more song sharing

[insaneneko]

I'm sharing more songs by Utada Hikaru because everyone should experience her wonderful music. These are again random samplings:

Sakura Drops
[Lyrics and translation]

I associate this song very closely with a PoT fanfic of the same name...^_^;

Deep River
[Lyrics and translation]

I hesitated to include this because petronia included it in her Mirage of Blaze FST, but...it's such a nice song. Oh, and another thing, I am not that impressed with the translation, but...it's such a nice song...really, it is.

Distance
Final Distance
[Lyrics and translation]

The two songs have the same lyrics and melody, but are two very different songs. Distance came out first...listen to that one first, then listen to Final Distance. Oh, boy, are they different. :D

As I was digging through my music collection, I listened to the following two Onitsuka Chihiro songs, and they have now been assigned as Mirage of Blaze Naoe songs in my head. ^_^; Regardless of any perceived association with the story, they are both lovely ballads, and the singer has a very nice voice.

Infection by Onitsuka Chihiro (.m4a song)
[Lyrics and translation]

Just plain Naoe. Poor boy. You can't escape. You must keep pursuing your glittering master/tempter/beloved/tormentor...

This foolish disease of mine
Only grows worse and worse

The fragments of my heart, exploded and strewn
The fragments, the fragments, all around me

Since when have I
Become this weak?

Ryuuseigun by Onitsuka Chihiro (.m4a song)
[Lyrics and translation]

First off, I want to say I absolutely love this song. I was very obsessed with it a couple of weeks back..I thought this reflected Naoe's plaintive insistence that all he needs is Takaya. He tells Takaya, who keeps trying to run away so that he doesn't kill Naoe with his poisoned body, that he needs Takaya's presence to exist. I love the passion with which he tells Takaya that even if his poison does kill him, he'll just possess another body...he'll go through every body on earth in order to be with him because without him the world is meaningless...

Your calling voice always turns into sadness
Just proving to me that I am this ugly
But I still need it

If I can't touch you, it's the same as if I didn't exist

And I really should get back to doing all the things I should be doing...

Comments

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

The first one does not work when I try to download it.

The others by her I downloaded but I'm gonna check tomorrow. Too late now and I'm bushed !

And will read your actual post tomorrow at that :)

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

For some reason, it wouldn't upload a cpule of times, but I finally got it to work. >_< Hope you enjoy them.

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell...

I frankly love her voice... I'm listening to the 2nd one right now and crying (no no... not because it's sad or anything -- I'm not reading the lyrics at the moment, just listening to the voice -- but because I have this strange thing where I get teary when something emotionally impact me -- weird, I know).

In any case... they're very nice.

BTW... the more I read about MofB through you & Petronia, the more I wish we could get those chapters all centered around Naoe & Takaya's emotional angsting and pain... it breaks my heart to see just how much pain they inflicted on each other... how much obsessive Naoe's love for Takaya was... and know that after all he's gone through to get him he would face an eternity of alonness... honest to god break my heart, that.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

I am glad you like her stuff. ^_^ Deep River has a very moving melody, even if you don't understand (or pay attention) to the lyrics.

As for Mirage, they are both obsessed...at least they find a measure of happiness that they seem to find acceptable, even if we don't. :P Have to tried listening to the Onitsuka Chihiro songs?

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

If only their measure of happiness had been a tad longer than the few years they had together before Kagetora disappeared from existence forever...

And no, not yet. I did download them and will listen to them probably a bit later today.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Yes, their time actually together was so short. *sigh*

Hope you enjoy the other ones, too.

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

I should ^_^... I'll let you know... But first I have to do this beta job I've been delaying since yesterday so no time for music. Later...

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

Damn.

Listening to the first one... lovely.

But the 2nd one is not working again. A problem uploading to YSI most probably as it "renamed" the file and the result is only a 2kb file.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Fixed it. I guess no Japanese titles for me...

Glad you liked "infection." :D

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

I did not read the lyrics... I was just listening to the harmony that is voice + music and it sounded very lovely indeed.

Of course the words are probably depressing as all hell if they put Naoe to mind :)

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

*laugh* What do you mean? Naoe is the happiest of men! He's gotten to be around his beloved for centuries!

I love the arrangements on her songs, esp the piano. And of course I adore what she does with her voice.

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

HE may be the happiest of men... We think he has quite some screws lose :)

The 2nd one is very very good too... I just listened to it while playing at snipping RX 24... the music fitted the mood of Ayato's transformation ^_^

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Heh, he's gotta be a bit of a masochist...lovely how both he and Kagetora display strong sadistic and masochistic tendencies...makes the relationship that much more exciting...

Hm, I wonder if the words will fit...

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

Fit what?

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

The Ayato transformation sequence.

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

Oh...

I'm not using it.

It's just that it was playing while I'm cleaning up the last few episodes I need to clip before I can start working on Eternally ^_^

And the music was slow and lyrical and it fitted the scenes I was looking at while snipping, that is all :)

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

I figured you weren't actually using it since it was just an aside.

So you're almost done with clipping? You've been doing it for a while...

[mirichan.livejournal.com]

I had to go through 26 eps to get all the clips that could be used.

Now will be the fun of looking at them... and the lyrics... and see what I want to say.

Ah for people who thought it was as easy as putting nice clips together. That could be done very easily with the "movie generator function" if that was what I wanted... nice images with nice music.

Unfortunately? I have this weird idea that one can express either a story or a mood through images & music :)

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for uploading these! I'll listen and report back once I'm done with my little trip. ^_^

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Heh, you'll have to redownload Ryuuseigun, I think. Something was wrong with it and I had to reupload it. In any case, hope you like them. ^_^

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

Wow...Infection is just gorgeous. Her voice is absolutely lovely and so very expressive. *_*
Sadly, I wasn't able to redownload Ryuuseigun because the link had expired...

I liked the Utada Hikaru songs, especially Deep River and Final Distance (you were dead on about Distance and Final Distance being two completely different songs despite having the same lyrics. Amazing.) and apart from the sharing the same title I can see why you associate Sakura Drops with the fanfic. I actually have a not-quite-mini-rant for that story planned (don't worry, I loved it). *grin*

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Yes, Onitsuka Chihiro is amazing. All of her albums are totally worth owning.

Obviously the author named that fic Sakura Drops with that song in mind. It just fits too perfectly. I mean, just the first verse:

koi wo shite owari wo tsuge
chikau koto ha : kore ga saigo no HEARTBREAK
sakura sae kaze no naka de yurete
yagate hana wo sakasu yo

I love Deep River the more I listen to it, and I've always loved Final Distance. Ah, such lovely songs...

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. When you posted the song I had a feeling the writer might have based it on that; English fic writers do it all the time after all.

Deep River and Final Distance are gorgeous...I enjoy these slow ballads a lot more than the more pop-ish songs of hers I've heard before.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Funny how I've never come across may songfics. It's so prevalent in English...but then, there are a lot noticable diffferences in the English and Japanese fandoms that I'm into, so what's another one? At least the Japanese aren't into mpreg (I find it too odd...though I'm sure there are good mpreg fics out there, too many seem to be an excuse to be very domestic and sappy...).

Yeah, I love her ballads. I do like the pop stuff as well, but my favorites are definitely the slow, pretty songs.

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

No, you're right - I've seen only a few fanfics where the writer says she's been inspired by a song and has perhaps used its title but I can't recall coming across any actual songfics in the English fanfic sense of the term.

I think mpreg isn't popular in JFandom because there's not the same stigma attached to turning the characters into girls as there is in WFandom. So they just turn them into girls and then impregnate them. :P

Hmm, another big difference is the almost non-existence of crossovers. In fact, when I accidently stumbled across an Initial D/TeniPuri Keisuka/Ryouma crossover a while back I keeled over in shock - not just because of the WTF pairing but the fact that there existed a crossover at all. It was the first one I'd come across in my 2-3 years of Japanese fanfic reading. O_O

No fiction archives either, which is an aspect of WFandom (particularly slash fandom which is where I originally came from) I kinda miss...But the amazingly detailed search engines make up for it.
And the lack of WFandom style meta. You get plenty of character/plot thoughts and analysis but those happen on individual sites/diaries rather than as a fandom-wide participation thing. (Personally, I like the lack of vitriolic fandom bitching and suspect it's probably a cultural difference in discourse.)

Nowadays I prefer hanging around JFandom...it's both saner and more insane than WFandom. *grin*

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

I don't bother reading stories where they change the sex of the characters. It's so bamn prevalent, but I keep thinking, WHY BOTHER? Though...I was a bit intrigued when one Hikago author I liked wrote a yuri with Akira and Hikaru as girls...never did get around to reading it, then her stinkin' site closed. :P

I don't know if I've ever come across a cross-over, myself. I don't read them so I didn't really miss their presence. And Keisuke/Ryoma is truly a WTF pairing. How...odd.

I kind of miss archives, but admittedly archives have their own problems (like wading through tons of crap). I am so thoroughly used to the Japanese style of fandom that English fandom is a bit of a novelty. I'm glad they don't have the wank and trolling that seems to afflict the English ones. ^_^; They probably get together and chat when they see each other at doujinshi events or something, though. *sigh*

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

I agree, I'm not really sure what's the point of changing one character's gender to make it a straight couple. That AkiHika yuri one sounds fun though...if you're going to change their gender then apply it to both characters! ^_^

I've seen a few crossovers in fanart gags and such, like if the seiyuu voices a number of different characters, but never in fanfic until that weird Initial D/TeniPuri crossover. I didn't bookmark the site but it was a really random story about Keisuke tracking Ryouma down to return his misplaced cap or something. O_o

I started off in Slash fandom so I was used to huge, organised archives with search functions that made finding stuff easier...and less risk of having an individual site shut down and the content erased forever. But I like visiting individual Japanese sites too because it's more personalised and there's stuff other than fanfic there. Oh boy, despite the insane ideas they dream up JFandom is usually a thousand times more civilised and sane than WFandom (at least in my experience). I do wonder how much discussion takes place offline because DJ events and fan get-togethers are so frequent.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Thinking seriously about a Keisuke/Ryoma pairing...those two are such nuts about their respective passions (and a good number of years apart), how would they find common ground?

I really do try to save fics and art when I stumble across a good site, but it's so hard to keep up and keep organized...and of course the site always shuts down (without warning) when I slack off...

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

I can't even fanthom Keisuke/Ryouma...they live in such completely different universes my mind can't compute sticking them into the same story IC or OOC.

Hear you on organising things. And I reallyreallyreally wish site owners would at least give a few weeks warning before closing. *sigh*

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

I've had the misfortune of visiting a site whose closure was announced ahead of time days after the stated date...and that drives me batty too. I don't check all of my bookmarked sites every several weeks, after all...

[mitethe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that seriously sucks. >_