NKDS

Utau-chan! Taken during Meikyuu Butterfly.

If there is one thing Nana Mizuki excels at and places her in the top tier of anison performers, along with JAM Project, it is her live performances. Every year, she would hold a live tour in the winter with various stops around Japan and a single massive event in the summer. This year’s (2008) summer event was held in Yoyogi National Stadium’s First Gymnasium, which can double as both a normal hall or a swimming pool (no, really). However, an added twist was that it would be held over two days, and would be themed Blue Side and Red side.

When King Records announced that they would be putting out the concert in DVD and blu-ray, needless to say, I was chuffed. Finally, I could use my PS3 to behold an anison concert in high definition.

There were no issues in obtaining the BDs, barring the rise of the Yen to about SGD$1.60 for 100 Yen. That most awesome of sites, Amazon Japan provided me with Nana goodness. This year, because of the fact that FedEx doesn’t deliver on public holidays, I got my copy on the 26th, Boxing Day. Oh well. Better than skimming on shipping to save ten bucks and have them lose the item in the mail. Not like Amazon has any other option than International Express. Pay for tracking. It’s bloody worth it.

On to the package itself. King Records decided not to be pricks and included both days in a single package for the blu-ray edition, as opposed to the DVD releases in separate ones. The cover features two Nanas, representing each day in two different quasi-military garb. Her makeup was done up to give both Nanas subtle differences but enough to make them not look alike. Think it’s the hair parting and eye shadow, or lack thereof.

The front

The back

In addition to the discs coming in two separate cases, included were two booklets with lyrics for the songs that were performed, as well as several photos, catching her in some very dramatic moments. No scans of either.

The BDs

Blue Side

Red Side.

Before I go into the concert proper. A quick technical review.

For the purposes of the review, I will state the equipment being used. Instead of using my PS3 as the BD player, I will be using my father’s Sony Vaio FZ laptop because at this point of time, I do not have an sound system external sound system. This is due to what I am using for video. I will be using a HD-ready Panasonic AX200E projector connected to the laptop via a HDMI cable, at a resolution of 1920×1080. For sound, I will be outputting the sound through the headphone jack of the laptop into my Creative Inspire speakers.

Ignore the wall.

The clarity of the video has to be seen to be believed. One can actually see the pores on her face during the closeup shots. Heck, even the bumps on her face are so well defined. I have to hand it to King Records for the the cameras they used for the event. Normally, in low light situations, some graininess would be very evident. However, on the video track for the BDs, it’s almost non-existent. Kudos to King Records for taking effort to do the video mastering properly unlike some other record companies. *cough* Dwango Animelo 2007 *cough*

Note that mastering of the video track is probably optimized for a HDMI output, I think. I ran the BDs on my Sony Wega CRT TV through my PS3 via a component cable, at an output of 720P. The dark scenes were a stark contrast to what I was getting on the projector, with a lot grain in the dark portions of the concert. Either there is so much data in the video track or the Transformers BD I watched a few months back had a significantly lower bitrate than this as it appeared fine on the same CRT TV.

On the audio side, there are three audio tracks on the BDs. Included are two Linear PCM 2.1 tracks, one normal and the other is a commentary one. And of course, they did include a 5.1 TrueHD surround track for those with the proper equipment. The sound I got out of the headphone jack into my 2.1 speakers was good enough to be enjoyed but I need a proper sound system to truly appreciate the audio.

And yes, with all that data, the BDs are dual layer jobs, coming in at 45GB a piece. Most movies don’t even use dual layer BDs.

After spending a whole day watching both BDs from end to end over at my place with Julius and Senti, here are our thoughts of the concert. I will cover Blue Side and Julius will cover both days in a different post. Sorry for the lack of screenshots but I simply do not know how to take them from a blu-ray source. We’ll be doing a separate post for the screenshots. The one of Nana right at the top was an image of the wall taken with a digital camera.

With further ado, the concert review proper. Here. We. Go.

Talk about making an entrance. Suspended on a harness, Nana appeared on stage in a silver number and quite literally flew above the audience, all the way to a platform in the the centre of the arena. Even with her fear of heights, she still put up a flawless performance of Astrogation.

After that ‘Princess’ get up, Nana changed into an all black number. It was quite similar to the one used for Animelo, really showing off her great legs. Somehow, the dance number for this song looks better when those involved are in a circle formation, rather a straight line.

After deep sea, it was time for another costume change. This time, she became the most beautiful sunflower in the whole world. For Cosmic Love, Nana sat in what can be best described as a cradle and once again flew over the audience. After that number, she did one of my favourite songs, You have a dream. I simply adore this song because of the dance number and the pink meido outfit she wore a few years back during one of the concerts. Sadly, she chose to walk along the catwalk rather than perform the dance number.

To many, this was the highlight of the day, her performing Meikyuu Butterfly live for the first time. As I have mentioned in my Animelo article, most artistes only perform character songs at show specific events. In the show, Shugo Chara, Hoshino Utau’s performance of the song was sadly interrupted by a falling ovearhangs. But this time, there would be nothing to stop Uta… I mean, Nana from finishing the song. Nana joked about how she was covering Utau’s song.

The song started with Nana mimicking Utau’s hand movement but she left out one very important motion. But, it was the during the chorus, when Nana placed her hand on her forehead, for that one moment, it was as if Utau was performing live on the stage, the only thing missing was the black dress that Utau wore while performing. A case of life imitating art. Someday, I wish that Nana would perform Tsubasa (from Nanoha) and Blue Moon (second track off the Meikyuu Butterfly single). If there is only reason why you would buy Blue Side for, it is for this one song.

For those wondering, STOMP is not a song, rather it’s a percussion cum break dance performance by her dancers and some guests. And yes, it is THAT Stomp of Broadway fame, using broom sticks and trashcans to create the music. The break dancers did put up a good performance too. Nana changed into her famous, or rather, infamous, military dress uniform. I think it’s old Warsaw Pact rather than Nazi inspired with the star on the peaked cap and olive drab colouring.

Somehow, the performance of Pray did not match up to the one she did for Animelo. It was something to do with the guitarists playing next to her. However, for Orchestral Fantasia, that was what was done for this song. She had a total of six guitars backing her up, two electric, two bass and two acoutics. A saxaphone was added into the arrangement as well, to make it sound even more epic than it already is.

The Band Battle reminded me of Lars Ulrich’s drum solos during Metallica concerts of old. The drummers then moved into a drum and bass routine.

Hyper-energetic is probably the only way I could describe the last set of songs (suddenly～巡り合えて～ , Aoi Iro and Super Generation) before the encore. This is especially true of Super Generation with the ‘Hey’ being very close together at the start of the song.

I don’t know where to start really on Blue Side. I rather enjoyed the day but somehow the crowd and Nana were rather reserved. I guess the recent threat on the event was weighing down on everybody’s mind. For those who are not in the know, back in July, some chap made a threat against Nana and a certain. It was this very event that was threatened. She broke down during the second last MC. But, better she had gotten it out of her mind early, rather than keep in for both days.

No gripes from me about the event. Why complain if you enjoyed it and spoil your mood, that’s what I think.

And here’s Blue Side’s set list, taken from Nana’s site.

・OPENING
・Astrogation
・still in the groove
・MC1
・Happy Dive
・TRY AGAIN
・空時計
・CHERRY BOYS SHOWCASE
・Dancing in the velvet moon
・FAITH
・MC2
・砂漠の海
・deep sea
・COSMIC LOVE
・You have a dream
・MC3
・迷宮バタフライ
・MC4
・Level Hi！
・STOMP
・Bring it on！
・Pray
・MC5
・Orchestral Fantasia
・BAND BATTLE
・suddenly～巡り合えて～
・アオイイロ
・SUPER GENERATION
・MC6
・POWER GATE

〔encore〕
・What cheer？
・MC7
・Nostalgia
・MC8
・New Sensation
・ALL LINE UP