Here's the next part of Maaya's essay 'When I was a Child Star' and in this part she introduces us to the person who helped shape her life at Group Komadori.
Note: 1) 'Sensei' is the title of a teacher which is affixed to the person's name which denotes respect. One can call them by their name + 'Sensei' or just 'sensei' by itself. 2) Shitamachi is an area of Tokyo which is the core of 'Edo' (Tokyo's old name) and people born and raised in Shitamachi and who have been for generations are called Edokko (children of Edo) because they are the REAL Tokyo citizens. Just like Osakans are proud of being Osaka born and bred, Shitamachi are the real deal in Tokyo.
The Legendary Woman, Nishimura-sensei
The name of the teacher who has had the biggest impact on me since the day we first me is Saeko Nishimura-san. She did everything herself, not only acting as the representative of Komadori, but also as the site manager and the drama instructor for the children. So naturally she was very busy and if the numbers at Komadori had increased any more it would have been too much for one person to handle. After I joined the troupe recruitment of new members ceased. With 50 years of history since its formation, Theatre Group Komadori is a long established group which has raised many wonderful actors. It has existed as one of the pioneers of child theatre groups. It is a theatre group with particularly good lineage. When the founder died and it seemed like Komadori would have to be disbanded, Nishimura-sensei along with several other troupe members bonded together as ‘Group Komadori’ and quietly protected its name.
If one saw her, the most unforgettable point of her individual look was the bandana wrapped around her head. Not only that, the bandana was always the same pattern. It's probable that she owned many bandanas which were exactly the same and then changed the one she wore every day but at a glance it always looked the same.
Whenever I was with Nishimura-sensei, even if we had only visited a shop once before, the person behind the counter would whip out a gift of fruit, greeting her with ‘Thank you for your continued custom!’
Her age was unknown. Truly unknown...or rather, it was hard to tell. As I am writing this right now there is currently among my friends and associates not one person who knows how old Nishimura-sensei is. It is thought likely that there is a difference between us of that of a grandmother and grand daughter. She can use mobile phone emails, she is sensitive to fashion trends and is learning French – she is spiritually young. While Nishimura-sensei emits a presence which has even people meeting her for the first time calling her ‘Sensei’, she also has the heart of a young girl who is scared of both lightning and dark streets at night. She is a very elusive person at any rate. There are many anecdotes relating to her, with no limit to what I could introduce here if I told them to you one by one. As I would be able to fill a whole volume with just these stories, for now I will stop here.
However, I have to write that without her I would not be who I am today. Fundamentally, theatre groups and productions, all work concerned with ‘art’ is normally thought of as ‘business’. That’s true, and everyone has to be able to eat. However, the biggest reason that Group Komadori was a strange theatre group was because, for better or worse, their business concept was completely lacking. A true ‘Edo’ woman, who disliked both dishonest business standards and relationships formed out of duty, Nishimura-sensei held her love for her students as her top priority.
It’s easy to say ‘love’ and putting it down in letters here somehow makes it seem a little cheap but, when pushed to describe it, it was close to familial love. Nishimura’s first priority was not to raise good actors, but to raise good adults. She was always saying to the boys, “It’s going to be difficult to survive if you become an actor when you grow up. It’s alright for the girls, they can just become someone’s wife, but men will suffer. It’s better to join some kind of company if you can.” Just like any parent, she seemed to hate seeing us suffer. Always protecting us, sticking up for us, sometimes pushing us to stand alone, being very strict, she was just like a mother and a father. (Yes, she’s still alive)
It was because she was like this that we children naturally came to have a sense of being siblings, even those who had graduated. We are all very similar and we are often told, “Children raised at Komadori have the same DNA, don’t they”. I didn’t really perceive this when I was a child but as I’ve gotten older I have a real sense of just how special it is to have comrades like this. No matter where we are, we look out for each other, sometimes helping each other out or advising each other. Even now, if I’m having a tough time I want to see their faces.
Around Nishimura-sensei, who was stubborn but with the strength of feeling of two people, who was forceful but who we couldn’t come to hate, gathered mysterious and gentle people. People are shaped by who they meet and their environment. I think that the core of my being was created because I met Nishimura-sensei and was raised in the Shitamachi-like air that seemed to drift around her. The 15 years that I spent in the house of Group Komadori, my second family, was an irreplaceable, precious time.
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Monday, 28 December 2009
IDS Fan Club Tour 25/09 Osaka Report
This is the concert report I wrote after going to the Osaka Zepp leg of Maaya's 2009 IDS fan club mini-live in September. What a night!! It's not something new so there's no need for me to post it all over the place but it's nice to have up here - this is a Maaya blog after all. Oh the memories T_T
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IDS Fan Club Tour Mini Live - Osaka Zepp 25th September 2009
Well, I arrived in Japan on the 19th of September, the concert was going to be on the 25th. I was in Tokyo for a few days before going down to Kansai to meet my friend. The girl I went with is a girl who did her year abroad at my uni this year, that's how we met. We watched the Kazeyomi DVD together!
Anyway, she's also a big Maaya fan and was just as anxious as me to see her live. She spent about a month waiting for Osaka tickets to come up and then a nice guy off the MIXI Maaya community happened to have extra tickets he was willing to sell. We got them for 4,000 yen each. I got to her place the day before the concert and we spent the next 24 hours going 'Argh, we're going to see Maaya' every half hour or so.
Unfortunately I had caught a cold a couple of days before and the day of the concert was pretty sketchy. I felt awful, streaming nose and eyes, coughing, fever. And as I had to meet my friend out of university lectures I was waiting all day at her university. My friend was worried, 'oh my god, you look like you're about to die...are you sure you're ok?'. Now, Maaya's concert was in a few hours, I was not NOT going to miss it 'I'm...fine...perfect...woo!'. What an obvious lie but we both were anxious to go to the concert. Cue taking medicine, buying a mask and billions of tissues.
The doors to the venue opened at 6pm with the concert to start at 7pm. We arrived as the doors were opened and there were lots of people milling around the Zepp Osaka concert all. It was a lot smaller than I had thought it was going to be and instantly I got more excited. No more feeling ill, adrenaline (the power of Maaya) was suddenly giving me the strength to go on!
Queue up, give ticket, give 500yen for a drink token and we were inside!! After a bag check (no cameras!!) we were inside! A pamphlet was being shoved into our hands and suddenly we were in the queue for goods. Zepp Osaka is tiny and once you're in the doors you are in another queue, then another, then another.
The pamphlet was like those little booklets you used to make at school, two pieces of A4 folded to make a little book, photocopied again and again from the original that Maaya had made. The whole thing was hand written with little drawings Maaya had done, a little message, a note or two about the tour, band introductions etc. There was also a sheet of stickers with the IDS logo and OSAKA 25/09/09 on them. Each venue had their own venue sticker it seems.
Goods! This is where me and my friend were suddenly worried 'oh no....' - there was so much I wanted. The 2009 calendar, the ID essay book, the brand new 2010 calendar, the Kazeyomi tour towel, two designs of IDS t-shirt, a tumbler mug and...and...er....I think there might have been something else but I can't remember. It was hard to decide but I eventually went with the essay book and 2010 calendar. The calendar is really nice, shot in Portugal. The locations aren't as varied as the 2009 one but it's really pretty. The essay book I've wanted for ages, I know someone said it doesn't have many pictures but I was still surprised at how few photos there actually were, about 2 per 100 pages ^^;;; silly me! I shouldn't have been surprised. (side note: I've nearly finished reading it, really, really good so maybe I'll get round to translating some of it!)
They didn't give us bags to put our goodies in so we ended up paying 300 yen for a locker to shove it all in. Good plan. Then we picked up a drink with our tokens and it was into the venue!!
The venue was small. According to the Zepp website it holds about 900 people on the bottom floor and 180 on the top floor when everyone is seated. It felt small!! All the seats were filled and it felt really intimate. The stage was all set up with the instruments and mics. There were only 4 band members on this tour – percussion, piano, cello and guitar. The pianist doubled up on a little pipe thing and accordion sometimes though. That was later.
I was on the second floor, there were only about 5 rows and we were the third one in. So a really, really nice view. It all seemed so close! Or maybe I'd over-estimated how far we'd be when my friend said they were 'bad' seats. Not bad! I prefer 2nd floor (if it's not going to be the front row of course, haha) as you don't have to see over people. As it was a MASSIVE tall guy sat in front of me, er....excuse me? What happened to Japanese people being short on average? But I think he knew because he tended to sit to the side and I got to see more.
A couple of girls about our age (20ish) sat on my right, I think they were massive fans as well because when the lights went down they were like 'I'm going to die!!'. Also, they were crying loads. As was I. And my friend. And a lot of people. But more on that later.
The lights went down!!! The stage was pretty sparse, just the instruments in the middle and a few tall standing lamps here and there. The band came on, did a little tuning. The tension was palpable, the audience waiting with bated breath then....
Sonic Boom
Maaya came on!!!!!! She walked to the center of the stage, we were all silent of course, and then Sonic Boom began. We couldn't see much though because for this song the stage was lit from the floor at the back so we could just see them as black shadows on stage. Can't describe the feeling of seeing her in person. She wore a black dress which was kind of like the one from the Kazeyomi tour but different ^^;;
Mostly I just stared at her (with my mask on, of course) while this song was on. Occasionally patting my friend's arm in a sort of 'OMG' gesture. This isn't one of my favourites from Maaya but the atmosphere was intense.
When the song finished and we all clapped it suddenly felt like the room was really small. Maaya really makes you feel included, like it's just you and her. The live was less of a concert, more of 'an evening with Maaya Sakamoto' due to the amount of talking and songs there were. It was nice.
She introduced herself (needed??!) and then it was time for a chat. This tour was based on postcards that the IDS members sent in, apparently they had been asked to tell IDS their favorite Maaya songs and say why that song was their favorite. Interesting. Then this tour was made up from those songs. Which is why the set list was so different to the Kazeyomi tour I imagine. Anyway, Maaya produced a book which had some of the postcards she had selected to read out. A lot of these were the same for each stop of the tour but some where different, for example she read out some postcards from some Osaka fans. I'm not sure but I think maybe the person behind me WAS one of those fans because she started crying loads and going 'aah, thank god', sort of. Actually I think a lot of people were moved by these post cards because suddenly a lot of sniffing was heard!! I'll give you a few examples later!
Anyway, someone's favourite song was....
Strobe no Sora
Now, this is when I cried for the FIRST time. We'd been listening to Lucy in the car on the way to Osaka and somehow hearing it in person, live, was just...amazing. The arrangements in this concert were all acoustic so they all sounded a little different from the original tracks which was a nice touch. The cello especially was really nice in all the songs.
Me and my friend both agreed afterwards that Maaya sang beautifully. Even better than the Kazeyomi DVD. I'm not sure why but we were both confused as to why she would be better than on the DVD to such a noticeable degree. I think maybe she was less nervous?...no filming etc. No idea but she was incredible. Really powerful.
Remedy
Girls next door crying. I think I did at the end. I'm such a wimp, haha. What a nice song.
Kodoku
THIS is what I was waiting for. One of my most favorite, favorite Maaya songs ever. Stunning, really stunning. Acoustic arrangements are the best. And Maaya singing it as an adult...amazing. Before the performed this song she had a chat with us again. This time about how, when she was a teenager, although she tried to sing Yuho Iwasato's lyrics to the best of her ability, it wasn't until she got older that she realised how beautiful the songs she had been given to sing really were. As I understood it, her understanding of the lyrics and the craft of writing lyrics grew and with it came a new appreciation of her older songs. Which was nice. This was one of the ones she said she had a a new appreciation of.
Awesome performance. Amazing. Argh.
I can't remember where it was but it might have been before this song the she told us about being obsessed with a Nintendo DS game called 'Tomodachi Collection'. It's a bit like the Sims. You build all your friends and family etc. and then...I don't know, control them, make them a life etc. So she said 'At first I did the normal things like making my family, friends etc. but then I ran out of people...so I made my staff. Then...there was nothing for it but to make Johnny Depp!' etc.
Apparently her parents FINALLY got married on the game the day before (we cheered) after a lot of work on Maaya's part. Apparently her best friend had fallen in love with her father and Maaya had had to take a lot of time going 'Father loves mother, father loves mother' and making them fall in love. Also, it seemed like two of the band members for married on the game too (we cheered again). Made me want to play the game. Strange love triangle though.
The band members left the stage apart from the pianist after Kodoku and then came...
Ao no Ether
This was unexpected. I tried to avoid setlists before I went so this was truly a lovely surprise. The stage was pitch black, lit only by a light beam that shone in from the right side of the stage, so everything was lit up in profile (afterwards she joked that it was black instead of blue) but...oh man, the ATMOSPHERE. I don't know whether it was the way Ao no Ether echoed in the hall or something but it was like you could FEEL the atmosphere, or should I say, we could feel the ether. Almost like 'this is what ether must be'. It was electric. Note perfect. I'm not sure but I think the pianist might have changed the arrangement slightly in one place or two but I couldn't tell you as a fact.
You could hear a pin drop when it finished. Then we clapped.
Pianist left the stage then Maaya had a chat to us again. She's been thinking over what to give the IDS members as a Christmas present this year. She's done DVD's, radio shows, and she's decided to do a surprise message. At every tour stop she's asked the audience to shout a word, she records the words and then puts them together to make a sentence. We got the word 'Sound'. And we had a jolly old time practicing the way Maaya wanted us to say it then recording it. SOUND! I wonder what the sentence will be...also, there was a staff member at the end of the concert waiting to record messages from the fans for other fans. More on that later.
Maaya then lamented that she could still only play two songs so we wouldn't be surprised but I was still looking forward to hearing them!!
No Fear
Kazamidori
No Fear was, as you might expect, lovely. Kazamidori though....lovely.....but...she got the lyrics wrong! My friend seemed to think she got the lyrics wrong in two or three places during the concert including this one (I couldn't tell! I thought if I got it wrong then it must be because I forgot the Japanese and I was wrong but I wonder...). It was the last chorus, she started to sing a different chorus then had to correct herself. But the piano seemed more difficult than on the Kazeyomi DVD so maybe that's why. Still, it was gorgeous. She said that Kazamidori was a song that she wrote when she was wanting to go traveling and it is still the one closest to who she is right now.
Band came back, band introductions. Apparently they are the same band as last year but she reintroduced them anyway. The band is called 'Cucumbers!' Why? Well, three out of four of them hate cucumbers. Maaya asked the audience if people didn't like cucumbers, I didn't, as did some others. So it's not that rare! But Maaya seemed to think it was pretty weird that so many people in her band didn't like cucumbers.
Then it was time for...
Yakusoku wa Iranai
This was fun! The marching band bit in the middle was extended and the pianist brought out a little tin whistle/pipe thing, it was like a scottish jig! Really cute. I tried to start a clapping thing but...Maaya fans are serious! No one joined in so it was just me.
Dive
Think I cried again here. Stage was lit from the back with some kind of light that made it looks like we were under water. I'm not sure how often this song has been performed but I felt privileged to hear it. Really, I did. Beautiful. So much emotion put into it and the arrangement was beautiful. I would never have thought a four piece band could put so many layers into a song like this. Better than the original. Not just because Maaya's vocals were so much stronger than they were ten years ago.
Back to the postcards. Reasons why people like the songs! A few examples from some of the other tour stops Maaya told us about:
- a couple who just got married, not sure what song they said they had at the wedding but Maaya made them stand up (maybe this was Tokyo?) and they had a round of applause
- someone who had been in hospital for a long time listened to 'Sora wo miro' while he was in his hospital bed looking out the window. He was able to go to the Nagoya concert and got a round of applause too.
No one got picked out like that at ours but there were a really, really affecting story before Wakaba, A man and his older brother spent a long time looking after their dying father in hospital. They took turns watching over him for a week before he finally passed on. The young man did everything that was expected of him, until the body was cleaned etc. without breaking down. After they had put his father's body in a hearse, the young man followed in his own car. He hadn't cried even though he was heartbroken. And it was finally in the car, in the rain, following his father's body in the car in front, that he started to cry (he added that he did pull over!) and it was Wakaba that was the song which came he had been listening to.
I think a lot of audience members cried here. It was a really sad story. Then Maaya sang...
Wakaba
Made me like this song more. Maaya explained that it's really interesting hearing people's interpretations of her songs because she writes them in completely different circumstances. Wakaba was written about her friend's experience in university, for instance. So she liked reading everyone's impressions of her songs.
Get no Satisfaction was written after an IDS concert last year. She wrote it because of all the energy she got from the fans who attended and wanted a song that reflected that energy (we all stood up and went crazy in this song...well.....me and the two girls next door and my friend got up and clapped etc.) and this was the result. Also, this year's IDS tour t-shirts were designed as a uniform for everyone to recognize each other. She wants all fans to cheer each other on – you are not alone!
Get no Satisfaction
Clapped loads, waved to Maaya a lot too. The venue was pretty sure and we were the only people going crazy on the balcony so hopefully, fingers crossed, she saw us and appreciated our energy!
Encore
Same as above really, dancing, cheering, going crazy when she looked our way. Apparently at the Sapporo tour venue like, it was embarrassing because NO ONE was dancing or clapping or anything. The guy who sold us the tickets apparently went and said it was like....he felt embarrassed because he felt he couldn't go crazy because everyone else was so stoic. Apparently Maaya caught the eye of someone in the front row and had a giggling fit at the lack of reaction. Also, in Tokyo she actually had to say 'come on, stand up!!!'. The Osaka people, I'm glad to say, on the bottom floor, did stand up and clap straight away. We rock.
It did look like she looked our way. It was really bright and lit up and we all sang along etc. Especially Pocket!! Really nice end to the evening! Bright, upbeat, happy!!
Kazemachi Jet
Poketto Kara ni Shite
After all the clapping and goodbyes it was time to go. Outside we all lined up to give our recordings to the IDS staff member. Of course, I got it wrong, AGAIN. Stupid hand written Japanese I couldn't read. We had to give where we were from, our goal for 2010 and where we would like to travel to. Fine. Did it. Then apparently we had to give the IDS slogan call or whatever. Couldn't read it. Made one up. Ran away. Haha, so embarrassing, I can't believe I made one up (-_-);;;;;; boo.
It looks like those will be collected for the new year present thing though.
Anyway!!! There we go.
AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING! Apparently I was shouting 'Maaya' a lot at the end. I'm not surprised (although I don't really remember haha) it was stunning. Incredible. Awesome!
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IDS Fan Club Tour Mini Live - Osaka Zepp 25th September 2009
Well, I arrived in Japan on the 19th of September, the concert was going to be on the 25th. I was in Tokyo for a few days before going down to Kansai to meet my friend. The girl I went with is a girl who did her year abroad at my uni this year, that's how we met. We watched the Kazeyomi DVD together!
Anyway, she's also a big Maaya fan and was just as anxious as me to see her live. She spent about a month waiting for Osaka tickets to come up and then a nice guy off the MIXI Maaya community happened to have extra tickets he was willing to sell. We got them for 4,000 yen each. I got to her place the day before the concert and we spent the next 24 hours going 'Argh, we're going to see Maaya' every half hour or so.
Unfortunately I had caught a cold a couple of days before and the day of the concert was pretty sketchy. I felt awful, streaming nose and eyes, coughing, fever. And as I had to meet my friend out of university lectures I was waiting all day at her university. My friend was worried, 'oh my god, you look like you're about to die...are you sure you're ok?'. Now, Maaya's concert was in a few hours, I was not NOT going to miss it 'I'm...fine...perfect...woo!'. What an obvious lie but we both were anxious to go to the concert. Cue taking medicine, buying a mask and billions of tissues.
The doors to the venue opened at 6pm with the concert to start at 7pm. We arrived as the doors were opened and there were lots of people milling around the Zepp Osaka concert all. It was a lot smaller than I had thought it was going to be and instantly I got more excited. No more feeling ill, adrenaline (the power of Maaya) was suddenly giving me the strength to go on!
Queue up, give ticket, give 500yen for a drink token and we were inside!! After a bag check (no cameras!!) we were inside! A pamphlet was being shoved into our hands and suddenly we were in the queue for goods. Zepp Osaka is tiny and once you're in the doors you are in another queue, then another, then another.
The pamphlet was like those little booklets you used to make at school, two pieces of A4 folded to make a little book, photocopied again and again from the original that Maaya had made. The whole thing was hand written with little drawings Maaya had done, a little message, a note or two about the tour, band introductions etc. There was also a sheet of stickers with the IDS logo and OSAKA 25/09/09 on them. Each venue had their own venue sticker it seems.
Goods! This is where me and my friend were suddenly worried 'oh no....' - there was so much I wanted. The 2009 calendar, the ID essay book, the brand new 2010 calendar, the Kazeyomi tour towel, two designs of IDS t-shirt, a tumbler mug and...and...er....I think there might have been something else but I can't remember. It was hard to decide but I eventually went with the essay book and 2010 calendar. The calendar is really nice, shot in Portugal. The locations aren't as varied as the 2009 one but it's really pretty. The essay book I've wanted for ages, I know someone said it doesn't have many pictures but I was still surprised at how few photos there actually were, about 2 per 100 pages ^^;;; silly me! I shouldn't have been surprised. (side note: I've nearly finished reading it, really, really good so maybe I'll get round to translating some of it!)
They didn't give us bags to put our goodies in so we ended up paying 300 yen for a locker to shove it all in. Good plan. Then we picked up a drink with our tokens and it was into the venue!!
The venue was small. According to the Zepp website it holds about 900 people on the bottom floor and 180 on the top floor when everyone is seated. It felt small!! All the seats were filled and it felt really intimate. The stage was all set up with the instruments and mics. There were only 4 band members on this tour – percussion, piano, cello and guitar. The pianist doubled up on a little pipe thing and accordion sometimes though. That was later.
I was on the second floor, there were only about 5 rows and we were the third one in. So a really, really nice view. It all seemed so close! Or maybe I'd over-estimated how far we'd be when my friend said they were 'bad' seats. Not bad! I prefer 2nd floor (if it's not going to be the front row of course, haha) as you don't have to see over people. As it was a MASSIVE tall guy sat in front of me, er....excuse me? What happened to Japanese people being short on average? But I think he knew because he tended to sit to the side and I got to see more.
A couple of girls about our age (20ish) sat on my right, I think they were massive fans as well because when the lights went down they were like 'I'm going to die!!'. Also, they were crying loads. As was I. And my friend. And a lot of people. But more on that later.
The lights went down!!! The stage was pretty sparse, just the instruments in the middle and a few tall standing lamps here and there. The band came on, did a little tuning. The tension was palpable, the audience waiting with bated breath then....
Sonic Boom
Maaya came on!!!!!! She walked to the center of the stage, we were all silent of course, and then Sonic Boom began. We couldn't see much though because for this song the stage was lit from the floor at the back so we could just see them as black shadows on stage. Can't describe the feeling of seeing her in person. She wore a black dress which was kind of like the one from the Kazeyomi tour but different ^^;;
Mostly I just stared at her (with my mask on, of course) while this song was on. Occasionally patting my friend's arm in a sort of 'OMG' gesture. This isn't one of my favourites from Maaya but the atmosphere was intense.
When the song finished and we all clapped it suddenly felt like the room was really small. Maaya really makes you feel included, like it's just you and her. The live was less of a concert, more of 'an evening with Maaya Sakamoto' due to the amount of talking and songs there were. It was nice.
She introduced herself (needed??!) and then it was time for a chat. This tour was based on postcards that the IDS members sent in, apparently they had been asked to tell IDS their favorite Maaya songs and say why that song was their favorite. Interesting. Then this tour was made up from those songs. Which is why the set list was so different to the Kazeyomi tour I imagine. Anyway, Maaya produced a book which had some of the postcards she had selected to read out. A lot of these were the same for each stop of the tour but some where different, for example she read out some postcards from some Osaka fans. I'm not sure but I think maybe the person behind me WAS one of those fans because she started crying loads and going 'aah, thank god', sort of. Actually I think a lot of people were moved by these post cards because suddenly a lot of sniffing was heard!! I'll give you a few examples later!
Anyway, someone's favourite song was....
Strobe no Sora
Now, this is when I cried for the FIRST time. We'd been listening to Lucy in the car on the way to Osaka and somehow hearing it in person, live, was just...amazing. The arrangements in this concert were all acoustic so they all sounded a little different from the original tracks which was a nice touch. The cello especially was really nice in all the songs.
Me and my friend both agreed afterwards that Maaya sang beautifully. Even better than the Kazeyomi DVD. I'm not sure why but we were both confused as to why she would be better than on the DVD to such a noticeable degree. I think maybe she was less nervous?...no filming etc. No idea but she was incredible. Really powerful.
Remedy
Girls next door crying. I think I did at the end. I'm such a wimp, haha. What a nice song.
Kodoku
THIS is what I was waiting for. One of my most favorite, favorite Maaya songs ever. Stunning, really stunning. Acoustic arrangements are the best. And Maaya singing it as an adult...amazing. Before the performed this song she had a chat with us again. This time about how, when she was a teenager, although she tried to sing Yuho Iwasato's lyrics to the best of her ability, it wasn't until she got older that she realised how beautiful the songs she had been given to sing really were. As I understood it, her understanding of the lyrics and the craft of writing lyrics grew and with it came a new appreciation of her older songs. Which was nice. This was one of the ones she said she had a a new appreciation of.
Awesome performance. Amazing. Argh.
I can't remember where it was but it might have been before this song the she told us about being obsessed with a Nintendo DS game called 'Tomodachi Collection'. It's a bit like the Sims. You build all your friends and family etc. and then...I don't know, control them, make them a life etc. So she said 'At first I did the normal things like making my family, friends etc. but then I ran out of people...so I made my staff. Then...there was nothing for it but to make Johnny Depp!' etc.
Apparently her parents FINALLY got married on the game the day before (we cheered) after a lot of work on Maaya's part. Apparently her best friend had fallen in love with her father and Maaya had had to take a lot of time going 'Father loves mother, father loves mother' and making them fall in love. Also, it seemed like two of the band members for married on the game too (we cheered again). Made me want to play the game. Strange love triangle though.
The band members left the stage apart from the pianist after Kodoku and then came...
Ao no Ether
This was unexpected. I tried to avoid setlists before I went so this was truly a lovely surprise. The stage was pitch black, lit only by a light beam that shone in from the right side of the stage, so everything was lit up in profile (afterwards she joked that it was black instead of blue) but...oh man, the ATMOSPHERE. I don't know whether it was the way Ao no Ether echoed in the hall or something but it was like you could FEEL the atmosphere, or should I say, we could feel the ether. Almost like 'this is what ether must be'. It was electric. Note perfect. I'm not sure but I think the pianist might have changed the arrangement slightly in one place or two but I couldn't tell you as a fact.
You could hear a pin drop when it finished. Then we clapped.
Pianist left the stage then Maaya had a chat to us again. She's been thinking over what to give the IDS members as a Christmas present this year. She's done DVD's, radio shows, and she's decided to do a surprise message. At every tour stop she's asked the audience to shout a word, she records the words and then puts them together to make a sentence. We got the word 'Sound'. And we had a jolly old time practicing the way Maaya wanted us to say it then recording it. SOUND! I wonder what the sentence will be...also, there was a staff member at the end of the concert waiting to record messages from the fans for other fans. More on that later.
Maaya then lamented that she could still only play two songs so we wouldn't be surprised but I was still looking forward to hearing them!!
No Fear
Kazamidori
No Fear was, as you might expect, lovely. Kazamidori though....lovely.....but...she got the lyrics wrong! My friend seemed to think she got the lyrics wrong in two or three places during the concert including this one (I couldn't tell! I thought if I got it wrong then it must be because I forgot the Japanese and I was wrong but I wonder...). It was the last chorus, she started to sing a different chorus then had to correct herself. But the piano seemed more difficult than on the Kazeyomi DVD so maybe that's why. Still, it was gorgeous. She said that Kazamidori was a song that she wrote when she was wanting to go traveling and it is still the one closest to who she is right now.
Band came back, band introductions. Apparently they are the same band as last year but she reintroduced them anyway. The band is called 'Cucumbers!' Why? Well, three out of four of them hate cucumbers. Maaya asked the audience if people didn't like cucumbers, I didn't, as did some others. So it's not that rare! But Maaya seemed to think it was pretty weird that so many people in her band didn't like cucumbers.
Then it was time for...
Yakusoku wa Iranai
This was fun! The marching band bit in the middle was extended and the pianist brought out a little tin whistle/pipe thing, it was like a scottish jig! Really cute. I tried to start a clapping thing but...Maaya fans are serious! No one joined in so it was just me.
Dive
Think I cried again here. Stage was lit from the back with some kind of light that made it looks like we were under water. I'm not sure how often this song has been performed but I felt privileged to hear it. Really, I did. Beautiful. So much emotion put into it and the arrangement was beautiful. I would never have thought a four piece band could put so many layers into a song like this. Better than the original. Not just because Maaya's vocals were so much stronger than they were ten years ago.
Back to the postcards. Reasons why people like the songs! A few examples from some of the other tour stops Maaya told us about:
- a couple who just got married, not sure what song they said they had at the wedding but Maaya made them stand up (maybe this was Tokyo?) and they had a round of applause
- someone who had been in hospital for a long time listened to 'Sora wo miro' while he was in his hospital bed looking out the window. He was able to go to the Nagoya concert and got a round of applause too.
No one got picked out like that at ours but there were a really, really affecting story before Wakaba, A man and his older brother spent a long time looking after their dying father in hospital. They took turns watching over him for a week before he finally passed on. The young man did everything that was expected of him, until the body was cleaned etc. without breaking down. After they had put his father's body in a hearse, the young man followed in his own car. He hadn't cried even though he was heartbroken. And it was finally in the car, in the rain, following his father's body in the car in front, that he started to cry (he added that he did pull over!) and it was Wakaba that was the song which came he had been listening to.
I think a lot of audience members cried here. It was a really sad story. Then Maaya sang...
Wakaba
Made me like this song more. Maaya explained that it's really interesting hearing people's interpretations of her songs because she writes them in completely different circumstances. Wakaba was written about her friend's experience in university, for instance. So she liked reading everyone's impressions of her songs.
Get no Satisfaction was written after an IDS concert last year. She wrote it because of all the energy she got from the fans who attended and wanted a song that reflected that energy (we all stood up and went crazy in this song...well.....me and the two girls next door and my friend got up and clapped etc.) and this was the result. Also, this year's IDS tour t-shirts were designed as a uniform for everyone to recognize each other. She wants all fans to cheer each other on – you are not alone!
Get no Satisfaction
Clapped loads, waved to Maaya a lot too. The venue was pretty sure and we were the only people going crazy on the balcony so hopefully, fingers crossed, she saw us and appreciated our energy!
Encore
Same as above really, dancing, cheering, going crazy when she looked our way. Apparently at the Sapporo tour venue like, it was embarrassing because NO ONE was dancing or clapping or anything. The guy who sold us the tickets apparently went and said it was like....he felt embarrassed because he felt he couldn't go crazy because everyone else was so stoic. Apparently Maaya caught the eye of someone in the front row and had a giggling fit at the lack of reaction. Also, in Tokyo she actually had to say 'come on, stand up!!!'. The Osaka people, I'm glad to say, on the bottom floor, did stand up and clap straight away. We rock.
It did look like she looked our way. It was really bright and lit up and we all sang along etc. Especially Pocket!! Really nice end to the evening! Bright, upbeat, happy!!
Kazemachi Jet
Poketto Kara ni Shite
After all the clapping and goodbyes it was time to go. Outside we all lined up to give our recordings to the IDS staff member. Of course, I got it wrong, AGAIN. Stupid hand written Japanese I couldn't read. We had to give where we were from, our goal for 2010 and where we would like to travel to. Fine. Did it. Then apparently we had to give the IDS slogan call or whatever. Couldn't read it. Made one up. Ran away. Haha, so embarrassing, I can't believe I made one up (-_-);;;;;; boo.
It looks like those will be collected for the new year present thing though.
Anyway!!! There we go.
AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING! Apparently I was shouting 'Maaya' a lot at the end. I'm not surprised (although I don't really remember haha) it was stunning. Incredible. Awesome!
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
I.D Essay Book - When I was a Child Star (Part 3)
Sorry it took so long, moved back from Japan and have been settling in etc. Here's the next part!
My First Job was to Sing
Two weeks later I sang in a Asahi Television studio.
The job was a song for a commercial and was unexpectedly a solo part. There were two versions, a 30 second one and a 15 second one. First, I had to learn the tune right there in that room with the composer playing the melody on the piano. Then I had to sing into the microphone. During the lessons at Komadori we sang the ‘Doe-ray-me Song’ altogether but other than that we had not had any specific sessions for singing. And it had only been two weeks since that first lesson which had been comparable to a hurricane passing through. I’m being completely honest when I say I was just a completely normal child singing.
This was the system we should probably name ‘the Komadori method’. With no relation to how long one had been enrolled at the school we were sent off to many different places, this was a truly physical style - getting in the practice as one is mastering the work itself. Actually, it would be closer to say that the reason for this was that the number of members in the troupe was so small, even if everyone was working there still weren’t enough people. There were times were one would be rushing to and from many different places in a single day.
Anyway, we were lucky not to have to yearn for ‘work’ but from the beginning were able to just naturally enter the ‘industry’ in the enjoyable, enthusiastic way of a club activity. The seasoned professionals, those kids who were much sought after, no matter who it was they somehow never lost that air of being ‘normal’. That quality was one of the good things about being a ‘Komadori child’ but I think that it must have been tough for the adults around because thanks to that same personality trait we would be as mischievous as usual without even a thought to the fact we were in a studio.
From this time, I became a working elementary student, concentrating mainly on songs for commercials, narrations, and the dubbing of Western movies. I never had any perception that I was ‘working’ but gradually I found my own way of tackling ‘acting’ and as my own perceptions towards it were born and I became a sort of pro.
The first experiments with using actual children to perform in the field of dubbing Western movies were just starting back then. Up until that point it was the norm in dubbing for adults to also perform children’s roles.
From way back I’ve liked this sort of work best. Even now, more than singing, more than anime, more than narrations, more than being on stage, this is the genre that I have done the most with and am most used to, so in the dubbing room I am strangely at ease.
The process of dubbing is to stand with the script in one hand while looking at both the script and the film on a screen, listening to the original audio in one ear, acting in front of a microphone. There’s a lot of ‘while doing such and such’ attached to this and until you get used to it it’s very difficult.
It was difficult for me too but until we got used to it, us Komadori kids would have our teacher next to us through all of the above I’ve described, and the method we used was that whenever it was time to say our lines the teacher would press our backs. On top of this because we couldn’t reach the microphones we had to stand on fruit boxes or telephone books. From the perspective of the adults around us, we must have looked like one of those mechanical dolls which speaks when you press a button on its back. It must have looked pretty funny. I don’t remember exactly when my back stopped being pressed and I became able to do it by myself. When I realised , my teacher had already disappeared from my side.
Computer technology at the time hadn’t progressed to the point it is at now, so when one made a mistake on one line most of the time it was necessary to re-record from the beginning of the scene before. In other words, if you made a mistake you were causing a lot of trouble to your fellow performers. This meant that there was an atmosphere of nervousness, we knew we were playing for keeps. I really liked seeing the craftsmanship and the skills of the adult actors which were being used right there before my very eyes.
Comparing that era to the present, technology really has made leaps and bounds. Even if one makes a mistake you can now re-do just that one section with ease. Although this is truly convenient and I’m glad of it, it feels as if because of that ease the sense of guilt about making a mistake has disappeared somewhat. I got a kick out of that nervousness of working in that live broadcast-like system.
The lessons at Komadori which took place every Saturday were as noisy as being at a zoo. But the time I spent with my friends who were all from different places and of different ages was stimulating, a little different from every day life, and I really enjoyed it. However, because of this reason, although it was the place where I learnt a substantial amount about acting, to the last it felt like I was going there to have fun. From elementary school, after classes and on days off, I was often spending time mixing with professionals and I think this had a big effect on me.
When one asks why I was doing a lot of voice work, it was that the policy of Komadori at that time was “We will not let you miss school’, and this was an iron law. Inevitably it meant that I couldn’t do television dramas and plays etc. where one would be off school for long periods of time. It was thanks to this rule that I was able to work and study at the same time from the third grade of elementary school till the fourth year of university.
On top of that, at the time I didn’t really have an interest in television work. Why didn’t I want to appear on TV? I really hated the “I saw you on TV!” and “Get that famous person’s autograph for me!” I once appeared on a variety show with Sanma-san [a famous Japanese comedian] and the reaction was incredible. I was singled out at school as ‘the girl who appeared with Sanma’. For me this was truly stressful and I thought ‘I’m never going to appear on TV ever again!’ That a girl who joined a theatre group out of her own wishes didn’t want to stand out from the crowd…what a selfish statement.
My First Job was to Sing
Two weeks later I sang in a Asahi Television studio.
The job was a song for a commercial and was unexpectedly a solo part. There were two versions, a 30 second one and a 15 second one. First, I had to learn the tune right there in that room with the composer playing the melody on the piano. Then I had to sing into the microphone. During the lessons at Komadori we sang the ‘Doe-ray-me Song’ altogether but other than that we had not had any specific sessions for singing. And it had only been two weeks since that first lesson which had been comparable to a hurricane passing through. I’m being completely honest when I say I was just a completely normal child singing.
This was the system we should probably name ‘the Komadori method’. With no relation to how long one had been enrolled at the school we were sent off to many different places, this was a truly physical style - getting in the practice as one is mastering the work itself. Actually, it would be closer to say that the reason for this was that the number of members in the troupe was so small, even if everyone was working there still weren’t enough people. There were times were one would be rushing to and from many different places in a single day.
Anyway, we were lucky not to have to yearn for ‘work’ but from the beginning were able to just naturally enter the ‘industry’ in the enjoyable, enthusiastic way of a club activity. The seasoned professionals, those kids who were much sought after, no matter who it was they somehow never lost that air of being ‘normal’. That quality was one of the good things about being a ‘Komadori child’ but I think that it must have been tough for the adults around because thanks to that same personality trait we would be as mischievous as usual without even a thought to the fact we were in a studio.
From this time, I became a working elementary student, concentrating mainly on songs for commercials, narrations, and the dubbing of Western movies. I never had any perception that I was ‘working’ but gradually I found my own way of tackling ‘acting’ and as my own perceptions towards it were born and I became a sort of pro.
The first experiments with using actual children to perform in the field of dubbing Western movies were just starting back then. Up until that point it was the norm in dubbing for adults to also perform children’s roles.
From way back I’ve liked this sort of work best. Even now, more than singing, more than anime, more than narrations, more than being on stage, this is the genre that I have done the most with and am most used to, so in the dubbing room I am strangely at ease.
The process of dubbing is to stand with the script in one hand while looking at both the script and the film on a screen, listening to the original audio in one ear, acting in front of a microphone. There’s a lot of ‘while doing such and such’ attached to this and until you get used to it it’s very difficult.
It was difficult for me too but until we got used to it, us Komadori kids would have our teacher next to us through all of the above I’ve described, and the method we used was that whenever it was time to say our lines the teacher would press our backs. On top of this because we couldn’t reach the microphones we had to stand on fruit boxes or telephone books. From the perspective of the adults around us, we must have looked like one of those mechanical dolls which speaks when you press a button on its back. It must have looked pretty funny. I don’t remember exactly when my back stopped being pressed and I became able to do it by myself. When I realised , my teacher had already disappeared from my side.
Computer technology at the time hadn’t progressed to the point it is at now, so when one made a mistake on one line most of the time it was necessary to re-record from the beginning of the scene before. In other words, if you made a mistake you were causing a lot of trouble to your fellow performers. This meant that there was an atmosphere of nervousness, we knew we were playing for keeps. I really liked seeing the craftsmanship and the skills of the adult actors which were being used right there before my very eyes.
Comparing that era to the present, technology really has made leaps and bounds. Even if one makes a mistake you can now re-do just that one section with ease. Although this is truly convenient and I’m glad of it, it feels as if because of that ease the sense of guilt about making a mistake has disappeared somewhat. I got a kick out of that nervousness of working in that live broadcast-like system.
The lessons at Komadori which took place every Saturday were as noisy as being at a zoo. But the time I spent with my friends who were all from different places and of different ages was stimulating, a little different from every day life, and I really enjoyed it. However, because of this reason, although it was the place where I learnt a substantial amount about acting, to the last it felt like I was going there to have fun. From elementary school, after classes and on days off, I was often spending time mixing with professionals and I think this had a big effect on me.
When one asks why I was doing a lot of voice work, it was that the policy of Komadori at that time was “We will not let you miss school’, and this was an iron law. Inevitably it meant that I couldn’t do television dramas and plays etc. where one would be off school for long periods of time. It was thanks to this rule that I was able to work and study at the same time from the third grade of elementary school till the fourth year of university.
On top of that, at the time I didn’t really have an interest in television work. Why didn’t I want to appear on TV? I really hated the “I saw you on TV!” and “Get that famous person’s autograph for me!” I once appeared on a variety show with Sanma-san [a famous Japanese comedian] and the reaction was incredible. I was singled out at school as ‘the girl who appeared with Sanma’. For me this was truly stressful and I thought ‘I’m never going to appear on TV ever again!’ That a girl who joined a theatre group out of her own wishes didn’t want to stand out from the crowd…what a selfish statement.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Vitamin-M Radio Show now airing Online!
In celebration of Maaya's long running Vitamin-M radio show passing it's 400th episode mark Bay-FM has made Maaya's show available to listen to online:
http://www.bayfm.co.jp/ip/index.html
Enjoy!
http://www.bayfm.co.jp/ip/index.html
Enjoy!
Sunday, 22 November 2009
I.D Essay Book - When I was a Child Star (Part 2)
Part Two ^^V
Completely Caught off Guard
The first youth theatre company entrance audition I had taken consisted of several hundred children and their parents all gathered together. Some important-looking people came out wearing suits and greeted us in an enthusiastic, movie-business-like way: “Greetings to you, the stars of tomorrow!” The actual test was simple, things like keeping up a rhythm etc. and we were moved along in an assembly line fashion. The end. The whole of the large building we were in was composed of the theatre company’s offices, and to me it seemed like a very adult world.
And then there was ‘Komadori’.
It was located in a place so quiet as to make you want to say, “Eh? Here?!”
After nervously opening the door there stood a single middle aged woman. She came over with a large booming “Why hello there!” and then “What? You’re a third year at elementary school? You’re pretty small, aren’t you!” While sipping tea and folding her newspaper she seemed just like my own grandmother even though this was the first time we had met. She was more chirpy than was necessary. Komadori was, from the hall to the main room, an old building that was small enough to be able to see everything in it all at once. It was very different to my expectations.
“OK, now Mum you just sit there. Maaya, you come over here” she suddenly used just my first name. Then without any warning the audition started. The old lady who I’d thought was just the receptionist was actually the representative of the theatre group, and its manager, and its teacher of theatrics. Without paying any attention to how overwhelmed I was the questions came flying out immediately.
“There’s a boat in front of you. Your mother is on that boat. She’s going off to a foreign country right now! Shout something to her, whatever you want. Go!”
Even if you say ‘go!’ like that…er…anyway I gave “Mama!” a try. Silence. The “Old lady” who was now my “teacher” sat there looking at me without saying anything. There was nothing for it, I added “Come back some day!” My teacher was still silent. Even trying to call out again produced no reaction. For a moment she stared into space then suddenly got up urging, “Look, the boat’s going, say something!” Waving my hand and trying to give off some feeling of a growing distance I continued to call “Mama! Mama!” Finish.
Without any feedback we moved onto the next situation. “Huh? Did I do something wrong?” I was suddenly nervous.
Other questions consisted of “You’ve mislaid something important to you, you’re free to move around so go ahead and search this room” etc. and continued at a surprisingly difficult level. Being given various situations and then being free to develop a story and then give an impromptu performance – in theatre this is called an ‘etude’. Giving something difficult like this to just an ordinary elementary school student! I laugh when I think about it now.
When we were finished with this the teacher said “Everyone will come soon, why don’t you try taking a lesson with us?” Everyone? A lesson?
Then with an attitude of ‘it’s us, the kids!’ lots of boys and girls surged into this weird old room. I had no idea what was going on but all of them were talking in loud voices. The teacher raised her voice, “Oi, you lot! This is Maaya and she’s going to be joining our lesson today so make friends, ok?”
I see, this lady’s voice is loud in order to shut up these ten children all in one go. As one, all of these sweaty, red-faced children looked my way. I found out afterwards that as the room is too narrow for rehearsals where one can move one’s body about, the first rule seemed to be to come to lessons after playing as much as one wants in the park. Very strange. Very, very strange. I don’t think there’s another youth theatre group like this one. No, there’s definitely not another one like it. I’ve never heard of one.
My first lesson. Vocal exercises and tongue-twisters, then reading lines in pairs. Well, I think that’s pretty much like any theatre group but Komadori was NOISY!!
The children were reading their lines like anyone would but would then shout them without any reserve at all. The boys mostly started to play ‘pro-wrestling’. And then the teacher would shout at them one by one “Oi!”, and “You’re too noisy!”, and “Be quiet!” but it had no effect at all. Two hours seemed to fly by and the lesson was suddenly over. As I was preparing to go home, tired out by the hours of shouting, the teacher said “Next week from 10’o’clock, ok?”
Somehow, it seemed I had passed.
Completely Caught off Guard
The first youth theatre company entrance audition I had taken consisted of several hundred children and their parents all gathered together. Some important-looking people came out wearing suits and greeted us in an enthusiastic, movie-business-like way: “Greetings to you, the stars of tomorrow!” The actual test was simple, things like keeping up a rhythm etc. and we were moved along in an assembly line fashion. The end. The whole of the large building we were in was composed of the theatre company’s offices, and to me it seemed like a very adult world.
And then there was ‘Komadori’.
It was located in a place so quiet as to make you want to say, “Eh? Here?!”
After nervously opening the door there stood a single middle aged woman. She came over with a large booming “Why hello there!” and then “What? You’re a third year at elementary school? You’re pretty small, aren’t you!” While sipping tea and folding her newspaper she seemed just like my own grandmother even though this was the first time we had met. She was more chirpy than was necessary. Komadori was, from the hall to the main room, an old building that was small enough to be able to see everything in it all at once. It was very different to my expectations.
“OK, now Mum you just sit there. Maaya, you come over here” she suddenly used just my first name. Then without any warning the audition started. The old lady who I’d thought was just the receptionist was actually the representative of the theatre group, and its manager, and its teacher of theatrics. Without paying any attention to how overwhelmed I was the questions came flying out immediately.
“There’s a boat in front of you. Your mother is on that boat. She’s going off to a foreign country right now! Shout something to her, whatever you want. Go!”
Even if you say ‘go!’ like that…er…anyway I gave “Mama!” a try. Silence. The “Old lady” who was now my “teacher” sat there looking at me without saying anything. There was nothing for it, I added “Come back some day!” My teacher was still silent. Even trying to call out again produced no reaction. For a moment she stared into space then suddenly got up urging, “Look, the boat’s going, say something!” Waving my hand and trying to give off some feeling of a growing distance I continued to call “Mama! Mama!” Finish.
Without any feedback we moved onto the next situation. “Huh? Did I do something wrong?” I was suddenly nervous.
Other questions consisted of “You’ve mislaid something important to you, you’re free to move around so go ahead and search this room” etc. and continued at a surprisingly difficult level. Being given various situations and then being free to develop a story and then give an impromptu performance – in theatre this is called an ‘etude’. Giving something difficult like this to just an ordinary elementary school student! I laugh when I think about it now.
When we were finished with this the teacher said “Everyone will come soon, why don’t you try taking a lesson with us?” Everyone? A lesson?
Then with an attitude of ‘it’s us, the kids!’ lots of boys and girls surged into this weird old room. I had no idea what was going on but all of them were talking in loud voices. The teacher raised her voice, “Oi, you lot! This is Maaya and she’s going to be joining our lesson today so make friends, ok?”
I see, this lady’s voice is loud in order to shut up these ten children all in one go. As one, all of these sweaty, red-faced children looked my way. I found out afterwards that as the room is too narrow for rehearsals where one can move one’s body about, the first rule seemed to be to come to lessons after playing as much as one wants in the park. Very strange. Very, very strange. I don’t think there’s another youth theatre group like this one. No, there’s definitely not another one like it. I’ve never heard of one.
My first lesson. Vocal exercises and tongue-twisters, then reading lines in pairs. Well, I think that’s pretty much like any theatre group but Komadori was NOISY!!
The children were reading their lines like anyone would but would then shout them without any reserve at all. The boys mostly started to play ‘pro-wrestling’. And then the teacher would shout at them one by one “Oi!”, and “You’re too noisy!”, and “Be quiet!” but it had no effect at all. Two hours seemed to fly by and the lesson was suddenly over. As I was preparing to go home, tired out by the hours of shouting, the teacher said “Next week from 10’o’clock, ok?”
Somehow, it seemed I had passed.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
I.D Essay Book - When I was a Child Star (Part 1)
This is a pretty long essay from the I.D Essay book so I've divided into sub-sections, it's like that in the original essay so it doesn't jar too much. The essay is a bout 50 pages so I think I'm justified ha, ha. We'll see how it goes. Anyway, here's the first part.
Note: 80,000yen is roughly £550.
When I was a Child Star
The Very Beginning
When I was 8 years old I entered a youth theatre group.
From when I was very small I was raised on going to see various plays through my father’s work, so it was natural for me to be drawn to the stage. Musicals especially for children, difficult and absurd plays, Japanese dance, foreign opera, recitals and monodramas – whether I understood what was going or not I saw every possible type of play.
My father is a stage lighting planner. So sometimes I was taken to the rehearsal rooms, and I often got to see plays, not from where the audience sits but from the ‘Lighting Box’ where the light technicians work. The back stage staff in black clothing rushing around behind the flamboyant stage, the thick make-up the actors wore which would startle you if you looked closely, the magnificent looking stage props which were actually made from painted wood and cloth, I knew about all of this even as a child.
Because I knew this, my dream of “I want to be an actress!” was more than just a wish but was something I felt I could aim for in reality. I have seen countless times the actors who would make mistakes, get angry and cry in the rehearsal rooms many times over and then seemed to undergo a sparkling transformation into completely different people on stage. Sweating, losing one’s voice, getting angry and crying one’s eyes out, and then on top of that putting on a performance…even so, they seemed pretty happy. I felt that there was surely some kind of special power flowing out from the top of that stage. That mysterious place that they came back to, no matter how much they suffered, when I realised what I was doing I too had began walking towards it.
These feelings came to a head when one day I saw the advertising flyer of a certain large youth theatre company that came with our newspaper. Not an as audience member, not from the lighting box, this time I want to see the theatre from standing on the stage. My parents said afterwards that, “Well, we knew you would say something like that some day but it was a bit earlier than we expected”. The day of the audition to join the group came quickly and then some days afterwards the letter to say I had passed arrived.
But. I was shocked when I heard the amount of money that would be needed to join the troupe. Separate to the actual membership fee, there were various teaching materials that would need purchasing amongst other things, and the letter read ‘so please send 80,000yen, ok?’ Back then I was a pretty stingy child (although at present this has mellowed somewhat) so “They never said anything about it being so expensive! I quit, I quit”. I withdrew without losing any sleep over the matter.
It was a sum vastly different to the monthly costs of the calligraphy and swimming classes that I was going to at the time and I was truly surprised by it. I’d thought of it as just one other new thing I would be learning, but I suddenly found that I was feeling like it was going to be more of a pain in the neck then I had expected. I wanted to say, well if it’s like that then just buy me a game boy! But after I’d forgotten about the whole thing, a person my father knew suggested, “It’s pretty modest but there’s a theatre group I know of that does things properly, how about going to have a look?” That group was the Childrens Theatre Group Komadori.
Note: 80,000yen is roughly £550.
When I was a Child Star
The Very Beginning
When I was 8 years old I entered a youth theatre group.
From when I was very small I was raised on going to see various plays through my father’s work, so it was natural for me to be drawn to the stage. Musicals especially for children, difficult and absurd plays, Japanese dance, foreign opera, recitals and monodramas – whether I understood what was going or not I saw every possible type of play.
My father is a stage lighting planner. So sometimes I was taken to the rehearsal rooms, and I often got to see plays, not from where the audience sits but from the ‘Lighting Box’ where the light technicians work. The back stage staff in black clothing rushing around behind the flamboyant stage, the thick make-up the actors wore which would startle you if you looked closely, the magnificent looking stage props which were actually made from painted wood and cloth, I knew about all of this even as a child.
Because I knew this, my dream of “I want to be an actress!” was more than just a wish but was something I felt I could aim for in reality. I have seen countless times the actors who would make mistakes, get angry and cry in the rehearsal rooms many times over and then seemed to undergo a sparkling transformation into completely different people on stage. Sweating, losing one’s voice, getting angry and crying one’s eyes out, and then on top of that putting on a performance…even so, they seemed pretty happy. I felt that there was surely some kind of special power flowing out from the top of that stage. That mysterious place that they came back to, no matter how much they suffered, when I realised what I was doing I too had began walking towards it.
These feelings came to a head when one day I saw the advertising flyer of a certain large youth theatre company that came with our newspaper. Not an as audience member, not from the lighting box, this time I want to see the theatre from standing on the stage. My parents said afterwards that, “Well, we knew you would say something like that some day but it was a bit earlier than we expected”. The day of the audition to join the group came quickly and then some days afterwards the letter to say I had passed arrived.
But. I was shocked when I heard the amount of money that would be needed to join the troupe. Separate to the actual membership fee, there were various teaching materials that would need purchasing amongst other things, and the letter read ‘so please send 80,000yen, ok?’ Back then I was a pretty stingy child (although at present this has mellowed somewhat) so “They never said anything about it being so expensive! I quit, I quit”. I withdrew without losing any sleep over the matter.
It was a sum vastly different to the monthly costs of the calligraphy and swimming classes that I was going to at the time and I was truly surprised by it. I’d thought of it as just one other new thing I would be learning, but I suddenly found that I was feeling like it was going to be more of a pain in the neck then I had expected. I wanted to say, well if it’s like that then just buy me a game boy! But after I’d forgotten about the whole thing, a person my father knew suggested, “It’s pretty modest but there’s a theatre group I know of that does things properly, how about going to have a look?” That group was the Childrens Theatre Group Komadori.
Sunday, 18 October 2009
I.D Essay Book - First Love
Another essay from Maaya's essay book 'I.D'. This time detailing Maaya's first experience of love and her ordeal on Valentine's day. Part of it was published on Maaya's official website back in the day (2000) but the latter part is newly written for the essay book. Enjoy!
Note: in Japan on Valentine’s Day girls (not the boys) give out ‘giri-choco’ and ‘hon-choco’. ‘Giri’ means duty and you usually give it to everyone equally e.g. friends, classmates, co-workers etc. to be friendly. No special feelings. ‘Honmei-choco’ comes from 本命チョコ ‘honmei’ (real feelings) - thanks Frecklegirl. Bwahaha. So, as you might imagine, it’s special and goes to the one you like for real. Because I couldn’t think of a way to put this into English, I’ve left it as ‘giri-choco’ and put this note here. Bwahahah.
Note 2: White Day is March 14th when the boys return the favour by giving something back to the girls they received something from a month earlier.
“My First Love”
From middle school to around the second year of high school there was a boy I had a crush on. We went to different schools but we were really good friends and I really looked up to him because he was good at both studying and sports. Even though I liked him for five years there was only one time when I gave him chocolates for Valentine’s Day. My second year of middle school.
When I was in middle school I pretty much stopped watching television, I got all my information about the outside world from the radio. Around this time I made a small radio in my technology class and I used it all the time. It was around then that I began to favour Western music more as well. On the day of this Valentine memory it was this small radio that I had in the kitchen with me while I made chocolate. I say ‘making’ but it was only melting down and then hardening which anybody could have done but to me at the time it a massive operation. Even I was surprised that I had gone into the kitchen of my own will.
The plan was this.
To give chocolate not just to him, but to all my other friends too. That way no one would know that he was the real target. Make it look like ‘giri-choco’ when in fact the contents were especially for him only! I hoped that no one would notice. It wasn’t that I was giving him chocolates in order to say ‘I like you’. It was for, what would one say, self-satisfaction.
Love songs flowed one after another from the radio and various people’s Valentine stories were read out which had been faxed in. While listening to this I thought about what kind of message I would write to him. Even if I didn’t want to go as far as to confess to him, I wanted to add a few words to it. So, what I ended up writing was: ‘Thank you for everything. By the way, this isn’t ‘giri’!’ When I think of it now I laugh a lot! I can only pray that he has now thrown this card away. However, at the time, I wonder what a 14 year old boy would have made of this card? He never said anything…
Anyway! I was able to give him the chocolate safely. Remembering it, it was pretty poorly made; the chocolate looked so awful that it makes me think that it maybe it would have been better not to have handed it over at all but right then I thought it was a big success. On White Day I received candy which looked like it could have been brought from any convenience store on the way. It seemed like a waste so I didn’t eat it but put it away for a long time. In my second year of high school I found it again when I moved house and threw it away.
After we graduated middle school we were able to meet less and less and now I don’t even know his address. But in the winter of my first year of high school we met by coincidence on the train. Even though we had been such good friends, even though it had been so long since we’d last met, I got off the train without even greeting him properly. I regretted that for a long time but, it’s strange, as time has passed, I’ve found that I’ve begun to think fondly of myself back then. This chance meeting on the train became material of a song I wrote for my first album ‘Grapefruit’.
When I remember him, it always brings that small radio to mind. For whatever reason, it was lost somewhere. It’s strange that it got lost even though I left it in my house but I cannot find it. For me, a radio is an irreplaceable part of my life. That small hand-made radio was the reason that I fell in love with radio. Even if I never find it again, it is a precious treasure, a symbol of my first true memory of love and music.
What kind of life is he leading now? Has he given up basket ball? Even if there is someone I care about more now, whenever Valentine’s Day comes around, I always remember him.
“Valentine’s Day ~the whole story~”
Actually, one part of the Valentine’s story was different to what actually happened. I wrote that, “I was able to give him the chocolate safely”. In truth it was anything but safely.
On the day I clumsily put the wrapped chocolate into paper bags before heading off to cram school with him. From the outside all of them looked the same but the real thing had a label attached to make it stand out. How should I give it to him? Puffing out white gasps while peddling my bicycle, I was wrapped in the red scarf that I loved most back then.
Upon opening the door to the classroom, there was a girl I had never seen before. Long hair, pink sweater, a pleated skirt, she gave an impression of being somehow high class. The teacher introduced her to everyone, ‘Maki will be in our class from now on’.
Something felt wrong. I didn’t like the fact someone had joined our class. On top of that she was cute. I was worried. My rivals had increased by one. I was worried. She looks clever too. Worried, worried, worried…
Then the main event of the day.
“Let’s end class here.” With the teacher’s words the battle plan was put into operation. I plucked up my courage and began to call out “Um…”, at that moment:
“Um, I’ve brought some chocolate cake that I made with me. It’s Valentine’s Day after all ♥” said Maki.
Crashing and clattering. This was the sound of all the simulations that my head had produced for today of this moment and my carefully planned Valentine’s Day operation being obliterated. Ca-, cake? Not only was she was cute, not only had she appeared on Valentine’s day, but a hand made cake?!
The boys began to eat big mouthfuls with a ‘Thank you!’ right there on the spot. I also tried a mouthful. Flavourless. No, it had been made very well but I couldn’t taste it from the shock. My head was busy coping with the failure of my plan. Wh-wh-what should I do? If I gave out my chocolate now it would surely get compared. My poor chocolate which I had only melted and reformed and this delicious, veteran bakery-like cake. I had lost. A complete failure. Maybe I should just take it all home and throw it away…
As I was about to do this my target finished up with a ‘Thanks!’ and left the class room. And then.
“Maaya, is that chocolate by any chance? Did you make it?”
Said my friend, looking in the bag I was holding.
“Er….well, yes…”
“You should have said so earlier! Hey! Maaya’s brought home made chocolate too!” and with this, which although it was helped was an annoyance, stopped my target from leaving. I went outside nervously outside, now unable to withdraw. I ending up giving him his chocolate by the bike shed.
However. Here lay another catastrophe.
The label that I had carefully prepared so as to be able to tell which one was the ‘real thing’ had somehow come off! I didn’t know which one was the real chocolate!! With a pale face I said “Just wait a minute!”, holding each bag up to the light one by one I tried to see the contents. I had no idea…it’s so dark I couldn’t tell. I say this but of course you can’t see the contents by holding a bag up to a street lamp.
Ummm, ummm, I probably looked pretty fishy like that, holding each bag up to the light over and over again. After making him wait for so long I gave him the real chocolate on a hunch ‘I think it’s this one’. Whether that was truly the right one or not will remain a mystery forever. When I think that the hinting message card saying ‘It’s not ‘giri’!’ probably got given to someone else, even now it makes me curl up.
“Memories of the Sunset’s Colours.”
In the end, it was a first love with true feelings left unsaid.
His seat was always right in front of me. During class sometimes he would turn round to look at my notes or something like that and I would be insanely happy, heart beating wildly. Even though we were paying expensive tuition fees my grades didn’t improve at all, I spent my days concentrating on staring at his back wishing: turn around, turn around.
It was very ordinary and quite modest, but that was definitely my first love. I thought that all the time we spent together, I want to remember every bit of it without leaving anything out; his voice, his height, his way of writing the characters on his notes. Now, like watered down paints they are indistinct, only pale colours that have become more and more mixed up.
I’m still good friends and talk regularly with that girl Maki who I had appointed my love rival. I lost to that cake on that day – I haven’t told her this even now because it still smarts.
For some reason the scenes appear especially vivid in the memories of the days when I loved him.
Following his back with my eyes from the top of a hill, watching as he rode his bicycle home at sunset. His expression as he turned back that one time when he reached the bottom of the hill, one that couldn’t be seen clearly in the backlight of the sunset, but how I knew with certainty that he would be smiling at me. It is a memory that makes my heart warm painfully from longing. I can’t remember when memory occurred, but out of all of them surprisingly this is the memory which is most vivid, striking for its unfading beauty.
Sometimes when I go through my memories, I remember the feeling, a mix of respect and longing, how I felt for him and begin to feel like I’m searching for him even now. However, now that I am an adult, I know that this is only an illusion. It is not his existence that makes my chest tighten now, but my own, myself at 14 who was in that desperate one-sided love. The ‘me’ of those days is pretty cute.
If, someday, we run into each other somewhere there is one thing I want to ask him. Was the Valentine chocolate that I gave him that day really the real ‘hon’ chocolate or not!!
Note: in Japan on Valentine’s Day girls (not the boys) give out ‘giri-choco’ and ‘hon-choco’. ‘Giri’ means duty and you usually give it to everyone equally e.g. friends, classmates, co-workers etc. to be friendly. No special feelings. ‘Honmei-choco’ comes from 本命チョコ ‘honmei’ (real feelings) - thanks Frecklegirl. Bwahaha. So, as you might imagine, it’s special and goes to the one you like for real. Because I couldn’t think of a way to put this into English, I’ve left it as ‘giri-choco’ and put this note here. Bwahahah.
Note 2: White Day is March 14th when the boys return the favour by giving something back to the girls they received something from a month earlier.
“My First Love”
From middle school to around the second year of high school there was a boy I had a crush on. We went to different schools but we were really good friends and I really looked up to him because he was good at both studying and sports. Even though I liked him for five years there was only one time when I gave him chocolates for Valentine’s Day. My second year of middle school.
When I was in middle school I pretty much stopped watching television, I got all my information about the outside world from the radio. Around this time I made a small radio in my technology class and I used it all the time. It was around then that I began to favour Western music more as well. On the day of this Valentine memory it was this small radio that I had in the kitchen with me while I made chocolate. I say ‘making’ but it was only melting down and then hardening which anybody could have done but to me at the time it a massive operation. Even I was surprised that I had gone into the kitchen of my own will.
The plan was this.
To give chocolate not just to him, but to all my other friends too. That way no one would know that he was the real target. Make it look like ‘giri-choco’ when in fact the contents were especially for him only! I hoped that no one would notice. It wasn’t that I was giving him chocolates in order to say ‘I like you’. It was for, what would one say, self-satisfaction.
Love songs flowed one after another from the radio and various people’s Valentine stories were read out which had been faxed in. While listening to this I thought about what kind of message I would write to him. Even if I didn’t want to go as far as to confess to him, I wanted to add a few words to it. So, what I ended up writing was: ‘Thank you for everything. By the way, this isn’t ‘giri’!’ When I think of it now I laugh a lot! I can only pray that he has now thrown this card away. However, at the time, I wonder what a 14 year old boy would have made of this card? He never said anything…
Anyway! I was able to give him the chocolate safely. Remembering it, it was pretty poorly made; the chocolate looked so awful that it makes me think that it maybe it would have been better not to have handed it over at all but right then I thought it was a big success. On White Day I received candy which looked like it could have been brought from any convenience store on the way. It seemed like a waste so I didn’t eat it but put it away for a long time. In my second year of high school I found it again when I moved house and threw it away.
After we graduated middle school we were able to meet less and less and now I don’t even know his address. But in the winter of my first year of high school we met by coincidence on the train. Even though we had been such good friends, even though it had been so long since we’d last met, I got off the train without even greeting him properly. I regretted that for a long time but, it’s strange, as time has passed, I’ve found that I’ve begun to think fondly of myself back then. This chance meeting on the train became material of a song I wrote for my first album ‘Grapefruit’.
When I remember him, it always brings that small radio to mind. For whatever reason, it was lost somewhere. It’s strange that it got lost even though I left it in my house but I cannot find it. For me, a radio is an irreplaceable part of my life. That small hand-made radio was the reason that I fell in love with radio. Even if I never find it again, it is a precious treasure, a symbol of my first true memory of love and music.
What kind of life is he leading now? Has he given up basket ball? Even if there is someone I care about more now, whenever Valentine’s Day comes around, I always remember him.
“Valentine’s Day ~the whole story~”
Actually, one part of the Valentine’s story was different to what actually happened. I wrote that, “I was able to give him the chocolate safely”. In truth it was anything but safely.
On the day I clumsily put the wrapped chocolate into paper bags before heading off to cram school with him. From the outside all of them looked the same but the real thing had a label attached to make it stand out. How should I give it to him? Puffing out white gasps while peddling my bicycle, I was wrapped in the red scarf that I loved most back then.
Upon opening the door to the classroom, there was a girl I had never seen before. Long hair, pink sweater, a pleated skirt, she gave an impression of being somehow high class. The teacher introduced her to everyone, ‘Maki will be in our class from now on’.
Something felt wrong. I didn’t like the fact someone had joined our class. On top of that she was cute. I was worried. My rivals had increased by one. I was worried. She looks clever too. Worried, worried, worried…
Then the main event of the day.
“Let’s end class here.” With the teacher’s words the battle plan was put into operation. I plucked up my courage and began to call out “Um…”, at that moment:
“Um, I’ve brought some chocolate cake that I made with me. It’s Valentine’s Day after all ♥” said Maki.
Crashing and clattering. This was the sound of all the simulations that my head had produced for today of this moment and my carefully planned Valentine’s Day operation being obliterated. Ca-, cake? Not only was she was cute, not only had she appeared on Valentine’s day, but a hand made cake?!
The boys began to eat big mouthfuls with a ‘Thank you!’ right there on the spot. I also tried a mouthful. Flavourless. No, it had been made very well but I couldn’t taste it from the shock. My head was busy coping with the failure of my plan. Wh-wh-what should I do? If I gave out my chocolate now it would surely get compared. My poor chocolate which I had only melted and reformed and this delicious, veteran bakery-like cake. I had lost. A complete failure. Maybe I should just take it all home and throw it away…
As I was about to do this my target finished up with a ‘Thanks!’ and left the class room. And then.
“Maaya, is that chocolate by any chance? Did you make it?”
Said my friend, looking in the bag I was holding.
“Er….well, yes…”
“You should have said so earlier! Hey! Maaya’s brought home made chocolate too!” and with this, which although it was helped was an annoyance, stopped my target from leaving. I went outside nervously outside, now unable to withdraw. I ending up giving him his chocolate by the bike shed.
However. Here lay another catastrophe.
The label that I had carefully prepared so as to be able to tell which one was the ‘real thing’ had somehow come off! I didn’t know which one was the real chocolate!! With a pale face I said “Just wait a minute!”, holding each bag up to the light one by one I tried to see the contents. I had no idea…it’s so dark I couldn’t tell. I say this but of course you can’t see the contents by holding a bag up to a street lamp.
Ummm, ummm, I probably looked pretty fishy like that, holding each bag up to the light over and over again. After making him wait for so long I gave him the real chocolate on a hunch ‘I think it’s this one’. Whether that was truly the right one or not will remain a mystery forever. When I think that the hinting message card saying ‘It’s not ‘giri’!’ probably got given to someone else, even now it makes me curl up.
“Memories of the Sunset’s Colours.”
In the end, it was a first love with true feelings left unsaid.
His seat was always right in front of me. During class sometimes he would turn round to look at my notes or something like that and I would be insanely happy, heart beating wildly. Even though we were paying expensive tuition fees my grades didn’t improve at all, I spent my days concentrating on staring at his back wishing: turn around, turn around.
It was very ordinary and quite modest, but that was definitely my first love. I thought that all the time we spent together, I want to remember every bit of it without leaving anything out; his voice, his height, his way of writing the characters on his notes. Now, like watered down paints they are indistinct, only pale colours that have become more and more mixed up.
I’m still good friends and talk regularly with that girl Maki who I had appointed my love rival. I lost to that cake on that day – I haven’t told her this even now because it still smarts.
For some reason the scenes appear especially vivid in the memories of the days when I loved him.
Following his back with my eyes from the top of a hill, watching as he rode his bicycle home at sunset. His expression as he turned back that one time when he reached the bottom of the hill, one that couldn’t be seen clearly in the backlight of the sunset, but how I knew with certainty that he would be smiling at me. It is a memory that makes my heart warm painfully from longing. I can’t remember when memory occurred, but out of all of them surprisingly this is the memory which is most vivid, striking for its unfading beauty.
Sometimes when I go through my memories, I remember the feeling, a mix of respect and longing, how I felt for him and begin to feel like I’m searching for him even now. However, now that I am an adult, I know that this is only an illusion. It is not his existence that makes my chest tighten now, but my own, myself at 14 who was in that desperate one-sided love. The ‘me’ of those days is pretty cute.
If, someday, we run into each other somewhere there is one thing I want to ask him. Was the Valentine chocolate that I gave him that day really the real ‘hon’ chocolate or not!!
Monday, 12 October 2009
I.D Essay Book - A Thrilling Weakness! A Life of Lost Property
In Japan currently and got my hands on Maaya's essay book/photo book 'I.D' when I went to her concert in Osaka. It's really good. I had no idea she wrote such interesting essays. Her I.D entries are one thing (some of them are in the book) but she's just genuinely good at writing. The essays are all really interesting. I'll try to translate them as I can but some are pretty long. Anyway, here's one from the book for you:
“A Thrilling Weakness! A Life of Lost Property”
If I were to describe the amount of things I have lost it would be extraordinary. From childhood right up until the present, I have lost something somewhere everyday. Every time it happens it is at the time a bitter experience and very regretful but why can’t I remedy this habit.
It was completely normal to lose textbooks and homework. Forgetting my gym kit on the day of the school sports festival, forgetting my camera on class trips, the loss of the remote control to a stereo I just bought (I still haven’t found it): this power is displayed upon the moment of ‘Oh, it was here!’.
Even since becoming an adult, after many incidents of forgetting things when going home, finally the staff began to make sure that when it was time to go that ‘Have you forgotten anything?’ How shameful. Once after I had appeared on a TV talk show I went home with the pin microphone still attached to me.
After living this life where I have just about forgotten more or less everything, my nerves have thickened to the point where it doesn’t bother me anymore. When I became an adult I learnt the art of being able to get over losing things by buying them again as soon as I lost them, the power of money. Although I have somehow avoided any huge disasters up until now, there have been many instances of forgetting things that couldn’t be made better with money.
One thing was something that happened when I was a university student.
I was tired from work being particularly busy and being in the middle of my midterm exams. Unexpectedly receiving a day off from all this I went out to a department store. It was right in the middle of the winter sale season. Get rid of stress by buying lots of things! I shopped until my legs were stiff. Then, when I was tired I went into a café and drank tea by myself. As I was doing this a friend rang me.
“Maaya, what are you doing?!” this seemed very serious.
“Huh? Right now? Shopping.”
“Today’s our Chai exam, stupid!”
I felt myself going pale. Hmm, now that you say that…it feels a bit like there was something like that today…
By the way, the ‘Chai’ exam she was talking about was the Chinese language module that I was taking. It was compulsory. If I failed ‘Chai’ it would be really bad. And if I didn’t turn up for the test my overall grade would drop considerably. On top of that the teacher in charge was pretty scary and I wasn’t that good at it anyway…
Without saying more than that I rushed home and phoned my teacher. I don’t remember the exact excuse I gave to her but probably that I was so sick that I couldn’t stand to leave the house even one step, I hadn’t even gotten to the phone before I had fallen over etc. I think it was something like that. A blatant lie but there was nothing for it. I knew it was pretty obvious that she’d seen through it but I couldn’t take it back after I’d said it. There was no way in hell that she’d be willing to let it go if I’d just said ‘I just forgot’.
Although she made a face about it, I somehow was given a chance to retake the test. However, she’d only recognise more than a 50% score on the make up test so I was in hot water if I didn’t get a near perfect mark. This was probably the most I ever studied in all my 4 years at university.
I also often forget people’s names. At least once a day.
For some reason, whenever I forget someone’s name I have a habit of thinking ‘I’m sure it was Yoshida-san.’ It doesn’t matter who they are, it will come out as ‘Yoshida-san’. Of course, it will always be that they actually have a completely different name.
Once this happened. At work one of my fellow actors greeted me with an ‘It’s nice to meet you’ and I replied with ‘What are you talking about, we’ve met before!’. The person responded with the negative ‘No, this is the first time…’. However many times I said that we’d met before the other person replied ‘we definitely have not’. In the end my dogged persistence was eventually met with a doubtful look.
Months after I had thought “But I was sure…” I was flipping idly through a magazine when I saw a picture of that person on one of the pages. That was when it finally came to me that she was an advertising model that often appeared in magazines. I had one-sidedly decided that I knew her but we hadn’t ever met…I was really embarrassed after that.
Within all this, the Maaya Sakamoto Lost Item Episode which is the biggest mistake I ever made in history…I can’t say it. It makes me feel faint, come out in a cold sweat and all the hair on my body stand on end, to the point where I can’t tell anyone about the most frightful mistake of my life. ‘Ahh, that time was awful…’.
I’ll save that for another time.
“A Thrilling Weakness! A Life of Lost Property”
If I were to describe the amount of things I have lost it would be extraordinary. From childhood right up until the present, I have lost something somewhere everyday. Every time it happens it is at the time a bitter experience and very regretful but why can’t I remedy this habit.
It was completely normal to lose textbooks and homework. Forgetting my gym kit on the day of the school sports festival, forgetting my camera on class trips, the loss of the remote control to a stereo I just bought (I still haven’t found it): this power is displayed upon the moment of ‘Oh, it was here!’.
Even since becoming an adult, after many incidents of forgetting things when going home, finally the staff began to make sure that when it was time to go that ‘Have you forgotten anything?’ How shameful. Once after I had appeared on a TV talk show I went home with the pin microphone still attached to me.
After living this life where I have just about forgotten more or less everything, my nerves have thickened to the point where it doesn’t bother me anymore. When I became an adult I learnt the art of being able to get over losing things by buying them again as soon as I lost them, the power of money. Although I have somehow avoided any huge disasters up until now, there have been many instances of forgetting things that couldn’t be made better with money.
One thing was something that happened when I was a university student.
I was tired from work being particularly busy and being in the middle of my midterm exams. Unexpectedly receiving a day off from all this I went out to a department store. It was right in the middle of the winter sale season. Get rid of stress by buying lots of things! I shopped until my legs were stiff. Then, when I was tired I went into a café and drank tea by myself. As I was doing this a friend rang me.
“Maaya, what are you doing?!” this seemed very serious.
“Huh? Right now? Shopping.”
“Today’s our Chai exam, stupid!”
I felt myself going pale. Hmm, now that you say that…it feels a bit like there was something like that today…
By the way, the ‘Chai’ exam she was talking about was the Chinese language module that I was taking. It was compulsory. If I failed ‘Chai’ it would be really bad. And if I didn’t turn up for the test my overall grade would drop considerably. On top of that the teacher in charge was pretty scary and I wasn’t that good at it anyway…
Without saying more than that I rushed home and phoned my teacher. I don’t remember the exact excuse I gave to her but probably that I was so sick that I couldn’t stand to leave the house even one step, I hadn’t even gotten to the phone before I had fallen over etc. I think it was something like that. A blatant lie but there was nothing for it. I knew it was pretty obvious that she’d seen through it but I couldn’t take it back after I’d said it. There was no way in hell that she’d be willing to let it go if I’d just said ‘I just forgot’.
Although she made a face about it, I somehow was given a chance to retake the test. However, she’d only recognise more than a 50% score on the make up test so I was in hot water if I didn’t get a near perfect mark. This was probably the most I ever studied in all my 4 years at university.
I also often forget people’s names. At least once a day.
For some reason, whenever I forget someone’s name I have a habit of thinking ‘I’m sure it was Yoshida-san.’ It doesn’t matter who they are, it will come out as ‘Yoshida-san’. Of course, it will always be that they actually have a completely different name.
Once this happened. At work one of my fellow actors greeted me with an ‘It’s nice to meet you’ and I replied with ‘What are you talking about, we’ve met before!’. The person responded with the negative ‘No, this is the first time…’. However many times I said that we’d met before the other person replied ‘we definitely have not’. In the end my dogged persistence was eventually met with a doubtful look.
Months after I had thought “But I was sure…” I was flipping idly through a magazine when I saw a picture of that person on one of the pages. That was when it finally came to me that she was an advertising model that often appeared in magazines. I had one-sidedly decided that I knew her but we hadn’t ever met…I was really embarrassed after that.
Within all this, the Maaya Sakamoto Lost Item Episode which is the biggest mistake I ever made in history…I can’t say it. It makes me feel faint, come out in a cold sweat and all the hair on my body stand on end, to the point where I can’t tell anyone about the most frightful mistake of my life. ‘Ahh, that time was awful…’.
I’ll save that for another time.
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 6.5 a.k.a after Universe
Yes, I had indeed missed an MC out. As one or two other Maaya fans kindly noted for me a long time ago...yes, it took me this long to get down to watching the DVD again. And for being all of 5 seconds long it had a tricky part! Thus, I have had a second opinion/help from Frecklegirl. Joint effort! And thus, the entire DVD is now translated (apart from the songs, which are, of course, on Frecklegirl's site).
Note: where I've put 'there are other's who've gotta come back from somewhere', in Japanese Maaya actually says: 'there are also people far away'. But I thought I could make it sound more natural than that ^^;; but take it literally or take it paraphrased, it's up to you. The Japanese transcription of that line was all Frecklegirl. I just couldn't hear it!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 6.5 a.k.a after Universe
Translation by me and Frecklegirl
Thank you very much! (waves) Hey band, why don't we all come to the front together...? I forgot what we were meant to be doing. Thank you very much...ah, there are others who've gotta come back from somewhere...please talk amongst yourselves for a second (audience laughs as other band members run on) No one knew anything. String people too! I’m so sorry. Sorry. I forgot everything when the blue lights came on. (bow)
(waving, bowing, audience applause as they leave the stage)
Note: where I've put 'there are other's who've gotta come back from somewhere', in Japanese Maaya actually says: 'there are also people far away'. But I thought I could make it sound more natural than that ^^;; but take it literally or take it paraphrased, it's up to you. The Japanese transcription of that line was all Frecklegirl. I just couldn't hear it!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 6.5 a.k.a after Universe
Translation by me and Frecklegirl
Thank you very much! (waves) Hey band, why don't we all come to the front together...? I forgot what we were meant to be doing. Thank you very much...ah, there are others who've gotta come back from somewhere...please talk amongst yourselves for a second (audience laughs as other band members run on) No one knew anything. String people too! I’m so sorry. Sorry. I forgot everything when the blue lights came on. (bow)
(waving, bowing, audience applause as they leave the stage)
Monday, 3 August 2009
I.D Monthly Message August 2009
Here's the new little message from Maaya for August 2009 ^^V
I.D Monthly Message August 2009
It's summer!!!!
It's hot!!
End soon, summer!!
I'm pretty bad at summer but everyone have fun!
Maaya
I.D Monthly Message August 2009
It's summer!!!!
It's hot!!
End soon, summer!!
I'm pretty bad at summer but everyone have fun!
Maaya
Monday, 6 July 2009
Hot Summer Airmail - IDS Bulletin 22
Megumi from the French Maaya site 'Melodie' was kind enough to scan the newest IDS bulletin from Maaya for the livejournal community Mameshiba. I translated a small bit for her. I'm just posting it here for archiving purposes (and if you had it then you're just lucky!)
Greetings in this hot summer! Airmail.
To tell the truth, right now I'm travelling alone in Europe!
While feeling the weather vane within me I'm on a journey to find what's important.
What did I see,
What things did I encounter,
What thoughts did I think?
I'll tell you in the next issue!
Well, you have a good summer too!
- Maaya Sakamoto
Greetings in this hot summer! Airmail.
To tell the truth, right now I'm travelling alone in Europe!
While feeling the weather vane within me I'm on a journey to find what's important.
What did I see,
What things did I encounter,
What thoughts did I think?
I'll tell you in the next issue!
Well, you have a good summer too!
- Maaya Sakamoto
Friday, 26 June 2009
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 Encore Intro
Well, I went back and found the missing part of the tour! It was (as I had thought) at the beginning of the encore. So now we're finished! Enjoy the last translation, I hope that these translations, however amateur they may be, helped you enjoy the show a bit more than you might have done previously. It was a great tour!! Maaaayaaaaaaaaaaa!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 Encore Intro
You called? (cheer) Anything wrong with being in a short skirt again? (cheer) Eh…You got me completely. I was tricked. Actually, I was determined that ‘Kazamidori’ would be moved to become the last song on this tour.
On the bullet train on the way back from Osaka I had been saying to the staff “How would it be if we switched ‘Universe’ and ended with ‘Kazamidori’?” And then they replied really strongly with “No, no, probably doing ‘Universe’ would be best”(laugh) So that’s what it was! I wonder when that was planned. Thank you very much everyone, it was wonderful. (cheer)
Well…I can feel deeply the energy overflowing in the atmosphere right now. Lives really are good, aren’t they? (cheer) I really think that. Well! We were called by everyone and rushed out here so I guess it’s OK to sing a bit more, right? (cheer)
OK. Heh, heh, OK. Let’s go back to when I was a teenager (audience woos) Platina!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 Encore Intro
You called? (cheer) Anything wrong with being in a short skirt again? (cheer) Eh…You got me completely. I was tricked. Actually, I was determined that ‘Kazamidori’ would be moved to become the last song on this tour.
On the bullet train on the way back from Osaka I had been saying to the staff “How would it be if we switched ‘Universe’ and ended with ‘Kazamidori’?” And then they replied really strongly with “No, no, probably doing ‘Universe’ would be best”(laugh) So that’s what it was! I wonder when that was planned. Thank you very much everyone, it was wonderful. (cheer)
Well…I can feel deeply the energy overflowing in the atmosphere right now. Lives really are good, aren’t they? (cheer) I really think that. Well! We were called by everyone and rushed out here so I guess it’s OK to sing a bit more, right? (cheer)
OK. Heh, heh, OK. Let’s go back to when I was a teenager (audience woos) Platina!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 8
Here it is, the final MC. Apart from the one I've lost. I think it's at the beginning of the encore, actually. Thinking back. That must be why I missed it out because it's not labeled as an MC. Oh well. I'll go back. Enjoy!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 8
OK, this time to the front! This time out to the front. And also the strings, once more! Ah I’m so happy, thank you for wearing the T-shirts. (To Kouno Shin) It’s fine, it’s fine I haven’t got one either.
Note: Maaya snorts her word into the microphone here ^^;; so I’m not sure what she says but I’m pretty sure Kouno Shin was worried about not having his flag because everyone else is waving theirs quite happily and he turns to go back and Maaya’s like ‘no, no, I haven’t got one either’. Anyhoo, back to the MC.
Thank you everyone, we are Kazeyomi! Thank you! (cheer)
Everyone really surprised me…well, there’s one more surprise from me. I’m sorry, the time’s really getting late. Well, this is for me as well. Today’s really the first time I’ve played this so my hearts pounding really hard. (cheer) anyway, this for me as well so let me sing this song once more.
Everyone here, everyone here today, and the people in Nagoya and Osaka, the band and the staff, thanks to everyone I’ve fallen in love with concerts. This is truly the last song.
‘Kazamidori’.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 8
OK, this time to the front! This time out to the front. And also the strings, once more! Ah I’m so happy, thank you for wearing the T-shirts. (To Kouno Shin) It’s fine, it’s fine I haven’t got one either.
Note: Maaya snorts her word into the microphone here ^^;; so I’m not sure what she says but I’m pretty sure Kouno Shin was worried about not having his flag because everyone else is waving theirs quite happily and he turns to go back and Maaya’s like ‘no, no, I haven’t got one either’. Anyhoo, back to the MC.
Thank you everyone, we are Kazeyomi! Thank you! (cheer)
Everyone really surprised me…well, there’s one more surprise from me. I’m sorry, the time’s really getting late. Well, this is for me as well. Today’s really the first time I’ve played this so my hearts pounding really hard. (cheer) anyway, this for me as well so let me sing this song once more.
Everyone here, everyone here today, and the people in Nagoya and Osaka, the band and the staff, thanks to everyone I’ve fallen in love with concerts. This is truly the last song.
‘Kazamidori’.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 7
I'm pretty sure I've missed an MC somewhere, you know. I've been going through them in order on the DVD but I'm SURE there's another one somewhere that isn't labelled on the chapter menu. I'll find it somehow...
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 7
Thanks for calling us out again, everyone. Yay! Yay! Amazing. I’m so happy. Well, it’s because we haven’t done that important song yet, right? I’m sure the people who are here for the first time are thinking ‘huh?’ but as if you know what’s going on please sing with everyone together. After we do this song the concert will finish.
All you Kazeyomi people who came back here today, I’m sure there are some of you who feel like you only just arrived, so many people here and all walking their own various paths who pass by each other here, having today in common and then facing a brand new tomorrow. Returning to all those different ‘every day’ lives. Think about all the important things, the wonderful things, all the glorious things that will pile up in those words ‘everyday life’ from tomorrow.
We will meet again somewhere, both most cheerful and even more wonderful than we are today. So we can meet again, until that day, I will address you all with ‘itterasshai’!!
Note: ‘itterasshai’ is what Japanese people say when someone’s leaving the house/room/going away. It’s a bit like when we wave someone off in English with ‘see you soon’ and it carries the nuance of the person coming back again sometime.
Pulling together these feelings let’s sing that song we always sing at the end. Singing altogether very loudly - don’t think about if you’re disturbing the person next to you because it’s the last song. OK, here we go.
1, 2, 3, 4.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 7
Thanks for calling us out again, everyone. Yay! Yay! Amazing. I’m so happy. Well, it’s because we haven’t done that important song yet, right? I’m sure the people who are here for the first time are thinking ‘huh?’ but as if you know what’s going on please sing with everyone together. After we do this song the concert will finish.
All you Kazeyomi people who came back here today, I’m sure there are some of you who feel like you only just arrived, so many people here and all walking their own various paths who pass by each other here, having today in common and then facing a brand new tomorrow. Returning to all those different ‘every day’ lives. Think about all the important things, the wonderful things, all the glorious things that will pile up in those words ‘everyday life’ from tomorrow.
We will meet again somewhere, both most cheerful and even more wonderful than we are today. So we can meet again, until that day, I will address you all with ‘itterasshai’!!
Note: ‘itterasshai’ is what Japanese people say when someone’s leaving the house/room/going away. It’s a bit like when we wave someone off in English with ‘see you soon’ and it carries the nuance of the person coming back again sometime.
Pulling together these feelings let’s sing that song we always sing at the end. Singing altogether very loudly - don’t think about if you’re disturbing the person next to you because it’s the last song. OK, here we go.
1, 2, 3, 4.
Thursday, 25 June 2009
30 Minutes Night Flight Interview - April 2007
I was on my year abroad in Japan when '30 Minutes Night Flight' came out, thus, it's my soundtrack for my year abroad photos and memories. 'Bokutachi ha koi wo suru riyuu' was the song I listened to every night I pedaled my bicycle back from my job as a waitress in a Chinese restaurant. Yes, I know a) dangerous to listen to music when riding a bike along busy roads and b) what was I doing working in a Chinese restaurant in Japan? Anyway, I was able to get a lot of the magazines Maaya was featured in when she was doing her publicity for the album.
So here's a short article from Tsutaya's (the rental people) free music magazine that I picked up back in april 2007.
Maaya Sakamoto – The new album has arrived after a break of a year and 5 months. A concept album one can enjoy wholeheartedly.
Originally published in VA the magazine from Tsutaya Records vol.58, April 2007.
Interview and Text: Kana Yoshida
Translation: Pippa
If you could spend 30 minutes doing whatever you wanted, what would you do? Cook, read a book, watch a film, go outside for a bit but 30 minutes isn’t much of anything really. If you have time to spare, spend it on Maaya Sakamoto’s new album ’30 minutes night flight’. Just like it says on the box, this album lasts just 30 minutes.
M: “30 minutes isn’t a serious amount of time at all, is it? (laugh) But if it’s through music, I really think that in just 30 minutes you can travel the entire globe or even go into space.”
When you hear the words ‘concept album’, whether it’s an ‘acoustic album’ or a ‘ballad album’, usually one can get a sense of the whole product even before listening to it. However, with this album, each song has a completely different feel from the one before it and this really makes you anticipate the track that will come next.
M: “This album really isn’t from a single person’s perspective, it’s singing about the lives of many different people through the lens of being on a journey. That’s why there are so many different personalities and different sounds. However, because it's a concept album and there has to be one overall atmosphere present throughout we had just one arranger.
I’ve never made an album like this before so it was a really fresh way to work. By having a set time limit and concept, with the labour we were able to put into it, I think we struck upon an idea that one wouldn’t usually come across. I really think all the songs came together well.”
The 5th track ‘universe’ is a majestic but mysterious ballad that one can hear at the Ikebukuro planetarium ‘Starlight Dome Manten’ in Tokyo.
M: “I really love planetariums. At first you get that it’s only a projection of stars but gradually you begin to feel like you’re actually floating in the cosmos. A feeling of space so vast it’s scary…There’s a moment when you’re in the planetarium when there’s a link between your everyday sense of reality and the feeling of being taken into space.
Even though I don’t really like the trend recently of getting in touch with one’s spiritual side (laugh) I wanted to express the idea that the relationship between oneself and the universe is not something difficult at all. I wanted to look at the things we can’t easily explain from all sides and give them form in music, the big events we have no control over and the meetings of destiny.”
With today’s technology, it would be easy to create this magnificence through piling up sound after sound but Sakamoto’s songs still retain the feeling of being ‘live’. Without any sense of being ‘just sounds we added together’, they resonate clearly within the soul. There’s a reason for this too.
M: “I think right now it’s seen as normal to record a number of takes and select the best one [when recording]. But a singing voice is a living thing, it’s always changing. It isn’t just ‘sing this part over and over and it will be fine’. So this time we had a lot of songs where the rule was ‘one time only’. Although, as usual, I sang oblivious to the fact that ‘there is no next time’.”
It’s been 11 years since Maaya Sakamoto started singing. Never compromising, there’s an inherently good feeling about this person who continues to challenge new things. We asked this woman who says: ‘It’s natural for me to have singing as the centre of my life’, what she would do if she went on a long trip herself…
M: “I want to go on a journey all by myself! I want to live life by going to a lot of different countries. I’d like to experience music that crosses borderlines easily and the wonderful food one can find abroad (laugh)”
So here's a short article from Tsutaya's (the rental people) free music magazine that I picked up back in april 2007.
Maaya Sakamoto – The new album has arrived after a break of a year and 5 months. A concept album one can enjoy wholeheartedly.
Originally published in VA the magazine from Tsutaya Records vol.58, April 2007.
Interview and Text: Kana Yoshida
Translation: Pippa
If you could spend 30 minutes doing whatever you wanted, what would you do? Cook, read a book, watch a film, go outside for a bit but 30 minutes isn’t much of anything really. If you have time to spare, spend it on Maaya Sakamoto’s new album ’30 minutes night flight’. Just like it says on the box, this album lasts just 30 minutes.
M: “30 minutes isn’t a serious amount of time at all, is it? (laugh) But if it’s through music, I really think that in just 30 minutes you can travel the entire globe or even go into space.”
When you hear the words ‘concept album’, whether it’s an ‘acoustic album’ or a ‘ballad album’, usually one can get a sense of the whole product even before listening to it. However, with this album, each song has a completely different feel from the one before it and this really makes you anticipate the track that will come next.
M: “This album really isn’t from a single person’s perspective, it’s singing about the lives of many different people through the lens of being on a journey. That’s why there are so many different personalities and different sounds. However, because it's a concept album and there has to be one overall atmosphere present throughout we had just one arranger.
I’ve never made an album like this before so it was a really fresh way to work. By having a set time limit and concept, with the labour we were able to put into it, I think we struck upon an idea that one wouldn’t usually come across. I really think all the songs came together well.”
The 5th track ‘universe’ is a majestic but mysterious ballad that one can hear at the Ikebukuro planetarium ‘Starlight Dome Manten’ in Tokyo.
M: “I really love planetariums. At first you get that it’s only a projection of stars but gradually you begin to feel like you’re actually floating in the cosmos. A feeling of space so vast it’s scary…There’s a moment when you’re in the planetarium when there’s a link between your everyday sense of reality and the feeling of being taken into space.
Even though I don’t really like the trend recently of getting in touch with one’s spiritual side (laugh) I wanted to express the idea that the relationship between oneself and the universe is not something difficult at all. I wanted to look at the things we can’t easily explain from all sides and give them form in music, the big events we have no control over and the meetings of destiny.”
With today’s technology, it would be easy to create this magnificence through piling up sound after sound but Sakamoto’s songs still retain the feeling of being ‘live’. Without any sense of being ‘just sounds we added together’, they resonate clearly within the soul. There’s a reason for this too.
M: “I think right now it’s seen as normal to record a number of takes and select the best one [when recording]. But a singing voice is a living thing, it’s always changing. It isn’t just ‘sing this part over and over and it will be fine’. So this time we had a lot of songs where the rule was ‘one time only’. Although, as usual, I sang oblivious to the fact that ‘there is no next time’.”
It’s been 11 years since Maaya Sakamoto started singing. Never compromising, there’s an inherently good feeling about this person who continues to challenge new things. We asked this woman who says: ‘It’s natural for me to have singing as the centre of my life’, what she would do if she went on a long trip herself…
M: “I want to go on a journey all by myself! I want to live life by going to a lot of different countries. I’d like to experience music that crosses borderlines easily and the wonderful food one can find abroad (laugh)”
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 6
Here's MC 6 from the Kazeyomi DVD!!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 6
Thank you! (applause) Give another round for the band! (applause) You know…there’s one more thing that I’d like to do. (applause) I guess the fan club members already know about this but at the fan club limited mini lives last spring I played the piano myself for the first time.
I’m not making excuses but I can’t read music scores and I had never even played the piano before but one say I realised that in order to express my songs with my whole body I have to learn to play an instrument. So I went to a music store and said “Please give me a keyboard”. I just suddenly brought that key board one day.
From then it took about 10 months, with excessive practice, but at the six live events people listened to my performance and I was able to play without giving up. It’s been almost one year since then but I thought that I really want to do it on my tour.
I might not be very good but with everything I have, there’s a song I’d like you to hear to say thank you to everyone.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 6
Thank you! (applause) Give another round for the band! (applause) You know…there’s one more thing that I’d like to do. (applause) I guess the fan club members already know about this but at the fan club limited mini lives last spring I played the piano myself for the first time.
I’m not making excuses but I can’t read music scores and I had never even played the piano before but one say I realised that in order to express my songs with my whole body I have to learn to play an instrument. So I went to a music store and said “Please give me a keyboard”. I just suddenly brought that key board one day.
From then it took about 10 months, with excessive practice, but at the six live events people listened to my performance and I was able to play without giving up. It’s been almost one year since then but I thought that I really want to do it on my tour.
I might not be very good but with everything I have, there’s a song I’d like you to hear to say thank you to everyone.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 5
Sorry it took a while!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 5
The lyrics of the first song today, ‘Get no satisfaction’, and the lyrics of ‘Remedy’ – I think they really express who I am right now. I hope that you Kazeyomi citizens here today will be able to really take those feelings in when you listen back once more after this. However, on ‘Kazeyomi’ the most…the most special song, the song which says “This is the person I’ve become” most…please listen.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 5
The lyrics of the first song today, ‘Get no satisfaction’, and the lyrics of ‘Remedy’ – I think they really express who I am right now. I hope that you Kazeyomi citizens here today will be able to really take those feelings in when you listen back once more after this. However, on ‘Kazeyomi’ the most…the most special song, the song which says “This is the person I’ve become” most…please listen.
Monday, 15 June 2009
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 3
Out of order but it's so short it doesn't really matter! Note: when Maaya says 'interruption!' what she means is that drinking the water interrupted everything ^^;; it makes more sense seeing it in person I guess. Thanks for the clarification Frecklegirl!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 3
That was ‘Hashiru’. I’m completely out of breath (laugh) that was a really old song you just heard, right? Um…well, there are people who are thinking ‘that was nostalgic!’ and also people for who it was completely new – there are lots of different ways of taking it.
In truth, the version of ‘Hashiru’ you just heard was a Tokyo-only song! (applause) There were also songs that were only played in both Osaka and Nagoya too but here in Tokyo we have the string quartet here with us so…(applause) yes, that’s right. (laugh) So therefore now I’m going to take a sip of water…interruption! There were a few songs that I definitely wanted to perform with the string quartet so please listen to them now.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 3
That was ‘Hashiru’. I’m completely out of breath (laugh) that was a really old song you just heard, right? Um…well, there are people who are thinking ‘that was nostalgic!’ and also people for who it was completely new – there are lots of different ways of taking it.
In truth, the version of ‘Hashiru’ you just heard was a Tokyo-only song! (applause) There were also songs that were only played in both Osaka and Nagoya too but here in Tokyo we have the string quartet here with us so…(applause) yes, that’s right. (laugh) So therefore now I’m going to take a sip of water…interruption! There were a few songs that I definitely wanted to perform with the string quartet so please listen to them now.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 4
Yes, yes, I know I've missed out MC 3 but there's a word I want to check over with Frecklegirl before I post it up. Now, the mother of all the MC's. This baby took me over three hours and there are still places where I couldn't for the life of me work out. These places are marked by notes one and two respectively. Who would have thought that introducing the band would provide the most difficult part to translate!! There was also a word after she introduced The string quartet that I couldn't find either...it sounded a lot like carpet but I know it's not. Anyway. This is the longest MC and the juiciest in terms of content and understanding Maaya herself.
It's worth it.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 4
And now, I’d like to introduce the people in the band who are standing on this stage together with me here today. (applause).
Firstly, Sano Yasuo on the drums! Ah, it was this way! (laughs) I’m sorry! I can’t believe this I’m so sorry for that. This is Mr Sano, he’s been – ah, wait a second. Mr Sano, right? He’s played the drums for my first live, second live, third live so he gets a bonus for perfect attendance. For the rest of our lives please!
And now, bass Ohkanda Tomohiko! (laughs) As you can see, a natural character. Actually, please call him Kan-chan! (audience shouts Kan-chan!) With the Kanji character for yellow please!
(Note: Now the word Maaya uses ‘kanji’ might mean both ‘feeling’ and Chinese character ‘Kanji’. After spending ages playing around with Ohkanda Tomohiko’s name in various search engines as well as looking up the characters for his name and the word yellow to find any correlation and finally looking up phrases using ‘yellow feeling’ as slang etc. I have come to the conclusion that she means that both the kanji for yellow ‘kiiroi’ and the first kanji of Ohkanda’s name can be read ‘Oh’ and…somehow…yellow has some significance for him being a natural kind of guy? Anyway, Maaya says to write Kan-chan with the character for yellow…)
Next, on to guitar and Mr Ishinari Masato! He’s so cool, and he often bursts forth with this really wonderful phrase - when he’s singing he’ll come out with this ‘Uuunnh’ kind of noise, like an ‘ah I forgot the lyrics!’ sort of noise like he’s blaming it on someone else. Sorry but it’s true, it always looks like he’s thinking something along the lines of ‘ah even though it was that [I got it wrong]’ when he sings.
(Note: Maaya kind of mumbles at the end of this part so take it with a grain of salt)
Continuing, percussion – Miss Mizawa Izumi! Over here. She’s cute, she’s cute.
And with that, with this band from Osaka to Nagoya – wait, there’s one more person but I’ll introduce you in a second – we’ve toured around just like this.
Next, I’d like to introduce today’s special guest string quartet beginning with the first violin, Miss Oki Shouko. Then there’s second violin, Miss Shimokawa Miho. Then on the viola there’s Mr Watanabe Kazuo. Then on the cello it is Inoue Masayo. Earliar, the completion of the beginning of ‘Hashiru’ made me think suddenly “Whatever happens I have to do this song”.
Finally, Kouno Shin on the piano! He’s going ‘aheyaheyahe’. On the band bus Mr Kouno is always smiling, friendly and good fun. He’s someone you can really rely on. He’s actually the arranger on ‘Kazeyomi’ for ‘Get no Satisfaction’ and ‘Colors’. They are completely opposite songs. From such a cheerful song to a song like ‘Colors’ where you can feel both the sea, the earth and the universe, he arranged them both.
With this band right now, standing together with them on stage, I’m really happy!
(applause)
I’m really happy. From here I can see everyone making many smiling different faces.Um…well, I’m on this tour because I felt like somehow I have to explain why it’s been so long since I’ve had a concert…I have to talk about the reason and my feelings here tonight. Well, I’ve been singing for a long time up to this point, I’ve also written lyrics – singing and writing as well as acting and commenting on this. I’ve loved all of this. I felt I could really experience life through this without being deprived of anything.
But saying that, honestly the word ‘live’ was for something really frightening for me. Always. There were many people who would say “Let us know when you want to do a live!” or people would say “Try it out, it’s fun” I would think “Well, that may be so” and when I tried it each time I would feel like ‘ah, that was actually fun’ or ‘I really did it’ and every time I really learned something, that I had climbed up one more step. But even though that was my intention I could never say ‘I want to do another concert someday’, was it impatience? But inside of me there was a part that was always ready to run away.
If you ask why, I was really bad at standing in front of people. Not because I was nervous or embarrassed but because right from the beginning I found it was really difficult to open myself up to people. It was always like there was a sheet of glass between me and the audience, that I could be in contact with them and think ‘I want to get rid of this wall’ but couldn’t. Even I was thinking ‘I’m so awful’. But really, continuing to wear cute clothes and singing beautifully – doing concerts like this was something I couldn’t stand. I had a feeling that it shouldn’t be like that, a concert should have something more important to it. That it was some kind of communication and it was because I thought that way that I was so regretful that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t say it from my own lips.
But, at that time I started to do the limited fan club events, I’d do a concert at a pace of around one a year and slowly the number of concerts I did increased as did the number of people who came to see them – is there anyone here from the IDS! Fan club? Thank you. Those people really taught me how enjoyable concerts could be, and this with the warm staff meant that every time I was left with warm feelings. I was able to sing and in the midst of that how much I was able to do on stage began to increase.
Finally, I realised that although I had been under the impression that I was addressing a whole crowd of people in reality every single person there was walking their own individual path, that many different people were gathered together and that it was actually one to one communication.
I hadn’t even realised this even though it was something obvious. When I realised that there was this back-and-forth going on, far from being scary, it became something reassuring. It really made me into an adult. You all did that.
So when I was making ‘Kazeyomi’ it felt like I was being released from many different things and becoming free, so many pieces of good music were being born. I thought how amazing this is, how wonderful. I was really happy. And I was surprised when the words ‘I want to do a concert’ just naturally slipped out one day. And the planning of this tour began.
So because I was thinking I’m really sorry that I made you all wait so long, I even said because it’s been so long and I rarely do them I want to make it a big one! And because I did that so many people came! I was actually really worried that so many people were coming and I’m so happy that everyone waited for me. (bows)
Damn it, it’s still to early to cry!! (laugh) But really, I’ve been able to feel how much everyone had been waiting for me and being able to sing…it’s really the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.
When I was choosing songs for this tour I was lost and troubled because I had so many songs I couldn’t possibly choose. But within the many songs that I wanted to sing I could see that when I looked back within myself at the path that I’d followed to this point I could see that wherever I cut the songs from ‘Maaya Sakamoto’ was there. And I could see that whatever I sang would be fine, the songs I want to sing now and the songs on ‘Kazeyomi’ could be lined up together. From the songs I sang in the past to what I sang now, listening to them there was a continuation. Even though it’s been a while, it wasn’t just a treat for everyone that I sang my old songs or my single songs, it was actually because when I lined up the songs I wanted to sing in everything there were footprints leading to ‘Kazeyomi’. It was really interesting. And I really felt that I was glad to have come to where I am and that I hadn’t been mistaken in anything.
Within all those songs, to the me that was there on that day there’s one song that I have to sing. Please listen. ‘Hikari Are’.
It's worth it.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 4
And now, I’d like to introduce the people in the band who are standing on this stage together with me here today. (applause).
Firstly, Sano Yasuo on the drums! Ah, it was this way! (laughs) I’m sorry! I can’t believe this I’m so sorry for that. This is Mr Sano, he’s been – ah, wait a second. Mr Sano, right? He’s played the drums for my first live, second live, third live so he gets a bonus for perfect attendance. For the rest of our lives please!
And now, bass Ohkanda Tomohiko! (laughs) As you can see, a natural character. Actually, please call him Kan-chan! (audience shouts Kan-chan!) With the Kanji character for yellow please!
(Note: Now the word Maaya uses ‘kanji’ might mean both ‘feeling’ and Chinese character ‘Kanji’. After spending ages playing around with Ohkanda Tomohiko’s name in various search engines as well as looking up the characters for his name and the word yellow to find any correlation and finally looking up phrases using ‘yellow feeling’ as slang etc. I have come to the conclusion that she means that both the kanji for yellow ‘kiiroi’ and the first kanji of Ohkanda’s name can be read ‘Oh’ and…somehow…yellow has some significance for him being a natural kind of guy? Anyway, Maaya says to write Kan-chan with the character for yellow…)
Next, on to guitar and Mr Ishinari Masato! He’s so cool, and he often bursts forth with this really wonderful phrase - when he’s singing he’ll come out with this ‘Uuunnh’ kind of noise, like an ‘ah I forgot the lyrics!’ sort of noise like he’s blaming it on someone else. Sorry but it’s true, it always looks like he’s thinking something along the lines of ‘ah even though it was that [I got it wrong]’ when he sings.
(Note: Maaya kind of mumbles at the end of this part so take it with a grain of salt)
Continuing, percussion – Miss Mizawa Izumi! Over here. She’s cute, she’s cute.
And with that, with this band from Osaka to Nagoya – wait, there’s one more person but I’ll introduce you in a second – we’ve toured around just like this.
Next, I’d like to introduce today’s special guest string quartet beginning with the first violin, Miss Oki Shouko. Then there’s second violin, Miss Shimokawa Miho. Then on the viola there’s Mr Watanabe Kazuo. Then on the cello it is Inoue Masayo. Earliar, the completion of the beginning of ‘Hashiru’ made me think suddenly “Whatever happens I have to do this song”.
Finally, Kouno Shin on the piano! He’s going ‘aheyaheyahe’. On the band bus Mr Kouno is always smiling, friendly and good fun. He’s someone you can really rely on. He’s actually the arranger on ‘Kazeyomi’ for ‘Get no Satisfaction’ and ‘Colors’. They are completely opposite songs. From such a cheerful song to a song like ‘Colors’ where you can feel both the sea, the earth and the universe, he arranged them both.
With this band right now, standing together with them on stage, I’m really happy!
(applause)
I’m really happy. From here I can see everyone making many smiling different faces.Um…well, I’m on this tour because I felt like somehow I have to explain why it’s been so long since I’ve had a concert…I have to talk about the reason and my feelings here tonight. Well, I’ve been singing for a long time up to this point, I’ve also written lyrics – singing and writing as well as acting and commenting on this. I’ve loved all of this. I felt I could really experience life through this without being deprived of anything.
But saying that, honestly the word ‘live’ was for something really frightening for me. Always. There were many people who would say “Let us know when you want to do a live!” or people would say “Try it out, it’s fun” I would think “Well, that may be so” and when I tried it each time I would feel like ‘ah, that was actually fun’ or ‘I really did it’ and every time I really learned something, that I had climbed up one more step. But even though that was my intention I could never say ‘I want to do another concert someday’, was it impatience? But inside of me there was a part that was always ready to run away.
If you ask why, I was really bad at standing in front of people. Not because I was nervous or embarrassed but because right from the beginning I found it was really difficult to open myself up to people. It was always like there was a sheet of glass between me and the audience, that I could be in contact with them and think ‘I want to get rid of this wall’ but couldn’t. Even I was thinking ‘I’m so awful’. But really, continuing to wear cute clothes and singing beautifully – doing concerts like this was something I couldn’t stand. I had a feeling that it shouldn’t be like that, a concert should have something more important to it. That it was some kind of communication and it was because I thought that way that I was so regretful that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t say it from my own lips.
But, at that time I started to do the limited fan club events, I’d do a concert at a pace of around one a year and slowly the number of concerts I did increased as did the number of people who came to see them – is there anyone here from the IDS! Fan club? Thank you. Those people really taught me how enjoyable concerts could be, and this with the warm staff meant that every time I was left with warm feelings. I was able to sing and in the midst of that how much I was able to do on stage began to increase.
Finally, I realised that although I had been under the impression that I was addressing a whole crowd of people in reality every single person there was walking their own individual path, that many different people were gathered together and that it was actually one to one communication.
I hadn’t even realised this even though it was something obvious. When I realised that there was this back-and-forth going on, far from being scary, it became something reassuring. It really made me into an adult. You all did that.
So when I was making ‘Kazeyomi’ it felt like I was being released from many different things and becoming free, so many pieces of good music were being born. I thought how amazing this is, how wonderful. I was really happy. And I was surprised when the words ‘I want to do a concert’ just naturally slipped out one day. And the planning of this tour began.
So because I was thinking I’m really sorry that I made you all wait so long, I even said because it’s been so long and I rarely do them I want to make it a big one! And because I did that so many people came! I was actually really worried that so many people were coming and I’m so happy that everyone waited for me. (bows)
Damn it, it’s still to early to cry!! (laugh) But really, I’ve been able to feel how much everyone had been waiting for me and being able to sing…it’s really the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.
When I was choosing songs for this tour I was lost and troubled because I had so many songs I couldn’t possibly choose. But within the many songs that I wanted to sing I could see that when I looked back within myself at the path that I’d followed to this point I could see that wherever I cut the songs from ‘Maaya Sakamoto’ was there. And I could see that whatever I sang would be fine, the songs I want to sing now and the songs on ‘Kazeyomi’ could be lined up together. From the songs I sang in the past to what I sang now, listening to them there was a continuation. Even though it’s been a while, it wasn’t just a treat for everyone that I sang my old songs or my single songs, it was actually because when I lined up the songs I wanted to sing in everything there were footprints leading to ‘Kazeyomi’. It was really interesting. And I really felt that I was glad to have come to where I am and that I hadn’t been mistaken in anything.
Within all those songs, to the me that was there on that day there’s one song that I have to sing. Please listen. ‘Hikari Are’.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 2
Well, I managed to get this MC up a lot faster than I expected. It was also longer than I expected and I don't even think it's the longest MC on the DVD! Oh well. It's a cute one, though. Maaya's a sweetie. Enjoy!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 2
OK? This is cute, right? (audience cheer) Sorry (bow). The truth is, it’s been a really long time since I’ve done a concert. Well, excluding the fan club limited lives I haven’t done an official concert like this since Shounen Alice came out around 6 years ago. Yeah, I made you wait.
When I think about my first concert I had on a long skirt and hid away my teenage legs then there was my second concert, the third and then the fourth! (gestures up her legs to show the skirt getting shorter with each one) Yeah, so this is my first concert in a long time. I think everyone got a flag at the entrance? Everyone’s waving them while thinking ‘what is this?’. This, the mark that’s on all these sheets, is the mark of the Kazeyomi tour – it’s a weather vane.
Thinking about it again now, when I finished making this album ‘Kazeyomi’, I wanted to stir everything from the album and express it all in this concert. Um…making this album ‘Kazeyomi’ took around several months. All day, every day in the studio singing, recording the music, writing lyrics and it seemed like the months just passed by in an instant. However, the time that I needed myself to make this album was not just several months but was actually over the course of a much, much longer journey I was on to that point I finally arrived at.
Just that one point. Maybe I was heading there from when I debuted, or maybe even from when I was born. I was being called to that point and that everything up until then had been part of the flow of the story called ‘Maaya Sakamoto’ that only I could read and connected into one – that this experience made this album.
However, surely the people who have always listened to my music, and those people who might have felt something when listening to this album where all reading their own stories where they were the main character. And everyone will interpret today in their own way, being from different places, living different lives and all on their own various paths. These people might have felt something from this album, that we are all piling up feelings inside ourselves, through what we are doing everyday – that we are comrades. And today we are all here as people from the nation of Kazeyomi. I thought it would be nice if we could all be one big community.
And this is the flag of the Kazeyomi people. So don’t just throw it away, ok? (Laugh) Make sure to take it home! It’s my intention to call all of you Kazeyomi citizens…but I’m not the Queen or anything!!
So, you listened to some songs from ‘Kazeyomi’. I think there are a lot of different fans here today because it’s been a long time since I’ve had a concert. People who have known me since my debut, people who’ve only discovered my recently and even people who’ve only known me since coming here today! So I’m going to ask, since there are a lot of people here – is there anyone for who this is their first time to see me in person? Ah, there’s a lot, there’s a lot!
I’m Maaya Sakamoto – can you see me OK? When I move it looks like this. (turns around) The view from the back is like this! That might be forcing abuse on you though. (laugh) Don’t be disappointed with that, OK?
So, there are a lot of different people here today, some whose first time ever is today and some who have known me for a long time but it’s their first time to see me in concert – there are lots of different people here. So I wanted to include older songs for you guys too. OK, please listen to the songs from now!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 2
OK? This is cute, right? (audience cheer) Sorry (bow). The truth is, it’s been a really long time since I’ve done a concert. Well, excluding the fan club limited lives I haven’t done an official concert like this since Shounen Alice came out around 6 years ago. Yeah, I made you wait.
When I think about my first concert I had on a long skirt and hid away my teenage legs then there was my second concert, the third and then the fourth! (gestures up her legs to show the skirt getting shorter with each one) Yeah, so this is my first concert in a long time. I think everyone got a flag at the entrance? Everyone’s waving them while thinking ‘what is this?’. This, the mark that’s on all these sheets, is the mark of the Kazeyomi tour – it’s a weather vane.
Thinking about it again now, when I finished making this album ‘Kazeyomi’, I wanted to stir everything from the album and express it all in this concert. Um…making this album ‘Kazeyomi’ took around several months. All day, every day in the studio singing, recording the music, writing lyrics and it seemed like the months just passed by in an instant. However, the time that I needed myself to make this album was not just several months but was actually over the course of a much, much longer journey I was on to that point I finally arrived at.
Just that one point. Maybe I was heading there from when I debuted, or maybe even from when I was born. I was being called to that point and that everything up until then had been part of the flow of the story called ‘Maaya Sakamoto’ that only I could read and connected into one – that this experience made this album.
However, surely the people who have always listened to my music, and those people who might have felt something when listening to this album where all reading their own stories where they were the main character. And everyone will interpret today in their own way, being from different places, living different lives and all on their own various paths. These people might have felt something from this album, that we are all piling up feelings inside ourselves, through what we are doing everyday – that we are comrades. And today we are all here as people from the nation of Kazeyomi. I thought it would be nice if we could all be one big community.
And this is the flag of the Kazeyomi people. So don’t just throw it away, ok? (Laugh) Make sure to take it home! It’s my intention to call all of you Kazeyomi citizens…but I’m not the Queen or anything!!
So, you listened to some songs from ‘Kazeyomi’. I think there are a lot of different fans here today because it’s been a long time since I’ve had a concert. People who have known me since my debut, people who’ve only discovered my recently and even people who’ve only known me since coming here today! So I’m going to ask, since there are a lot of people here – is there anyone for who this is their first time to see me in person? Ah, there’s a lot, there’s a lot!
I’m Maaya Sakamoto – can you see me OK? When I move it looks like this. (turns around) The view from the back is like this! That might be forcing abuse on you though. (laugh) Don’t be disappointed with that, OK?
So, there are a lot of different people here today, some whose first time ever is today and some who have known me for a long time but it’s their first time to see me in concert – there are lots of different people here. So I wanted to include older songs for you guys too. OK, please listen to the songs from now!
Saturday, 6 June 2009
June 2009 Monthly Message
Hello, here's the little message for this month from Maaya's official page!
Thank you to everyone who watched my live DVD!
It's going to be summer soon...
Already half of 2009 has passed.
Please spend this hot season having lots of energetic fun!
Maaya. 2009 June.
Thank you to everyone who watched my live DVD!
It's going to be summer soon...
Already half of 2009 has passed.
Please spend this hot season having lots of energetic fun!
Maaya. 2009 June.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 1
Hey guys, I recently got my DVD of Maaya's 2009 tour 'We Are Kazeyomi'. It's a very special live as it's the first time she's done a public tour for about 5 years. A very good show. Anyway, for the people who can't speak Japanese I thought I'd translate the MC's as they are in places really quite moving. Not the first one really but, you have to start somewhere!
2009 Tour We Are Kazeyomi - MC 1
Good evening, I’m Maaya Sakamoto! Thank you everyone for coming to the last day of to Maaya Sakamoto Tour Kazeyomi in Tokyo. (bows) Um…we’ve toured around Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo and it seems like in an instant it’s the last day. I can’t really believe it but today I want to use up everything I have and return home tired out (laugh).
Well, firstly, the title of this tour is the same of my album which went on sale recently, ‘Kazeyomi’. I wonder if you all listened to it? (audience cheers) I’m very glad, thank you very much. ‘Kazeyomi’ is my sixth album and as I described in several interviews and blogs, the feeling I had when it was completed was one of indescribable happiness. I’m really ecstatic that I was able to make this album. I want everyone else to feel the same happiness and help celebrate the album’s completion.
So, from the album ‘Kazeyomi’ please listen to…
(Kazemachi Jet begins)
2009 Tour We Are Kazeyomi - MC 1
Good evening, I’m Maaya Sakamoto! Thank you everyone for coming to the last day of to Maaya Sakamoto Tour Kazeyomi in Tokyo. (bows) Um…we’ve toured around Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo and it seems like in an instant it’s the last day. I can’t really believe it but today I want to use up everything I have and return home tired out (laugh).
Well, firstly, the title of this tour is the same of my album which went on sale recently, ‘Kazeyomi’. I wonder if you all listened to it? (audience cheers) I’m very glad, thank you very much. ‘Kazeyomi’ is my sixth album and as I described in several interviews and blogs, the feeling I had when it was completed was one of indescribable happiness. I’m really ecstatic that I was able to make this album. I want everyone else to feel the same happiness and help celebrate the album’s completion.
So, from the album ‘Kazeyomi’ please listen to…
(Kazemachi Jet begins)
Saturday, 2 May 2009
I.D Monthly Message May 2009
Monthly Message May 2009
2009 20th May Live DVD "WE ARE KAZEYOMI" on sale!!
People who were there on that day, at that place
and for people who weren't - let's watch this and gather again, Kazeyomi People!
xMaayax
2009 20th May Live DVD "WE ARE KAZEYOMI" on sale!!
People who were there on that day, at that place
and for people who weren't - let's watch this and gather again, Kazeyomi People!
xMaayax
Thursday, 30 April 2009
Hot at Present! 30th April 2009
Maaya updated her website today with her new 'Hot at Present' corner where she tells us briefly about the things she's thought about or encountered recently. Here's the translation:
Hot at Present! 30th April 2009
◎ Recent Spring
It’s definitely spring! I changed my clothing for the season – come quickly summer! Wait…I’m not really someone who likes summer that much...it’s just I’ve lost interest in the coldness. I want to walk in a t-shirt soon!
◎ Recent Sneakers
I don’t usually wear sneakers very often but recently I brought some because a very kind shop assistant a sneaker shop. Fresh!
◎ Recent “Kazeyomi”
The live DVD is coming closer! The first pressing has a “Jump out case”…I’m excited to know how it exactly it will jump out!!
◎ Recently my stomach sank at…
The cell phones I’ve had for less than a year often break so I’m always changing models suddenly…I don’t understand why it happens...
◎ Recently Mysterious
I have so many glasses I can’t possible count them all. When they get made up at the opticians I think “Wow! They’re great” but when I try them after I get home something is wrong somehow. I wonder why?
Hot at Present! 30th April 2009
◎ Recent Spring
It’s definitely spring! I changed my clothing for the season – come quickly summer! Wait…I’m not really someone who likes summer that much...it’s just I’ve lost interest in the coldness. I want to walk in a t-shirt soon!
◎ Recent Sneakers
I don’t usually wear sneakers very often but recently I brought some because a very kind shop assistant a sneaker shop. Fresh!
◎ Recent “Kazeyomi”
The live DVD is coming closer! The first pressing has a “Jump out case”…I’m excited to know how it exactly it will jump out!!
◎ Recently my stomach sank at…
The cell phones I’ve had for less than a year often break so I’m always changing models suddenly…I don’t understand why it happens...
◎ Recently Mysterious
I have so many glasses I can’t possible count them all. When they get made up at the opticians I think “Wow! They’re great” but when I try them after I get home something is wrong somehow. I wonder why?
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Live Tour 2009 WE ARE KAZEYOMI Notes
Well! Here's a big one! Maaya's official site updated this week with a new mini site to commemorate the release of her first live DVD, the recording of the Tokyo show of her hall tour WE ARE KAZEYOMI which took place in January. On the site it has the usual information but there was a rather large section which contained notes on the live written by Shinya Ueno. Very interesting which of course means they were difficult to translate (haha). Well, enjoy! It's a nice insight for people who are getting the DVD:
Maaya Sakamoto 2009 Live Tour "WE ARE KAZEYOMI" Notes
Original text: Ueno Shinya
Taken from here
This January Maaya Sakamoto’s 6th album was released. When the album was finished、she said that she experienced “A happiness that was out of this world”. It wasn’t that the creation of the record had taken months, it wasn’t because it had taken 3 years and 3 months since her last work ‘Yuunagi LOOP’, it was the sense that everything since she began singing, the path she had walked and everything up to this point in time had all been connected into one. It seems to have been a moment of where she looked back from a place with a fine view on her journey up to now and found in her hand a new energy to grab a new dream which reflected her and continue forwards. It was then that the words that fell from her lips were “I want to do a concert”.
And it was this that after the release of the album “Kazeyomi” her first hall tour ‘Sakamoto Maaya LIVE TOUR 2009 “WE ARE KAZEYOMI”’ was decided upon. January 21st in Nagoya, January 22nd in Osaka, January 24th in Tokyo, the tour held in these three venues was the first tour in 5 years that hasn’t been limited mini lives for her fan club. At the venues, the heat of fans with high hopes for seeing her perform for the first time in a long time was felt even before the performance started.
A vivid opening with Maaya coming out in a red mini dress! Made up of Kouno Shin (p,key&g), Sano Yasuo (ds)、Tomohiko Ohkanda (b)、Ishinari Masato (g)、Misawa Izumi (per) and the Oki Shouko Quartet (strings) the sound from the band members echoed out with a brilliant strength and instantly the hall was wrapped in excitement. In the carefully carried out rehearsals not one uncertain element was left to chance for this one day and the motivation of the main person herself was certainly not half-baked. In the songs as well, numbers from the album ‘Kazeyomi’ were certainly there “Get No Satisfaction!”, “Remedy”, “Kazamidori”, her debut song “Yakusoku wa iranai” and “Kiseki no umi”, “Purachina” the representative songs were all there and the line up she chose with the thought of “What I want to sing now” is sure to please both fans who have been with her from her debut and people who are seeing her for the first time. Both powerful and cute enough to make you think there had never been a 5 year gap, her performance on stage communicated the transition between each song’s world view through a delicate singing voice and a bold power of expression. A voice which upon hearing in person, unconstrained and entrancing with clearly overflowing without her voice with the power to spellbind you and make you comfortable without you even realising it, and an appearance which with its small movements holds your eyes and won’t let you look away – surely this is enough to nod and realise: “this is natural talent”.
However, when the live was heading towards its end Maaya began a long MC beginning with the words “I’m doing this tour because I think I felt like I had to explain why it’s been 5 years since I’ve done a concert”. This honest confession about the motivations for this tour was an important moment that deepened the bonds between the audience and Maaya Sakamoto. The weak self that surely most people have in their hearts was standing to face an invisible wall and about to overcome it. Through this tour we were all able to share the moment where Maaya was pushed forward by the album “Kazeyomi” to advance. The dazzling moment when she raised her arms up to the sky passionately singing “Hikari Are” after this MC was a scene so moving as to be permanently burned into one’s heart.
The red mini dress from the first half which so suited happy numbers like “Get No Satisfaction!” and “Praline” was in the second half replaced with a costume change to a black dress for the more calm numbers like “Yakusoku wa iranai” and “Yubiwa” and the contrast was quite dramatic. Through this personal expression in a ‘song’, the things she has thought about and felt during her long career rather were communicated and that Maaya Sakamoto the artist was both serious and real towards the field of music, always being truthful in communicating the feelings of a living person, flesh and blood.
Every moment was something that both the staff and guests could not take their eyes from, the scene when Maaya introduced the final ending, singing “Universe” alone with a piano was moving enough to surprisingly bring forth tears. The DVD “Maaya Sakamoto LIVE TOUR 2009 ‘WE ARE KAZEYOMI’” is definitely filled with must-see items! The second disc includes all of the MC’s from the Tokyo performance are included, document footage of the rehearsal and songs that were only performed in Osaka and Nagoya. You can see all the expressions of Maaya Sakamoto, her nervous face from before the real show, her sigh of relief after finishing playing the piano and then her happy tears. And, more than anything, in this package is something that captures both her courage and the audience’s wonderful energy that filled the entire space with warmth. Even the people who couldn’t go to the concert, with one press of the play button everyone can become “Kazeyomi People” with this release. We can all share in the moment when, after reaching an arrival point, a new door opened. A thing that many people have in common that after a career of 14 years, a new door opening at that arrival point. And on the other side of that door, a wonderful song penetrating the soul with a light to fill you with courage
Text: Ueno Shinya
Maaya Sakamoto 2009 Live Tour "WE ARE KAZEYOMI" Notes
Original text: Ueno Shinya
Taken from here
This January Maaya Sakamoto’s 6th album was released. When the album was finished、she said that she experienced “A happiness that was out of this world”. It wasn’t that the creation of the record had taken months, it wasn’t because it had taken 3 years and 3 months since her last work ‘Yuunagi LOOP’, it was the sense that everything since she began singing, the path she had walked and everything up to this point in time had all been connected into one. It seems to have been a moment of where she looked back from a place with a fine view on her journey up to now and found in her hand a new energy to grab a new dream which reflected her and continue forwards. It was then that the words that fell from her lips were “I want to do a concert”.
And it was this that after the release of the album “Kazeyomi” her first hall tour ‘Sakamoto Maaya LIVE TOUR 2009 “WE ARE KAZEYOMI”’ was decided upon. January 21st in Nagoya, January 22nd in Osaka, January 24th in Tokyo, the tour held in these three venues was the first tour in 5 years that hasn’t been limited mini lives for her fan club. At the venues, the heat of fans with high hopes for seeing her perform for the first time in a long time was felt even before the performance started.
A vivid opening with Maaya coming out in a red mini dress! Made up of Kouno Shin (p,key&g), Sano Yasuo (ds)、Tomohiko Ohkanda (b)、Ishinari Masato (g)、Misawa Izumi (per) and the Oki Shouko Quartet (strings) the sound from the band members echoed out with a brilliant strength and instantly the hall was wrapped in excitement. In the carefully carried out rehearsals not one uncertain element was left to chance for this one day and the motivation of the main person herself was certainly not half-baked. In the songs as well, numbers from the album ‘Kazeyomi’ were certainly there “Get No Satisfaction!”, “Remedy”, “Kazamidori”, her debut song “Yakusoku wa iranai” and “Kiseki no umi”, “Purachina” the representative songs were all there and the line up she chose with the thought of “What I want to sing now” is sure to please both fans who have been with her from her debut and people who are seeing her for the first time. Both powerful and cute enough to make you think there had never been a 5 year gap, her performance on stage communicated the transition between each song’s world view through a delicate singing voice and a bold power of expression. A voice which upon hearing in person, unconstrained and entrancing with clearly overflowing without her voice with the power to spellbind you and make you comfortable without you even realising it, and an appearance which with its small movements holds your eyes and won’t let you look away – surely this is enough to nod and realise: “this is natural talent”.
However, when the live was heading towards its end Maaya began a long MC beginning with the words “I’m doing this tour because I think I felt like I had to explain why it’s been 5 years since I’ve done a concert”. This honest confession about the motivations for this tour was an important moment that deepened the bonds between the audience and Maaya Sakamoto. The weak self that surely most people have in their hearts was standing to face an invisible wall and about to overcome it. Through this tour we were all able to share the moment where Maaya was pushed forward by the album “Kazeyomi” to advance. The dazzling moment when she raised her arms up to the sky passionately singing “Hikari Are” after this MC was a scene so moving as to be permanently burned into one’s heart.
The red mini dress from the first half which so suited happy numbers like “Get No Satisfaction!” and “Praline” was in the second half replaced with a costume change to a black dress for the more calm numbers like “Yakusoku wa iranai” and “Yubiwa” and the contrast was quite dramatic. Through this personal expression in a ‘song’, the things she has thought about and felt during her long career rather were communicated and that Maaya Sakamoto the artist was both serious and real towards the field of music, always being truthful in communicating the feelings of a living person, flesh and blood.
Every moment was something that both the staff and guests could not take their eyes from, the scene when Maaya introduced the final ending, singing “Universe” alone with a piano was moving enough to surprisingly bring forth tears. The DVD “Maaya Sakamoto LIVE TOUR 2009 ‘WE ARE KAZEYOMI’” is definitely filled with must-see items! The second disc includes all of the MC’s from the Tokyo performance are included, document footage of the rehearsal and songs that were only performed in Osaka and Nagoya. You can see all the expressions of Maaya Sakamoto, her nervous face from before the real show, her sigh of relief after finishing playing the piano and then her happy tears. And, more than anything, in this package is something that captures both her courage and the audience’s wonderful energy that filled the entire space with warmth. Even the people who couldn’t go to the concert, with one press of the play button everyone can become “Kazeyomi People” with this release. We can all share in the moment when, after reaching an arrival point, a new door opened. A thing that many people have in common that after a career of 14 years, a new door opening at that arrival point. And on the other side of that door, a wonderful song penetrating the soul with a light to fill you with courage
Text: Ueno Shinya
Friday, 17 April 2009
I.D Monthly Messages 2006
Only a few for 2006, but still that's 3 years ago now! Wow! I've kept them around for ages! Both by the lovely Philosranter
I.D Monthly Messages 2006
March 2006
Happy Birthday to...ME!!
March 31st is my birthday. I will turn 26. In March I will be in Nagoya, in April I will be in Tokyo, performing in the musical Le Miserables.
Maaya
February 2006
Valentine's Day is here again this year~. Girls across the country, let's do our best.
Ah, now that I think about it, this year is the tenth anniversary of my debut. I'm thankful for being able to continue one thing for ten years. It's "Thank You".
MAAYA
I.D Monthly Messages 2006
March 2006
Happy Birthday to...ME!!
March 31st is my birthday. I will turn 26. In March I will be in Nagoya, in April I will be in Tokyo, performing in the musical Le Miserables.
Maaya
February 2006
Valentine's Day is here again this year~. Girls across the country, let's do our best.
Ah, now that I think about it, this year is the tenth anniversary of my debut. I'm thankful for being able to continue one thing for ten years. It's "Thank You".
MAAYA
I.D Monthly Messages 2005
2005's monthly messages from Maaya's official site!! Translations as credited:
Philosoranter
December 2005
The year is coming to an end... So fast~. I'm going to end my year with My First Essay Book! and Les Miserables at Osaka. I'm going to eat a lot of delicious food in Osaka~!
Happy new year. *heart*
2005 December
Maaya
October 2005
10/26 Yuunagi LOOP On sale!
Check it out 'k?
Maaya
September 2005
Sakamoto Maaya 5th Album [Yuunagi Loop] on sale 10/26! It's almost upon us. Starting this month, there will be sample downloads. For more information, please check this home page!!!
Maaya
August 2005
Well! The release date for my fifth album has finally been decided!!
26 October (Wednesday)!!
More detailed information will be put up here as it is decided, so keep checking and checking and checking, OK!!
Maaya
July 2005
It's hot.... It's so hot....
I don't like the heat!
But in spite of that, I really want to go to Hawaii right now.
Maybe it's calling me.
I want to go to Hawaii!
It's so hot!
But anyway, "Star Wars EP3" was interesting & I cried!
By all means, everybody please see the Japanese dubbed version!
June 2005
To all the people kindly listening to Loop, thank you very, very much. Now, I'm making an album. Until it's complete, put Loop on a loop and wait, please.
Maaya. Loop -> Loop -> Loop -> Loop -> Loop...
January 2005
Happy New Year!
I will show you a good year, without a doubt!
Maaya
Year of the Rooster.
Luminaire
March 2005
On the 31st of this month, I will finally become 25 years old. Happy Birthday to ME!!! And, more information on my new single which will be released on the 11th May, "LOOP", will be uploaded on my page anyday soon! Please check it (everyday)!
2005. MAAYA
Philosoranter
December 2005
The year is coming to an end... So fast~. I'm going to end my year with My First Essay Book! and Les Miserables at Osaka. I'm going to eat a lot of delicious food in Osaka~!
Happy new year. *heart*
2005 December
Maaya
October 2005
10/26 Yuunagi LOOP On sale!
Check it out 'k?
Maaya
September 2005
Sakamoto Maaya 5th Album [Yuunagi Loop] on sale 10/26! It's almost upon us. Starting this month, there will be sample downloads. For more information, please check this home page!!!
Maaya
August 2005
Well! The release date for my fifth album has finally been decided!!
26 October (Wednesday)!!
More detailed information will be put up here as it is decided, so keep checking and checking and checking, OK!!
Maaya
July 2005
It's hot.... It's so hot....
I don't like the heat!
But in spite of that, I really want to go to Hawaii right now.
Maybe it's calling me.
I want to go to Hawaii!
It's so hot!
But anyway, "Star Wars EP3" was interesting & I cried!
By all means, everybody please see the Japanese dubbed version!
June 2005
To all the people kindly listening to Loop, thank you very, very much. Now, I'm making an album. Until it's complete, put Loop on a loop and wait, please.
Maaya. Loop -> Loop -> Loop -> Loop -> Loop...
January 2005
Happy New Year!
I will show you a good year, without a doubt!
Maaya
Year of the Rooster.
Luminaire
March 2005
On the 31st of this month, I will finally become 25 years old. Happy Birthday to ME!!! And, more information on my new single which will be released on the 11th May, "LOOP", will be uploaded on my page anyday soon! Please check it (everyday)!
2005. MAAYA
I.D Monthly Messages 2004
The cute little pictures Maaya's website puts up every month were once upon a time translated, again by the lovely Philosranter. Not all of them are available but here are the ones I had up.
December 2004
Merry Christmas!!
All of a sudden the year 2004 is coming to a close. I really owe a lot to you this year!!
Happy New Year.
Maaya
November 2004
November...
Only two months left in this year.
I spent the fall really thinking about a lot of things, so it's a really fitting season. All that's left before busy December, remember this month.
2004. Maaya
October 2004
Happy Halloween!
Give me candy!
Give me candy!
Maaya
December 2004
Merry Christmas!!
All of a sudden the year 2004 is coming to a close. I really owe a lot to you this year!!
Happy New Year.
Maaya
November 2004
November...
Only two months left in this year.
I spent the fall really thinking about a lot of things, so it's a really fitting season. All that's left before busy December, remember this month.
2004. Maaya
October 2004
Happy Halloween!
Give me candy!
Give me candy!
Maaya
Hot at Present! September 2005
Another little thing to archive from the ol' website. Here's another little translation by Philosranter of Maaya's corner 'Hot at Present!' which features on her official website. It's pretty out of date of course, what with it being 2005'n all. But still good reading!!
Hot at Present! September 2005
Recent Interests
For books, I'm reading "saodakeya wa naze tsuburenai no ka?" byY amada Naoki. I'm also reading Iwasato Yuuho's essay book "ii kagen ni katazukete utsukushiku kurasu". For DVDs, I'm watching Gekidan Hitori. In CDs, I'm listening to things like The Shins. For movies, March of the Penguins. Life is wonderful.
Recent Flavors
When I'm recording, it's always take-out or delivery. Maybe it's because it's summer, but lately beer has gotten more delicious... Ah, I want a beer. Also, if I've got free time, I drink tomato juice.
Recent Shopping
Last time, I wrote that even though it was July, I bought a down jacket. Well, I did it again. Even though it's August, I bout a winter leather coat... I told myself I wouldn't buy any more winter outerwear...
Recent Recording
The recording is over. All that's left is mastering, and it's done! I'm so happy. Happy, but a little lonely. The time during reacording was really fun. I'm heartfully thankful to the artists and staff who participated on this album. It won't be too long before I can share it will everyone. Until then, please hang on.
Hot at Present! September 2005
Recent Interests
For books, I'm reading "saodakeya wa naze tsuburenai no ka?" byY amada Naoki. I'm also reading Iwasato Yuuho's essay book "ii kagen ni katazukete utsukushiku kurasu". For DVDs, I'm watching Gekidan Hitori. In CDs, I'm listening to things like The Shins. For movies, March of the Penguins. Life is wonderful.
Recent Flavors
When I'm recording, it's always take-out or delivery. Maybe it's because it's summer, but lately beer has gotten more delicious... Ah, I want a beer. Also, if I've got free time, I drink tomato juice.
Recent Shopping
Last time, I wrote that even though it was July, I bought a down jacket. Well, I did it again. Even though it's August, I bout a winter leather coat... I told myself I wouldn't buy any more winter outerwear...
Recent Recording
The recording is over. All that's left is mastering, and it's done! I'm so happy. Happy, but a little lonely. The time during reacording was really fun. I'm heartfully thankful to the artists and staff who participated on this album. It won't be too long before I can share it will everyone. Until then, please hang on.
IDS Bulletin 002 - Maaya's Wine Survey
A nice little tidbit translated by Philosranter back in the day about Maaya's likes in the wine world.
* * * *
Q: What sort of times do you enjoy wine?
A: When there's something happy or something to celebrate, I feel like opening some wine.
Q: What cuisine do you think goes best with wine?
A: I think not just wine, but any kind of alcohol goes best with olives and anchovies.
Q: Do you have a special way to drink wine?
A: I like vin chaud (mulled wine, heated wine with spice added) and drink it often. Especially in cold seasons or when I have a cold, I drink it.
Q: When you cook, what wine do you use?
A: See, as I've said many times, I don't cook, so...
Q: Do you want to go to Australia?
A: I definitely want to go.
* * * *
Q: What sort of times do you enjoy wine?
A: When there's something happy or something to celebrate, I feel like opening some wine.
Q: What cuisine do you think goes best with wine?
A: I think not just wine, but any kind of alcohol goes best with olives and anchovies.
Q: Do you have a special way to drink wine?
A: I like vin chaud (mulled wine, heated wine with spice added) and drink it often. Especially in cold seasons or when I have a cold, I drink it.
Q: When you cook, what wine do you use?
A: See, as I've said many times, I don't cook, so...
Q: Do you want to go to Australia?
A: I definitely want to go.
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