When I say difficulty, I really do mean it. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned writing all these music reviews, it’s that the writing process never gets easier with time; you’d think it would with 2+ years under my belt. I don’t know how some of my peers in the anime blogosphere deal with it, but I’m always in awe at the folks who can turn out a post every day and still have them be insightful and enjoyable reads. I’m not one of those people, unfortunately, and so, continue to struggle. It’s a long process, though not an unpleasant one (otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it!), but I do encounter those rough patches from time to time.

Writing is ultimately a form of self-expression, but for me, it’s also a reflection of the clarity of my thinking process. And if what I’ve experienced tells me anything, it’s that my thinking process is messy. It’s not uncommon for me to write a jumble of paragraphs only to reread what I’ve written and find it nearly incomprehensible. Problems abound: repetitive phrases, utter incoherence, contradictory statements, superficial analysis, boring passages, the list goes on. I try to catch as many as I can, obviously, but I’m sure I don’t catch them all. If too many of those issues pop up though, then it’s time to head back to the drawing board so I can figure out how to refine and clarify my thoughts further or scrap it and start over if necessary. It’s important that my writing is coherent at the bare minimum even if it lacks the flourish that others possess.

So for those curious to see how messy my thinking process is, check out how my review of Makoto Shinkai’s Promise album unfolds on the TypeWith.me Time Slider. Just hit the play button to watch my thoughts evolve from a rough draft version to the final form. Do keep in mind that it’s pretty lengthy though, and you’ll only need sit through half of it to get an idea. Maybe this’ll give aspiring writers hope in the fact that even people who write extensively still have difficulties! We’ll see.

As promised in the thread title, I also perform an unboxing, this one of the Makoto Shinkai album. Though Pireze_icie at Hunting the Elusive has taken pictures of his copy, I decided to go ahead and do mine in video form. I do have a tendency to babble/ramble when I narrate, which is why this unboxing is close to 10 minutes long, but I hope you enjoy it!

I’ve also hit 250K views recently. Guess this post is an excuse to celebrate that arbitrary milestone.

UPDATE: We finally have a review up of the Makoto Shinkai Promise album.

For people who have not read this post, the Eminence Symphony Orchestra, based out in Sydney, Australia, will be releasing a 13-track disc this December containing arrangements of Tenmon’s musical compositions in honor of Makoto Shinkai and his 10 years of work as an anime director, animator, and scriptwriter. Until recently, we’ve only had a glimpse of what this disc was capable of delivering through the tracklist; what we didn’t have was a solid idea of what what to should expect out of these arrangements. But now that my Eminence contact has disclosed the names of the arrangers, fans of Tenmon and Makoto Shinkai can rejoice! With people like Shiro Hamaguchi, Akifumi Tada, and Yasunori Iwasaki at the helm, the arrangements should turn out to be awesome!

First off, we have none other than Shiro Hamaguchi. The fact that his name came up isn’t a huge surprise since he’s done a lot of orchestral arrangements for such franchises like the Final Fantasy series as well as the spectacular String Concert of Haruhi Suzumiya along with anime works like One Piece and Rosario to Vampire (both of which were done with Kouhei Tanaka). Furthermore he has worked alongside Eminence for many of their concerts including the Night in Fantasia Concert just last month and because of his experience, he was probably a natural choice to have in this group of arrangers. His presence alone is a strong indication that this CD will be definitely worth listening to because of the creative spin that Hamaguchi puts into his music. That is, he does a really good job with taking the original piece and seamlessly working it so that while one can still recognize the original melody, it’s different enough such that it can stand really well on its own. After all, if he can improve something like “Koi no Mikuru Dentetsu,” there’s no piece that’s beyond his ability to arrange into an excellent orchestral or piano track.

Koi no Mikuru Densetsu
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Though I’m very much familiar with Hamaguchi, the other two aren’t exactly household names (at least, they didn’t ring a bell to me when I saw their names). As you might have been able to guess from the picture, Akifumi Tada will also be a part of the circle of arrangers and while I recognize the titles that he’s worked on, I’ve never actually watched any of them, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you how skillful he is with composing and arranging music. I suppose the least I can do is listen to Ah! My Goddess’s ED theme to at least get some idea for how it’ll go.

Finally, Yasunori Iwasaki rounds out the list of arrangers. Like Tada, the anime series that he has worked on are recognizable, and unlike Tada, I have watched one of the shows that Iwasaki has worked on. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I actually remember much about its music. The show in question was Grenadier, and given that show’s fanservicey tendencies, I don’t really remember all too much about the music, effectively putting me at square zero in terms of knowing what to expect out of Iwasaki.

Upcoming Q&A
With that in mind, I’d like to turn it over to you, the reader. I have been granted an opportunity to send a list of questions to the people working on Project Promise and while I do have my list, it’s also likely that you’ll have some questions you’d like to have answered by the arrangers and even by Tenmon himself! If so, just type your questions into the comments and I’ll include it along with my list of questions to be submitted to the arrangers. Just let me know to whom the question is to be addressed (e.g. Hamaguchi, Tada, Iwasaki, or the group as a whole). Also feel free to ask general questions about Project Promise if you have them since Eminence’s founder, Hiroaki Yura, will be more than happy to take your questions. I’ll be sending the questions fairly quickly (in about 24 hours) so get them in while you can!

As a note, the Q&A will be submitted on the Eminence website. Hopefully a response will come by quickly so with no further ado, submit away!

UPDATE: We finally have a review up of the Makoto Shinkai Promise album. Do enjoy the thoughts and opinions in that review!

It’s kind of funny actually. I had already been aware that the Eminence Symphony Orchestra was working on something called Project Promise because I had seen the name come up on Hiroaki Yura’s signature on Eminence’s forums. What I didn’t know was whether it would focus on anime or game music, so when I saw nyoronyolo link to Xcomp Randomness’s post on this latest Eminence project which celebrates 10 years of Makoto Shinkai’s collaboration with Tenmon through an orchestral arrangement of some of the most memorable pieces from Shinkai’s works, I was pretty excited.

The tracklist is already posted on the Xcomp Randomness site and the music covers Tenmon’s stuff from Shinkai’s 5 Centimeters Per Second, Beyond the Clouds: The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and even the short She and Her Cat. Of those works, I’m probably most familiar with 5 Centimeters Per Second, so over the next few days, I’ll be making some time to reacquaint myself with some of those other works, mostly to ponder how exactly the tracks from those works will be arranged. It should be delightful though since Tenmon does have the ability to write simple, but wonderful tracks like in 5 Centimeter’s “Sora to Umi no Shi.”

Sora to Umi no Shi
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Anyhow, people will inevitably have questions about Project Promise and I’ll do my best to see if anyone over at Eminence will divulge more information about this. Omo has come up with a few good ones already and if anyone else has any questions they’d like me to ask, just put them here and I’ll forward the questions on. No guarantees on the replies, but it’s worth a shot anyhow.

Other News:

You may have noticed that as of yesterday, Anime Instrumentality has a new contributor in Jen, who has started things off with an excellent review of Pandora Hearts Original Soundtrack 1. She’s been very enthusiastic about anime music in general and I’m glad to have someone with her passion on board, so join me in giving her a warm welcome to the review staff!