Lion Live Sample + Macross F Ep. 18 - Sheryl’s Aimo
Now, we finally get to hear Megumi Nakajima sing in what is perhaps her most natural voice. I’ve heard her speaking voice in one interview and it was in a pitch much lower than her “Ranka voice”. Now we get to hear her sing live, and my assumption is that she got a bit strained from singing in her Ranka voice and started singing more naturally - this is the last song in the set after all 
Beautiful if you ask me, I love the pitch and her timbre. In this sample, May’n sings first, then Megumi:
And now Sheryl’s Aimo. We don’t get to hear so much of it, but I saw this coming. I was following May’n’s blog, and a handful of weeks ago, I remember that she had a post that’s entitled “Midori no Ko” and I pretty much thought that she was going to butcher the song with her electric voice. Of course I was wrong.
Related Articles:
- Macross Frontier Episode 18: Lion OP
- Northern Cross, Lion Kanno Demo Versions + Northern Cross Full Version
- Lion OP Screen Photos
- Superdimensional Super Live Concert by Ranka Lee and Sheryl Nome Report (update)
- Macross Frontier Episode 16 ED: Northern Cross (updated with Aimo O.C.)
- Macross F Episode 14: Aimo - Ranshe Mei Version
- May'n+Megumi Nakajima Macross Frontier Single: Lion (update 5)
- Aimo - Macross Frontier Episode 3
August 8th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Damn you Flash Player, why won’t you load!!!
August 8th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
May’n’s pretty damn versatile, just look at all her Frontier songs as well as her pre Frontier career. Megumi’s normal voice sounds a lot better than her Ranka and the same for her singing voice.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
@Naddie - sorry for that, I’m sure you’re only interested in Sheryl’s Aimo (since you probably already have the other sample
), but this one is only 6 seconds long.
By the way everyone, the Beijing Olympics opening was awesome sauce
August 8th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Holy crap! Was that Megumi after May’N? If that’s how she really sounds then Megumi Nakajima over May’N all the way. No wonder she won that competition, that was some powerful voice! I was left hanging, dammit. =P
August 9th, 2008 at 12:03 am
@ Maid - I wouldn’t dismiss May’n yet, for now she’s the one who can deliver the emotions, which is the harder singing skill to master
Megumi also has a small problem in this live performance, her tremolos are gone *__*, she’s probably super tired. But if she develops more singing skillz she’s probably be killer, she already has the good vocal texture to start off with 
There’s a part of the song where they kind of howl, and it’s hard to tell apart who’s singing, I’m surprised they delivered it very similarly. But if you listen closely, the one with the tremolos is May’n, the one who sings it flat is Megumi. She sounds tired (to be fair, she sang more songs than May’n in the concert). I want a full, official version right now!!!
August 9th, 2008 at 12:46 am
T_T flash player hates me too
August 9th, 2008 at 12:49 am
I’m always surprised that someone as cute as May’n belts out those Sheryl songs, for some reason the body and the voice don’t seem to fit together XD
August 9th, 2008 at 1:05 am
“If that’s how she really sounds then Megumi Nakajima over May’N all the way. No wonder she won that competition, that was some powerful voice! I was left hanging, dammit. =P”
May’n won a competition of her own back in 2005… back when she was May Nakabayashi. She was chosen out of 34,911 people at an audition held by HoriPro and debuted in 2005.
August 9th, 2008 at 1:39 am
For those who are having a hard time loading the flash players… try to keep the page still (don’t keep scrolling up and down) and just wait for them to load. I don’t know, imeem sometimes has that weird “we won’t load it if there is no screen focus” thing.
August 9th, 2008 at 5:24 am
Megumi’s “real” voice is awesome, with its mature and serious tone. She should kill Ranka right away! :p
August 9th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Hm… if that’s how Nakajima really sounds then why doesn’t she sing like that as Ranka? :/ I understand that the character is supposed to be cute and innocent and whatnot, but that doesn’t mean she can’t have a strong voice. I think Ranka’s charm and power as a singer would’ve been much more authentic if she sang on this voice…
August 9th, 2008 at 11:16 am
@mai: LOL yeah I was so excited when imeem decided to work again (for some reason I couldn’t access the page yesterday at all) and then it was like, “…That was it? MOAR SHERYL MOAR” - obviously I’ve fallen behind on the anime, lol, so I really don’t know why she was singing that.
Wow, if you’d asked me a while ago whom I liked best, I would’ve said Megumi without hesitation - now I’d probably go I love them both, but I like Megumi’s style a li’l bit better. Yeah, she did lose her vibratto in the song, but like mai said, she sounded tired - with more experience (I mean, May’n did have more experience than Megumi, right) I think Megumi would be awesome.
Can’t wait to hear more out of Megumi~ I’d also like to hear her sing more in her natural tone.
August 10th, 2008 at 2:18 am
I think maybe Megumi sang in her normal voice for a reason. In the credits, it says May’n and Megumi Nakajima are the singers for song. Not May’n as Sheryl Nome and Ranka Lee=Megumi Nakajima like it did for their character songs.
August 10th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Nakajima’s singing in the new Macross F opening is very Ranka-ish though…
After being blown away by “Northern Cross”, “Lion” didn’t do that much for me; I found it too anime-song standard, my guess is that YK couldn’t do much with it since she’d had to balance both Nakajima’s and May’n’s singing.
BUT… after watching the latest Macross three times it does get kind of catchy, and the lyrics are somewhat conforting with all that’s been happening in the series (Sheryl T_T).
August 10th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
@ Naru - actually, the promotional materials for the concert say “Ranka Lee with Sheryl Nome”
Here is the full name of the concert in Japanese text: 超時空スーパーライブ デビュー！ランカ・リー with シェリル・ノーム
August 11th, 2008 at 5:43 am
@ Mai aaaaaaaah I see. Whatever, they all sound wonderful! Then yeah she was probably just tired. In the OP for the show it just says “May’n/Nakajima Megumi”.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:21 am
gah! Megumi’s voice startled me!
it IS low.
(i imagine an 18/19 year old Megu can have a bit of strain playing a 16/17 year old Ranka all the time)
i have to play catch up and listen to one of the macross radio shows,
if anyone was able to record them though.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
the part where megumi sings in the first sample sounds dark and angsty sif she’s singing God Knows or something.