. Terauchi is the pioneer of electric guitar in Japan, and was already an established musician before The Ventures arrived. Having grown up in an electrical-goods shop, he was technically adept, and legend has it he not only built his first electric stringed instrument from scratch but also Japan's first electric piano. In his two groups, the Bunnys and the Blue Jeans, Terauchi played Ventures-like instrumentals but with more flash: He was the master of the whammy bar. Most of the songs he covered were minyo (folk songs).