Mizuki Nana’s new album ranks second on Oricon
Mainichi JP had broke the news - Nana-chan’s sixth album “Great Activity” ranked second on the Oricon Weekly Charts, bested her previous third ranking setted by her previous album “Hybrid Universe” and created a new record for the highest seiyuu album ranking on the Oricon Weekly Charts. While the official numbers aren’t out yet, I’d guess that the album must have sold around 28-30k copies in total (it sold 15k on the first two days before slowing down during the weekend). Congratulations to Nana-chan, and this is just yet more prove that she’s the top seiyuu artists out there at the moment, as no ones else is even coming close to the numbers she is selling - as she is selling almost double triple the amount of albums to her closest rivals.
As for the album itself, it’s a very solid album. It’s got good variety - a quality which I always value very highly - even though I may not necessarily agree with the genre of the songs they were mingling with. Though as always Nana-chan shows her incredibly singing ability and was able to handle anything that was thrown at her, and I’m most surprised by her dabbling into popular mainstream Japanese-style R&B music in Promise on Christmas. Although personally I have a deep loathing of any sort of Christmas love songs, but if I just switch off my Japanese part of the brain I can at least enjoy the vocals. I also really like the two other ballads in the album - ラストシーン (Last Scene) and Sing Forever. Others like Nostalogia and Chronical of Sky are not bad too. In general, it seems to me that the trademark hard-beat high tempo Nana songs had taken a backseat for once and the mellower songs were the highlights of this album - in contrary to the energetic title of the album - which makes this album much less instantly impressionable than the previous album “Hybrid Universe”. I personally applause that they carry over their willingness to experiment and change from “Hybrid Universe” onto this album, as even Elements Garden is losing a bit of their magic in Orchestral Fantasia, which did not live up to their previous offerings like Eternal Blaze, Justice to Believe etc., and don’t even get me started on Yabuki’s involvement in “Great Activity” again.
Also for those interested in album, do yourself a favour and pick up the first press edition with the DVD, the digest of Nana Summer Festa is well worth the little extra.
EDIT: Oricon news indicates that Great Activity sold 43k, looks like I’m off too, but in a good way.
November 20th, 2007 at 22:07
Great news for Nana. Personally been liking this album more and more the longer I listen to it. Must have looped through this album at least a good 20x since it has been released XD
Now just to wait for the FP to arrive to check out the DVD extra; too bad I’ll have to wait another month since I have it preordered with Minorin’s DVD (which I’m also looking forward to)
November 20th, 2007 at 23:25
Wow! A breakthrough. It is difficult to crack this lineup.
November 21st, 2007 at 00:03
This album deserve at least top5 in Oricon.
But I think rank no. 2 also came with luck because any artists who wants no.1 don’t want to face Kinki Kids in the same week.
November 21st, 2007 at 00:14
43k would guarantee Nana-chan in the top 5 in nearly any week though, so it’s not all luck. ;)
November 21st, 2007 at 16:20
I agree with pretty much everything you said about the album. It didn’t hit me like Hybrid Universe did, but I’ve been listening to it quite a bit and I’m loving it more an more with each listen. I seem to listen to Sing Forever and Last Scene the most currently. I’ve always loved her slower songs and ballad. Her voice just lends itself to those songs I think. I’m curious to hear what your opinions are on Bring it On. At first I was taken aback by it, but after listening to it more, I’ve grown to like it. It’s not a favorite that would get played a lot though.
November 21st, 2007 at 21:55
> deftoned
I thought Bring it On! was a pretty cool song straight off, but just like you said in your post I think they could’ve done without the voice distortion thing. I wouldn’t mind it being in the intro “wo-oh” and maybe some other bits here and there but doing it for most of the song is overkill. It’s not like Nana-chan’s vocal can’t handle/is not suited to this kind of song or anything thus they need to play tricks with it, in fact I think everyone would agree that it’s the exact opposite - she’s awesome with these kinds of songs, so that was definitely a bit of a wtf in an otherwise pretty nice song. Maybe in the concert they’ll leave out the distortion and we can get a clean version, come to think of it it should make a pretty awesome live song actually….
November 22nd, 2007 at 10:57
I thought the same thing about it probably sounding awesome live. The melody lends itself to sound pretty powerful live. When you do get to hear it live, I’ll be twiddling my thumbs in jealousy…. waiting for an eventual DVD. :)
November 24th, 2007 at 15:57
Congratulations to our beloved Nana-chan! Another record set, and this proves that she is definitely THE seiyuu-singer in Japan right now!
January 4th, 2008 at 07:42
[…] Seki Tomokazu, Inoue Kikuko, Koyasu Takehito, Kishio Daisuke, and Kugimiya Rie. Mizuki Nana is already tops in terms of her singing career, but whether or not Rosario + Vampire becomes a breakout show for her voice acting talent s […]