I’ll be doing a series of posts on anime/game song artists, songwriters and composers - the people whose songs otaku are singing all the time but know next to nothing about. I confess I’m a tad obsessed in this department, downloading & listening to any old rubbish I come across in the hope of unearthing a gem - OSTs, image albums, free downloads on eroge makers’ websites, anything goes….

This time out is the artists who do music mostly for games, and doujin artists - bearing in mind that Comiket 72 starts tomorrow, these are some of the names to look out for when browsing through the normal sources wondering what to get and what to ignore.

Games Are Our Business but…..
Sakakibara Yui and MOSAIC.WAV are two of the most recent acts to crossover from making eroge/dating sim songs to more mainstream anime themes. The obvious draw is elevated sales figures - game songs rarely get released as singles, often being packaged along with the software or put on the soundtracks. On the other hand, anime theme songs almost always get their own release on one of the major anisong labels (Lantis, King Records). In fact, most of the artists that focus on games rarely ever release albums (most of them are either on really small record labels, or are even unsigned sometimes) into the mainstream market. Sakakibara’s Again/Beautiful Day (Otoboku OP) single was one of the top 20 selling seiyuu-related singles in 2006 (with nearly 12,000 copies sold). MOSAIC.WAV have their own following and sales are steady, with all four of their singles charting in the top 100.

Sakakibara Yui

The Hyogo-born Sakakibara is primarily an eroge game seiyuu/theme song singer, though she started doing some anime-related stuff last year with roles in Otoboku (the teacher), Happiness! (Haruhi) and Super Robot Wars (Leona). She’s used a myriad of stagenames over her career including Hinano Mayo, Maria and Tsuda Numari, though she seems to have settled on Sakakibara Yui for the time being. Yui-nyan’s music is pretty typical of most anisong singers, being either upbeat pop tunes or slower ballads - not quite KOTOKO, but very similar to people like Hashimoto Miyuki and YURIA. She’s already chalked up two albums, five singles, a live DVD and countless game tie-in CDs - she’s extremely prolific.

Sakakibara actually writes a fair amount of her own material eventhough she’s admitted she can neither read music nor play any instruments. She’s quite the joker as well, shocking fans on April Fool’s Day by declaring that she was getting married on her blog and announcing ‘You’re listening to the last episode of my radio program!’ halfway through the show.

As far as Comiket goes, Yui’ll surely be popping up all over the place but I can’t find a definiteve list of releases. There’s the Fate/tiger colosseum Mini OST (she sings the opening theme) & the ExE theme song, plus she’ll be making a personal appearance at the Pajamas Soft booth on the 18th for a recording of a Prism Ark radio show with Koyama Kimiko. So do look out for Sakakibara in the Prism Ark anime this October, where she’ll be reprising the role of Priecia in addition to singing the opening theme Soshite Boku wa… (the promo and OP will be shown at Comiket too). And she’ll be appearing at StarChild’s DREAM in KOBE 2007 event which also features angela & Nonaka Ai late in September too.
Listen: Far Away
Official website: LOVExTRAX

MOSAIC.WAV

I never actually thought I’d grow to like MOSAIC.WAV, but (un)fortunately their brand of moe-pop (they call it Akiba-pop) has wormed its way into my brain and is refusing to leave. Their CDs should come with a warning label of possible sugar overdose, such is the level of moe. Maybe the saviours of moe/denpa after the death of UNDER17…..if you haven’t discovered Sakura Saori that is ^^; They should sound awfully like the aforementioned UNDER17, quite a few of their songs are composed/arranged by that man Koike Masaya.

The duo are vocalist/lyricist Mi~ko and keyboardist Kayamori Susumu, formed in 2003. If you didn’t already know, the MOSAIC part of their name is a reference to how the naughty bits in eroge are always censored by mosaic patterns. And .WAV is that outdated audio format. Mi~ko also does seiyuu work for adult games under the name MI-KO, though she has had blink-and-you’ll-miss-it roles in the DEATH NOTE anime (episode 4) & Final Fantasy XII.

MOSAIC.WAV is exactly what you don’t want your friends to know that you’re listening to - tinny, cutesy nursery rhymes with weird space beats. Somehow, their anime songs are rather subdued than the high-octane, otaku-pandering stuff they do for games…. Their lyrics are still rather quirky though. So far they’ve done songs for three anime, firstly Mamotte! Lollipop’s ending theme Kyun Kyun Panic, then the pair of opening songs for Sumomo and currently the cutesy and horribly addictive Katamichi Catchball from Potemayo.

Their third album Future-Fiction: AKIBA-POP! will be on sale at Comic Market this weekend. Contains the ridiculously catchy GachaGacha Cute Figu@Mate & GachaGacha Hertz Figu@Carnival both of which turn my brain to mush everytime I hear them. They’ll also be having a short talk & sign session at the Escude booth, and they’re peddling their own Akibapop t-shirts too ^^;
Listen: GachaGacha Cute Figu@Mate full version and Panctuary
Official Website: -MOSAIC.WAV-
Mi~ko’s Personal Website: Mikochu Net
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The Doujin Ongaku Trio
Three of the most famous doujin ongaku (independent musicians) artists around - they all started out making music by themselves, or as part of doujin circles. Chata, Shimotsuki Haruka & Katakiri Rekka are good friends and often collaborate on each other’s songs and have hosted a internet radio show (Harechata Biyori - Harechatta is a play on their names, Haruka, Rekka + Chata) together as well. They’re also frequently involved in other doujin musician’s releases such as Oshima Hiroyuki’s ORBITAL MANEUVER, bermei.inazawa’s ANCIENT COLORS INFINITY, I’ve tribute albums and Barbarian On The Groove. Most of the time these releases can only be purchased at Comic Market, through the artists’ websites or at certain online shops like Toranoana or animate.tv. Sucks to be a doujin music fan living outside Japan ^^;;

All three have made moves into the mainstream in recent years making more anime and video game theme songs but they still maintain strong links with the doujin music scene, releasing their own material and frequently collaborating with fellow doujin artists.

Chata

I was pleasantly surprised to see Chata finally releasing mainstream music this year - Murmur, her collaboration with famed video game composer Shimomura Yoko (Kingdom Hearts, Parasite Eve, Legend of Mana) was her major label debut. That was followed up by Bravery, the theme for PS2 game Growlanser VI and her next single Utatane, the ending song for anime Potemayo is out next week (22nd August). However, Chata’s biggest hit is yet to come as it was announced that she’d be singing the ending Dango Daikazoku for the Kyoto Animation’s highly anticipated autumn anime adaptation of Key’s CLANNAD. Granted, it’s just a reworking of the original Chiisana Tenohira by riya but it’s an opportunity for her to get more exposure.

Chata’s still busy with her doujin works, and Comic Market 72 provides rich picking for fans. Stuff most definitely worth checking out include her contribution to the final part of Barbarian on the Groove’s Dragon Valley trilogy Arco Iris (a song called Utakata), which both Katakiri & Shimotsukin are involved in too. Other works includes songs with frequent collaborators iyunaline and CLOCK MUSIC, plus her own circle Usagi Kinoko’s new mini-album Tabun Seishun.
Listen: Kawariyuki Sekai no Tame ni
Official website: Chataya

Shimotsuki Haruka

Of the trio she’s had the most ’success’ in terms of releases - her name might be familiar to Rozen Maiden fans. The original’s ending theme was a collaboration between Shimotsuki and refio, who used to have eufonius vocalist riya as a member before she dropped out, leaving songwriter myu as the sole member. myu decided to drop the refio name and joined forces with Shimotsuki forming kukui, who’ve done several anime theme songs since - Rozen Maiden Traumend, Polyphonica, Nishi no Yoki Majo and Kagihime. They also featured on last week’s sola image album oratorio.

Whilst kukui’s songs are slightly ‘dark’ in nature, Shimotsukin’s own solo material has a lighter and very ethnic feel; featuring lots of chanting and wind instruments, flutes and the like. Her major label debut Ashiato Prism was released in 2005 and featured songs from games like Atelier Iris, Kino no Tabi and Relict. She doesn’t like performing live very much, suffering from stage fright; but did put on a solo live concert at a smallish venue (The DOORS, which has a capacity of around 500) last summer.

Shimotsuki and her doujin circles Maple Leaf/tieleaf only have a few releases lined up for Comiket including Shimotsukin straps selling for ￥700, and a fantasy themed album/booklet release called Lip-Aura.
Listen: Kareta Daichi e Tsuzuku Michi and Concordia (kukui)
Official website: Maple Leaf

Katakiri Rekka

I suppose most people only know Katakiri for her very Engrish why, or why not which was used as the Higurashi no naku koro ni ending theme. Of the trio, Rekka’s music is the most diverse (or peculiar, depending on who you ask) ranging from Latin-infused dance tunes to the typical cutesy denpa-pop to creepy chanting/muttering. Her doujin circle is called CLOSED/UNDERGROUND and recently produced an album called Hareyakanaru Sora no Yukue which has a more traditional/ethereal feel to it - and way to go Rekka, for singing in a language you made up yourself. Even the lyrics sleeve is written in some rune-like script which annoyingly, obscures the real Japanese lyrics.

Katakiri’s reluctance to be photographed means that most of the time all you’ll see of her is that cat-mask thingy. Everytime she’s on seiyuu Satou Rina’s radio show she’s wearing it (ﾟωﾟ). For Comiket, Katakiri’s selling something called 片霧烈火のにゃんこっこアワー☆オーケストラ！ (Katakiri Rekka no Nyankokko Hour*Orchestra!) which I can’t quite fathom what it’ll sound like….a cat orchestra perhaps? And there’s another Higurashi no Naku koro ni image album Kokoro Musubi that she’s involved in.
Listen: Dare mo Shiranai Sora no Yukue
Official site: CLOSED/UNDERGROUND

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Anyhow, that’s just a brief intro to the slightly some of the more obscure anime artists around. Other stuff I hope to cover includes more mainstream anime & game song artists (i.e Hashimoto Miyuki, eufonius ,YURIA etc), songwriters (Hata Aki, rino, Yuumao etc), some ‘oldies’ (Okui Masami, Yonekura Chihiro, Okazaki Ritsuko) and maybe a feature on music production groups (ave;new, Studio ZIZZ, Angel Note, Elements Garden, Little Wing, I’ve etc). But before that comes the Comiket music which I’ll surely cover.