Meh. Not that my opinion counts for much, but this song and video do nothing for me. Just not my type of music, I guess. Oh well -- at least it sounds like Maaya had fun with it.

[quote="roxfan"]As far as I understand, she'll be reading the books accompanied by illustrations.[/quote] Specifically, Chapter 9 of the aforementioned Kenji Miyazawa novel, "Night on the Galactic Railroad". This book is in the public domain and available on Aozora Bunko. Chapter 9 is here . Since i...

Ah, with the higher res you can tell that's a flower she's holding, not marshmallows...

[quote="Tomosaka"]People in 2channel said, "she became a kind of old lady."[/quote]

"Old lady"? I guess that's 2ch for you... My vote goes to "refined" or "elegant".

What stood out to me the second and third times I watched it was how amazing Maaya is with just one accompanying instrument. Of course having the full band is nice, but I liked the live arrangement of "Daniel" way more than the recorded version for some reason. And of course the medley with Kanno wa...

[quote="Yyrkoon70"]Deltafour, thank you so much for the translation of the MCs![/quote] You're welcome! I hope they're not too hard to follow -- Maaya has a bad habit of not knowing when to finish her sentences. [quote="Jérôme."].... I was smiling and singing and waving all the time I was not crying...

[quote="Tomosaka"]It is famous that Maaya's audience is too quiet.:cry:[/quote] But they weren't all that quiet, really. It's just that not many of them were smiling -- that's what confuses me. They were clapping their hands and doing the "kazemachi jet dance" with Maaya, but to my American eyes, no...

OK, because Victor/FD are being their usual silly selves and went with the same MC cuts for the Blu-ray as the DVD (shame, shame!), I have to go from other sources, kindly donated by someone who shall remain anonymous for obvious reasons. The transcript for MC #3 has been updated with several entert...

OK, after some more sleuthing (thanks Jérôme), it's clear that the DVD does NOT have every part of every MC. There are several minutes cut from MC3, a few minutes cut from MC6 (to include "Happy Birthday"), and a tiny bit cut from MC8. As for whether the Blu-ray has the same cuts, I don't know. (I h...

[quote="Jérôme."]The cake appeared with the Drum and Suzuki-san. She came on stage singing "Happy Birthday Maaya-san" and all Budokan sang along together. So it should be at end of Mic #6.[/quote] Ah! That explains the fade transition in MC6. So yes, it's cut out, at least from the DVD. I remember w...

Well, after reading all, I'm surprised there is no translation of the part with the birthday cake... Isn't it on the vid ? I was wondering about this as well. I haven't watched my Blu-ray yet (plan to do that this weekend), but it's not included in the DVD. There is a part in the middle where they ...

The "Gift" MCs, translated as promised: http://sakamotomaaya.com/archive/gift I had the odd thought this morning while reading through some commentary on Twitter that perhaps we have witnessed a peak in Maaya's career. (Not the peak, I hope, just a peak.) I'm not sure where Maaya's going to go from ...

[quote="TomoyoHime"]Can anyone kill the [costume] maker?[/quote] Hear, hear. I was about to rant on this, but you beat me to it. Seriously, is Maaya worried attendance will drop if she wears (gasp) normal clothes at her concerts? Like a dress or something simple? Hearing her poke fun at her own outf...

Just finished watching... It's amazing. Not too keen on the costumes or the backup vocalists, but everything else--the band, the live arrangements, Maaya's vocals, the lighting, the camera work--everything is simply wonderful. (Although she does curl the high notes sometimes, and I know dillpops is ...

Maaya actually kept a bird as a pet too, although I don't think she really thought of it as "her" pet. Shortly after her hamster died, her father came home from work one day with a bright blue tropical bird on his head (or so Maaya tells the story). Apparently the bird landed on him just as he was w...

That would be the 2010 calendar. The photos for this year are quite nice; after the year ends I might scan it and post it somewhere.