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I decided to do a separate post commemorating the release of GREAT ACTIVITY with a track-by-track review of the album instead of sticking it in TWIJ, plus a run-through the promotional activities Nana has been doing for it.

Predictably, the album leaked early so I’ve had a good chance to give the new tracks a thorough listen. I probably won’t get my hands on my own copy for a month or so since I had a certain someone purchase it for me in Tokyo (お兄ちゃん、ありがとう！大好きだよ！）. I’ve not bothered to get hold of the DVD rips floating around for now, I’m willing to wait.

I’ll take the album leaking early as a sign people are desperate to get their hands on Nana’s stuff…. Anyhow, Elements Garden produced a great chunk of GA as they did HYBRID UNIVERSE so there’s not massive progress in terms of overall sound.

Before I go through the album, I’ll mention that my top 5 Nana songs are:
5.Replay Machine -custom- (NOT the original)
4.Inside of mind
3.Tears’ Night
2.POWER GATE
1.PROTECTION

The first Nana song I ever heard was Heaven Knows, but I didn’t really get into her music until MAGIC ATTRACTION. It remains my favourite album of hers for sentimental reasons, closely followed by ALIVE & KICKING.

Track-by-track review:

01.Bring it on!
-Mmm, that’s something different to start off the album. All distorted guitars and vocals – supposedly aiming for a heavy metal sound. Funnily enough, the title can be translated to かかって来い! (Kakatte Koi!) in Japanese, which is the catchphrase for her Smile Gang radio show.

02.Orchestral Fantasia
-The track used to promote the album. I have no idea who lyricist Hibiki is but I’m almost certain it’s not the guy from D-SHADE. I wasn’t too fond of the song the first time I heard it, and I still don’t quite like it. Apparently, Orchestral Fantasia makes Nana cry… sadly, it only makes me yawn.

03.Promise on Christmas
-Of all the songs on GA, this is the most mainstream Jpop styled one – it’s a sort of mid-tempo r’n'b tune written by Tanaka Hayato who was responsible for NAKED FEELS, one of the best songs on HYBRID UNIVERSE. I can imagine that it wouldn’t sound too out of place on a Koda Kumi album (lol), and I do like it a lot. Nana’s not done songs like Promise on Christmas before, and she said that it was the song on GA that she was most nervous about recording.

04.MASSIVE WONDERS
-I’ve grown somewhat tolerant of MASSIVE WONDERS after a few months, but it doesn’t change the fact that I did not like the song at all the first time I heard it on Nanoha StrikerS. Eventhough Yabuki Toshiro wrote most of my favourite Nana songs (+ loads of other seiyuu related stuff), his material in the last few years hasn’t been up to scratch. I’m glad that Nana’s roped in Elements Garden and other Jpop writers help her out, cos tinny beats are not where it’s at in the 21st century.

05.Take a chance
-Guess I was wrong to expect something that sounded like ALIVE & KICKING’s Take a shot. It starts out all I’ve Sound with vocodered Nana, then turns into a bouncy bubblegum pop song most reminiscent of HYBRID UNIVERSE’s you have a dream. Definitely one of the highlights on the album.

06.First Calendar
-Another song with a sort of festive sound to it. Yuumao wrote the lyrics for this, but Fujita’s arrangement is pretty forgettable and the song is quite ordinary – but there is a certain charm to it. Made me smile though, when Nana discussed the lyrics on her radio show – about how a pair of lovers go out to buy a calendar to ‘draw’ their new future together, and it made her want to go buy a calendar immediately. Random trivia: Nana, Yuumao and Fujita Junpei are all 27 years old.

07.Last Scene
-I didn’t have a clue who the writer of this song Mizoshita Hajime was, but when I looked him up I sort of gagged to learn that he was behind Oda Yuji’s recent single All my treasures, a song I hate with a passion. Thankfully the two songs don’t share much in common. It’s certainly a very pretty ballad with rather sad break-up lyrics, and according to Nana, the song that made her staff members cry.

08.SEVEN
-It’s only fitting that Nana(7) wrote a song called SEVEN(7) in the year 2007 to mark the 7 years since her debut. So why the heck is it track 8 on the album and not track 7 -_- I’d already heard the song on the radio before the leak, and I can’t say I’m too fond of it. It’s Nana’s third time writing and composing a song - there was SUPER GENERATION which I didn’t like either, but I’m quite fond of Violetta’s jazz-pop leanings. SEVEN on the other hand, sounds like she’s trying too hard to emulate Agematsu & co’s epic style. I can see how it’d appeal to those weaned on her Nanoha-related songs, but it just doesn’t do anything for me.

09.Aoi Iro
-It took a bit of time for Aoi Iro to grow on me, but it’s now one of my fave upbeat Nana songs. I like the way she sings ‘Maybe’ in the chorus ^^; A bit OT, but thank God Justice to Believe wasn’t plonked on GREAT ACTIVITY – it’d have been a bit of a cop-out (for people who bought the single) if it was.

10.TRY AGAIN
-The worst song on GA by about a country mile. Certainly does little to convince me that Yabuki should be involved in writing stuff for Nana anymore. Pretty apt name for the song, since that’s exactly what the engineers need to do with it – the whole balance of the song just sounds off, and listening to it with earphones kills me. I hate saxophones T_T

11.SECRET AMBITION
-I don’t have much to say about SECRET AMBITION, almost everyone knows it anyway. I’ve always liked Shikura Chiyomaru songs regardless of the occasional cheesy Engrish and whatnot. And of course, I love playing it on StepMania.

12.Nostalgia
-It’s a toss-up between this and Promise on Christmas as my favourite of the new tracks on the album but Nostalgia just about wins out – it’s arguably the catchiest and most immediately appealing song on GREAT ACTIVITY. And I think it’s the shortest ever Nana song too, clocking in at under 3 minutes.

13.Heart-Shaped Chant
-Probably one of my top 10 Nana songs now, but it’s strange that I thought it rather boring when I first heard it on (Nana’s radio show) Smile Gang. Hands-down the best song on GREAT ACTIVITY.

14.Chronicle of Sky
-The only other Shikura contribution, and though it’s not as strong as SECRET AMBITION I still like it a lot. It’s the fastest song on the album too.

15.Sing Forever
-One of Nana’s personal favourites due to the lyrics, which were written for her by Jpop songwriter Sonoda Ryoji after he attended the Yokohama live earlier this year. It’s about a love for singing, and they fit Nana really well IMO. Nice to close out the album with a ballad – that was the one thing I didn’t like about HYBRID UNIVERSE, I thought ETERNAL BLAZE was an oddly abrupt way to end proceedings.
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No chance of dethroning MAGIC ATTRACTION as my fave Nana album, I’d consider it just about on par with HYBRID UNIVERSE – maybe I’ll think differently 6 months down the line. My biggest wish now – for Nana to do an entire album of enka covers. Don’t think it’ll ever happen though, nobody would buy it except me ^^;

Chart Performance

All the 2ch dreamers who reckoned that GREAT ACTIVITY would pass 10000 on the first day index – well, continue dreaming. The index was 8,692, landing the album at No.2 behind KinKi Kids’ φ which had an index of 50,776 and ahead of Backstreet Boys’ Unbreakable with index 3,419. Second day index was 6,033 – not a bad number; I half expected it to fall to 4,000+ but it’s keeping strong. Still, Nana album buyers tend to be the hardcore otaku crowd so the index will likely drop off over the next few days whilst people like BSB and Britney Spears should continue to sell well. KinKi Kids already had the No.1 spot sewn up the moment the album was announced anyway.

I don’t expect the other new top 10 entries from 9mm Parabellum Bullet, Sato Chikuzen, Kusuo, Led Zeppelin or Kiyoharu to make a sudden surge up the charts so I’m fairly confident that Nana will be No.2 come next Tuesday night, and at No.3 in the worst case scenario. GA should surpass THE MUSEUM’s first week sales without too much difficulty but will drop pretty fast after that, seiyuu albums rarely have staying power. Realistically I think it’ll sell around 45-50k in its first week and maybe 70k overall…. maybe. But I was completely wrong about Chihara Minori’s CONTACT, so who knows….

Last 2 albums sales figures:
HYBRID UNIVERSE -> debut – No.3 First week sales = 35,299 Overall sales = 51,430
THE MUSEUM -> debut – No.5 First week sales = 40,686 Overall sales = 65,010

Short explanation: The index numbers only represent a percentage of the stores around the country – around 2,200 stores report daily sales figures IIRC. There’s two other groups of stores that factor to total weekly sales – one is a smaller group of 800+ stores who fax in their weekly sales totals, and the other group is the online stores. The index numbers can be added up over the week and multiplied with a number (let’s call it the multiplier) – around 1.7 or 1.75, to attain a figure which is quite close to real sales totals.

International and anime-related CDs tend to have completely different (usually higher) multipliers, guess cheap imports (for the former) and strong online sales (latter) really make a difference. Which is why SECRET AMBITION ended up at No.2 eventhough it didn’t rank higher than No.4 throughout the whole week. Remember, if you wanna do your bit for your favourite artist, don’t buy from YesAsia but get stuff from HMV, Amazon, JBook or CDJapan instead – sales from YA don’t contribute to the chart.

Promotion
To promote the album Nana has been on her usual round of radio/TV spots – both otaku and mainstream-targeted radio shows. I won’t cover Nana’s appearance on @Tunes., tvk’s Okui Masami-hosted anime talk show program – it airs pretty late on Thursday nights and I dunno when I’ll be able to get hold of it.

**Also forgot to mention that Nana will be on Animelomix radio tonight (Saturday, 24:30) with Hirano Aya. Might cover that in the future if it’s interesting….

Nana on Anispa! #189

Nana is Anispa’s most regular guest (this was her 9th time in total) – they even had a Nanaspa! special for their 150th episode earlier this year, lol. Nana fans should try to find a copy of that particular show, it was one of the most entertaining interviews with her I’ve heard. Basically, the Anispa staff had readied a collection of pics and interviews throughout Mizuki’s career and she & Asano Masumi were asked to try fill in the blanks of a bunch of Nana quotes.

i.e. Nana’s feelings about the release of her first single Omoi – “もう最高に嬉しい！＿＿を見てください” (I’m really happy! Please look at (my) ___)

Masumin predictably produced a bunch of useless answers (給料明細 [pay slip], この胸の谷間 [cleavage]), not that Nana was any better (丸顔 [round face], 編みタイツ[knit tights]). The answer was “この水樹奈々” (this Mizuki Nana), which Asano eventually got correct. It was really funny how Nana could not remember anything she’d said in past interviews, even those from just a few months before. They also managed to dredge up a few ‘horrible’ quotes that made her cringe, & embarassed her with photos from her younger days (OMG, no make up ~_~).

Anyway, moving on. Nana was only on the show briefly this time, talking about GREAT ACTIVITY. Washizaki asked her what was the album’s concept and she said…. ‘Freedom (自由です)’. Oi that’s not a concept Nana, that’s a disposition (心意気) was Take-chan’s reply. They spent a bit of time talking about SEVEN, Nana’s own composition but mostly about Sing Forever – a song that Asano said made her cry. They then played SEVEN, then talked some more about the DVD and Nana’s upcoming live tour – Masumin mistakenly announced it as Nana Mizuki Live Formula 2077, lol. Come to think of it, a couple of days ago on Nana’s official site NANA PARTY, the main pic had changed to advertise the tour…. except that it said LIVE FORMURA in big white letters ^^;;; The image was hurriedly reverted to the old one though, guess someone pointed out the staff’s inabilty to spell. Damn, I should’ve taken a screenshot when I had the chance.

Nana on MUSIC ARK

MUSIC ARK runs on TOKYO FM, and is hosted by Ueda Mayuko. Does anyone listen to this show, I wonder…. it runs at 25:30 Sundays (that’s 1:30am on Monday morning) for goodness’ sake. Only insomniacs and hardcore fans of the artists appearing, maybe. It’s a mainstream music radio show so obviously the interview is very…..FM radio. Ueda obviously knows nuts about who Nana is, though she did listen to GREAT ACTIVITY before recording the show, heh. The interview played a lot on Mizuki’s line of work (i.e. voice acting) – the program started off with Ueda arriving at Mizuki Nana Island, complete with cute rabbits and bears all voiced by Nana of course. It was a bit of a WTF moment I guess. Is that what normal (read: non-anime watching) people think seiyuu are best at? Providing cute voices for animals??

Again, Mizuki (or rather, Nana-oneesama as Ueda called her) was asked to demonstrate her voice acting skills by saying the phrase お帰り、早かったじゃない？ (Okaeri, hayakatta janai? – Welcome home, aren’t you early?) in sexy older lady and cute imouto-type voices. Ueda then volunteered to say those lines herself – the sexy one wasn’t too bad, but the cute one was LOL awful – reaffirms why I think it’s unwise to hire talento who’ve had zero voice training to do anime work. Clip below is Nana and Ueda doing the ‘cute’ voices. Guess which is which, heh.

Nana on YoungPs

There’s always an odd assortment of guests on YoungPs ranging from comedians to gravure idols to Johnny’s artists – mostly young and hip people really and the occasional seiyuu. Hirano Aya’s already been on it twice this year. Nana’s like… the most regular guest since YoungPs started. After the guest introduction, Nana gave host Azuma Takahiro the CD + DVD version of the album, and his reaction – “Damn, it’s heavy. Are there any ecchi bits on the DVD?” ^^;

Anyway, a little chat about the album as usual, then Nana elected SEVEN as her first showcase song. The Baseball Quiz segment followed, where a listener is asked 10 questions and gets ¥2000 for each correct answer – but is only allowed three wrong answers before he/she gets ‘out’. This time the caller was a 14-year old girl who nominated her mother as her supporter. It was really funny how Azuma kept prodding the teenager to reveal how old her mum was. Eventually, Mum came on the line herself; said she was 40-years old and proclaimed herself to be a Nana fan ^^; Back to the teenager, who also said she was also a big fan of Nana’s, wanted to be a seiyuu and had already bought GREAT ACTIVITY (watched the DVD over a hamburger dinner). Then the game started and in the end she only got one question right – a Mizuki Nana-related question at that (Q: At which train station was the photo on the cover of the limited edition version of GA taken? A: Kyoto Station).

After the break, Azuma and Nana played Hyakunin Isshu (she was in her grade school’s club for a year or so) . Players have to memories 100 poems, with each poem consisting of 31-syllables. The first 17 syllables are called ‘kaminoku’ (上の句) and the last 14 ’shimonoku’ (下の句). Someone will read out a random kaminoku, and the other person will have to find the shimonoku that matches up. Anyhow, Nana got all of the ‘proper’ ones correct before Azuma started making up his own kaminoku, to which she countered with her own shimonoku.

Azuma: ね、奈々ちゃん…僕のいいとこどこかしら？ (Hey, Nana-chan… can you tell me exactly what are my best points?)
Nana: ごめんなさい、すぐにはちょっと浮かばない… (I am sorry, but I cannot think of any right now…)

It was kinda fun, I guess the whole thing was inspired by this blog post where she shows off a Hyakunin Isshu CD recorded by her Sigma 7 senior Wakamoto Norio. That was pretty much the end of the guest segment on YoungPs, and Nana signed off with the usual ‘Buy my album!’ messages, and a full airing of Orchestral Fantasia.

Smile Gang

It’s been ages since I last listened to SmaGang, no thanks to the fact that I’m usually eating dinner when it’s on air ^^; Love the pic of Nana and (Fukuen) Misato above, I just pulled it out of my ‘random images’ archive…. For those not in the know, Smile Gang has been running since 2002 on JOQR + Tokai Radio and Radio Osaka.

Funny how Misato started off the show by saying ‘At last, it’s out!! A certain magazine that has a Nana-related article is released!!’ and ‘Oh, and she’s releasing songs too! In fact, she’s releasing 15 of them at one go!’ with Mizuki protesting in the background ‘It’s an album!’

No silly IQ question corners this week, they spent most of the 30 minutes going through the album track-by-track with Nana giving her comments about each song. Bring it on! was the song they chose to play, with Nana joking that it should be made the Smile Gang theme song (see comments about song above).
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And that ends my 3-day obsession with all things GREAT ACTIVITY – time to take a break and listen to other non-Nana related media……