THE Masayuki Paradise

 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!

 For (currently) 23 years, Masayuki Yamamoto has been associated with Bella Beaux Entertainment, although that record label is not founded by Yamamoto, but rather his artist manager Akira Kawase. Kawase created Bella Beaux a few years after he left Pioneer LDC. Bella Beaux's first release was from seiyuu and singer Hiroko Kasahara entitled Neo Decadence  in January 2000, and would only take six months for Yamamoto to get his first album from the then-new label. However, there was a time when Yamamoto had his own record label.... Yamamoto's last release under the Pioneer LDC label was Enka no Teiou  in August 1996, then moved to Teichiku for three more releases. After being in numerous major record labels, he wanted to give himself a record label of his own. With his artist manager at the time, Sachio Tanaka, he founded his own record label Susquehanna Record (and this name might sound familiar to Masayukists) around the mid-nineties. His first release for Susquehanna Reco...

 Masayuki Yamamoto was featured in a May 1976 issue of New Lite Music , along with Murasaki, Masamitsu Tayama (misspelled) and Shogo Hamada. "This artist started fame as a composer before becoming a singer. Check out the photo with his innocent expression on the right. Can you guess on which song flavor is he creating? That's right: he was the one delicately expressing the boy's genuine heart with these historical masterpieces "Uguisudani Music Hall" , "Hirake! Tulip" and "Moeyo Dragons!" . It's hard to imagine the folk tone of his debut single where he wrote, composed and sang, but he stated that enka styles, some folk touch and a marching behavior are arguably occurring naturally from that song." (この人も歌手より先に作曲で有名になっちゃった方。まだあどけない表情を残した右の写真をごらんなさい。どんな曲を書く人か、大体想像がつくてしょう? そう、その通り彼こそあの歴史的名曲「うぐいすだにミュージックホール」「ひらけ!チューリップ」を始め「燃えよドラゴンズ」など少年の純粋な心を繊細に表現した …… とまあ冗談はこのくらいにして、彼がこれらの曲を作ったことは事実。作詞・作曲して歌っているデビュー・シングルのフォーク調からは考えもつかないが本人は、演歌調もフォーク・タッチ...

 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...