Hisami Sakurai – “万華鏡” review

Final verdict: 7/10 ★★★⋆˙⟡☆

Singer-songwriter Hisami Sakurai seemingly vanished from the music scene shortly after the release of her debut record, entitled “万華鏡” (or “Mangekyō”, for English speaking folk), in October 1973. She released one final standalone single the following year and then dipped, to take up a different gig as, as indicated by the events, a yoga instructor.

A folk pop effort, “Mangekyō”, albeit not very determined to make an impression amongst all other similar albums to come out of the 1970s “folk boom”, is a convincing showcase of Sakurai’s competence as a songwriter. It also boasts some… interesting credits, with prolific anime soundtrack composer Nozomi Aoki arranging “壼”, and a few other musicians prominent in folk circles at the time offering Sakurai a helping hand in songwriting and arrangement.

This album, though blunted by some of the usual 60s-70s production mishaps we all know and hate (such as some horrifyingly terrible mixing choices, mostly evident on track six, “出会い” – drums hard panned to the left, piano hard panned to the right), does not fail to provide the listener with a pleasant listening experience. It’s cohesive without sounding too same-y, and the good song to ass song ratio is pretty good, all things considered. A good chunk of this album isn’t very memorable at all, but then you have “おはよう” and “出会い”, so it’s forgivable, and all in all, a valid album.

That fact however, did not save this album from flopping big time back in the day, as evidenced by the lack of information provided about it online and the non-presence of reissues. Given the album’s assumed failure status, ms Sakurai almost certainly wasn’t offered the opportunity to record a follow-up album, and instead shifted her focus to yoga teaching, meaning “Mangekyō” is her only full length work to this day.

6/10. This album is enjoyable for the most part, and has a great song or three, but isn’t very memorable or unique to warrant a higher rating.

EDIT (November 2024): This is a lot better of an album than I gave it credit for. Outstanding, no, but well-composed and a really pleasant listen. My opinion that “出会い” is awesome still stands. With that, I hereby bump this record up to a 7/10.