Well I have thing I’m not really sure how to deal with. It’s a pretty common thing for people to criticize writings that starts drama before “the viewer has had enough time to get attached to the character(s),” right? If time is such an important factor, how can these songs work when you get a maximum five minutes per story? I’ve never thought of time as the deciding factor hence why I’m not sure how to go about handling the question.
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One thing I noticed was that all the videos open with a scene from the end of each of their songs. Gives it the feel that everything ties together in the end.
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I had been meaning to listen to Love Song for a while but the bookclub gave me the push I needed to listen to it. I really like this album but it can be really depressing to follow the characters through their grieving process. I think my favorite song is Soshite Monogatari ga Owaru.
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In case anybody missed the Long Long Love Song stream last night, you can catch it here! It includes short previews for every song, and even full versions of a couple of them! We also got a new PV for Bokura Dake no Hoshi.
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I enjoyed tracks 1, 9, 12, and 13. My favorite from the previews was, track 5, Yakusoku no Uta. I like the sound of the beginning, not sure how to describe it in text. It’s like she goes at a steady rhythm but drags out the second to last sound of the line.
At 52:50, I think this is how it’s stressed. (I don’t have a trained ear for this.)
Ko No U Chuu No Do Ko Ka~ De
Shi A Wa Se Ni Na Re Te Ta~ Ra
Is there anyway to buy the artwork for the Love Song albums?
Specifically Long Long Love Song, I’d really like to use some for my desktop background slideshow.
LLLS is the worst Love Song, Kumaki Anri is weak compared to the previous vocalists and a lot of the songs wash over me partially because of her, I dislike how the album just shits on the love between the characters in most of the songs(I get that it’s the point, that doesn’t mean I have to like it), I don’t see myself warming up to this one.
Supernova is best girl by a country mile in just about every aspect though.
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The narratives are weaker across the board and the songs are super boring. I thought the album would grow on me with time, but the more I listen to it the more it feels like a bad clone of previous Love Song albums.
I do appreciate the simplistic nature of most of the songs, but it doesn’t leave a lasting impression,
[LLLS]
I felt like putting down a short list of thoughts on LLLS for future reference.
- I liked it initially cuz it’s a poppier song, but it doesn’t do anything special, so I don’t really care to think about it much at this point.
- Favorite song musically and narratively. When it was previewed, it completely stole my attention for a week, and I still love it to death.
- This is like my top 3-4ish. I took a while after release, but I just found myself humming the song all the time. Narratively, it’s also a small but essential follow-up to Bus Stop.
- I refer to Rain Dance as ‘Symbolism: The Song.’ It has so much stuff. It’s mostly the lyrics that interest me, so it goes in the middle camp of I’m perfectly happy with it but won’t completely gush over it.
- Second favorite song. It just does all the things awesomely, can’t say much else.
- Listened to it a ton before release. It’s super sad but not quite at the point where I’d call it a favorite.
- Similar place to #6. I really can’t stand vocaloids, but with an actual singer, song’s really good.
- The only song that I really dislike. I haven’t tried playing it on a fancy audio setup like Biz said.
- I like it, not much else. The Itunes extra didn’t change much.
- [Copy paste what I said about #1]
- It’s Clannad. It’s cool, but it doesn’t feel like a part of the album.
- The last of the songs I simply adore. I’d want an entire song like that interlude/bridge(?) thing.
- I kinda zone out around the 7 minute mark if not just straight up turn it off. #12 and #13 still do a really good job harking back to all the previous tracks.
Having four tracks I really love is on par with the others, so it’s a fine addition and/or conclusion to the love song series. In the individual topics, I want to go over the literary devices that make me think this is the best presented narrative in the series, even if it’s really simple and Maeda’s done it a million times already; that might not happen until the bookclub though.
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I recently came across a translation of Maeda’s production diary included in the Long Long Love Song album. The diary is very personal and has some shocking details. I wonder if anyone has done an English translation of it? If not, would it interest anyone that I do one?
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I would be very interested! Just curious, but where is that diary from? Never even heard of it before 
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I think it’s the diary mentioned in our news article here: https://kazamatsuri.org/jun-maedas-new-album-long-long-love-song-announced/
“The limited edition will be sold for ￥3,740 and comes in a digipack including all the songs and pamphlet together with Jun Maeda’s production diary”
But just to clarify I don’t own a copy of the limited edition album, nor do I have the original text of the diary (which I can’t read anyway). All I have is a (presumably) complete fan translation of the diary in a third language (Chinese) which I could read and translate into english.
Althought it can be done, and is definitely worth doing, I will be translating a translation, you see 
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I remember someone reading it and finding it too loaded to want to post a translation, eheh…
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I had it, now go guess where it is, I would have to find it. I know Helios has it too and he told me how Maeda was just too tired of his “famous” life and how at times it looked as if he just wanted to quit. There’s mainly stuff about how he wrote the songs and parts of his life that influenced those songs.
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I have a copy and have translated about the first quarter of it, but who knows if it’s any good since that was half a year ago when I knew a lot less Japanese. I haven’t gotten around to reading or translating the rest of it, but you can compare with what I had so far if you want.
I felt the entry about Maeda’s hospitalization and recovery was very well-written. It explained his mindset through the whole ordeal and how lucky he was to recover as well as he did.
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Absolutely! I would love to see the part you have translated so far, it could help to crosscheck with your work whenever I have a doubt about the other translater.
I personally felt terrible and worried after reading that part, I didn’t fully realize how serious his illness actually was.
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Here’s what I have so far. I looked over what I had translated so far and tried to fix any mistranslated sections. I’m going to try to translate some more, so I’ll keep it updated with my progress. Please let me know if anything seems incorrect.
June 6 update: Sorry for disappearing for a long time. I finally got back to working on this after several months and have added the rest of November’s entries. The HTML and Markdown files are definitely up to date; the ODT and PDF may have some remnants from older versions.
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I’ve always thought it was a real shame that they didn’t make a Promotional Video for the secret track “Kimi no Airplane (Your Airplane)” , like they did for the other tracks of the Owari no Hoshi no Love Song Album.
So I have made one myself…
Should I post it here or in the MAD/AMV discussion?
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[LLLS]
So back in podcast #1 Pi explained how the predominantly male pronoun “Boku” doesn’t necessarily mean a narrator is male because of poetic conventions. I’d argue that is definitely the case in LLLS though. You see, in this album, if a 1st person pronoun is used it’s always either “Boku” or the predominantly female “Atashi.” You’re never forced to read the Love Songs as narratives, however, I read this one as a story of a guy and girl getting together. It gets told in a very roundabout way, and it probably was a very roundabout relationship. We get both perspectives on their time together and what could be multiple separations–romantic or not–but Love Song no Tsukurikata seems to strongly indicate that they end up happily married eventually.
Summary of pronouns used in each track
1 - The guy uses boku. Narrator uses atashi
2 - Narrator uses boku in hiragana
3 - Narrator uses atashi
4 - Narrator uses atashi
5 - Narrator uses atashi
6 - Narrator uses atashi
7 - Narrator uses boku
8 - Narrator uses atashi
9 - Narrator uses no pronoun
10 - Narrator uses boku in hiragana
11 - Narrator uses Papa (Technically more of a proper noun than a pronoun)
12 - Narrator uses boku in hiragana
13 - Narrator uses no pronoun
2nd person pronouns are pretty much always the relatively neutral “Kimi.”
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