Purchasing Power
Well, I’m back from Tokyo. Admittedly I would have posted this sooner but the crippling lack of internet in my first few days back has been a bit of a setback. (This was due to the earthquakes in the area that I managed to sleep through and hear nothing about until I hear it all over the news.) It has however, given way to incredibly slow internet. Which is better than nothing, but completely frustrating to work with. In any instance, I have a picture of my purchases I managed to get this trip.
I guess the economic downturn unexpectedly yet somewhat expectedly lowered the number of CDs my money was able to buy me since I brought the same amount last year and managed to buy more CDs and still have enough money to travel around and eat decent meals everyday. This meant by the time that Comiket came around, I only had enough money to buy a handful of CDs.
But enough about that.
The three CDs on the top are Tanpopo’s Tanpopo 1, Lia’s 時を刻む唄 (Toki wo Kizamu Uta) and Final Fantasy X-2 Vocal Collection Yuna with vocals provided by Mayuko Aoki.
First row of five consists of the X-Treme Hard Compilation Vol. 2, Bastard Pop Terrorists Vol. 7, Kaori Utatsuki’s Spyglass (this came with an accompanying B2 poster, which was obtainable if you bought it in person in shops in Akihabara), The Day of Hardcore Vol. 4 mix CD and M-Neko’s Nekology.
Second row consists of Hardcore Tano*C’s latest Comiket offering of Hardcore Syndrome 3, Bastard Pop Terrorists Vol. 9, AVSS’s offering for Comiket in the form of Electlogue 02, a DJ Shimamura b2b DJ Rightwing mix CD that was given away at the Happiness event in Utsunomiya and Cycheouts Ghost’s Prapanca with surprise bonus disc.
Third row consists of REDALiCE’s first solo album Crimson Hardcore, good-cool’s latest album Crazy Operation, M-Project’s second album Hardcore Illusionist, Lia/LIA’s collection of recorded performances entitled Live Best 2005-2009 “The Moment” and 真・凌辱Hardcore (Shin Ryoujoku Hardcore), the 18+ themed CD compilation produced by MC Natsack.
And the last row consists of DJ Shimamura’s SX, a DJ Shimamura mix CD called Essential Happiness Vol. 5, the digi-up and Hardcore Tano*C collaborative album of Digital Generation EP and Thanatos’ Sunscape Ocean and Sunscape Ocean 2 – two CDs which I have been trying to track down for ages.
I am disappointed in my self with the lack of CDs I purchased, but one way or another, the CDs I have been unable to get this time I will be able to get at a later date. (Veil ∞ Denpa, I am looking at you.)
But hey, at least I managed to buy one of these babies while I was in Japan. It was mocking me throughout my entire trip, and I finally have one in my possession.
MELL@Otakon
Well, while the folks at International Wota didn’t manage to get a solo interview with her, they were present for her press conference!
As you all know, I am a big MELL fan and I would dearly love to see her live one day. But she seemed to give a really enthusiastic press conference that you can read over at International Wota, courtesy of Pengie, who was referred to as cute (and now is a MELL fan. Yes!). The transcript can be found here, for your reading pleasure.
It is a good read, and it does show a different side to MELL than what she normally portrays herself as. She seems really bubbly and friendly and very very funny. (Wait, this woman has the best death glare ever in her PVs.) It’s a shame that I wasn’t there, but maybe one day I’ll be able to see her. She talks about the creation process for her songs, her outfits, her concert and several anecdotes which made me laugh.
It seems as if she wore a red kimono at her live aside from a variety of white dresses. This brings to mind the MELLSCOPE art, in which she was garbed in a red kimono for some of the booklet shots. In my opinion, those shots of her were absolutely gorgeous because they had that strong element of wa, the closest English equivalent I can think of being “Japanese aesthetic.” You can view the very kimono used in the SCOPE PV here. (It’s about 2 minutes into the PV, the first couple of minutes are actually of MELL wearing a white dress.)
It’s a shame that there actually isn’t more information on her concert other than she sang… Red fraction. But as always, I shall be on the lookout for whatever I can find out.
As a MELL fan, I thank Pengie and International Wota for sharing with us what I feel, is a good insight into MELL as a person and hopefully more people overseas will support her endeavours in the future.
Meanwhile, there’s a review of Aira Mitsuki’s PLASTIC in the wings and another review for a jpop single you might not have heard of for this blog. Stay tuned!
