My hands were probably grabbing CDs off the shelves too quickly when I purchased this album. I swear it somehow got into the basket without me knowing.
Anyway, this album was released on 19th March 2008, which happens to coincide with Mikuni’s 28th birthday. Oh no, I actually forgot about her birthday! What the hell’s wrong with me >_<
This album features only a single new song, Two of One, which in my opinion is a little too brief. The rest of the 12 songs are songs from her previous releases, so it makes one wonder for a reason to get this album. Actually there are 3 reasons to get this album.
One, there’s an exclusive DVD included which shows some footage of Mikuni in Taiwan and Seoul, after her performances.I’m such a sucker for behind the scenes footage, so this is an extremely important reason for me. Watching her going around in Taiwan’s night market bargaining in her limited Chinese was really entertaining. Also, she wears her glasses when she’s not performing, so it’s one of those rare chances where you get to see her in it. Not that I especially like girls who wear glasses, since meganekkos aren’t considered Moe to me .
Two, the songs have been musically arranged, so they sound somewhat different. Only the lyrics remain the same. I found myself actually liking some of the new song arrangements, since it gave a rather fresh feel. It’s as though I’m listening to a new original song. My personal favourites among the rearrangements are 枯れない花, たった、ひとつの and Tomorrow.
The last reason does not apply to casual listeners. Buy it for the sake of supporting Shimokawa Mukuni. Although I suspect that it’s just another milking conspiracy. Her previous album before this, Mikuni Shimokawa - Reprise~SHIMOKAWA MIKUNI ANISON BEST, was released on 19th December 2007. Containing 2 discs, it had only 1 new original song while the rest were either from her older releases or her cover of popular anime songs in the past. 2 best albums in a row with only 2 songs, if that isn’t a milking conspiracy, I’m not sure what else it is.
I have an unexplainable liking towards girls who have relatively short hair. 2D examples include Ayanami Rei(duh), Kirishima Mana, Kino and Nagato Yuki. My liking also applies slightly in 3D too, but I don’t really have any examples now. However, for Mikuni’s case, I’ll have to make an exception. She used to have short hair in the past though ^^
Anyway, I’m still a distance away from achieving my goal of collecting all of Mikuni’s albums and singles. It’s going to be a rather hard blow on my wallet, and I still have a couple of artistes’ discography which I have not fully completed in my collection. It’ll probably take a couple of years before I can achieve my goal. As for now, I’m quite contented with the hardcopies and *ahem* softcopies that I possess.
I was thinking the same thing. way too many repeats on her recent albums. The only one I manage to keep listening to are the Movies&Singles. Those were the good days.. until Minami Kaze came up =D