In yet another breaking development that casts a blinding spotlight on the unrelenting passage of time and my lost teens, Maaya Sakamoto, my favourite singer in all dimensions of space and time, got married at the ripe age of 31 to fellow seiyuu Ken’ichi Suzumura.

Seriously, do you people realize that the 90s was like twenty years ago? It’s fricking insane. Maaya is basically old school now. I don’t even know the names of any voice actors nowadays. Get off my proverbial lawn you damn kids. I am having a quarter-life crisis.

Anyway, I had just returned from a trip to Hong Kong two days ago and spent today finishing up my packing for my imminent house-moving, so I didn’t notice this piece of gigantic news until Kurogane messaged me on Twitter.

There’s a short personal message on Maaya’s official news feed announcing that the wedding took place on 8th August (incidentally a rather auspicious date in some East Asian cultures):

今日はいつも応援してくださっている皆様に、ご報告したいことがありまãã€‚
私、坂本真綾は、８月８日に声優の鈴村健一さんと結婚しました。

今までの自分の人生の中で
好きだと思うことや、嬉しい、心地いいと思うことを優先ãã‚‹è¡Œå‹•ãŒ
いつも未来につながってきました。
だから結婚についても、
私がそうしたいと心から思えるときが自然と来たので
その気持ちに従いました。
鈴村さんは、一緒にいるととても穏やかな気持ちになれる、優しい人でãã€‚
これからも私が私らしく歌い、演じ、そして生きていくために、
心休まるパートナーが側にいてくれること、とても頼もしく思いまãã€‚
皆様にも、あたたかく見守っていただけたら嬉しいでãã€‚

これからもより一層仕事に励んでいきたいと思っておりまãã®ã§ã€
どうぞよろしくお願いいたしまãã€‚

坂本真綾

Today I have an announcement to make to everyone who has long supported me.
I, Maaya Sakamoto, was married to voice actor Ken’ichi Suzumura on August 8.

Throughout my life, prioritizing the things I like and the things that make me happy and feel at ease has always turned out to be the right path to my future.
So when it came to marriage, the feeling that this was the right time came naturally to me and I decided to follow it.
Suzumura-san is a kind person who makes me feel calm when we are together.
I believe that as I continue to sing, perform and be myself in the coming future, it will be great to have a supportive partner by my side.
I would be really glad if everyone would also continue to watch over us.

I hope to strive even harder in my work in the future, so please continue to lend me your support.

Maaya Sakamoto

Interestingly, as noted by Kurogane, Ken’ichi Suzumura voiced Shinn Asuka in Gundam SEED DESTINY, alongside Maaya who voiced Lunamaria Hawke. This is like Nadesico’s Ruri x Akito all over again. Although Nadesico is by now so old in Internet age that I don’t think anyone online knows what I am talking about.

Real-life parallels fiction

Now to be clear, this is not going to be a fanboy rage thing where I desperately struggle in a futile attempt to not have to confront reality because the marriage of my favourite singer somehow symbolizes the lost of a part of my comfort zone for the past decade. But I have to admit that the timing of this almost too perfectly coincides with the start of a new chapter of my life.

Human beings are superstitious creatures like it or not, and it’s not unreasonable to perceive mutual significance in unrelated events as long as we keep it to poetic musings.

I am actually quite happy for Maaya. 31 is kind of old for a woman to get married by Japanese standards and, in typical Japanese fashion, all sorts of social complexities evolve past 30 for a single working woman. Hope she continues to sing.

I guess officially Maaya Sakamoto is now Maaya Suzumura even though she probably keeps her maiden name as her stage name for branding purpose.

I caught SDN48 live performing in Singapore at Scape last Friday. I was going to wait for the official concert photos to be distributed to the blogosphere before I write about it, but the PR minions are taking forever and my recollection of the event is growing faint as the curse of old age silently obliterates my memory.

So yeah, this is what I think. I’ll just add in photos later if they ever show up.

SDN48, or Saturday Night 48, is AKB48‘s more “adult” sister group. It is the most recent entry in AKB48’s growing idol empire and the only group of the four that is not regional-based. SDN48 members are generally in their 20s and older than the members of the other three groups, with some of them being former AKB48 members.

AKB48 is really the only group with any significant overseas fan-base, so it was rather surprising for SDN48 to hold a live in Singapore. After all, AKB48 itself belongs to a small niche outside of Japan, while SDN48 remains a niche even within Japan. Last Friday’s live was actually SDN48’s first ever overseas performance.

SDN48 posing in Orchard Road, Singapore’s take on Venice’s Grand Canal

The performance was actually rather enjoyable, despite my near-complete ignorance of everything AKB48 and its spin-offs. The songs are standard pop fare, but faster paced, more rhythmic and with more dance beats than most of what I’ve heard from AKB48.

Being the so-called “adult” version idol group, SDN48’s music videos and stage presentations are slightly more risqué than what J-Pop idol groups like Morning Musume usually go for (e.g. soap-bubble bath, revealing costumes and implied lesbianism) but nothing that will incite pitchforks and angry mobs. Might be kind of pseudo-provocative thirty years ago.

That said, one of SDN48’s numbers last Friday had a dance routine that included sexy corsets, stockings with garterbelts and — wait for it — three pairs of black panties being thrown into the audience. I’m guessing you wouldn’t see that at an AKB48 concert. Heh.

SDN48 members who performed last Friday

The interesting part for me was that, of the twelve SDN48 members sent to perform in Singapore, there were Chen Qu, a native of Shenyang, China, and Sayaka Kondo, who grew up in Detroit, Michigan. Between the two of them, they had both English and Mandarin Chinese — the two main languages spoken in Singapore — covered. Heck, SDN48 has a main single whose title is partially Korean (Ai, Chuseyo) and one of their other songs has Chen Qu doing verses in Chinese. Talk about market research.

It’s quite clear that the whole 48 franchise is just raring to make it big in the international (ala East Asian) market and a lot of groundwork is being done by the producers attempting to pull it off. SDN48’s dance routines and presentation styles are noticeably influenced by the current tide of Korean pop dominating the market, which in turn draws on international and Western influences more than past Japanese idol groups. Yasushi Akimoto has definitely been taking notes and learning from Japan’s past successes and recent failures.

Still, the inclusion of two Chinese members did not save Morning Musume from its free-falling descent into obscurity and niche-dom, and I think it’s still too early to tell if AKB48 and its sister groups can successfully become J-Pop’s new messiah and growth engine in the international market, a position that has been unfilled since Ayumi Hamasaki.

The Caucasian guy is a metaphor for the overseas market

I estimated about 800-1000 seats in AKB48’s permanent live venue in Singapore. At 50 SGD a pop, that’s $50,000 per gig at the maximum, which is probably barely enough to pay for return Business class tickets from Japan for 12-16 girls and their entourage of manager(s) and make-up artist(s). Yasushi Akimoto is definitely investing for the long-term here.

Frankly, now I am thinking of catching one of the upcoming AKB48 lives in Singapore, purely out of academic curiosity. This could be (pop culture) history in the making.

Oh, one more thing: I am kind of obligated to inform you that Animax Asia is holding a contest called “AKB48 Watch & Win” to give out AKB48 Singapore live tickets, merchandises and meet & greet opportunities. From now until 26 August, a name of an AKB48 member will be shown on Animax between 8pm to 12am everyday from Mondays to Fridays. You have to submit the correct name to the official site to enter the lucky draw.

Kids, this is what happens when you sell your soul.

P.S. I still think Momusu was better in its heydays. D:

A short press conference was held today for the opening of AKB48’s official merchandise store in Singapore and their first permanent theatre outside of Japan. There was also a short photography session with Misaki Iwasa, Mika Komori and Miho Miyazaki from AKB48 who were present for the opening ceremony.

AKB48 Singapore is a project consisting of a permanent theatre, a merchandise store and a theme cafe (to be opened late June).

Members of AKB48, along with their sister groups SKE48, NMB48 and SDN48, will be performing at the theatre twice a month on a regular basis. The first public performance will be held tomorrow, May 15, and the performers consist of a mix of Team A, K and B members.

Meet and greet

AKB48 actually performed in Singapore last year as part of AFA X. Presumably the reception was good enough for the business end to decide to establish a permanent presence in Singapore.

Crowd of photographers blocking the view

There was a queue of fans waiting for the official store opening today. Probably because there is a handshake session with the three girls for customers making purchases of 15 SGD or more. I didn’t have to queue because I was with the media people, but I didn’t buy anything and only took a quick look around. The store is pretty standard for an official merchandise store of its type.

Blind overhead shoot

Everything is located within the *SCAPE complex located behind Cineleisure. The entire building was playing AKB48 songs for the store opening.

The queue goes around the building

AKB48, despite its origins, has become incredibly mainstream in Japan in the past two years thanks to aggressive marketing, perhaps even exceeding the former glory of Morning Musume. When I was in Japan last month, there were AKB48 posters put up by the Tokyo metropolitan government telling people to vote in the elections.

Posing for photos

That said, the Asian pop market is quite a different game altogether and holding two concerts a month in Singapore seems like a rather intensive schedule to keep for an overseas location, just considering the logistics alone.

This looks like a huge strategic push to make AKB48 part of the mainstream consciousness in the overseas J-Pop market, which in recently years has grown stale, partly due to a lack of a new generation of flag-bearers, and has been severely under-performing compared to its Korean counterpart. It’s a gamble but it can potentially pay off huge for the entire industry if it establishes a new wave for similar J-Pop idol groups.

Also worth noting is that Singapore has a rather large Japanese expatriate community for its size.

Maybe one day there will be a Singapore franchise. SGP48.

I expected last year to be my first and last chance to watch Maaya Sakamoto perform live, but I was wrong and my sentiments at the time were rendered somewhat hyperbolic in retrospect. In spite of the recent events in Japan, I managed to make my way to Osaka International Convention Center last night for her “You can’t catch me” live tour.

This time last year, Budoukan was surrounded by a pink forest of cherry blossoms. The sakura trees have yet to bloom this year because of the colder weather.

Last year’s concert was a joyous celebration of Maaya’s 15th anniversary as a singer and her 30th birthday. This year, it came two weeks after the largest earthquake that ever shook Japan devastated Tohoku, and the Sendai and Sapporo legs of the tour were subsequently cancelled. In some ways, the tone of yesterday’s concert reflected the current mood of the nation. Portions of the setlist were changed and Maaya spoke about her feelings as a self-identified Tokyoite of seeing the great metropolis she thinks of as her hometown falter beneath a dark cloud of uncertainty as epitomized by the unprecedented rolling blackouts and the bent antenna atop Tokyo Tower.

LED board at the convention centre

Her performance was enchanting. I actually thought that the acoustics in the convention centre’s main hall was much better than at Budoukan, but my experience might have been slightly enhanced by the fact that my seat was in the 6th row from the stage. Maaya stood literally 7-8m in front of me.

There was a moment where, I swear with all my heart, she looked right into my eyes, our gazes met for a fleeting two seconds, time came to a standstill and the world achieved perfection… Just let a man have his dreams, okay?

Seriously though, it was really a significantly superior experience for me as compared to last year. The premium seat made a huge difference, but the stage also had much better computer-controlled lighting effects and fog machines. The only drawback was that there were no huge LCD screens so the folks sitting far behind were kind of screwed as far as the visual experience was concerned.

My only complaint is that she didn’t sing as many of her oldies as I would’ve liked. Then again, I guess I shouldn’t have expected much from a live tour named after her latest album. The full setlist for Osaka (apparently she tweaks it for every venue) is as follows:

1. eternal return
2. Himitsu
3. KIMIDORI
4. Utsukushii Hito
5. Mizuumi
6. ALKALOID
7. SPICA
8. Tegami
9. KIMI NO SEI
10. Remedy
11. Kanashikute Yarikirenai
12. MOONLIGHT -mata wa “kimi ga nemuru tame no ongaku”-
13. UNIVERSE
14. Kazemachi JET
15. Private Sky
16. Get No Satisfaction!
17. MAGIC NUMBER
18. Hikari Are
19. TOPIA
20. Bokura no Rekishi
21. everywhere
22. POCKET wo Kara ni Shite

Overall, I have to say that Utsukushii Hito was hands down the best performance of the night. It must be a really difficult song to perform live, but Maaya pulled it off perfectly as far as I could aurally discern. Plus, the synchronized beams of light casting streaks of shadows through the fog screen gave the entire scene an aura of mystique that played very well with the piece’s classic oriental vibe. (The song was composed by Yoko Kanno for last year’s Shanghai World Expo to commemorate historical exchanges between the Tang Dynasty and Japan.)

The concert also made me realize that Kanashikute Yarikirenai is a really great song. It is one of the three Japanese classics Maaya covered for a recent single release, and I didn’t think much of it until last night. The song is about sadness so intense that there is no end in sight and tomorrow seems as bleak as today. Other than the fact that it is a cover, the song also differs from Maaya’s usual repertoire in that it is about pure unfiltered grief, whereas most of her songs tend to be hopefully optimistic, neutral or at the very least subtly melancholic. I came to this realization during the performance and really enjoyed the way Maaya sang it. Her sorrowful tone sent chills down my spine.

I think Maaya really did an excellent job conveying her feelings about the earthquake through her words and her songs. She wrote a 4-page message that was included in handouts given to all the attendees. She also took the time to explain on-stage why she chose to make certain changes to the setlist.

She shared with the audience how, some years ago, her elder brother was met with a serious accident and went into coma for a month. Her father told her not to cancel a live performance scheduled for the next day because he believed it was vital for life to continue as per usual for the family so that the brother would have a functional family to return home to.

Maaya also shared a fan letter she received from a young man in Sendai who described to her all the things that he plans to accomplish and the places he plans to visit for the rest of his life because he felt that there is nothing he is not capable of achieving after having survived a life-changing event so terrible.

Maaya brought with her a message of hope and humility. There were plenty of teary eyes that night.

Music has the power to make the world better. It sounds clichéd, but I think that Maaya really tries to do good in her own way. It’s easy to assume that everything performers do is premeditated and profit-driven and it may even be prudent to do so. I know that there is quite a bit of controversy online over Maaya’s decision to not cancel all her upcoming lives.

But considering the fact that Maaya consistently puts in the effort to stay true to her message, I think she deserves an exceptional suspension of cynicism. After all, all that time she spent on penning down her thoughts in the form of numerous essays can’t be explained by mere self interest when she probably made many times more money from Ouran.

One interesting takeaway from the concert: Maaya finally explains the meaning of her cryptically-titled song Kimidori, the topic of much fandom debate in the past. The song is about fondly recalling the past and “Kimidori” is an allusion to the seiyuu-incubator Group Komadori of which Maaya was a member in her early teens. In the song, the words “yasashii kimidori” or “gentle kimidori” are actually meant to be “yasashii Komadori” in her mind. She changed the vowels to obfuscate the origin of the title so that listeners could come up with their own conclusions about the song’s meaning. I guess someone should amend the translation here…

Overall verdict: Probably the most awesome concert experience I’ve had so far. And that’s including the time I had supper with May’n.

Maaya’s latest album You can’t catch me was just released a few days ago. The best song in the new album is by far Utsukushii Hito, a collaboration with Yoko Kanno for the Kentoushi Fune Saigen Project at last year’s Shanghai World Expo. The exhibition itself was basically a replica of a ship used during the Tang Dynasty to bring Japanese envoys to China and Utsukushii Hito was the official theme song for the project. Maaya performed it live at the ship’s departure ceremony from Osaka but didn’t actually show up at the Expo.

Lyrics and translation after the break.

Click for: Kanji | Printable

Interestingly, the chorus contains two short phrases sang in Mandarin Chinese but rendered in Japanese kanji in the lyrics booklet (probably out of typesetting convenience). I am not 100% certain, but I think this may be the first time Maaya sang anything in Chinese. :O

Such an awesome song. Gives me chills in a good way. 美丽的人 :D

P.S. Speaking of Chinese lyrics in Japanese songs, check out ALI PROJECT’s Feihong De Mudan.

Or the one where I got to see SCANDAL perform live but showed up too late to get an autograph. Alternatively, it is also acceptable to refer to it as the one where I still had yet to buy an external flash for my camera and ended up taking shitty photos.

Oh wait, that applies to all of them. Bazinga. How about we just call it the one where it was AFA X and I went there.

Everyone does event report these days and, given that I am no longer a young lad, I cannot hope to compete with the new-age style of live blogging and instant Tweeting when it comes to delivering the event reports.

So screw that shit. I’ll do this event report my way (late, irrelevant and full of digressions). With blackjack! And hookers! Actually, screw the report.

FFXIII: what I bought a PS3 for

My heroic tale began one fine Sunday morning two days ago. I woke up before noon and loaded up Valkyria Chronicles on my PS3 for some hawt turn-based/real-time hybrid tactical strategy. (What is VC’s proper genre anyway? Please do not say JRPG.) I was at chapter 15 and I was about to face Selvaria for the first time since she handed me my ass with her god-mode exploit many missions ago.

Selvaria’s boobs: what made my PS3 purchase worth

Then I remembered that I had to make my way to Suntec Convention Centre for AFA X and the SCANDAL/angela/May’n concert at night. At the exact same moment, a tropical thunderstorm warped itself into my immediate sector. On a tangentially related note, I own a very tiny umbrella.

Fast forward an hour or so, I collected my awesome-looking plastic ticket from the ticketing counter and made my way into the stage area of AFA X. Strolling casually into the event hall, I saw May’n and SCANDAL’s Haruna greeting their fans on stage. And then it was over. I realized that I had made it there just in time for the last 30 seconds of the meet-and-greet session. Laziness is the bane of my existence.

What followed was about three hours of standard convention fare. I shambled aimlessly around the exhibition hall and cosplay area a few times, took a bunch of under-exposed photos that looked perfectly fine on my camera’s useless LCD screen and almost accidentally stepped into the Borders clearance sale next door (those book nerds really know how to party).

It’s blur not because I suck at photography (I do) but because it’s Three Dee

It’s a Segway, except smaller and Japanese

Maaya :3

The concert itself was pretty decent.

My seat was right at the front, so I was like less than ten metres away from the performers on stage. There was a group of hardcore Japanese angela fans next to me who brought (presumably) handmade towels with the word “angela” sewn on. They all carried luggage cases and were flying home right after the concert.

Angela performed Shangri-La. Twice. You can say that it was a literal “encore”. Ba dum dish.

Interestingly, the rest of their set list was mostly Fafner pieces. Perhaps they were under the impression that Singaporeans wouldn’t know anything else. Kind of disappointing since I didn’t really care for Fafner beyond Shangri-La and Separation. That said, they did bring Asu e no Brilliant Road and it was awesome. It’s been so very long since Stellvia… Good times.

Right after angela came onto stage, a bunch of people with seats in the back rows ran up to the front and crowded around the fence between the seating area and the stage, thus significantly lowering the value of my prime location, much like subprime mortgage foreclosures in the neighbourhood. Fortunately, the bailout arrived just before SCANDAL came on when a pair of AFA coppers chased the squatters back to their ghettos while menacingly brandishing light sticks. My view of SCANDAL’s performance was thus glorious.

Left to right: Tomomi, Rina, Haruna, Mami

Since photography was prohibited, I can only show you stock photos of SCANDAL. Tomomi (vocal and bass) has a really high-pitched voice that I find mildly disorienting. Haruna (vocal and guitar) has the typical lead vocalist kind of vibe and energy. My (completely baseless) impression of Mami (guitar) is that she looks like she’s smoking pot all the time. Finally, I have no opinions regarding Rina (drums) because she’s always hidden behind.

SCANDAL performed quite a number of songs from their Temptation Box album (Everybody Say Yeah!, Houkago 1H, Aitai, Girlism) and some of their older stuff (DOLL, SCANDAL BABY), before ending with Shoujo S (from Bleach) and Shunkan Sentimental (from FMA), probably the only two songs that more than 90% of the audience listened to before Sunday.

I love Shoujo S but the performance was pretty bad because the chorus was completely inaudible. Shunkan Sentimental was better and Aitai worked pretty well. Temptation Box is a great album.

Also, since I sat right at the front, 90% of time SCANDAL’s pop-rock beat was basically pounding my internal organs into a fine mesh via the giant subwoofers. It was still good though. Even Houkago 1H was tolerable but I still can’t stand Tomomi’s voice.

Haruna’s vocal was definitely not quite the pitch perfection found in studio recordings, but hey it’s rock so it doesn’t really matter. It’s really too bad SCANDAL didn’t/couldn’t work their ballad single Namida no Regret into the set list. It’s easily one of their top three songs. I suspect they can’t do the song well in a live. (Please do not kill me for blasphemy.)

I have to say that Mami is probably my favourite SCANDAL girl because she looks so stoned and calm even while playing the guitar. She may not be the prettiest but she’s ever so zen.

This is the face I imagine Mami (background) to have all the time

The concert closed with May’n. Interestingly I actually watched Itsuwari no Utahime for the first time ever right before the concert because I bumped into a 1080p raw on YouTube while googling, so at last I finally recognized Universal Bunny. Unfortunately, May’n’s performance (at least from my perspective) suffered quite a lot because of the insane level of bass. I couldn’t really hear much of her singing. Oh well.

And of course, I only found out after the concert ended that the autograph session was in the afternoon during the meet and greet. Getting SCANDAL’s signature would’ve been pretty cool, but I suppose this is fate. I am learning to be zen too.

Hmmm… Come to think of it this is probably my last AFA ever (for the foreseeable future). If the world doesn’t end and nothing unexpected happens, this time next year I should be chilling around Palo Alto in California, a state almost exactly the size of Japan but without the four distinct seasons.

Maybe I’ll show up for an Anime Expo or two.

It’s finally here.

A few months ago, I spent 13 hours in an oversized aluminium alloy tube to get to Japan and back so that I could attend Maaya Sakamoto’s 15th anniversary concert at Budokan. A few days ago, the DVD and Blu-ray recordings arrived at my door step. A few hours ago, I finished encoding them into H264 MKV files and went out for ramen.

Packaging

The first press releases of the DVD and Blu-ray come with a special matt cardboard packaging and a ribbon. Future releases will only come with the plastic DVD case found inside the box. The Blu-ray box is white while the DVD box is black, but I suspect the actual plastic cases have the same cover design. (I don’t have a Blu-ray player, so I only opened the DVD version.)

DVD edition with red ribbon

The ribbon comes in either red, blue or gold colour at random. The gold version is supposedly a “rare” item, but I suspect it’s only there because they ran out of red and blue…

The special box has a cover fold that doubles up as a small photo booklet. It’s pretty decent considering that it’s a freebie for first press buyers.

The DVD casing is a regular plastic case. The front cover art is a photo of Maaya playing the guitar intro for “Get No Satisfaction!!” and the back is a song list.

There’s another smaller booklet of credits and a few photos in the DVD case itself.

The DVD edition comes in two discs. The first disc contains the main concert itself (2hr+) and the second disc contains the encore (40min) and two short specials (behind the scenes footages and Maaya practising the guitar).

Concert

The recording is pretty decent, although the Blu-ray version should be even better. I sat pretty far away from the stage during the concert, so it’s nice to finally get to see the performance close-up. But it does kind of miss out on the stage effects.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the most memorable moment for me was this part where all the lights were switched off, leaving a few spotlights trained on Maaya as she was slowly elevated by a mechanical platform in the centre of the stage. When she reached the chorus of Hikari Are (“Let there be light”), the lights came on. This effect is quite unnoticeable in the video because the camera auto compensates for the change in ambient brightness. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

Her first costume was a “gift”

Guitarist Masato Ishinari

Vocalists Kazco and Mari Asai

Her second costume. She’s wearing the third one underneath

Yoko Kanno

Maaya performing with a guitar for the first time

Her third costume is…colourful

Hikari Are

If you squirm hard enough, you can see me. Or at least my seat section…

Composer Shoko Suzuki at the drums

Maaya’s fourth costume

I have that T-shirt :D

Maaya plays the piano for Everywhere

Maaya leads a sing-along POCKET wo Kara ni Shite

Refer to my post on the concert for more thoughts.

Watching through the DVDs, I’m actually quite surprised by how much I managed to cover in my last post by memory. I’m usually not very good at remembering details. The only thing that I didn’t catch was when Maaya missed a line of PLATINA.

I also love the MC sessions where Maaya talks about her personal take on life and how she expresses it through her songs. Not all singers can do it the way she does, full of sincerity and meaningful pauses.

Specials

The two omake footage on Disc 2 show the lead-up to the big day.

There’s a scene in the encore, where Shoko Suzuki presented Maaya with a surprise birthday cake and Maaya blew the candles while the audience sang Happy Birthday, that was cut from the main recording for some reason. The first omake footage contains a short portion of it starting at around 13:30.

Don’t know why they cut it from the main footage. Maybe they forgot to keep the cameras running… Oh well.

Oh noz, no one showed up

Yoko sending off Maaya

Group cheer before the show

The brithday cake’s hiding place under stage

Air guitar

Conclusion

It’s damn awesome, so please buy the DVD or Blu-ray if you can (or if not…). In the meantime, I am working on translating and subbing the entire thing. Will post it up somewhere When It’s Done™.

The cherry blossoms bloomed early this spring, just as it did thirty years ago on Maaya Sakamoto‘s birthday. The date was 31st March and the venue was Budoukan. I stood in line at the entrance of Kitanomaru Park along with thousands on that cool spring afternoon and waited.

This is the story of the time I finally saw Maaya perform live.

This. Is. Budoukan!

My journey began nearly a decade ago with RahXephon. After Hemisphere first brought me into the fold, tune the rainbow and Ongaku made me a fan for life. I was bewitched by her voice and addicted to her lyrics. It wasn’t long before I had collected all her songs.

Considering my love for Maaya’s music, attending her live concert was the next logical step. Unfortunately, the forces of the universe conspired against me and, for the longest time, prevented me from fulfilling my duty as a fanboy. Having missed her “We Are Kazeyomi” concert in 2009 due to a series of events that could’ve been avoided, I was convinced that my dream had come to its destined end. I came to terms with that fact that I might never have the chance to see Maaya in the flesh.

Fast-forward to a year later. A one-day live concert was to be held on 31st March 2010, Maaya’s 30th birthday, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of her official debut single Yakusoku wa Iranai, the theme song of Visions of Escaflowne. I decided that this was my last stand — my 絶対防衛ライン as it were. More than the Kazeyomi concert, I had to be there for this. Somehow, miraculously, I managed to do just that even though at one point my plan was almost derailed by a passport snafu — I managed to beg convince immigration to extend it by a measly six months. Looking back, it kind of amazes me how my single-minded obsession brought there. *Tears*

Enough of the boring fanboy story. Let’s talk about the concert itself. First of all, it was fricking awesome like a flying robot rainbow unicorn.

Budoukan

I arrived at Budoukan just a little pass noon. The concert was set to start at around 6pm but a long queue had already formed for the concert merchandises.

If queueing were an Olympic event, Japan would sweep the medals

The queue extended from the front of the Budoukan up the stairs, half circled round the circumference, came back down the stairs, crossed a road, went out the inner gate of Kitanomaru Park and, in typical Japanese fashion, folded six times upon itself within the empty grounds between the outer and inner gates.

So basically, what you would expect queueing for Kyoto Animation’s booth at Comiket for your chance to exchange pieces of printed cotton paper for pieces of printed plastic paper — just a short 2-hour queue that’s all.

The goods

The end point

There were quite a number of foreigners in the queue, not counting the non-Japanese Asians whom I, despite being one myself, can’t pick out from a crowd. A few of them were visibly surprised by the length of the queue. Guys, wait till you see Comiket.

As is standard practice, there were a bunch of flower wreaths on display around the entrance of Budoukan with messages of congratulation from various organizations. There were ones from Kadokawa, Animate, Aniplex, Tower Records (a brand that is somehow still alive in Japan), Square-Enix and even one from May’n.

Unfortunately, those are the last of the pictures I took of the actual concert venue because cameras were prohibited inside… Instead, I shall try to describe the interior using this picture I found.

Right at where the judges are in the picture was a stage that covered about a third of the arena space, with a small corridor extension that led right to the exact centre of the Budoukan. The rest of the arena was lined with premium front-row seats that went for more than 40,000 yen on Yahoo Auctions. I should’ve coughed up the cash for one of them but I didn’t, so I ended up in one of the second-floor seats.

Budokan is an octagon and uses compass directions to name its seating section. The stage was on the North side, which meant that people sitting in the North, NE and NW were rather screwed for most of the concert unless they were there to stare at Maaya’s behind. Hmmm…

Songs

The full set list for the concert can be found on gabrielarobin.com.

Maaya started the concert with “Gift”, a song that can be found in her new album “everywhere” which was released on the same day as the concert. Her first costume was a red dress decorated with red gift boxes tied with ribbons. You can imagine the crowd going wild when she said that she’s her “gift” to her fans. Incidentally, the concert itself was also called “Gift” and it kind of also ties in to her birthday.

The first part of the concert was upbeat and featured quite a few poppy songs that the audience could clap along with such as Platina.

The first costume change came just before Kiseki no Umi, during which the drummer put up a pretty mind-blowing solo performance to entertain the crowd.

Once the background vocal for Kiseki no Umi started, the lights were dimmed and Maaya rose out of the stage wearing what could be called (and what she referred to at one point as) a wedding dress — it was a long-sleeved sort-of-Victorian white dress (you can tell I’m not a fashion expert). Of course, there was the now-standard banter every time she did a costume change.

Maaya: <insert something about never having worn this particular type of costume before and/or the length of the skirt being inversely proportional to her age>
Fans: maaya-san kawaiiiiiiii!
Maaya: ee? hontou?
Fans: kawaiiiiii
Maaya: *shakes butt cutely* motto itte :D

Kiseki no Umi was followed by a few of her other more vocal-focused and slower pieces, such as gravity and Kazamidori. The lighting remained dimmed and the audience was quiet for this part. Kazamidori in particular was really beautiful and appropriate for the occasion (spring + early cherry blossoms + Maaya’s birthday).

154-page concert pamphlet with write-ups from and about Maaya’s past and present… and tons of photos!

At one point, Maaya walked to the centre of the Budoukan (on the previously mentioned corridor) with the guitarist and performed a guitar-only version of Danielle. The rest of the arena was kept dark and the only spotlights focused on the two of them. When the song ended, the intro to Yakusoku wa Iranai could be heard coming from the piano on stage and the audience went crazy.

The spotlight shone on piano and lo and behold, Yoko Kanno was playing it. Without actually performing Yakusoku wa Iranai, Maaya and Yoko immediately went into a medley of songs that they had worked on together, including Yubiwa, Shippo no Uta, Yoake no Octave and tune the rainbow. The ultimate fan tease came at the end when Maaya sang the first line of Triangler, driving the crowd into a frenzy, before switching back to Yakusoku wa Iranai, which itself was interrupted at its end by a happy birthday wish from Yoko to Maaya. Fan service to infinite and beyond.

Photos of Maaya… taken by Yoko Kanno!

Maaya fan art by CLAMP

Another one of the more memorable moments was the performance for Hikari Are (the Japanese translation for “let there be light”). Maaya was elevated by a hydraulic platform in the centre of the arena. The whole place was dark, except for spotlights on her. At about the 2:45 mark, as she sang “hikari are” and reached for the ceiling, all the white lights in the Budoukan came on, flooding the entire room.

After Hikari Are, Maaya changed into a rainbow-coloured short(er) skirt (cue more “kawaii”) and moved on to her faster-paced rock-ish pieces like Get No Satisfaction! and Private Sky. She strummed the guitar for a bit for the intro to Private Sky. Fan service is awesome.

The guitar used by her

During the encore, she introduced onto the stage Shouko Suzuki, composer for a few of her recent songs such as Saigo no Kajitsu, who brought with her a surprise birthday cake — though how surprising can it be when the concert fell on Maaya’s 30th birthday? There were thirty candles. More fan service followed with Maaya playing the piano for everywhere, a song she said was inspired by her one-person trip to Italy last year where she stayed at a small mountain inn.

And of course, the encore and the concert ended with Pocket wo Kara ni Shite as per tradition. Balloons were dropped from the ceiling of the Budoukan at the end of the song and Maaya and the rest of the stage members bid farewell to audience. As Maaya turned around and walked off the stage, a single green balloon, previously caught in the release mechanism, gently descended. An unintentional poignant moment.

Side note: the walk from Budoukan to the train station after the concert was kind of insane. Imagine more than ten thousand people trying to squeeze through choke points only a few metres wide. Budoukan is a death trap. Also explains why the park has a “shelter for people with commuting problems”…

My Thoughts

Overall, the songs were a good mix of old and new and included some of my all-time favourites such as blind summer fish, Kazamidori, Hemisphere (a slower mix with live instruments) and parts of tune the rainbow. My top favourite Ongaku was sadly not included, but it’s a pretty obscure song so it was expected.

It was a pretty cool experience and I’m happy I finally got to see Maaya perform live. I think the concert, the accompanying publication and the album represented a great deal of what I love about Maaya. She has all these elaborate ideas and meanings in all her performances that she likes to put into words in the form of her essays, her radio talkshow and her concert chat sessions.

She’s in the music business as an artist trying to express herself and part of that was why she decided to go separate ways with Yoko after Shounen Alice. In this age of auto-tuners, idol factories and prefab celebrities where you don’t even need to be human to make it big, Maaya Sakamoto feels real to me and, arguments about whether that feeling is in itself real aside, that is what appeals to me.

More Pictures

Toranoana’s display promoting everywhere

Top: a special concert-limited cover slip for everywhere
Left: my 2nd copy of everywhere because I had to buy it again for the cover slip
Right: postcard

There are many pictures of Maaya in various states of undress in the book… all taken by Yoko…

The book also contained song lists for all her past albums and singles

Retro Maaya

Album art chocolates

Past concerts

There’s a small Maaya exhibition on the 1st floor of the Shibuya Tower Records building

Costume she wore for Yoko’s Choujikuu Tanabata Sonic

Costume she wore for everywhere PV

Apparently there’s a lucky draw where you can win this…

P.S. I apologize for this senseless fanboy rambling imposting as a blog post. Hopefully I’ll be writing more informative entries soon. Then again, there’s still the inevitable concert DVD…

This song is Sayonara wo Kikasete by Nanase Aikawa, a veteran female J-rock singer. It’s the B-side of one of her earlier singles from the late 90s and it is one of my favourite songs from her. This is not the song I am looking for.

However, I know for a fact that there is an 80s song with English lyrics and a male vocal out there somewhere that has the exact same tune as this song for its chorus. The rest of the song sounds rather different but the chorus is an almost perfect copy. I used to know the song’s title but not any more. (Getting old…)

I’m not sure if Nanase lifted the (rather catchy) tune subconsciously via osmosis or whether Sayonara was meant to be a tribute, and I can’t find any information about this online, whether in English or Japanese. So, please leave a comment if you know the title of this elusive song. It’s driving me crazy.

Incidentally, I just found out today that Angela Aki‘s Kiss From A Rose — another song I love — is actually a cover: the original Kiss From A Rose is by Seal. My whole life is a lie.

Maaya Sakamoto, the greatest singer/seiyuu in the history of the universe, held a live tour at the start of this year (2009) called “We Are Kazeyomi!” This was her first proper concert in the five years since she released her album Shounen Alice and her third since her debut as Hitomi in Visions of Escaflowne.

This is a story of what may be the greatest regret of my life. And oh yeah, the official concert DVD is out too.

I am a terrible fanboy. Terrible in the sense that if companies depended on fans like me to survive, they would probably be worse off than General Motors. I just can’t keep my attention focused on something long enough… Ooh Shiny.

It is therefore rather amazing that I have been a Maaya fanboy for the past six years, ever since I first listened to her performance in RahXephon. It’s probably not too far-fetched to say that during my rise from adolescence, my love for Maaya is the only constant in my life. Watching Maaya perform live is a dream that has always been at the back of my mind.

Although I’ve been to Japan numerous times, I never had the opportunity to attend her many performances. (Kazeyomi is technically her third live tour, but she does a lot of smaller promotional concerts and also voices Eponine in the Japanese production of Les Misérables.) This was because concert seasons tended to fall in the middle of my school terms. I accepted, rationally if not emotionally, the fact that in all likelihood I would never see my wish come true. Will I find the time to realize my dream, or will she retire from performing before that? I was not hopeful.

Kazeyomi gave me hope. At the end of 2008, I had just graduated from Singapore’s equivalent of high school and was planning a year-end trip to Japan with my classmates. Kazeyomi was to be held in late January. I applied for a ticket through the official Maaya fan club (I am probably its only Singaporean member?) and won the draw for the Nagoya stop. I had to pay upfront to secure my booking, but because I was then uncertain about my schedule in January, I decided to give it up. I thought I could purchase a ticket (preferably for Tokyo instead) later during the regular ticketing period, after I had confirmed my availability.

Long story slightly shortened, I ended up with nothing. By the time I realized that my schedule did in fact allow me to attend the concert, it was too late to get a ticket.

Looking back, it would’ve taken me a good amount of money and trouble (including staying in Tokyo for an additional two weeks) to make it all work, so the outcome was probably for the best, all things considered. But deep down in my heart, I knew that I would live to regret not giving in to my impulsive desires for that one time.

Of course, I preordered the official concert DVD which is in my hands now. (Can you expect anything less from a guy who owns every album and single released under Maaya’s name?) The DVD is great and all — in fact it is awesome and brings tears to my eyes — but it also serves as a sad reminder of what could have been.

During the concert, Maaya performed both her new works and old favourites, including Triangler, Ame ga Furu, Kiseki no Umi, Praline, Platina, tune the rainbow, and a rather awesome rendition of Poketto wo Kara ni Shite. Including the rather long encore, it was a total of two and a half hours of awesomeness.

There was plenty of concert theatrics, some of which I’m sure were pre-planned. (See: the encore.) Maaya’s performance was not perfect either — she even forgot one line of lyrics during Yubiwa! But no matter how I try to play it cynical cool, I know that this flawed and deeply human performance is exactly what I would like to have watched live. (And maybe it’s just the fanboy speaking, but I find that she performed much better for her older songs.)

Maaya’s emotional displays might very well have been staged, but ultimately it didn’t matter. The transient relation between a performer and her audience remains a fleeting illusion as it has always been. The audience’s reaction is the only meaningful outcome. I just wish I were part of it. (Also, the fanboy bias in me tells me that Maaya’s words were sincere. I want to believe!)

I still hope desperately to watch Maaya perform live at least once before either one of us dies. It is a tiny wish that rests in an inconspicuous corner of my mind, waiting for its moment to come — one which may never arrive. Then again, now that Obama is president, anything is possible.

Unfortunately, the signs are not looking favourable. TBS recently cancelled her weekly late-night radio talkshow Chizu to Tegami to Koi no Uta (which I miss terribly) and the official fan club stopped its online merchandise sales. Is Maaya getting ready to retire (or fade into talent management like many older seiyuu)? I hope I’m just being over-sensitive…

This is starting to feel like LiveJournal, so I shall stop. Oh yeah, the DVD is really great. You should get it if you love Maaya. *Pokes Omo*

“DM, why didn’t you cough up 7,000 yen + lodging to watch my concert?”

Why indeed… orz

P.S. Does worrying about my favourite singer retiring mean that I am getting old? :( I hope I don’t start to chase young whippersnappers off my imaginary lawn soon.