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Seasonreaper

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Hello there people. Been stalking these forums as a lurker for, say, half a year now and finally decided I probably should actually participate a little.

I don't generally do introductions as I never know what to say, but someone told me to so why not. Anyway, managed to get into Kajiura's works a few years back via anime (don't think I've ever played any of the games she scored for) although, at the time, I didn't actually know who she was. First thing I recall was watching Le Portrait de Petit Cossette and thinking 'damn, this soundtrack is awesome, I want it', although I still haven't actually got hold of that, should probably do so. Anyway, back when I was at University we had an anime society to chill and watch series a couple of times a week, one of which ended up being Kuroshitsuji. Now, the series itself was decidedly average, but the ending song was fantastic and introduced me to Kalafina.

At the time I didn't even know that Kalafina would become something I enjoyed so much. Shortly after that I ended up watching some of the Kara no Kyoukai movies (still haven't seen them all, for some reason) and hearing more Kalafina and Kajiura works and, once again, enjoying them. Back then I also had no qualms whatsoever with downloading anything interesting regardless of legality, so I picked up a few OST's and Kalafina's Red Moon and Seventh Heaven and got really into it.

After Puella Magi Madoka Magica came out, however, everything changed. Unfortunately I live in the UK and it's safe to say that our anime industry is abysmal. When we finally got our Madoka release, it was a single box set with no bonus features and, due to region coding, I can't play American or Japanese blu-rays, so purchasing the special editions including the soundtracks was pointless and I'd essentially be paying £200+ for a soundtrack, which is something I doubt I'll ever do. To this day I'm still sitting here with an illegal copy of the PMMM OST, despite the fact I'd be willing to purchase it immediately if it had a proper retail release.

Still, there had to be some way in which I could support Kajiura and that was by getting hold of Kalafina's albums. I still don't have a copy of Seventh Heaven, but I do now own the 2-disc special editions for Red Moon, After Eden, Consolation and the 5th Anniversary Live and, despite the prices being over double what a CD usually is here, I don't have any regrets at all. Right now I'm just hyped for the new Consolation Live announcement and hoping that it'll be region-free like I believe their other releases are so I can buy it when it comes out.

In other news, I'm also a huge nerd in pretty much every way. Anime, roleplaying games, video games, tabletop games, comic books, horror and sci-fi films, everything. Pretty much the only thing in that category I can think of that I haven't done is LARPing. Whilst being on this site pretty much guarantees that I'd be a fan of Kajiura's soundtrack works, I'm more a fan of soundtracks in general; probably around half of my current 15,000 song library is OST's, whilst a good chunk of it that isn't is arrangements of soundtracks, predominantly Touhou. Oh, and I like various forms of heavy metal a lot, too. As for other J-pop, I mostly enjoy the artists from I've Sound, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Akiko Shikata and Kanako Ito.

Can't really think of anything else to say other than the fact I'm sad that I probably won't ever see Kalafina live unless I travel abroad, which is something I must do. We've had Kyary and Kokia once over here in the UK and that's about it.

Hopefully I'll remain active despite not having internet at my house :uh..: . Other than that, I should be around to comment on various threads and try and prove my point that Utsukushisa is the best thing ever.
 
^ Thanks for such a detailed post... I've been collecting albums and soundtracks through CD Japan, play-asia.com, Amazon.co.jp (though I hate Amazon Japan's shipping and packaging options so much that I'd get some stuff only available from them using the fromjapan.co.jp intermediary service), and from attending live shows in Japan (plus Tower Records Shinjuku). Youtube has been a great way to listen to tracks that one has yet to purchase.

I also collect other soundtracks, and am glad to have seen many Japanese acts, not just Yuki Kajiura and her singers/musicians live (mainly in Japan). Kanako Ito is one of them, and others have ranged from those that appeared at Animelo Summer Live 2011 and 2012, NoNukes 2012 day 1 to jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara, Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu and a few others.

Please enjoy your time here and hopefully you will get internet at home and a chance to see Yuki Kajiura and her singers and musicians live soon!
 
YOU LISTEN TO TOUHOU YEAHHHHHHHH :sohappy: :ohoho:
as you can see i'm a huge touhou fangirl... mind listing your top 5 songs from there? :ayashii: i was about to ask your top 5 YK songs, but then i saw your signature :XD:

also, welcome to CPM! huge posts are always fun to read through :love: i myself have the DVD for Petite Cossette, but i don't have the soundtrack...

hope you see you participating around the forum! feel free to drop by on the CPM chat, too!
 
Wow so a detailed introduction!! I really hope too for a region free for Consolation DVD, so I will buy it :D anyway enjoy your stay in the forum!
 
Welcome to CPM, Seasonreaper! Please enjoy your time here.

The post is very interesting, and it is good that you are able to support Yuki Kajiura well! I myself has just started collecting some singles of FictionJunction and Kalafina, with Consolation being the only album I have so far...

I wouldn't say that your anime industry is abyssmal though... In fact, I'm seeing on the net that many people from North America would rather import UK releases than buy those released by Aniplex of America. Maybe it is just a matter of getting a region-free BD player though...
 
~Kugayama
I've only really used cdjapan to get Kalafina's albums, although I ended up having to get the special Taiwanese edition of Red Moon from elsewhere, since I was too late. Also got one of their Red Moon tour shirts from there too, although I usually don't like the idea of having tour shirts for bands I haven't seen.

You're lucky to have seen so many artists live that I'd like to see! Not that I'm condemning our live music scene here as what we lack in J-pop seems to be covered by the amount of other bands we get from other genres. Uematsu is another I'd love to see live, though, and hopefully I'll get my chance at some point since he's been around before on multiple occasions.

~ImmortalBirdcage
Yay, more Touhou fans :sohappy: (what is with these smilies?). I do well have a collection of Touhou music and arrange albums, albeit only digitally. I do own an official disc copy of Great Fairy War though, so that's cool. I need to get some doujin albums at some point...

As for favourite Touhou themes, most of them are actually stage themes. Fires of Hokkai, The Capital City of Flowers in the Sky and Lullaby of Deserted Hell come to mind, as does A God That Loves People ~ Romantic Fall. For boss themes though, Locked Girl ~ The Girl's Secret Room, Doll Judgement ~ The Girl Who Played With People's Shapes and Faith is for the Transient People stand out to me, as does Deaf to All But the Song. In fact, I can't think of a single song from Mountain of Faith or Subterranean Animism I don't like, they're both extremely solid throughout.

In regards to arrange circles though, Fromadistance (AKA Spctrm, I don't know what they usually go by), TAMusic, Mohican Sandbag, crow'sclaw and Alstroemeria Records are the ones I follow most.

Back on Kajiura topics, that top 5 was hard to decide for sure. There's so much good material out there. Sand Dream was a potential one to add, as were Sprinter, ARIA and Signal. The majority of the Puella Magi Madoka Magica soundtrack also counts, especially Sis Puella Magica!, Nux Walpurgis and Surgam Identidem. Whilst on the topic I might also add that I'm not particularly fond of Hikari Furu or Mirai, nor their original OST counterparts.

~HimeWakana
I'm sure I will. Been a fun read so far whilst lurking, so adding my own two cents (not sure why I'm using cents when I'm British and on a forum about a Japanese composer, but yeah) should prove interesting.

~chrisgarci
I wish I could do more to support them, though. I like supporting artists that I enjoy. Currently all I have aside from the special edition albums is a t-shirt and a second hand promotional poster for Consolation, so there's still a lot more I could do. Need to get copies of their live performances at least, although I have already seen the After Eden live.

Trust me, the UK anime industry consistently annoys me. As I said before our release of Madoka was one set with no bonus features. You know what else? The spine on the box of both the Blu-Ray and DVD releases had a typo on it, whilst the first disc of each set had subtitles which were incorrectly formatted to the point of randomly having quotation marks mid sentence. Our release of Spice and Wolf took 4 years to get released over here after the American release, and we didn't get it on Blu-Ray, just DVD. Our releases of Mawaru Penguindrum and Princess Jellyfish are also DVD-only whilst America has them both on Blu-Ray. Still don't have Bunny Drop over here either, nor any of the Aria series. Part of what annoys me so much about these things is that we do tend to get a lot of anime released on Blu-Ray, but it's usually fanservice-filled abhorrent trash like Highschool of the Dead or Sacred Blacksmith, rather than anything actually worth watching. I apologise for ending on a downer, but that's just the way it seems to be over here.

~All
Thanks for the welcoming :shy: . I hope to enjoy my time here and post productive comments wherever I may be. Regardless of what happens from now on though, I know I'll at least still enjoy Kajiura's works and the more people out there that do, the better.
 
^ Seasonreaper, thanks for replying. Many of us explore the music of the vocalists that YK has written songs for, and related acts (e.g. Sound Horizon / Linked Horizon).

I was looking forward to day 2 of Animelo Summer Live 2011 for lots of acts including Kalafina, but ended up feeling Chiaki Ishikawa (YK's partner in the band See-Saw) was the best singer out of both days.

Oh... if you want to know how wonderful YK and Kerahna and the people on the forum are, read this thread of why I missed YK Live vol. #9 days 2 and 3: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3631
 
~Kugayama
Wow, that's actually rather touching. I knew Yuki was a lovely woman but that really ups my opinion on her even more. It's always nice to see everyone pull together when someone's ill, too.

I haven't really heard that much See-saw actually, probably should check out some more of their works. From what I've heard I've got to admit I prefer Kalafina and FictionJunction though. As for Sound Horizon, I haven't actually heard anything of theirs as far as I'm aware. Something else I must do.
 
Hey! Welcome! (Sorry for my late welcome) I am Liana. If you have any questions let me know. I am actually one of the few that buy the special additions for the soundtracks. I think I am a completionist when it comes to Yuki's works. heh I still don't have all of her soundtracks, but I hope to some day. Hope you like it here, and what are some of your favorite Kalafina songs? Mine are magnolia, Kyrie, lirlca, and obbligato is my favorite and I had the chance to hear it live in May at ACen. It was awesome. Anyways, hope you like it here. Later!
 
~Liana
Hello there! Don't worry about the late welcome, I've noticed this forum moves relatively slowly as it is so it's not a bother.

I'm perfectly OK with buying special editions for soundtracks if I can actually use the product itself, it's the fact that I can't use the Blu-Rays that's the problem here. If they released region-free ones I'd be all over it.

Ahhh, so jealous of you going to ACen, especially with their band there. I do wonder whether I'd have preferred that or AnimagiC though, since AnimagiC had Kanako Ito too.

As for favourite Kalafina tracks, most of them are in my signature but I'll give a larger rundown.

Seventh Heaven: ARIA, Sprinter, Oblivious (although I prefer the version from Re/Oblivious)
Red Moon: red moon, Kyrie, Progressive
After Eden: Sandpiper, Magnolia, Destination Unknown
Consolation: Hanataba, Signal, Manten
Miscellaneous: lirica, Utsukushisa, Gloria

Favourite overall album was Red Moon, but I'm slowly changing my mind into thinking Consolation.

Favourite album covers (and costumes, I guess) would be Consolation, Red Moon (regular ver.) and To the Beginning.

I'm sure I'll have a good time here, seems like a nice place.
 
Welcome to the forum Seasonreaper, I'm glad you finally decided to join :) I loved reading your huge intro and would like to plug a song: Toki no Sabaku --- I think you'll like it since it's kind of in a similar mood as Sandpiper
 
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