Anisong World Matsuri – Japan Super Live – Unofficial Event Report

Sorry this one took so long to come out.

What makes the Japan Super Live different from the Japan Kawaii Live (and from Aqours) is that there are at least a few musicians performing on-stage alongside the anisong artists for every song.

Furthermore, I find that Japan Super Live presents a considerable amount of variety in terms of song genre since we essentially hear four distinct music artists who all had very different styles.

(Be advised that I’m not as reliable when it comes to knowing everyone’s songs so I’ll just describe the general mood and my own personal thoughts each artist brought to the table. By now there should be several websites and sources which list the songs each artist performed).

May’n was the one who opened the Japan Super Live and her strong, energetic voice really set the hearts of the attendees ablaze. I really appreciated that she spoke to us in English – fussy individuals would be quick to point out that she clearly isn’t fluent, but May’n was still able to properly convey her feelings and emotions to us nevertheless. I would say she primarily focused on her older classics, but she did sing her newest single. The way May’n closed her time on-stage with her most precious and cherished song, “DIAMOND CREAVASSE,” touched everyone, rendering all excited and happy to be seeing these famous anisong artists perform live.

To be honest, I really underestimated Sanketsu Girl Sayuri / Sanketsu Shōjo Sayuri / Sayuri before the JSL. Compared to the other performers she’s slightly overshadowed, I had assumed. But she really impressed me with how raw she is. Sayuri walked onto the stage barefoot, dressed in a striking poncho, and looking like she was a shinigami with her tired eyes which could never be fully obscured by her flowing “emo” hair (and the hair really did try). As she strummed her acoustic guitar to explosive rockish songs, Sayuri grabbed everyone’s attention with her clear and haunting voice. After all, this is the woman who sung “Heikousen,” the intense, almost jarring ED for Kuzu no Honkai.

I found out that Aimer is known to not really show her face that night. The left and right screens were turned off and stayed off. The center screen either focused below her face or was intentionally blurry whenever her visage was on-screen. I heard afterwards that’s just her trademark. Very interesting.

She walked onto the stage, sat on a stool, and sang as the one remaining live artist played piano (Sayuri similarly only had piano accompaniment – the rest of the instrumentals were merely played back). Only Aimer could have projected her trademark powerful and husky voice while positioned like the singer at a night club. Tons of Fate/Stay songs were sung by her to many a fan’s delight. And I gotta say, Aimer’s accent nearly sounded British! The fact that the crowd kept clapping and prevented her from speaking her mind was quite frustrating to me, however.

The final artist to perform was Kajiura Yuki, who brought her usual dramatic and dynamic orchestra + three songstresses combination. After hearing three divas (May’n, Sayuri, and Aimer) sing their songs, it was time for us to listen to some instrumentals, she had announced after the first (or was it the second?) song. Not much to say here except that it was as technical and wild as always. Many Fate songs were played again.

And then there was an encore with Kajiura Yuki + Aimer + instrumentals. Yet another Fate song was played, of course.

Oh, it turned out that Yuki had brought along the people who always perform with her in the studio, so it was nice realizing we were seeing the support members behind the genius.

tl;dr – many Fate songs were played; four different artists with distinct styles came and stirred us up; the movement of the penlights seemed a bit off-beat in comparison to the ones in the Aqours live (we’re that dedicated to Aqours, folks).