I.D Essay Book - My Ideal 'Thirties' Woman

I seriously love the new edition of I.D. It is the perfect size to hold in one hand! Do I mind that I have two copies of the same book? No! Anyway, I think Maaya answered her own question at the end of this essay at the Budokan concert - sharing her birthday with thousands of people can't be bad!

I really wish that one day an official English version of I.D is translated by a professional and released by Flying Dog or someone...does anyone think that is possible? Would there ever be enough international interest in these books to warrant publication overseas? Girls' Generation have shown it is possible to get official English versions released but...is Maaya just too niche to get the same attention?

I guess that it would cost too much money for an official translation and publication (T_T) still, an official English homepage would be nice!

My Ideal ‘Thirties’ Woman

By Maaya Sakamoto 
Originally published in I.D.

Among my acquaintances there is a woman I shall call Ms. M who is very popular with both men and women. She is eight years older than me and works as a promoter at my record company. She isn’t flashy, has a strong sense of justice and is always smiling. She can get along with anyone. 

Something unforgettable happened when my single ‘Hashiru’ was released. Ms. M had just become my PR manager and it was at the beginning of our working relationship.

In order to promote ‘Hashiru’ Ms. M had been making the rounds of various media outlets such as radio stations and magazines. But without a big tie-up and because I wasn’t famous even if she gave them a sample CD more often than not she was brushed off with, “We’ll listen to it later.” It wasn’t unreasonable, they were receiving several CDs a day and on top of the desk would be a mountain of sample CDs all piled up. Most likely they would not listen to them all.

One day she was more pushy than usual: “This is a great song, please listen to it,” and the other party replied, “Really? What’s good about it?” I don’t know what she was thinking but apparently she sang the first chorus of the song right there on the spot. Ms. M’s unexpected action took the person off guard and it seems they put the CD on straight away saying, “You’re quite a character. OK! Let’s listen right now.” She says that she did it because at that moment she wanted to make them listen just once with all her heart, but I’ve never heard of another promoter who would promote the song by singing it themselves.

Ms. M always puts her all into what she’s doing. She will fall in love with the artists she is put in charge of and does not hold back on her affection. She treated me with more kindness than I deserved.

The night before my third album ‘Lucy’ was released, I went drinking until the early hours with some staff members in Harajuku. At 5am when the shop was closing there were about two other groups of customers besides us. Ms. M, quite pissed, was babbling drunkenly, “She’s amazing! Maaya Sakamoto is amazing! I’ll follow her to the end!”

She accosted the waiter who brought our bill saying, “I’m really sorry to bother you but can you please put on this CD? It goes on sale tomorrow. It’s really good, please put it on.” She’s a pretty devious drunk…I was embarrassed and brought the conversation to a close with a friendly smile, “No, don’t worry about it.”

A little while later, thinking that Ms. M had been in the bathroom a long time I looked around to find her in the back of the shop chatting to the staff about something. She was pressuring them to put ‘Lucy’ on.

Finally, after Ms. M had put the heat on them, the staff really did play the CD. ‘Lucy’ is a nice album but I wouldn’t have said it was a particularly good fit for a French-style bar. But I was really happy and Ms. M cried again.

When she comes to my concerts or plays she is always crying somehow. Before she comes to see them, when the opening night draws near, she will go to pray at a shrine dedicated to a god of the arts on my behalf. She has the quick reflexes of a Kansai woman on her comebacks. She is quick to realise when there is something up with me. She lectures me when I complain. Always laughing, always crying, always getting cross. If I was a man I would want to make her my wife.

When she entered her thirties, as it was an important turning point age-wise I secretly planned to give her a special present. It was something I couldn’t possibly do on my own: I got all the people who knew Ms. M well to write her a message. After I floated the idea to them, over sixty people took part out of their affection for Ms. M. 

What was surprising was that it was not in the least bit difficult to gather all these messages together. All of the participants were really helpful, and all the messages were incredibly detailed and overflowing with words straight from the heart. There was no flattery or things said out of politeness. I understood once again how far and how deep her personal connections went. I had thought of the idea for the present and stuck the messages into an album but in reality I hadn’t done anything at all. This wonderful present was a success of Ms. M’s thirty years of life. This was a treasure that she had created herself. 

When I go over to her house to hang out the album is always on display for everyone to see. The front cover is a cute portrait of Ms. M drawn by an artist she manages. She says that, “If there was an earthquake then this is what I would escape with.” 

When I turn thirty, I wonder if I will be able to celebrate my birthday together with so many people like she did.

I’m not very confident!!

Usagi Drop Essay - Playing Masako by Maaya Sakamoto

Last week or the week before, the Usagi Drop anime website unveiled a collaboration between Maaya Sakamoto and Gekidan Inu-Curry (the illustrator for the universe music video and Maaya’s Newtype column) as one of their website’s special sections. It was an interesting essay but parts of it were a little tricky! Anyway, here it is.

The original can be found here.

EDIT: This post is getting a lot of traffic, I'm glad people found it interesting! Enjoy!

Maaya Sakamoto: Playing Masako in Usagi Drop

Ayu Matsuura, who plays Rin, always stands straight in front of the microphone, her voice cool and relaxed. When I look at her I feel nostalgic, reliving my own days as a child actor, and strangely, I start to want to tickle her. She’s asked question after question from the adults around her, “What year are you at school?”, “Which school lunch do you like best?”, “How is your summer vacation homework coming?” And even this is somehow very familiar.

I wonder, when exactly did I become ‘an adult’?

I started this work when I was eight years old. It’s been twenty-three years from then until now and I’ve never done any other sort of work.

When I was a child acting and singing were simply fun, nothing else. But one day, there was a moment when I thought, “huh?” Wait a second, how did I did I do this acting thing up until now? For some reason I suddenly became unable to do the thing I had always been able to do without thinking. Despite enjoying it, or maybe because I did enjoy it, work stopped being just ‘fun’. And it was because of that I was no longer able to quit doing it. It’s difficult, I want to get better, I want to learn more…Those desires became the driving force for why I have done this for so long, and maybe they pushed me towards adulthood. It’s ironic but if it had just been ‘fun’ I probably wouldn’t have come this far. That’s how I feel now I’m 31 years old. For me, everything that happened was one thing in a long, continuous period of time with no relation to my age or experience, I never feel like I’ve become an adult. .

In Usagi Drop I play Rin’s mother, Masako. Even though she’s a mother Masako is still young and mentally very immature. She’s got a unique point of view and viewers might frown a little thinking, “What’s wrong with this woman?” A childish way of talking, her actions and words showing a lack of common sense…There are probably few people who can emphasise with a woman who has made the decision to keep her own daughter at a distance. She’s an elusive, difficult character. But it’s because she’s difficult that from an acting point of view she caught my interest. I feel like there’s a mysterious link between someone like me who was a child actor playing the role of mother who can’t become a true adult.

I know it’s a little presumptuous of me to put this in as an example in this essay but on this production I worked with Takkou Ishimori for the first time in a long time, and while we were looking at the children in the cast he commented offhand, “I was also a child actor and I started out at about their age. It’s difficult growing up, you know. It was really tough turning from a boy into a man.”

Those words where somehow really deep, and left an impression on me. As a pro he is on a completely different level to me so I was too shy to say ‘I know what you mean’, and could only stand there and nod silently but…Wow, so Takkou-san was also brought up with these two personas, the actor and the normal boy, and with time grew up into this wonderful person…it was a dazzling revelation.

Everyone starts to live as an adult without really noticing when it happens. Even though there are still lots of things you don’t understand or don’t know how to do, there are less and less people who will teach you or get angry with you. Even though you’re busy with your own problems people will rely on you. How others see you and how you see yourself…there’s so much you don’t understand.

“It was really tough turning from a boy into a man.”

Yes, it is difficult, really difficult. Even though I’m pretty much an adult at my age I still can’t catch up with who I want to be. In acting, in life. I think until I can say something like Takkou-san with the same gentleness, I think I will try one thing at a time..

Working on Usagi Drop, it seemed like I was looking at the distant future and the distant past at the same time. Then I came back to myself in the present once again and took a deep breath. I came to work on this show thinking, ‘ok, let’s take a step out into this new scenery’, in full knowledge of my immaturity, and giving it everything I had. Standing next to Rin, I think I started to understand Masako’s restlessness and passion. 

Fin.

  

New essay and illustration collaboration for 'Usagi Drop' anime

I posted a few months ago on Maaya taking part in the anime adaptation of the manga Usagi Drop. The official anime website has updated with an essay written by Maaya on playing Masako, the mother of Rin. It seems like the illustration is done by the same artist who illustrated the ending theme sequence.

You can see the essay on the official site here.

EDIT: I wonder if it's the first of a series...That would be a nice way to bridge the gap between now and the October release fest.

P.s The illustrator is the same one who illustrated the 'universe' PV animation and Maaya's Newtype column!

New Maaya Sakamoto translation archive on delicious

Frecklegirl of Nostalgic Lavender a.k.a Maaya Sakamoto lyric translation goddess has created a link archive of all the English language translations of Maaya Sakamoto on her site, this blog and deltafour's website.

To go with her explanation:

All Maaya translations by deltafour, dilly, and me (as well as a few of the old translations by others dilly has archived) linked from one place, organized by tag!

http://www.delicious.com/maayas

Want to look at all the things (essays, interviews, etc) pertaining to one album or release? There you go. Want to look at all the translated IDS! newsletters we have so far among us? There you go. And so on...

Any questions, just ask me... hopefully this will be a good resource for everyone.

I've added it to the link bar on the side as well, but how useful!! Thank you for all the hard work Frecklegirl.

Maps, Letters and Love Songs: A letter from my travels

I'm not sure how many people remember, but back in 2007 when 30 Minutes Night Flight was released, Maaya released 'Chizu to tegami to koi no uta' (Maps, Letters and Love Songs) which was a collection of song lyrics, photos and two small pieces of writing. It was a really nice collection, beautiful photos, drawings by Maaya, and, of course, the lyrics themselves.

This is the ending of the book. After 'Poketto wo kara ni shite' (Empty the Pocket) which as we know, is a song about heading off on a journey. It's also the song Maaya ends her concerts with. It's a nice little letter from Finland, which is where they shot the photos for 30 Minutes Night Flight. Really sweet.

Enjoy!!

Maps, Letters and Love Songs: A letter from my travels
Published 2007.

It’s around an eight hour flight to get from Japan to the capital of Finland, Helsinki. It’s surprisingly close.

Even though it’s October, every day is hot and humid thanks to the strange weather we’ve been having; in one step I left the lingering summer heat of Tokyo for a Europe of falling autumnal leaves. The avenue of Gingko trees in front of the hotel is full of the scent of gingko nuts.
The four days I stayed here were packed with photo shoots. Blessed with perfect weather they all went according to plan; I’m sure we took a lot of great photos.

In forests, by lakes, inside elementary schools, railway stations, on top of a hill with a red barn, sitting in cafes and sailing on boats – we took photos in a lot of different places, but the spot I liked best on this trip was Helsinki Cathedral.

A white building which soars above the centre of town, when you start to climb the stairs, you realise that it’s actually on a slope and that it's a lot bigger than it looks from below. When I finally reached the top and turned around, I couldn’t believe the scenery that was stretching out before my eyes. All of the rooftops lined up beneath me and beyond lay the harbour, the marketplace and the ferries that travel off to foreign lands. Then there were the cute green trams running up and down the streets. As I turned to survey the land below, the sun suddenly shone down, after being hidden within thick clouds all day.

Sitting down on the steps and watching the sun until it set completely wasn’t a bit boring. The wind was freezing so it was quite cold, but I think I could have sat there for hours and hours. The locals said, “You should see the cathedral once, but it’s not that interesting.” But if I lived in this place, I would sit here and watch the sky and the town every morning, noon and night. I wonder if they don’t realise how wonderful it is because they’re used to living here. There’s a chance that perhaps that I am also overlooking some wonderful place in the town I live, thinking it’s simply commonplace.

As for food in Finland, the local delicacy is reindeer. Yesterday I ate dinner in a traditional Finnish restaurant, it was there that I encountered reindeer meat. It seems like it’s a really popular restaurant, and you need to have a reservation to go there. I was kind of surprised that reindeer has a pretty characteristic smell, but it was tenderer than I thought it was going to be. Apart from reindeer, there’s Lapland Cheese, which tastes a lot like tofu, and really meaty salmon, make up the local menu.

By the by, apparently Finland has the largest number of coffee drinkers in the world. You’re surprised, right? Now, this is just between you and me, but no matter which shop I went to, all the coffee I drank was strangely weak in flavour. But in order to be the biggest coffee drinking country in the world, just how many cups a day are these people drinking? Anyway, when this self-confessed coffee addict gets back to Japan, the first thing she wants to do is to drink a strong cup of coffee.

Something really surprising happened today: I found my own CD displayed in a shop window here in Helsinki!

There, in some shop on a street I was casually walking down, was ‘Hotchpotch’ selling for 18.90 Euros. To think that my songs have crossed the sea to this place, before I’ve even set foot on this land! That people with a language so unlike Japanese, living with scenery so completely different, eating food tasting nothing like that in Japan, are listening to my music. I felt overcome with emotion, happy, when I thought that we must have something in common. I had no idea that the last day of my trip would hold this kind of emotion for me.

Tomorrow afternoon I will be flying back to Japan.

Whether it’s for work or pleasure, I love travelling. This trip to Finland also turned out to be a great success.

But it’s really weird, on the morning of my departure I always feel nervous before travelling, and this time it was the same. I feel like I’ve forgotten something, like I don’t want to go on the trip anymore. No matter how much I’ve been looking forward to setting off beforehand, I always get like this.

I think about the faces of my family and friends; deciding in my heart that as soon as I return home I will meet up with them, and we’ll take our time over a delicious meal. I’ll buy them a souvenir, I’ll send them a post card. I begin to miss those people who I had always thought of as those I could meet ‘anytime I like’.

As I fasten my seatbelt, there’s no going back from this road I have chosen to walk down. It is when we take off, that moment when I must entrust myself to that repulsion of gravity, that I understand the reason why I am going on this trip: it is because I have somewhere to return to that a journey is truly a journey. It is because I have people waiting for me that I return.

It is to you, the one who is waiting for me, that I send this letter to from a faraway country.

From Maaya Sakamoto. Helsinki.