I bought this mostly because I heard that Kan'no Youko and Sakamoto Maaya got together again. First of all, only the first song is produced by Kan'no Youko. Second song is composed by Takada Michiko.
I'm not sure about the first song. It's not bad, but I don't feel any special vibe from it either. Maybe it needs more time. I don't know, and I probably don't care that much because of its lackluster sound quality. Second song is not bad either, but in a completely different way.
Sound quality is pretty typical (i.e. disappointing) for the first song. I'd give it 3-stars at the most. Second song is much better, but not better enough. Overall, it's not been compressed to death like the first song, but the vocal track is negatively affected by too much compression. It's highly unnatural to have breath be so loud, you know.
First song's "recording & mixing engineer (sic)" is listed as Yabuhara Masashi (or is it Masahiro?) of Victor Studio. There's no separate listing for a mastering engineer, so there's no one else to blame but him.
Second song's "recording & mixing engineer (sic)" is listed as Yamada Nobumasa. "Assistent engineer" is Kasuya Shouhei of Victor Studio / Amp Box and "mastering engineer" is Miyamoto Shigeo of "form THE MASTER." On this one, I'm going to assume that Mr. Miyamoto did a fine job of not messing with the sound. I'm guessing the problem orinates in the recording and mixing of the vocals. It's vague as to who is to blame, and the quality isn't that bad for the second song anyway.
Whoa, I started pointing fingers at actual individuals! Of course, it's not the first time. I made a bigger fuss about Mizuki Nana's live DVD screwups before. People are unlikely to learn anything if their faults aren't pointed out, so I'm just going to do what I can do to improve things. Who knows? Maybe my finger pointing did have an effect on Nana-chan's live DVD quality getting better. One can only dream.
Clear-plastic triangle thingy. I don't know what it's good for, but it does have a hole on the top, so I guess you can hook it up to something.
