#shirakami mashirou

[x0401x]

Kagerou Poject Reboot: RealSound Interview

Jin x Shirakami Mashirou x Yuumao

Their takes on the changes that each of them has witnessed in the past ten years and the things they have been seeing in the whirlpool that is the VOCALOID scene.

Translation commissioned by the amazing @sodasexual​!

Celebrating the tenth anniversary of Kagerou Project, the Re:boot project has commenced. An interview has been carried out to ask about its background and prospects.

The ones we have interviewed are a trio consisting of the author of Kagerou Project and multi-creator Jin, as well as Shirakami Mashirou (bass) and Yuumao (drums/Hitorie), who are also production members of the original music piece and were listed as the performance team of “Children Record (Re:boot)”, which was released the other day as the first part of the Re:boot project.

We had them talk about the true intentions behind “Re:boot”, which means “to restart”, about the recordings where they created the concept of “overcoming the original composition” and about the near future, including the new song, along with the steps they have taken in the past ten years.

The “pain” that comes with creating something unprecedented.

——How did Kagerou Project’s Re:boot project begin?

Jin: Kagerou Project was set into motion back in 2011, so this year is the turning point of ten years since then. In that meantime, there were lots of things I fretted over, but as I discussed with the people around me about whether there was anything I could do, we came up with the idea of “remaking the old compositions”. I thought if that’s what we were going to do, then I wanted to try doing it with the original members of Children Record, so I contacted the two.

——How did each of you feel when Shirakami Mashirou-san and Yuumao-san received the proposal of a remake?

Jin: Regarding Mashirou-san, I was contacting him for the first in a long time. “Let’s go out for a drive,” I told him.

Shirakami: Right, right. We went on a car drive together. Just us seeing each other already felt nostalgic in itself, so we talked like normal about lots of things and were like, “Yeah, it was fun back then”. I felt that “Aah, I’m looking forward to this”.

Jin: While talking to the staff, I honestly felt uneasy about creating something new, even though it was a remake. If I had to use a word to represent these ten years in which I’ve been writing novels and making music for Kagerou Project, it was extremely “painful” to me. So I wanted to talk to Mashirou-san first-thing. On a different occasion, when a staff member asked me, “Have you been keeping in contact with Mashirou-san lately?”, I suggested, “If it’s okay, can I contact him myself?”, and then invited him for the drive. Rather than the request for the remake, I firstly wanted to discuss with him, “I’m planning on doing this thing; what do you think?”

Shirakami: There was one more person taking part in that drive, right?

Jin: That’s right. Since the coronavirus was going on, we went driving in three separate cars, and the third person was INPNE-kun, who made the video of Children Record Re:boot. That was INPINE-kun and Mashirou-san’s first meeting. At that time, INPNE-kun hadn’t started working on the video yet, but thinking back on it now, I’m glad the two of them were introduced to each other that way. It feels like our hearts bound the music and the video together.

——Yuumao-san, what about you?

Yuumao: Jin-kun and I were seeing each other constantly. I had received a request to tackle the recordings of the songs he had been making until now. Amidst that, there was a day when I received a request, amongst other matters, and was scheduled to “record Children Record”. Up to around three days before the recording, I spent my time wondering, “What’s this supposed to be?” (laughs).

——Jin-san, what did you think when choosing Shirakami-san and Yuumao-san, the original duo?

Jin: I only felt that I wanted to do it with these two. I didn’t have any other choice in the first place. I’m awfully fond of the contents that they performed in the original song, and I had no complaints other than towards my own abilities for making musical arrangements.

——You said earlier that “the past ten years were extremely painful”, but what kind of feeling was it?

Jin: The year when I began these activities, 2011, was the time when I was attending a vocational school; the band I was playing with back then disbanded midway, but by sheer coincidence, the older brother of a friend of mine was using VOCALOIDs and he taught me about them, so I really started doing it without any backing. Having played in a band until then, there was a lot of passion and many messages that I wanted to convey inside me, so this project was about me taking them and beginning to paddle off, and one of the aspects of it was that VOCALOID made the things I wanted to do into a reality. But that was a period where it felt like the VOCALOID culture wasn’t yet acknowledged. On top of that, other than the music, Kagerou Project had novels, and a lot of it had no precedents, so I believe there were parts of it that were difficult to understand for people who weren’t already into it. I didn’t know if the path I was going through was right or wrong. But the people around me kept telling me “not to take my foot off the accelerator”. In that sense, I definitely have negative memories of it. I also had the feeling that I was estranged from the music scene.

——Indeed, the music of Kagerou Project is unmistakably rock, and I believe it was something that pierced through Japan’s rock culture, but I think you might have felt that you were not understood by the rock bands of back then.

Jin: That’s right. Surprisingly, the people around me, including creators and those who were in bands, gave off an air of ridicule with a “he’s a faker” kind of nuance to it. I understood the awesomeness of rock bands, so of course, there were times when I’d wonder, “What is it that I’m doing?”. During these ten years, there was a moment halfway when I almost broke down. Due to many primary factors, I might’ve been unable to go on – like, there was a time when I found myself thinking that it was weird to keep it up while I was so at loss. There was also a period where I was unable to create anything for Kagerou Project.

——When did that happen, exactly?

Jin: Rather than breaking down all of a sudden, it’s more like I slowly became unable to create any more. Although I was being criticized on one side, I was also being demanded on another, so I was at a level where I was obligated to write. However, while all sorts of emotions were whirling up, I suddenly thought of something. There was a time when I got closure from that feeling of “not being acknowledged” that I mentioned earlier.

——When was that?

Jin: Around the time when I was making the previous album (“Mekakucity Reload”, which was released in November 2018). I was called “inexperienced” and “unskilled” not only in the rock scene but also in the light novel scene, so I made effort to sweep it all away. It felt like I was being treated like a tumor in everything I did. But then I suddenly thought, “Yeah, that’s fine”. There was a moment one day when the mists actually cleared, like, “What was I so at loss about?” It’s not like I’ve been going at it just so that someone would praise me. If anything, I lived my life constantly being made fun of. I’m no good at sports, I’m not smart, and I by no means did I ever excel at communicating with people at all. By the moment that I thought, if this is my character, then maybe being praised isn’t the only right answer, I was suddenly alleviated. If I’m being called a “child deceiver”, then I’m going to do that with all my might and apply myself to it, is what I thought. I refused to go to school for a while when I was in middle school, yet I had the feeling that I wanted to face this part of me, not in a fashionable or trendy way but in a miserable state, and fight him head-on. I guess that’s what suited me best. To me, Shirakami-san and Yuumao-san are people with a “chosen vision”. They have the sense to perceive beauty. I think I don’t have that in me. Which is why I was in pain. I was in a dilemma where I couldn’t grasp music as an art. However, it’s not like I’m making fun of hamburgers, but I started to think that I wanted to compete using something punk, something hamburger-like. It took me a while to get there.

——How do you feel after listening to what Jin-san just said, Yuumao-san and Shirakami-san?

Yuumao: Jin-kun said just now that he was “fretting” and “stuck”, but I knew about his circumstances to a certain extent, so I imagined that he was unable to move on. But while talking about all sorts of things with Jin-kun, when producing stuff in the last three to four years, we had the feeling that it basically boils down to “if we don’t provide this and that, it won’t be interesting”. This isn’t limited to KagePro – I just personally felt that the productions of his works were shifting towards not “making something good”, but rather making something that could be properly verbalized. For me, as someone on the performing side, I was also in a situation where, rather than just providing good content one way or another, I became increasingly able to explain it. In the end, we change just like that, is what I felt. And you base yourself on this to make new songs, right?

Jin: That’s right.

Yuumao: Thought so. That’s why I feel like the stuff that will come from you in the future will have stronger colors.

——Shirakami-san, what about you? How did the scenario change in the past decade and how do you think that you have been progressing as a musician?

Shirakami: The biggest change that I felt the most on my skin is that the huge Vocaloid movement itself has completely gained familiarity with the public in the last ten years. About a while after I had started associating with Mafumafu-kun, amongst the musicians that I’ve met, the number of people who came up to tell me, “I’ve been listening to Vocaloid” has increased. It’s been one round ever since we began doing this stuff, and the people who were the consumers back then became producers, is what I mean. That’s not us, the first generation – it’s a kind of follower generation, and we’ve completely permeated them. The context of what was born not only from VOCALOID but also the so-called internet culture has blended with the category named ��ordinary rock bands”. That’s what I’ve been feeling for three or four years now. Therefore, the “feeling of being a knock-off” that Jin-kun innitially talked about has disappeared with the change of times, so to speak. I feel this keenly even in regards to myself and I think it’s an objective truth. However, from a personal point of view, even though changes are happening in many places, what is fundamentally required of us hasn’t changed much. For example, I believe that VTubers are also getting public familiarity now, but I think the reason why VTubers are trendy is that there are human beings underneath. For VOCALOID, too, the composers, so-called Vocalo-P’s, are the ones who get popularity, and one way or another, there’s also a phenomenom where the songs sung by popular Utaite become widespread. In the end, I think what matters is the fact that there are people behind it. I personally think we have to create stuff that we can be proud of while paying close attention to these things. In short, just because all internet content is intangible isn’t enough; we, the creators, have to carry the literacy of how society is going to approve of us.

Jin: That’s right. I think that VOCALOID music up to this point, Kagerou Project included, will have to be supplemented. Since we have words that are so easy to understand, such as “rock band”, “singer” and “songwriter”, for example, people go, “What the heck is a Vocalo-P, then?” At first, there was this impression that we were being given a weird alias by strangers, and I also felt like the adults, the people who are in control of the media, made us into something easy to digest. In regards to “deceiving children”, in order to earn money the fastest with it and make it spread the widest, the most effective method was probably to make it marketable, simple to understand and easy for adults to put labels on.

Therefore, I think that things such as “What is it that I can’t give up on?” and “What did I even want to do to begin with?” are the true identity of the realization that I mentioned earlier. It’s like wondering whether or not you can say aloud in the middle of a classroom that you “enjoy anime” or “really like cute characters”. Back in those days, I couldn’t to it at all. The class had castes. But I want to say this in a loud voice. Rather than trendy and fashionable overseas music, I much sooner believe in Summon Night EX-THESE’s theme song (“Byakuya” by Matsumoto Eiko) and other such music that I’ve always liked. Therefore, I want to start off from the fact that people think, “Aah, this guy has no sense”. It’s like I’m saying sorry to my middle school second-year self for almost forgetting the feelings I had back then. I seriously don’t care about winning. Being number one or being famous doesn’t matter at all to me. Only, I just don’t want people to act on their own accord like I’m a loser. I think that means I want to do something to fix this.

Earning recognition for creating KagePro content is still a few ways ahead.

——Back in 2013, we had a conversation between Jin-san and Suganami Eijun-san from THE BACK HORN, and back then, Jin-san said, “I’m handing bombs over to my grade school and middle school selves”. And that live concerts were the detonators.

Jin: That’s right.

——Regarding KagePro, I feel that this thing about “handing bombs over” is very prominent. Just as Shirakami-san said, VOCALOID “earned its own rights”, but in KagePro’s case, when I see the responses to the reboot, each and every one of the comments is very passionate.

Yuumao: Lately, be it with KagePro or Hitorie, the number of people who say either that they’re listening or had been listening to VOCALOID in the past year and a half has truly increased a lot. I kind of feel on my skin that many people are getting rooted in it.

——Jin-san, do you feel this too?

Jin: No, I don’t. This is a twisted way of putting it, but I think it’s a few ways ahead for us to receive that evaluation. I feel like it’s not over yet. When I started off by myself and decided to move on from my child self to the future, I wasn’t acknowledged by my elders and seniors. I feel inside me that this still isn’t over. I intend to be in a whirlpool. It hasn’t been proven yet whether I’m a knock-off or not. It makes me really happy that there are people who were influenced by us, but that opinion doesn’t make me change my mind.

——Jin-san, how do you think of KagePro in the near future?

Jin: When I look toward the future, I simply want to finish it. I will be taking my time to create content, but first things first, I want to devote myself to the completion of this project. I definitely won’t abandon it midway. I have this firmly in mind now. As for its contents, it’s mainly two things. For now, firstly, we have started the reboot from Children Record, but of course, there’s also a reboot for the project’s story. Moreover, there will be new developments coming next. There are also new songs and new stuff story-wise. And I want to do them with these two members, for as much as they allow. There’s the possibility that I’ll be making the drums play at 200 BPM when we’re in our 50’s. I think the announcements will be slow, but I’m very positive about this, so I myself am looking forward to it too. And, on the other hand, I also would like to ask these two for their ideas in regards to making music for this project and their opinions, like what they want to work hard on.

——What do you mean?

Jin: I honestly think that Children Record was extremely well-done. When it comes to creating something new, I want to destroy the approach that I’ve been using until now. How about it?

Shirakami: If we’re talking about approach, I believe we’ve been witnessing all sorts of possibilities. We went to studios together the past ten years for that, but we can also do it online like we did this time. Ah, we haven’t gone on a training camp yet.

Jin: I want to go on one.

Yuumao: For sure.

Shirakami: That might be interesting too. Now, if we’re talking just about the bass, it seems this production will turn out as one where I’ll get to confirm once again up to what point I can go – that’s what I thought when listening to you talk. I think the stance of trying to challenge yourself no matter how much you age is, of course, the way that musicians should be and I believe that challenging myself is the path I’m going to take, but there are genres, ideologies and aestheticss when it comes to music makers and performers. Personally, amongst the things that I’ve been producing together with Jin-kun until now, whenever we had a subject in front of us, we would only think about how to do our utmost to give a displayable form to it, but be it with the phrasing, nuance or melody, I feel like we have options for all of them. In a sense, there’s a side of Yuumao and I that has been branded as performers as we worked on productions with Jin-kun. So the extension of the straight line that we have been charting until now is, of course, still there. Now that ten years have passed, if I can make new songs with you from now on, I seriously think it might be okay to reflect once again on how my style is being processed. It’s as if it has matured. I have chosen this job out of free will, so one way or another, I’m aware that it’ll be important to keep polishing it from now onwards.

Jin: Thank you very much. That’s literally it. Even in the current Children Record, I think there’s some aspect of it that was made up from the minds of you two, the rhythm section members. Both Mashirou-san and Yuumao-san make new proposals every time. You never try to trace the past at all. The way you think about sound is insanely serious.

Yuumao: I’m planning to do my best to create sounds in a more loose manner from now on. As for what I mean by “loose”, to put it simply, I think it’s quite important to be inspired by present-time musical instruments, and that we get influence from that, when we’re making the sound details. I think it’s bad if we don’t accept and face these things. In particular, I believe that the bass and drums are the parts that change the most. KagePro won’t change yet it has changed, and I think we should keep bringing out that aspect of it.

――Indeed, as a concept, this reboot is not something made to arrange things in a completely different direction from before. Be it a ballad or programmed music, for instance, there would be nothing of that in it. It’s a remake, a rebuild – at any rate, it felt like you are building it up.

Jin: Thank you very much. In the end, we also shouldn’t think that we just perfomed it over again. So it felt like a rematch. We were all at home, but we did that recording ready to beat our selves from about eight years ago. What should I do to make the original members say that this one “was cooler” than the precious song called Children Record? I think I was able to find an answer to that one.

Shirakami: In a way, using VOCALOID might have been its forte. For example, whenever a band remade a song from ten years ago, I usually felt that “the vocals have none of the freshness that they had back then” or “the reckless feel from that time was better”. But because it’s VOCALOID, that part doesn’t change. It might be that we managed to grant positive changes only to the good points.

Jin: I see. I think that’s possible. My mindset this time was to play the guitar so much that my fingers would bleed. I want to take on more challenges from now onward too.

#kagerou project #kagepro #mekakucity actors #kagerou daze #kagerou project reboot #jin #shirakami mashirou #yuumao #realsound #interview #my translation

[x0401x]

GOUACHE Members interview

Jin’s solo interview || Sidu’s interview || Original (full translation under the cut)

“Kagerou Daze -in a day’s-” is a bodily sensation-type 4D short movie, which was released in the second theater system of the national-wide TOHO Cinemas on November 4th in MX4D™. The movie’s opening theme song, “RED”, made by the creator of “Kagerou Project”, Jin-san – who is not only its lyricist and composer, but also the light novel and manga script’s writer –, together with his new-formed band (GOUACHE), received great repercussion in the entire Mora site immediately after its publishing. Other than that, Jin-san has his other band and works as support musician as well, and has been much talked about for recruiting such experienced members.

In this interview, to celebrate the movie’s presentation to the public and the huge popularity of “RED”, we have successfully gathered comments from the GOUACHE members! These news will consist of each member’s official talks about the band and its songs, from the thoughts they’ve put into the compositions to the possible future developments. It’s a must-read for the fans as it’s packed with detailed answers! Please enjoy it without skipping any words or sentences!

GOUACHE Members

MARiA (Vocals) Born on 1/31/1992 in Ibaraki Prefecture. Had her major debut in 2014 and works as GARNiDELiA’s vocalist. Is an artwork producer, in charge of songwriting, and also dances during live performaces. Is a model for several fashion brands as well, and has been earning the support of young women from her generation.

Jin (Guitar/Vocals) Born on 10/20/1990 in Hokkaidou’s Rishiri Island. Is a music composer, light novel writer and scenario writer. Specializes in creating untramelled works that do not get caught up in stereotyped concepts.

Gushimiyagi Hideyuki (Guitar/Vocals) Born on 1/31/1990 in Okinawa Prefecture. Started working as a guitarist, then created his own band, Creature Falls Umbrella, in 2014, and became its vocal-guitarist and composer as well.

Shirakami Mashirou (Bass/Vocals) Born on 5/5/1988 in Okayama Prefecture. Besides being solo artist and singer, he’s also a bassist, composer, arranger and recording engineer, working as a producer of anything related to music.

Ibuki Fumihiro (Drums/Choir) Born on 8/27/1990 in Hokkaidou’s Ohibiro town. Is a Jazz drums course graduate from Senzoku Gakuen Music College. Is the leader of the band O.P.P.A.I. and works as support artist for many other bands. Actively takes part in numberous national and international performances, no matter their genre.

GOUACHE’s official Twitter account: GOUACHE_JP (T/N: Please follow them, guys. They don’t have even 3k followers yet. The account is bilingual, so you can get information from it even if you don’t speak Japanese. Their English is a little awkward but it’s easy to understand. Also, they’re considering releasing their songs overseas, so the more non-Japanese followers they get, the greater the chances of that happening.)

Q&A

──I believe that while “RED”, the opening theme of “Kagerou Daze -in a day’s-”, is about “a sight that adults can’t understand and only reflects in the eyes of children”, it also deals with more universal themes. Were there any feelings you had wanted to deliver to people other than the current “KagePro” fans?

Jin: I was the one in charge of the lyrics of “RED”, and just as you said, it’s a piece aiming to deliver a worldview that reverberates within the “child-like heart” of the biggest amount of people possible. A “child-like heart” is what I personally consider one of my most valuable themes, so since I was using it, as expected, I ended up needing quite some time for the composition.

To express the scenery of a bygone summer’s day through words is a very specific task, and for that, I received advice mostly from the member Mashiro-san, and thus it became the way it is. That’s why these lyrics that are about a sight I saw in the past have, of course, been sprinkled with memories from a summer that Mashiro-san himself has lived. I think that lyrics like these being born is also something that reflects the band’s taste, so I’d wish everyone enjoyed this part of them too.

The majority of the GOUACHE members write songs, so I believe we will be releasing compositions from several polished viewpoints from now on. Please look forward to it.

──I was wondering if the song “RED” wouldn’t be the equivalent to a business card for the band GOUACHE. Are the things GOUACHE wants to convey contained in this song? I’d also like to ask what the theme of GOUACHE and what the message you actually want to deliver are.

Gushimiyagi: “RED” was the opening theme of the “KagePro” movie, so Jin was the one to take the lead in the making of the composition. But rather than a business card, it wound up as a work with the concept of what would happen if GOUACHE made a piece that leans towards “KagePro”. Therefore, I think the interpretation that the song “RED” is a piece that equals to a business card for GOUACHE just because it's our starting song would have only been valid if we were to make it through our upcoming activities. I’d be happy if people could feel GOUACHE’s theme and the things we want to transmit through the works that will be born from them.

──“RED” also had a simultaneous release with a high resolution sound generator version. Any concerns regarding the HighRes? Is there any piece that you want to listen to in HighRes or that you already listened to in HighRes and thought “this is amazing”?

(T/N: A sound generator is a device that generates sound waves by reproducing multiple basic waveforms. The finest ones can even detect the increase or decrease of air pressure in the room during recordings, so fluctuations in the atmosphere might interfere with the results.)

Ibuki: We still don’t have equipments that support HighRes for home recording, but we have been able to compare the three types of HighRes equipment through analyzing one piece from a CD lent to us by a musician otaku Senpai. I’ve always had doubts as to whether or not human ears could process sounds that can’t be recorded into CDs, so I was extremely shocked when, even while listening to it blindfolded, I could clearly tell the change in atmosphere. When I checked the sound mixes from our usual studio recordings in the control room, it sounded similar to the time I brought the sound generator to my home, which has a different speaker. The CD gives the impression that the sound leaps into surface, and the HighRes gives the impression that what leaps in is one particularly lengthy soundwave. I usually enjoy listening to music with an analog during home recordings since I can feel its depth more than with a CD, but I get concerned about the noise. “RED” is, more than anything, a song made by people obsessed with creating sounds, so please do try it out in HighRes. We want you to listen to an aspect of it that you absolutely can’t hear on YouTube.

──It’s said that the HighRes can reproduce even the “atmosphere” of the recording studio. Your usual tweets cause us to assume that you might have an obsession with the recording equipments and environment, but keeping in mind the viewpoint of those from the sidelines, we’d like you to tell us if any of you have ever thought something along the lines of, “I want people to listen to a sound generator from this angle”.

Shirakami: This time, I played the drums for recording with the image of an American rock band in mind. Their sound gives me the impression of a low center of gravity, gradually-increasing highs and clear vocals. It’s a sound that has long been a personal favorite of mine, and together with these members, engineers and directors, I attempted challeging it through all kinds of trial and error while making this song.

In order to increase the impact of the zone that embeds the unique notes of the guitar and, especially, the bass, taking advantage of the interval in-between the Japanese rock band-like guitar sounds, the individuality of the bass comes to light from the middle part onwards with a low gravity center kick. My position of making the drums take on a moderate, not-too-wet intensity was chosen by one of the engineers. The bass was recorded in a dead room, while the guitar was recorded in a semi-live room.

(T/N: In this context:

“Wet” is jargon that refers to a very thick, deep sound with little to no sustain.

A “dead room” is basically a room designed to be acoustically “dead” ─ as in not produce echoes and be free of ambient noise.

A “live room” is the opposite, designed to be highly reverberant, while a “semi-live room” is a toned-down version of it.)

The playback environment also influences it, but I feel it becomes easier to notice the change of high-end in the HighRes. I think the subtle breaths of the vocals, the tale’s nuance, the reverberation of the cymbals and snares, the mood of the guitar amplifier and the contrast of the opposing tight-kick bass are conveyed more clearly in it.

Regarding the recording equiment, we usually leave them in the care of an engineer that we normally count on, so I don’t know for sure, but the drums were selected from the cymbals to the head of the kick, and several guitar amplifiers and distortion effectors were tested. I’d be happy if people could feel the difference of the main guitar’s sound, the bass’s effective arrangements, and the players’ wills, which don’t depend on the studio.

(T/N: High-end is a class of consumer home audio equipment marketed on the basis of high price or quality, and distortion effectors are devices made to alter the sound of amplified electric musical instruments.)

──Lastly, I’d like to ask about your expectations for the future.

MARiA: “The five of us, overflowing with individuality, want to make interesting and fun things together first and foremost!” is what I thought when forming the band. I think it’d be great if GOUACHE could deliver various worldviews through its melodies, tunes and lyrics! I believe we’ll announce new songs like crazy in the near future and, of course, we want to do a live with all our might, so please look forward to it!!!

──Members of GOUACHE, thank you very much!

#kagerou project #kagepro #kagerou daze #kagerou daze in a day's #gouache #jin #maria #gushimiyagi hideyuki #ibuki fumihiro #shirakami mashirou #my translation