I am really glad you kind of talked about if the whole obsession is different depending on how the listener takes it. I have been wondering what Maeda intention for this was. The idea of a love spanning multiple life spans is generally portrayed positively. Azure Dream is one of the only tracks where I feel like the listener might even supposed to be weary of the kind of force that leads to that, but the musical clues could also just be representative on the mental strain of the singer.
Agreed! He throws down the knowledge and lets me think about the songs in ways that would not have occurred to me otherwise.
Hyakunen no Natsu reminded me of Air with how it sounds on the ears too, but it didn’t feel thematically of Air. Well, besides the title.
I really should track down a physical copy of this album. Yoshitoshi ABe is one of my favorite illustrators and talking about it has made me love the album in general quite a bit now.
Great podcast everyone!