THE Masayuki Paradise

 2024 was...indeed a turbulent year. The 50th debut anniversary went bitter, sure, but at least the  Sainou no Kiseki  Blu-ray set released last month saw many Masayukists watching any of his old concerts for the first time as if they were actually seeing him in person. I wish I was born in the late 70s/early 80s... This year had me also go on a different approach since I am also an artist who draws. If I am not doing college duties, I am mostly focused on my art and sharing them across social platforms that I currently run on. In fact, this year, I had little ideas. Little motivation. Little plans in updating my fanpage and providing translations of liner notes, song commentaries and interviews. Those fan pages I made are still sparse and incomplete. I didn't even have the time to write album reviews. DOES THIS MEAN I HAVE STOPPED BEING A FAN OF MASAYUKI??!! IS MY YAMAMOTO-SENSEI FIXATION OVER???!! Absolutely not. I still listen to him almost every day. I'll still love t...

With another year coming to an end, it's time to summarize what the sensei has done throughout. As much as I am looking forward for next year -- and his 50th career anniversary, it's a bummer that this is the first year in a while that Yamamoto hasn't released at least one album, whether a maxi single or a full-length one, since 2014; all the years between them have album releases, if you wanna count THE Jitaku Live in 2021. To start the second post-COVID year, Yamamoto returned to the stage in January with the Tatsunoko 60th anniversary concert, since he is a prominent person who worked on not the Time Bokan Series, but two super robot shows. Although Ichiro Mizuki was part of the main performers, he sadly passed away one month prior. Thankfully, Birthday Song paid a tribute with a prerecorded video of Mizuki singing the theme to Tekkaman the Space Kinght . Yamamoto still got the energy and stage presence to keep the audience rockin'! Oh, don't forget that he even ...

 December is a big month for Masayukists when it comes to album releases, whether it be original albums or singles. Now that I am free from all those college stuff and it's about time I forget about it for a while, we got another whole week of anniversaries. Starting with.... Megami no Jiyuu  on December 18! In case you haven't checked the album yet, it was released under Yamamoto's own record label at that time, which was unfortunately discontinued shortly after. Yamamoto had once again blended a variety of music genres in time for the new millennium. You can hear two baseball related tracks, a peppy pop song for the title track, a 50s style love ballad, and an anime melody style on the final track to finish the 55-minute runtime. I saw some misinformation that Akemi Takada made the cover illustration. It's clearly Yamamoto's, just by looking at his art style. Takada, known as the character designer for Creamy Mami, actually did cover art for '88. December 19 ...

 On this day in 1975, Tatsunoko Production premiered an anime series that not only saved the company from falling in grace, but began a somewhat successful anime franchise. Time Bokan  started broadcasting on Fuji Television on Saturday 6:30PM and the rest is history! This was also the debut of Masayuki Yamamoto as an anime composer and anison singer-songwriter. If not for this series, he wouldn't become popular in the first place. His prominence in this franchise made him a  Tatsunoko Legend , which could explain why he was part of the 60th anniversary concert. May they continue to save and preserve history!

 Last year was the 60th anniversary of Tatsunoko Production, considered to be the Hanna-Barbera   of Japan . The celebrations were not yet over with a special Tatsunoko 60th Legends  concert held at Zepp DiverCity Tokyo last January 9. All the living featured performers (as Ichiro Mizuki passed away) had their anison debut on a Tatsunoko show, and it's really interesting for a popular anison singer who's that famous. While we foreigners never saw the live, I browsed all the live reactions from people across Twitter on the day of performance. Here's the full summary of the entire concert covered so far. The opening number was Isao Sasaki's anison debut, Shinzo Ningen Casshan , singing both the opening and ending themes. Before Casshan, Sasaki lend his voice to Joe the Condor in Science Ninja Team Gatchaman  using his real kanji name. In between these songs, Sasaki congratulated the studio on his, quote on quote, 70th  anniversary; he meant to say 60th, but even a...