That desire is already realized in the concerts.  Some many know it but for anime beginners it could be a hard thing to understand.

Japanese people like to bring any kind of dreams into being, with the endless efforts, the engineers and animators again did such a great job.

They finally brought the anime characters into real world.  Characters sing and dance in the concerts, which was not rare in the past either, but this time they look like real human with complete 3D figure.  Faces changes along with emotion, and detail expression like hairs, fingers, foot steps, eyes blinks, and natural looking body moves impress us just like we are enjoying their concerts in the real world.

This concerts were already carried out in 2010, however, the rumors of this concerts never fade away from fans topics.  Some say Miku and Luka should have shows in the 2012 Olympic games in London, which is not a joke but fan’s serious request.

Just one look at the show, like it or not, this instantly takes your attention and after all you would be surprised with the quality of the show.  I, too, was amazingly impressed with this show, and I could not move from the screen for views by repeating many times.

Also about the music of Hatsune Miku or Megurine Luka is made by using Vocaloid machine, which was invented by Japanese music instruments company called Yamaha. Through Vocaloid, no singers for the CD is required. The voice is made by synthesizing the computer sound, however, the “voice” really matches well with the animation characters.

Actually, the CDs of Hatsune Miku were accepted all over the world, not only in Japan. This new production can easily go over the language barrier that used to exist when the real human voice was recorded.

As this way, the singers are sold through CDs, online download, and ” real concerts ” of 3D characters.

This time Yoshiki composed the theme song for Golden Globe Award of the United States for the first time in the history of Golden Globe Award.  Yoshiki says that it’s such an honor to do that, and he added that he never dreamed this kind of event over himself when he started X JAPAN.

Yoshiki is already recognized as the icon of Asian rock stars, but fans and people around him know his talent is not limited only in rock music.  Yoshiki’s talent has no border.

Together with the increasing popularity, Yoshiki once composed a song for Emperor of Japan.  It means, at that moment, nobody in Japan can deny his irreplaceable talent of music. Also Junichiro Koizumi, the ex-prime minister of Japan, often said he is a fan of X JAPAN. After all, Prime Minister Koizumi invited Yoshiki to the welcome meeting for American President, George Bush in Japan.

As we all know, X JAPAN broke up in 1997. However, their fans never forgot their music.  When they got back in front of us as X JAPAN by reunion, lords of fans filled the concert stadiums of Japan in 2007.

More than 35 countries gave them concert offers soon after the reunion. This is really incredible.  Who imagined this phenomena when they said ” that’s it ” in 1997?

Yoshiki writes super hard rock music, moreover, he also writes tear-dropping beautiful songs that never leave from human heart.

He is already in the middle of 40′s in his age.  But he never looks old.  Anything related with Yoshiki, or X JAPAN never gets old.  Fans know it.

Firstly,  Okinawa is small islands situated in the south part of Japan being far from the main island.  It’s a tropical weather place just like in Hawaii.

Long ago when I was first in Hawaii, I thought these 2 places, Okinawa and Hawaii, are pretty similar, especially in the heart of the people.

That’s why people in Hawaii also like this song of Okinawa, Nada sou sou.

There are 2 good cover versions, which are by Teresa Bright and Kealii Reichel.  Both are really great Hawaiian singers.  Please enjoy.

Click here for Kealii Reichel’s Nada Sou Sou or Ka Nohona Pili Kai.

Also a New Zealand singer, Hayley Westenra also sings this song in her beautiful voice.

Detail of the news is not enough.

About a year ago, she got married an Austria born actor. The happy time for two of them were for 1 year only, and Ayumi Hamasaki expressed the reason for this result is because she does not want to leave Japan especially in this timing after the heavy damage of earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

They seem to have been planing to live in the USA together.  Ayumi says that for the first time, it could be a kind of matter of place to live.  If so, it could be overcome by traveling between Japan and the USA.  But at the end, she says she noticed it’s an issue of minds of the two.   It means she and her husband are no longer in love for each other.

I’m not sure about this news in the detail,  so this information is just a quotation from Japanese news service.

I think it already started, as I didn’t check it, I hope it’s still running OK.

I found one of the radio programs which was  recorded with Toshi, the vocalist of X JAPAN, as a special guest.

As far as I hear that, it seems a good program for X JAPAN and Yoshiki fans.  The talking style is pretty casual and he also plays the piano suddenly in the program.  That’s cool for listeners.

On the recorded program, Toshi also sang the new song, Jade, accompanied by Yoshiki’s piano.  Toshi’s vocal is really beautiful in this program, although it’s not the live act or recording sound, Toshi can gives us his amazing voice right away at request.  It’s an amazing thing, as we know, it’s also really hard to keep high note of X JAPAN songs whenever the vocal play is requested.  But Toshi is capable on any requests as he proved in this program.

Not many fans of X JAPAN know that Toshi is not only a vocalist but also a real good player of guitar, piano, or even drums.  He is also highly admired musician in Japan, but when Toshi appears with X JAPAN members, he needs to take the lead vocal part, that’s why we scarcely see his musical instrument playing scenes.

As my personal impression, I think Toshi respects Yoshiki as the leader of X JAPAN, so Toshi doesn’t often claim his requests to Yoshiki although they have been real good friends since they were kindergarten kids. ( Please refer to this page for more info )

We know Yoshiki speaks good English as he lives in Los Angeles.  He often takes interviews from media or at some events in English without interpreters.  Only some Japanese accent still remain in Yoshiki’s English but no problem for us.

Again, Toshi also speaks English in this program and it’s clear and good both in conversation and in the song !

I, again, think Toshi is a little shy in spite that he acts strongly on the live stage.  In any interviews, he is really quiet and refrains from talking aggressive.  He is always gentle in the interviews.

Of course Yoshiki knows well about Toshi’s character, so I understand Yoshiki handles Toshi with care in the radio program.  Also it’s easy to know their friendship here in this conversation.

Anyway, it’s a nice program.  I hope they will keep on !

Ryuichi Sakamoto’s works are really touching in our heart and its range is really wide.

Some may remember that he used to be a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra, which was the first active Japanese band also in other countries.  The band was using Japanese taste melody in the music but the they made use of all the possible techniques like computer, synthesizers, or new electric skills in the works they created.  Yellow Magic Orchestra was the first Techno POP music in Japan.

After the success of the YMO,  Ryuichi Sakamoto became a famous Japanese music maker among the advanced music fans in the world.

Next, he played an actor’s role in the movie, Merry Christmas Mr. Laurence. In this movie, he composed a really beautiful theme song. Also this movie created a sensation in Japan or in the world with more talented actors like David Bowie and Takeshi Kitano.  Director was Nagisa Oshima, one of the Japanese highly acclaimed directors.

After that, Ryuichi Sakamoto kept producing more great works.

In 1987, he worked for Academy winning movie, Last Emperor.  The theme song he composed got the Academy music award.

Ryuichi Sakamoto never stopped after that huge success in his music life.  He often collaborated with other unique musicians in Japan and in the world.  More hit songs were born from his never lasting talent, and that was a real contribution to the music industry of Japan.

He is a very smart person. Often he has talks with his friends on Japanese TV programs, through which we understand how he thinks of music and his life with his clear explanation.

If you’ve never experienced his music, please check them.  His music has something deep that we never forget once the music he plays flows through our heart.

Many of good films can’t get enough understanding without good background music.  Movie directors in Japan, including even the genius director, Hayao Miyazaki,  were very lucky that they all lived in the same time with Joe Hisaishi.

Joe Hisaishi expresses any kind of human emotion in the music, it means his scores for films helped movie viewers feel the correct emotion in the movies and Joe’s music led them into the world of screen play.

Joe Hisaishi’s frist work on Hayao Miyazaki film was Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds.  Joe Hisaishi still says that Nausicaa is the most unforgettable among his works.  He also says maybe he can’t compose that level of music now.

Probably he would keep on composing more masterpieces, however, the music quality of Nausicaa is still outstanding in Japanese film musics.

While, for fans, the most popular work of Joe Hisaishi seems ” Summer ” which was written for the film, Kikujiro, by Takeshi Kitano.

Apparently this melody has Japanese taste. And through this music, most of Japanese fans, me too, remember our summer days with bright sunshine, beautiful rivers with transparent water, the chirp of a cicada from woods, and nostalgic scenes we played with friends.

SUMMER seems to be liked by foreign countries’ people.  The feel of summer might mean the same over the countries’ border.

Also some fans say that the most tear-dropping work of Joe Hisaishi is ” One Summer’s Day”, which was used in the highest grossing movie of Japanese film history, called Spirited Away.    This tune gives us a real sentimental feeling. Some say they remember the time when they were innocent and naive to anything in the world in their childhood, and they tried their best in their life. In the movie this song is played when Chihiro eats a rice ball in the movie, and she starts crying when eating it.　Many had the same kind of experience in the past Japanese time, so they become sympathetic to Chihiro also by the magic sense of music.

When we listen to Joe Hisaishi’s music, recently we don’t need such memories in background because the music is already independently fantastic enough.  But it’s also true that his music bring us such memories of movies and our life with tremendous amount of emotion.

Long live Joe Hisaishi

Back then, new artists were competing their new breaking fashion, new song style, and totally impressive personal talent of music.

It’s a little strange to see many past artist, now around 40 to 50 years old.  They are still really influential to new generation in Japan.  This means Japanese music scene lacks younger generation’s music, that’s why some foreign music are imported into Japan as if those music fill up the blank space of Japanese music market.

Looking at some old music videos, we are easily fascinated by those powerful existence with much charisma.

Hikaru Utada was only 16 years old or so at the time of this video.  But she already shows her irreplaceable talent with songs of her own writing.  Her songs moved all us Japanese then, we felt she is a real new talent we have searched for.  Impact she made on us at the time was a kind of historical shock that doesn’t often happen.

Although Hikaru Utada is not tackling new project in music,  we still want such a huge impact from somebody with world changing talent.

As you hear, this is a very strange music with super unique melody by amazingly old time musical instruments.

This music is still played on some special occasion such as wedding ceremony at shrines, or traditional festivals in old cities like Kyoto of Japan.

It’s unique and original but some say that Gagaku melody is somewhat similar to old melody of Persian.  Also they say it came to Japan through Silk Road from the area around Persian territory to far east land, Japan.

I once saw a TV program of Japan about Gagaku.  Gagaku players are still almost limited among the same clan of people ever since the time of it’s origin in Japan.  And some of those Gagaku players ,without hesitating, say ” our ancestors came to Japan from the West in the ancient time of Japan “.

Not only Gagaku but also more things in Japan are from the West.

Actually most of them were arranged into Japanese taste by original creativity of Japanese people, but still we can see shadows of influence from the West in some traditional heritages of Japan.

I often feel that I’m following the Japanese origin.  Just like when I hear Gagaku, my mind is as relaxed as it can be.  I also like rock, jazz or some modern music, and scarcely listen to Gagaku usually.  In spite of such life style of mine, Gagaku always takes me to cradle of time.

Some DNA investigations reported recently, although I don’t know if it’s true or not, one of them says that Japanese DNA structure has something in common with the people from far West.

Gagaku is one of the remaining similarity between Japanese people and the West… this might be true.

http://youtu.be/DmIgB22JevE

If you missed this film, it’s not hard to recommend you see it as most of the people are moved with it.  Ryoko Hirosue ( photo) is a graceful film star of Japan, and she acts also very well in this movie with the main actor, Masahiro Motoki.

At the same time, this film’s theme song is really great.  If you know something about Japanese movie songs, it would be easy to imagine the quality of the music of this film after knowing the music director and composer is Joe Hisaishi.

Joe Hisaishi has worked on many great movies of Japan, such as Hayao Miyazaki films and Takeshi Kitano films.  Without exception, his contribution to those films are absolutely amazing.  Some say ( or many say ) that those films are not perfect without Joe Hisaishi’s music.

Joe Hisaishi worked with London Symphonic Orchestra for the song of this movie, Departure.  It’s quality is indeed fine.  He also played more songs with this orchestra, this CD ( or video )would be a good present for his fans.