THE Masayuki Paradise

 The Masayukist's Zone  was created one year ago today! I made this fan site as some sort of apologetic response to what caused my original YouTube channel to get terminated in the first place. After surfing and skimming through various fan sites of Masayuki Yamamoto that had been ever made across the internet, both active and dead/archived, I wanted to give myself a take on this. What's also surprising is that there wasn't any fan site that's not Japanese. When browsing around that site, you'll see a round-up of his discography, including a section for anime and image songs that will be up soon. As of this writing, I'm currently working on a rundown of concerts that had been held so far, with some reported setlists if available. The site also provides updates on upcoming events or albums that Yamamoto is involved in. It's been five months since his latest album releases and only two months after his comeback in live concerts, which means he had deserved an...

 An unusual acting appearance of Masayuki Yamamoto in Konomachi Daisuki , an educational TV show that teaches children on social studies. He appeared in the last episode of the Syllabel arc on March 1994, seen in his trademark white cardigan and a keytar. Syllabel is portrayed by Yoshitomo Azuma. He is also known for creating the self-titled theme song, something that Yamamoto-sensei doesn't make that often when it comes to children's shows.

 I wanted to put in some interesting trivia bits based on Yamamoto-sensei himself. Introducing.... Mass-a Tidbits ! For the first tidbit, let's travel to the city of Nishio, in Aichi Prefecture. This was where Yamamoto spent his secondary and high school years. Every July, the people of Nishio celebrate the Gion Matsuri with a huge parade, colorful decorations, and festive dances. All fun's not enough with ondo music to keep it swingin'! One of Yamamoto's friends, a Nishio native who would later become a renowned painter, wrote and composed  Nishio Matsuri Ondo  and asked him to arrange the song for that occasion. Although older than Yamamoto, Goroh Saitoh helped set up the song and had another Nishio native, a voice actress, to provide vocals. What is surprising is that Mami Koyama (who sang in Arale-chan's voice), Saitoh and Yamamoto were graduates from Nishio High School. The song was then released in 1985. Album cover for Nishio Matsuri Ondo; top right image sho...

 While it's a shame Masayuki Yamamoto's songs outside anime music doesn't get much attention (same thing with other anison singers or seiyuus with their own music careers), going into his own career doesn't stop him from being recognized as the guy who makes anime BGM. In this article, I'm going to dig in Time Bokan references and related songs during his singer-songwriter days. First and foremost, we stumble into one of his themed songs: the  Nantokaman Series . These are series of songs set to Time Bokan-esque music dealing with the events that happened recently at that time, mostly based on Yamamoto's experience. For example, Fukkyuu Okaeriman no Uta deals with the January 1995 earthquake, infamously known as the The Great Hanshin Earthquake; it was the reason a planned concert based on his then upcoming album was cancelled. Another has Zensen Tabidachi! Otazuneman no Uta as its theme song to the Masayuki Zensen biannual tour. A couple of those songs are no...

 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...

 Here is the third part of Masayuki Yamamoto's biography. The section where he got a career that stuck him for 35 years (as of this writing). Yamamoto's anime music work went well until the time Itadakiman  was about to air. As mentioned in the previous part of the biography , the show went through changes with one of them being some musician scheduling conflict or something similar. Yamamoto was also given no character choice for him to voice. He was very disappointed with so little task to make music on that he eventually left production. Itadakiman also went through a timeslot change and failed to impress the audience -- both from the concept and the late evening schedule -- that Tatsunoko cut the episodes from the planned 26 to just 20, and ceased the Time Bokan franchise for a while. Meanwhile in MIC, after Galactic Whirlwind   Sasuraiger concluded, their shows didn't perform well through both quality and its toy sponsors. Chou Kosoku Galvion  suffered the simi...

 Christmas has passed, and now it's time to remember the moments that happened this year.  For Masayuki Yamamoto, this year was kinda rough, but Masayukists were delighted to see another simultaneous album release. To start the third year of COVID, nothing special happened during the first half. And when I say  nothing special happened , I mean  nothing really happened . The end of 2021 was rough for me and Masayuki: I started using my  Xainelle-chan  moniker in uploading his songs to YouTube for the purpose of entertainment and preservation just in case. Then suddenly, Bella Beaux Entertainment decided to take down the videos and strike my channel for a reason: it would ruin his career financially. Learning the lesson on copyright and Bella Beaux and Yamamoto's policy to not share his music on video sharing sites, I eventually moved on. The redress message on sharing his songs to not just YouTube, but other video sharing platforms like Niconico; this messa...

 This is the second part of the biography, where this will focus on his anison career before finding himself into the popular music side. Masayuki Yamamoto found some moderate success with credits as a songwriter and composer for various kayokyoku and comic song artists, as well as his take on contemporary folk music with the release of his Sayonara La-la-la  single. However, there was something missing from his path that he still has yet to take part in: creating theme songs for the entertainment. In 1975, the then-president of Warner-Pioneer sought for a new theme song for a then-upcoming Tatsunoko Production anime work. At that time, Tatsunoko struggled hard to keep its profits going as some recent works were underperforming with TV ratings, like Shinzou Ningen Casshan ,  Uchuu no Kishi Tekkaman and Hurricane Polymar  (Tentoumushi no Uta went well and lasted over 100 episodes). Yamamoto was very interested in making theme songs for an anime, as it was on his bucke...