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.

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…

I hereby declare Macross Frontier OST 1 to be the animé soundtrack of the year, and all upcoming titles for the remaining half of the year shall have to live in shame knowing that they will never live up to the greatness that is this collection of pure awesome. It’s so good that I translated half the songs on it already.

Frontier

As you may or may not know after all my constant fanboying, Macross Frontier’s soundtrack is composed by Yoko Kanno, known overseas for her works in Cowboy Bebop.

The main vocal locomotives in the show are May Nakabayashi (May’n), who provides the singing voice of everyone’s favourite galactic fairy Sheryl Nome (<3), and Megumi Nakajima, a debut seiyuu who also sings quite beautifully.

Interesting facts: They are both the same age as me, and Megumi Nakajima (中島愛) is NOT read as Ai Nakajima.

The OST contains all the songs that appear in the series so far, as of episode 9. (Edit: Except Ranka’s Miss Macross song apparently. Forgot about that.) Going against industry convention, both the ending and opening themes are included in full in the OST. Then again, most shows don’t make music such a central part of their story dynamics. Some of my favourite songs from the OST:

Infinity
インフィニティ
by May’n

This is probably my favourite song in the series so far. It totally blew my mind the first time Sheryl performed it in episode 7. (Though the choice of costume leaves much to be desired.)

Iteza ☆ Gogo Kuji Don’t be late
射手座☆午後九æ‚Don’t be late
by May’n

This is the “wow” moment in episode 1. It’s pretty good too. That said, I still can’t figure out what the first part of the title (Sagittarius ☆ 9pm. Don’t be late ) is supposed to mean. Is Sagittarius the meeting place? A bunch of stars light years apart sure is a huge ass volume of space to find someone in…

Diamond Crevasse
ダイアモンド クレバス
by May’n

This is the ending theme. So good. T.T

Triangler
トライアングラー
by Maaya Sakamoto

This is the opening theme. Maaya-sama! XD (I scare myself sometimes.) And I’m pertty sure the title is “Triangler” and not “Triangular”, however nonsensical it may be English-wise. It’s even spelt that way on the CD cover.

Aimo
アイモ
by Megumi Nakajima

This song, along with Ranka, will probably end up saving the universe or something. I can’t say for sure since I don’t speak many languages, but I think most of the lyrics are in Yoko Kanno’s (aka Gabriela Robin) trademark gibberish.

What ’bout my star?
by May’n

This song has actually been performed by both Sheryl and Ranka in the series, but I prefer Sheryl’s version. I haven’t translated this one yet.

And many, many more! (i.e. I’m lazy.)

Macross Frontier’s music is just amazing.
Do buy the OST if you can. (Amazon JP | CDJapan)

Oh my god! It’s finally here! The Holy Grail! The first song that Maaya and her former mentor Yoko Kanno have worked together on in almost half a decade!

Triangler is the first opening song for Macross Frontier. Lyrics translation and fanboying after the break.

Kanji | Printable

This song is a marked return to Yoko Kanno’s faster pace. The lyrics, credited to Gabriela Robin (one of Yoko’s pseudonyms), is quite noticeably different from Maaya’s other recent songs. While most songs in general are clear and elaborate in their messages, Yoko’s lyrics tend to be highly condensed and open to (mis)interpretations, which makes translation difficult.

The prevalent grammar contractions present quite an obfuscated challenge, and the systematic omission of overt pronouns in Japanese certainly doesn’t help either. Hopefully I got the crucial meanings right… Do comment.

I hope this song is a sign of more to come, because Maaya and Yoko are just meant to be. As a Maaya fanboy holding IDS membership, I approve of this release. That said, my favourite Maaya songs are still the ones from her Nikopachi singles collection.

And oh yeah, I think Macross Frontier is great too.

You can purchase the single from Amazon or CDJapan. First press is sold out though. (I have one of them.)

Triangular will be the OP theme to Macross Frontier, which is due to be aired in April this year. This marks the first time in almost half a decade that the two of them are working together. Maaya’s seiyuu and singing career were jump started by her role as Hitomi Kanzaki in Visions of Escaflowne, with Yoko has her mentor. She also sang the opening song Yakusoku wa Iranai, which is probably one of her better-known works for English speakers, along with Platina from Cardcaptor Sakura and Hemisphere from RahXephon.

I’m a happy fanboy. XD

[ Source: Chara-Ani ]