Phew, I made it! Today, 31st March (ending in Japan in another 30 10 minutes), is Maaya Sakamoto‘s birthday!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! ãŠèª•ç”Ÿæ—¥ãŠã‚ã§ã¨ã†ï¼ Yay!
For the uninitiated, Maaya is the talented singer whose songs are featured in Escaflowne (she also voiced Hitomi), RahXephon and Wolf’s Rain. She also happens to be my most favourite-st artiste ever. (I own almost every CD ever released under her name.)
Her latest work is a mini-album called “30minutes night flight” which just came out on the 21st. I received my copy last week. :) The limited edition version comes with a DVD containing an original Production I.G short film entitled “Universe”. My copy is of course limited edition.
Yoko Kanno was Maaya’s mentor and almost all of Maaya’s songs up to her fifth album (Yuunagi LOOP) were composed by the famous composer. The general opinion among long-time fans is that the absence of Yoko led to a drop in quality of the songs in Maaya’s newer works, such as the quickly-forgotten Kazemachi JET and portions of the Yuunagi LOOP album. I tend to agree. I think that a lot of the new songs were trying to be different from Maaya’s usual style just for the sake of being different and usually don’t turn out too well. I’m happy to say though, I am quite happy with 30minutes night flight. The songs still feel different from Yoko’s distinctive style, but they complement Maaya’s voice much better than Yuunagi LOOP did.
Mmmm… I want to meet Maaya someday! Ok, that’s enough fanboying for the day.
why does it say “Alter’s Fate Testarossa Re-release”
under related entires?
I love Maaya. She’s still one of the few J-pop artists I like enough to listen to for entire albums. To this day, Hemisphere remains my favorite anime opening, and the reason why I watched RahXephon in the first place. It’s really too bad that she’s dropped off after losing Yoko Kanno, but she’ll always have a place in my heart (as cheesy as that sounds).
Personally, I didn’t like 30minutes night flight much. It was better than Yunagi Loop and a step in the right direction, obviously, but it’s not even close to any of her Kanno albums. Oh well.
Wooo Happy Birthday to Maaya! (And a belated one for Kawasumi Ayako yesterday too).
I haven’t gotten my copy of Night Flight yet (waiting on other pre-ordered CDs from CDJapan…) but I’m glad to hear that it’s good. I first encountered Universe at the Konica-Minolta Planetarium at Sunshine City, and it left an impression on me strong enough to make me want to buy Night Flight even though I gave Loop a miss.
How is the Production IG animation? I might want to switch to a non-limited edition if it isn’t 100% must-have :)
Fanboying is great especially it’s Maaya Sakamoto.
I was disappointed with 30minutes night flight, but she’s still don’t wonderful work. Hopefully she gets better as she goes along. :3
I’m also a bit disappointed with 30minutes night flight – it is better than Yuunagi LOOP in that it doesn’t bore me to tears, but the only song I can really find myself listening to over and over again (like right now) is 30minutes night flight – the rest are just good songs, but not memorable.
Anyway, I’ll still be keeping up to date with her and hope her songs get better soon ^^; I still like her a lot, but I’m also still hoping her songs will be better (or she’ll collaborate with YK again xD).
Kiseki no Umi = Masterwork …. One of the most beautiful Opening of the World
Old, oldschool, but unique …
I love Maaya Sakamoto songs espicially those she sang for Escaflowne. She also does quite well as a seiyu for various animes and can really express the characters very well. I too would like to meet her if I could ^^ Where did u get your limited edition from?
The problem with 30minutes night flight for me is that some of the songs are too energetic. I can lie in bed, on my night flight, falling deep into tracks like the title track, Bokutachi ga Koi wo Suru Riyuu and Universe, but others, like Kioku-There’s No End are much too repetitive to relax to, disrupting the flow of the album I was looking forward to.
Still, otherwise, the music is very good overall, and much better than the likes of LOOP.
I meant Setsuna, not Kioku-There’s No End…