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.

Sometimes diving around in the polluted ocean of Digg nets you a rare surviving coral or two. The frequency of this rare occurrence is inversely proportional to Digg’s user base. And so the dance between culture and counter-culture continues on for eternity.

But anyway, someone recently posted a picture from a photo album of female Israeli military conscripts by Israeli photographer Rachel Papo. Little things on the net like this really help to expand one’s global outlook. This reminds me of an interesting experience I once had in Osaka.

I visited Osaka and Kyoto last December with my Japanese language classmates. We stayed at J-Hoppers Osaka, a budget hotel for cheapskates, hippies and students.

On our last night there, we stayed up late to play cards in the common room. After my companions went upstairs to rest, I struck up a conversation with the only other person left in the room. He was reading an old copy of Weekly Young Jump he found on the coffee table and he couldn’t understand a word of it. I translated the chapter for him, which turned out to be a recent chapter of Gantz. (Something about a girl who has a crush on a classmate who looks just like Kei who is supposed to be dead. My Gantz knowledge stopped with the anime…)

He was rather grateful for my translation and we ended up chatting. Apparently, he was a Jewish-Australian traveling alone in Osaka to meet up with some friends, his final vacation before he enlists in the Israeli Defense Force in a few weeks’ time. As he was not an Israeli citizen, he was not actually obliged to serve. He volunteered for military service so as to become an Israeli citizen (via the Law of Return), because only citizens can travel in and out of the country without restrictions and he wished to visit his relatives in Israel more frequently.

Image shameless stolen from Rachel Papo’s gallery

It is hard for people like myself who grew up in peacefully boring places like Singapore to comprehend just how much emotional turmoils such a decision entails, but nevertheless I felt something in me ineffably changed that night. At the time of that conversation, close to Christmas 2008, a fragile six-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was coming to an end. In fact, it was not another two weeks before conflict resumed with Israel launching Operation Cast Lead. Not to mention that it had been just over one year ago when Israel had fought and won (militarily but not politically) the 2006 Lebanon War against Hezbollah.

This guy who grew up in Australia was volunteering to serve in the IDF in Israel, a country that’s pretty much fighting a low-intensity war 365 days a year and was in fact fighting Hamas militants at the time of his enlistment. He was not gungho about it, and in fact he came across as a thoughtful individual with his own hopes and aspirations that were put on hold for this undertaking. If I were in his shoes, I’d be contented with just an Australian citizenship. I don’t know if that makes me more practical or less human.

As much as I hate the ethnic tensions, nationalism and violence that drive the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I can’t help but feel that there is something admirable in his decision. There is a sense of honour in there that has nothing to do with mongered fear, vengeance or hatred. I certainly find it difficult to imagine many people doing the same thing for Singapore if the shit ever hits the fan.

It’s quite sad that I forgot to ask the guy for his contact information. I gave him my name card, but he never did drop me an email. My friends and I took the Shinkansen to Tokyo the next day and I never saw him again after that night. Hopefully he is doing fine in the IDF.

On a side note, Singapore should extend its national service to girls too. D;

I’m typing this in J-Hoppers Osaka. This is my second day in Japan, but most of yesterday was spent travelling. I arrived at Narita International Airport yesterday afternoon with a group of friends, wasted the evening away wandering around Tokyo JR Station and took an overnight bus to Kansai.

This is actually my fifth time in Japan, so the weather, the environment and the general atmosphere no longer present the same difficulties as before. That said, this is actually my first time in Kansai, so the feeling of exhilaration that comes from the exploration of the great unknowns is not totally lost in the comfortable familiar. For one thing, people in Osaka stand on the right side of the escalators.

The end research product of scientific whaling

I will be spending four nights at J-Hoppers Osaka, just a station’s distance away from Osaka JR Station. I spent today familiarizing myself with the neighbourhood, Umeda (梅田), the traffic and commercial hub of the region and took a short tour on top of Umeda Sky Building. It is a very tall tourist trap with a great view of the entire Umeda district. I will be posting my photos onto my gallery at a later date when I have the time to process them.

Umeda Sky Building

I had always thought of Osaka as an exotic wonderland where everyone speaks in Kansai-ben while swinging paper fans around with highly exaggerated gesturing, but the real Osaka turned out to be a rather down-to-earth mix of Louis Vuitton and roadside okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) stalls, and I have yet to meet a Kansai-ben speaker. Perhaps Kyoto will be a more stimulating experience for my otherworldly thirst.

This is where I sleep

Speaking of okonomiyaki, it’s good stuff when consumed in an authentic setting. Eating Japanese cuisine in Singapore is often a rather sterilized affair no different from consuming fast food (i.e. Pepper Lunch), whereas dining in a small okonomiyaki-ya that fits no more than 16 people in a warm and cosy setting with a group of friends makes for a distinctively Japanese experience. That experience, more than the actual taste of okonomiyaki (which can more or less be summed up by the word ‘salty’), comes highly recommended. The best thing you can do as a tourist in Japan is to get out of the giant departmental stores and find a small eatery in a nearby residential area.

Breakfast

I shall keep this post short because I am tired from two days of travelling. The overnight bus ride was a rather unpleasant ride due to the large number of nuclear-powered highway street lights designed to keep the midnight truckers awake or burn their retinas out trying. Also, I shall never fly Northwest Airline again, for it gives new meaning to the concept of terrible in-flight meals, and American security theatre is a rather unfruitful and dehumanizing experience.

I will be dropping by Kyoto and Nipponbashi (the Akihabara of Kansai) over my next few days in the area before returning to Kantou via Shinkansen.