Play it on a loop: Maaya Sakamoto

On the menu for today we have one of the most beautiful female voices that has ever graced anime music... ever ! ^_^ Many would agree with me on stating that any newcomer to J-pop and anime music must be acquainted as soon as possible with the talent of Maaya Sakamoto. This young woman initiated her career in a quite unusual way: in 1996, at age 16, she was an unknown girl in high school that was personally chosen by famous composer Yoko Kanno for performing songs for a project to which she had been hired to compose the soundtrack. The project in question was the TV series "Tenkuu no Escaflowne", marketed for Western audiences under the name of "The Vision of Escaflowne". Check the entry I wrote about the soundtrack to the movie made off this TV series by clicking the month of "March" in the Archives to your right.

"Escaflowne" became one of the most successful TV series of the last decade, gaining legions of fans in both the specialized media and the general public, and Maaya not only sang the opening to the TV series, but also was cast as the voice of the character Hitomi Kanzaki. This was a controversial decision, since Hitomi was the main character and it was being trusted to a complete unknown high-school girl with no previous work as a seiyuu ! Still, despite her inexperience, Maaya delivered a brilliant performance and captivated everybody with her sweet voice. This was the beginning of an intense career for Maaya as a singer, seiyuu and regular actress. Enjoy the clip that started it all, the opening of Escaflowne (the song is "Yakusoku wa iranai"):

After the Escaflowne project, Maaya & Yoko Kanno developed a friendship and professional relationship that would last to this day. Kanno produced her first album: 1997's "Grapefruit". It contained many songs from Escaflowne as well as new tracks that combined very well the voice of this young girl with the ecclectic sound Kanno is known for as an arranger. From then on, Kanno would involve Maaya each time she would be asked to compose the soundtrack to a new anime project. Thus, Maaya's voice graces the soundtracks of series like "Brain Powerd", "Wolf's Rain" and "Earth Girl Arjuna", but Maaya & Kanno songs have also been featured in TV series even if Kanno was not the composer in charge of the soundtrack. That is the case for "Card Captor Sakura", "CLAMP School Detectives" and "Rahxephon", for example.

Gradually, Maaya started to become more involved in her music by writing the lyrics of her songs while Kanno and frequent collaborator Yuuho Iwasato handled music and arrangements. Maaya kept on releasing albums with them on an almost annual basis: 1998's DIVE, 1999's Hotchpotch, 2001's Lucy (and later that year an EP called "Easy Listening"), 2003's albums Shounen Alice & Nikopachi. Both "Hotchpotch" & "Nikopachi" are in fact compilations of different single tracks that she recorded for anime or game soundtracks. In them we can find jewels such as "Kiseki no Umi" (opening of the TV series of Record of Lodoss War) and "Gravity" (ending of Wolf's Rain) that any person able to hear should treat themselves with ^_^. Check out the PV (Promotional Video) for the latter song, which is in English, courtesy of randymatsunaga @ YouTube:

Beautiful song, don't you think ?! :-) Finally, in 2005, Maaya decided to record an album without the supervision of Yoko Kanno. That is the post of today, the album "Yunagi Loop".

Maaya right now keeps herself extremely busy as a seiyuu in anime and videogames, and also dubbing famous female roles for the Japanese versions of many blockbusters. She's the voice of Padme Amidala in the Star Wars prequels, of Kate Brewster in "T3: Rise of the Machines", of Lisa in Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball, of Max in the TV series "Dark Angel"... The list is impressive and keeps being updated. She also debuted on theatre in the role of Eponine in the musical Les Miserables... there's nothing she can't do.
In the anime department, her latest contributions have been the endings "Loop" (included in the album below) and "Kazemachi no Jet" to the TV series of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles... yet another CLAMP creation !! (I swear I'm not making this on purpose... :-P).

For now, enjoy Maaya Sakamoto's 2005 album "Yunagi LOOP" ! I must admit that "Lucy" and "Easy Listening" are still my favorites, since I grow too used to the Kanno touch in her songs, but I thought of posting her latest offering to keep you updated on what her material is sounding right now... Let me know what you think !