THE Masayuki Paradise

 Written by Aki Tomato, Yamamoto's artist manager at that time, translated by me. That day I became a Masayukist. Let's be honest, I was not an enthusiastic fan of Masayuki Yamamoto until I worked with him for the first time on Kyuukyoku Choujin R, that is, I had known the appeal of his music for a long time. I was an animator, so naturally I watched the Time Bokan Series , Gold Lightan and  Bryger  in real time, and I liked the theme songs so much that I could sing the full chorus to the top. Eventually, it was something that made me realize the true value of Masayuki Yamamoto's musical power. Twelve years ago, we went to a record store in Shizuoka for the R campaign. The stage was a small space bounded by partitions (more like plywood) and blackout curtains. After rehearsal, I casually wandered around the store. Then, he started singing " ♪Kin-kon-kan-kon-kenko~ " in front of a little kindergarten boy. He knew nothing about R or Masayuki Yamamoto; he just happe...

 Hello folks. You may notice that both The Masayukist's Zone and THE Masayuki Paradise, two of my fan pages related to Yamamoto sensei, hasn't been updated for the past few months. This may sound personal especially to many Japanese people, but I had been so hardly focused on my finals and my other interests that I never got the time to update my Wordpress site, nor add more translations and facts here as well. Does this mean these websites are gonna be dead, like the other Yamamoto sensei fan sites, never to be up-to-date in the future? Hopefully not. Meanwhile, Masayuki Yamamoto doesn't seem to get much physical appearances lately. Two written interviews since 2024 started, and when Super Anison Spirits 2024 was announced, Yamamoto's name was nowhere to be listed. My assumption could be that Yamamoto might as well enjoy much of his leisure time more than fixing a schedule of live appearances or maybe recording a brand new studio album. I understood why because doing ...

  By the time J9 ended, Fuji Television was airing an anime titled Korokoro Pollon   [tl note: J9 (specifically Bryger) and Pollon were made by the same studio and Yamamoto did BGM for both shows] . Mr. [Yukimasa] Ono, the TV station producer, is now [at the time he wrote this in 2000] the chief director of the Fuji TV Seoul office branch. He regularly comes back to Japan every two years!  With such an ulterior motive in mind, I embarked on a four-day, three-night trip. Ono: Yamamoto-san~~! You're here! I haven't seen you go to a foreign country since you stayed in New York. Yamamoto: Anyways, let's have yakiniku ! Take me to a yakiniku stall that doesn't stink. I stayed in Grand Hyatt, the most luxurious hotel in all of Seoul. I had a twin room all by myself (I definitely wasn't thinking of bringing anyone with me, you know). Outside the window was an overview of Seoul with the mountains in the sky. The TV played mostly in English, but it's a country where Eng...

 Most of the time, Yamamoto sensei had composed hundreds of original songs, anime BGM and image songs. However, two tracks were sung by Yamamoto but weren't composed and written by him... Surprisingly, both songs were released in 1991, so it's just a one-time occurrence. First off, every gamer should know Namco. Namco was the maker of Pac-Man, Tekken, Galaxian and Taiko no Tatsujin. A very obscure Japanese exclusive arcade game Namco made was Pistol Daimyo no Bouken (The Adventure of Pistol Daimyo)  in October 1990. If one manages to finish the game, an ending cutscene plays an ondo sounding song with karaoke lyrics onscreen. When that song was recorded for the Namco Video Game Graffiti CD series, it turned into a kazoeuta  or a counting song. It's crazier when you realize Shinji Hosoe was the composer of Hinawamaru Kazoeuta , who's best well known for his music in the Tekken franchise. New lyrics were written probably by the staff(?), and of course, Yamamoto's Hito...

 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...

 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...

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...

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...