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Showing posts from January, 2024

"Sainou no Rakuen" Song Commentary

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 Some of his albums include song commentaries for each track, detailing the inspiration on how the song was made. Here, I translated the commentary taken from Sainou no Rakuen  by none other than Yamamoto sensei himself. Zensen Tabitachi! Otazuneman no Uta [ 前線旅立ち! オタズネマンの歌 ] - Every two years, the Masayuki Zensen event is held throughout Japan. 2002 was "THE Masayuki Zensen"; 2004 was titled "Tropic of Capricorn edition: The Journey of the Sea, Gourmet and Friendship". Then in 2006, we opened "Escape From Love: Around the Stylish Whereabouts" with this song. The intro and interlude are amazingly played on a real trumpet. We hope those railroad fans will rejoice this. This event is really hard and redundant for a 50-year-old, and I have to arrange the chairs by myself, but it's fun! I'm so absorbed. Oouso Shinsengumi Kiru! <BUSHI> [ 大嘘新撰組・斬る! <BUSHI>]  - I was aiming for a second "nantoka" for the popular "Oouso Chushingu...

Anniversary Week 3!

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 Another month, another time for an anniversary week, and it's the first one of 2024! Alright, this one isn't that big compared to the last two anniversary weeks that I covered. That's because, while I double checked Yamamoto sensei's discography, it seems that there's only two days where we see some original albums and some anime singles turn a year older. January isn't a pretty big month of album releases. January 24, this Wednesday, sees the 28th anniversary of Masayuki Tengoku , which is where I got the fan site name from! With Yamamoto's signature simplistic art style in the front cover, some catchy tracks will always have fans suffer from earworm as soon as Nippon Jindaman no Uta, Ikeike Ikebukuro, and Sora no Tantei start playing. One day later, on January 25, will see tons of album anniversaries! First off are the three Yatterman vinyl EPs that were released during its series run; two from 1977 and another from 1978. The first opening theme song, Yat...

Zunbara Zuihitsu Chapter 1 "Temptation in Setagaya"

I wanted to do something with this for a long while, and that's translating the entire Zunbara Zuihitsu  from the Bella Beaux website. Yamamoto made this essay-type collection of experiences he had done the moment he wrote chapter after chapter. Since many are based on outdated events, the Zuihitsu page nowadays only includes selected stories based on the sensei's past and then-current experiences. To begin this series, I had translated the very first chapter with more to come real soon! Recording production for Juusan no Maou  (Thirteen Devils) was so much fun, and yet it was very interesting. The karaoke making in its early stage reminded me of an unrelated topic with Masaaki Jinbo-sensei. In fact, Mr. Jinbo had been naturally talking about that same story for a very long time: Yamamoto: Hello, Mr. Jinbo. Jinbo: Oh, good day! Yamamoto: How is your father? Jinbo: I talked to you the other day that he got cancer, or maybe he was diagnosed with stomach ulcer... Anyways, he's...

Mass-a Tidbits #4 - Pseudonyms

Yamamoto-sensei has seemingly made pseudonyms for the past couple of years, all of which had been retired to rightfully choose his real name. These are: Miho Touda  - Miho is a particularly female name, but using this name as a male is very peculiar; I doubt Miho is named after his daughter. This was used when he wrote  Tadashii Seishun for Kyuukyoku Choujin R, Harukaze ABC  for One Two Jump! and Aishuu Madonna . INDEPENDENCE  - A one-off alias used for Nekketsu Fighters no Uta , a fight song for the Hokkaido Ham Fighters. Kururo Fujiwara  - I thought it could be an alias of Ikuro Fujiwara, but when the Rekishi Series compilation album was released, the songs with Kururo as the arranger are instead credited to Yamamoto, so it's speculative that it could be another pseudonym of Yamamoto-sensei's, and it's used solely for songs under the Rekishi Series, which was sadly done in only two albums. Pseudonyms can confuse some people as they might think it could be...