Romanized Maaya's Name

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Jérôme.
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Romanized Maaya's Name

Post by Jérôme. »

I was just wondering...

How come Victor's Ent. keep releasing stuff labelised "Maaya Sakamoto" instead of "坂本真綾" ? It give me the feeling the romanized form is her stage name when the Kanji form is her real life name.

But as she has almost not activity outside Japan, it is a strange choice in my opinion...

Does this happen often in Japanese music industry (I mean, to have the real artist name romanized in marketing stuff)
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nijibug
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RE: Romanized Maaya's Name

Post by nijibug »

Hmm. Good question. I would say it's more recognizable in the sense that seeing the kanji written out would make her name appear more like just another normal person's name to the casual reader, while seeing her name romanized makes it stand out from all the other kanji on the website/publicity material etc.

In fact, they've been romanizing it on all the album covers, too haven't they?
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Jérôme.
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RE: Romanized Maaya's Name

Post by Jérôme. »

nijibug wrote: In fact, they've been romanizing it on all the album covers, too haven't they?
Yup, but not on the slide of them... strange indeed ;)
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deltafour
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RE: Romanized Maaya's Name

Post by deltafour »

I think it's a graphic design choice more than anything else. If you look through the bestseller rankings for J-Pop on amazon.co.jp you can find plenty of covers with the artist's actual (Japanese) name written in Latin letters. Most of the time it's all one or all the other. The last three tour titles have been written in English, so you see "Maaya Sakamoto". The covers of Shounen Alice, Platinum, and Yakusoku wa Iranai had the title in Japanese on the front, so you see "坂本真綾". Nikopachi was one of the (very few?) exceptions, since it combined katakana and Latin lettering.

When her name shows up in interviews, it's always in kanji. Although when she signs her name, it's whatever she feels like writing. Typically that's just "Maaya". Her "full" signature is "Maaya" with a bumblebee drawn in under the last "a". (Do a Google Images search for 坂本真綾 サイン to see examples.) But on this year's IDS! birthday card, she wrote サカモトマーヤ in katakana.

I don't get the feeling that anyone at Victor/FD is trying to draw a line between her real life and her stage life here. If they wanted to do that, she wouldn't be working under her real name in the first place.
http://sakamotomaaya.com/ (Collected translations of Maaya Sakamoto news, essays, interviews, and articles)
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Jérôme.
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RE: Romanized Maaya's Name

Post by Jérôme. »

Very interesting facts, Delta, as always !
Thank you ;p
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