Akiko Shikata

[Alphard Sokaina]

Dunno... I still don't believe that she does ALL the vocals. Some of them sound to me as if they are sung by a man

 

[grunty]

Believe what you want. :)

 

[Nick Hunter]

Dunno... I still don't believe that she does ALL the vocals. Some of them sound to me as if they are sung by a man

I found it incredible, too. But not from the point whether it's her or not - I don't think a Japanese artist would deliberately lie about such things in a booklet of her own album. Show biz people who are devoted to what they do usually value their own reputation and the audience's trust quite a lot.

I only wonder, as I said above - is she able to sing in such a low voice naturally or does she edit the pitch in the recorded tracks? I'm not above believing the former as well - something tells me that if you took Keiko's part and multiplied it tenfold, the result might be confused for a male chorus to an extent. It's always harder to identify the characteristics of a single voice in the choir.

Either way, it's like hearing all of her songs anew now that I know of it. Her rating's definitely gone up with me.

 

[wintersviolet]

@Nick: Sorry, what I meant to say previously was that she had to sing the tracks to show her tracks were unedited. I guess I was unclear


But then again, what I wrote was just hearsay. xD *is slapped* I also find it hard to believe she can sing so low without technical assistance, but I'll accept it when I see it.

 

[Alphard Sokaina]

Re:

Dunno... I still don't believe that she does ALL the vocals. Some of them sound to me as if they are sung by a man

I found it incredible, too. But not from the point whether it's her or not - I don't think a Japanese artist would deliberately lie about such things in a booklet of her own album.

From PMMM OST thread:

I noticed it on OST2 already... why do they credit everything (but Connect) to Kajiura?

^ probably because she arranged them.

Uh, it says "All Songs written by" her and that's a lie. Lying's not cool. =P

 

[stormy panda]

Re:

Dunno... I still don't believe that she does ALL the vocals. Some of them sound to me as if they are sung by a man

Uhm, I feel a little left out. Which songs are you referring to?

 

[Nick Hunter]

From PMMM OST thread:

but I'm not sure how to take it. It's not an album booklet, it's a BD booklet, so how much Yuki supervised the contents of it is questionable. And we've seen glitches in earlier BD booklets, too.

Uhm, I feel a little left out. Which songs are you referring to?

Dunno about those Alphie means, but I've heard such parts in Umineko no Naku Koro ni ~Rengoku~, VII, Kaze to Rashinban... Katayoku no Tori has them, too.

offtop: i'm going to an anime fest tomorrow, and one of the entries in karaoke contest is Katayoku no Tori. I wonder how many people they'll gather for that.

 

[stormy panda]

Re:

Dunno about those Alphie means, but I've heard such parts in Umineko no Naku Koro ni ~Rengoku~, VII, Kaze to Rashinban... Katayoku no Tori has them, too.

Oh, if it's those songs, it's definitely not a man. (Umineko Rengoku was the first song that made me appreciate Akiko, because of the shift in the middle. Same with EXEC_FLIP_ARPHAGE/. *_*) I dunno, but having listened to many songs by Akiko (Harmonia album + Ar tonelico hymmnos are my favorites), I can see the similarity between the low vocals and the high ones, and I'm pretty sure it's the same person. I would kill to watch a real live of hers though, just to make sure.
And even if it's not her, there are women who can sing as low as men. I mean, look at contraltos, who share some of their vocal range with tenors. (Keiko too~)
But no, I'm not an Akiko fantard.

 

[Lunaria77]

EXEC_over.METHOD_SUBLIMATION/.～ee wassa sos yehar

<---The deep vocals here are just .The ''men'' vocals in it made me wonder if it was Akiko's doing or not.But Akiko is awesome,so why not? I can't see how people think this song is creepy.I know it's special but i can't see it as a creepy song. Katayaku no Tori is creepier to me because it reminds me the few anime episodes i watched

 

[Alphard Sokaina]

Oh sorry Panda I missed your question

Yes, the song Luna named. Btw I like this song a lot. No idea why it is creepy

 

[Nick Hunter]

The creepiest Akiko song I've heard by far (not that I've heard many yet)...
Katayoku no Tori, yes. VII sounds like an elegantly creepy gothic fairy-tale. But the cake so far goes to UnNKn ~Rengoku~. Uzumibi is not very far behind either.

 

[Lunaria77]

''Uzumebi'' creepy? It's lovely! The different points of view of people for individual songs are very interesting.

Yes, the song Luna named. Btw I like this song a lot. No idea why it is creepy

 

[Alphard Sokaina]

Wait, are Kata Tsubasa no Tori and Katayoku no Tori the same song?

 

[Lunaria77]

^from what i know

 

[Nick Hunter]

Wait, are Kata Tsubasa no Tori and Katayoku no Tori the same song?

I suppose so. Kanji reading can be tricky at times... But I've seen Katayoku no Tori translated as "One-winged bird", and since "tsubasa" means wing(s), too...

 

[Alphard Sokaina]

Just... I have it "Katayoku no Tori" as the single title and "Kata Tsubasa no Tori" as the song title lol

 

[Lunaria77]

^^ that's just..confusing,yes.

 

[stormy panda]

Re:

Oh sorry Panda I missed your question

Yes, the song Luna named. Btw I like this song a lot. No idea why it is creepy

Oh, one of my favorites!
I'm fairly certain it is a woman singing, maybe in a falsetto kind of voice. (I tried replicating it, but I sound like a zombie and my throat feels weird. xD)

Also, Replicare is the creepiest song for me. It reminds me of death and carnage for some reason.

Wait, are Kata Tsubasa no Tori and Katayoku no Tori the same song?

Short answer: As others have said above, yes.

Long answer, which includes babbling from a kanji n00b: Well, 翼 has a kun ("Japanese") reading of 'tsubasa' and an on ("Chinese") reading of 'yoku' according to this, so both 'katayoku' and 'katatsubasa' should be correct. I need to remember to ask my Japanese teacher how she'd read it to make sure though. However, from what I've figured out so far, some times the rules about how to read kanji aren't dead-set in stone, and are subject to personal interpretation, especially with obscure or archaic uses of the language.

As a side note, neither 'katayoku' nor 'katatsubasa' are recognized as a single word by my PC's Japanese input system. Both get 片翼, as if I'd typed 'kata' and 'yoku/tsubasa' separately, while other 2-kanji words ("ren'ai" for example) are recognized as one unit.

 

[Alphard Sokaina]

Re: Re:

Short answer: As others have said above, yes.

Long answer, which includes babbling from a kanji n00b: Well, 翼 has a kun ("Japanese") reading of 'tsubasa' and an on ("Chinese") reading of 'yoku' according to this, so both 'katayoku' and 'katatsubasa' should be correct. I need to remember to ask my Japanese teacher how she'd read it to make sure though. However, from what I've figured out so far, some times the rules about how to read kanji aren't dead-set in stone, and are subject to personal interpretation, especially with obscure or archaic uses of the language.

As a side note, neither 'katayoku' nor 'katatsubasa' are recognized as a single word by my PC's Japanese input system. Both get 片翼, as if I'd typed 'kata' and 'yoku/tsubasa' separately, while other 2-kanji words ("ren'ai" for example) are recognized as one unit.

Thanks a lot for the explanation! Btw I have Kata Tsubasa - 2 separate words, as you can see.

Also, I don't understand why any of Akiko's songs can be creepy for anyone. I just love this kinds of songs. Does it mean I am creepy?

 

[stormy panda]

Re: Re:

Also, I don't understand why any of Akiko's songs can be creepy for anyone. I just love this kinds of songs. Does it mean I am creepy?

I visualize stuff when I listen to her music. In some of her songs, that stuff is... creepy.
So in my case it's not really the music itself, but the impression it leaves me.
And that means you're not creepy either. xD