Let’s have a bit more Aquarion shall we These are from Japanese fans, because most of the covers are from Japan anyway. I listened to every single one and now present those which might interest (and inspire) the rest of you.

For solo acoustic guitar:

Violin accompaniment (distracting mask!):

Violin and Piano:

Four-piece Recorder Flute: (more…)

shadow674 recently uploaded in YouTube the unreleased violins version of Run Rabbit Junk. As he describes in the video comment,

The track was ripped from a couple of episodes of the 2nd Gig and then filtered, edited and encoded by me, resulting in what sounds nearly identical to what is heard in the anime.

The video here is nothing special, just a montage of the scenes where the music is played.

Extremely unfortunate this never made it onto the OST as it’s one of my favourite tracks from the series, but alas I am quite pleased with this rip.

Download the file here: 01_-_Run_Rabbit_Junk_Unren.mp3

Please note that the file was ripped by shadow674, please feel free to use it, but remember to return the favor by crediting the person who ripped the music.

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If you’re following the Kanno or AKINO communities, you’d probably know by now that the song Sousei no Aquarion tops internet downloads, online polls, and has a new version by the anime’s voice actors to be released next month. It might as well be Kanno’s most popular song, at least in Japan. While I was searching YouTube videos, there was a fan that parodied the “Jesus Christ Musical” comedy and used Sousei no Aquarion as the background music. And yes, the poster is from Japan. The editing is pretty funny

Please don’t view the video if you get offended with religious jokes.

For those who don’t know the original video, you could view it here. (more…)

Do not underestimate fans with time in their hands. Virgilius Sade told me she’d send me a recording of her, singing “She Is” from Ghost in the Shell: SAC SSS OST and she did!

Virgilius Sade tells me that she is from Australia, a first year 3D animation student who also writes short stories and novels and sings and loves sci-fi. And comics

Since I had a bit of time, I attempted to remove the vocals to the original version (and failed quite miserably), and then fitted her recording into it. I edited it a bit, timing, volume, a small echo effect, and noise reduction and it was good to go.

And while I was at it, I also recorded my “English” version of the lyrics, and added the same effects that I described above.

Warning: singing isn’t one of my strengths so tread with caution

Both of our lyrics versions are available at the She Is lyrics page.

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When looking for Kanno information, where do you go? I say,

Wanna Be A Wind - Kanno news, with a forum of Japanese speakers
Coma - Yoko Kanno and Maaya Sakamoto news in Japanese
YKDB - Yoko Kanno Forum with English speakers
The Yoko Kanno Whebilla - Up-to-date Kanno discography
YKFan - The most massive Yoko Kanno Forum with lots of info in Chinese

And now, witness the birth of Y.O.K.I.A. - The Yoko Kanno Image Archives. This site aims to gather all published information about Yoko Kanno, starting from CD booklets to interviews to photos and what have you.

To quote the Luke, the author of the page,

My primary goal was to slowly piece together her early works since these were the most rare and most difficult to learn about. With time I collected a good assortment of her rarer works, and was pleased. … But something was wrong; only I had access to this valuable information. Sure, others had access to it too in a way, but it required way too much work and time and savvy. … But for true Yoko Kanno fans, whose numbers are steadily growing, it could be a frustrating experience to learn about and enjoy Yoko Kanno’s music. The demand was there, but there wasn’t enough “supply”, at least not reliable supply.

I suggest you head on over to the YOKIA site and browse the menu marked as “1986-1992″ and just see for yourself how many of these rare albums you have listened to. Click one of them and you will see (more…)