Kalafina ~ far on the water - debuts at 2nd on weekly Oricon chart

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Oh!!!! Omedetou!!! Kalafina has achieved their highest position yet on the weekly Oricon chart, they debuted at 2nd on the weekly album sales chart for their latest album far on the water. :)

The Oricon website hasn't been updated yet but at least one news sites is already reporting it.  I'm not surprised actually because I have been following the progress of the album on the charts for the whole week and I was thinking if it's not 2nd, it has to be at least 3rd.  They ranked in the Top 5 everyday and only dropped to 4th on one of the days.

Kalafina ~ far on the water - Regular Edition + Loppi HMV LE towel - unboxing

The turmoil at work continues so I'm really glad I made this impulse buy.  Getting this in the mail today, made my so far pretty crappy week a bit better.  There'll be a lot of changes in the coming months, so there is only so much that impulse buying can help but at least for today, it made my day much better. :)

Support Shop Tokuten postcard (HMV / CDJapan etc)
I forgot to post it up in the previous unboxing post for the
LE+BD edition. :P

This time, in order to get the Kalafina towel that only HMV was offering, I decided to buy another copy of far on the water.  At that point in time, I thought I'll give this copy to a friend who's slowly getting poisoned by me to like Kalafina. :P  I already gave her a copy of Kalafina's first single Oblivious, so maybe an album would be good too. :P  Of course, I'll keep the towel :D and I'll open it to take photos. :D  But now I'm having 2nd thoughts and I'll tell you why in a bit. :)

Kalafina ~ far on the water - Limited Edition Blu-ray - unboxing

To be honest, today was a terrible day at the office. It wasn't just a bad day for me, it was a bad day for pretty much everyone.  The only thing that made today better was the arrival of Kalafina's far on the water album which was good thing.  I needed something that would make the day a lot better than it started. Getting anything Kalafina usually brightens my day. :) The fact that I liked all the new songs and particularly enjoyed several of them also made the day feel better. :)

This is going to be a picture heavy post for sure.  I'm not sure how much I'll write right now. When the album was "in shipping process", I thought I might write a more than I've been doing in recent album unboxings, maybe talk about the music a little.  But I'm completely exhausted by the turmoil at work today. So I think I won't write a lot.

Madoka Magica denim jeans

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After agonising for some time, I decided to use up all my points in CDJapan to get this pair of jeans. If Kalafina or Kajiura Yuki or Ieiri Leo etc release any more singles and albums etc this year, I'll probably  have to put out some serious money to buy the various versions. *sweat

But I really wanted these jeans because they look so cool. And also because I try and save as much as possible for the trips and lives in Japan, I don't shop for clothes very often.  The last pair of jeans that I bought was one year ago and I blew all my points on that pair too.  Before that, I hadn't bought a pair of jeans or pants for two years. I guess one pair of jeans every year or two, is okay. :P

Kalafina Calendar 2016 ~ cover image released

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The cover image for Kalafina's calendar for 2016 has been released. :)  They look lovely!!! I'm going to get it of course.  I've been getting them for years.

I was trying to decide if I should as my friend to pre-order it for me from the FictionJunction Club webstore or get it from CDJapan or wait to find out if they'll be doing pre-release sales at the opening lives of their far on the water tour in Japan.

Kalafina Club 9/8/2015 ~ far on the water - song previews - comments

Today on Kalafina Club, we got monochrome and identity.   I must say WOW!  Kajiura Yuki and Kalafina seems to be going in yet another different direction with this album.  When Kajiura sensei tweeted in a tweet a week or so ago, she mentioned that far on the water will be Kalafina's "highest tension" album to date, she wasn't kidding either.  These two songs are very fast pace and quite different from what I expected, especially having been lulled into a pleasant quiet mood with Musunde Hiraku and Sorairo no Isu from last week.

But then again, each Kalafina album since Red Moon has had quite a few surprises.  I almost feel that Kajiura Yuki can't really stray too far with their opening and ending songs for anime etc but she really does seem to have the most fun when she writes songs for them that aren't tie-ins, it seems to  give her more freedom to play around.  It's not just monochorome and identify.  Just recently, we also had Samidare ga Sugita Koro ni which isn't a very typical Kalafina song, at least not one that jumps to mind when people think of Kalafina.

Kalafina ~ far on the water - short PV

Kalafina updated their website yesterday to reflect the imminent release of their newest album far on the water. :)  Sadly, as usual, international IP addresses are locked out of viewing the video clip.  And this is something I really don't understand. :(  It's a PV = promotional video.  They should be using these PVs to drive sales and recognition worldwide, not just limiting it to Japan.  Of course there are ways and means to watch it but I would like to be able to happily share this video with fans and non-fans alike without wondering when YouTube or some other streaming service is gonna pull the plug. :(

I won't be providing links to the video clip for you, I think if you know where to look, you can find it.  :)  You could also always use VPN to watch the clip.

Kalafina Club 9/1/2015 ~ far on the water - song previews - comments

Starting this week, Kalafina Club will be previewing songs from their soon to be released album far on the water.  I managed to listen to the program with the help of a friend, thanks! :)

Today they previewed むすんでひらく (Musunde Hiraku).  Most of the approx 1 min clip had Hikaru and Wakana taking turns to lead with Keiko doing mostly harmonising.  Keiko gets one clear line in there.  The clip is taken from somewhere in the middle of the song.  It's not bad, lots of Kalafina harmonising but it's not exactly a huge departure from their usual stuff.  Those of us who like their usual stuff will probably be okay with it.  Those who like their songs to sound different all the time, a bit like how angela can get, then maybe it won't be instant love...maybe never even a like... maybe?  I don't know.