Kaziura, Yuki

Yuki Kajiura was born on August 6, 1965 in Tokyo. In 1972, her family moved to Germany , where Kajiura's father got a job. Moving to Germany served as the occasion for the creation of her first musical work - a farewell song dedicated to Yuki's grandmother who remained in Japan ^[2] . After graduating from high school in Germany, Kajura returned to Tokyo, went to college , and after graduation she began working as a programmer in the field of systems design. However, in 1992, she dramatically changed her profile, focusing on making music. By her own admission, this decision was greatly influenced by her father, a big fan of opera and European classics ^[3] .

In July 1992, Kajiura made his debut as part of See-Saw , a female trio at that time consisting of Chiaki Ishikawa (vocals), herself (auxiliary vocals, keyboards) and Yukiko Nishioki . Over the next two years, their group released six singles and two full albums, but in 1994 the band broke up. Nishioka became a writer, and Kajiura began a solo career, writing music for television , commercials , films , anime and computer games .

In 2001, she and Chiaki Ishikawa resumed their joint creative activity under the See-Saw brand, now a duet . Around the same time, Kajiura began to collaborate with Bee Train animation studio under the direction of Koshi Masimo . The fruit of their collaboration was the Noir anime series, which, despite the very conflicting opinions of critics in general, invariably aroused admiration for the quality of the soundtrack , which was a mixture of electronic dance music, opera and traditional French motifs.

While working on Noir, director Quito Masimo granted Kajiura unprecedented artistic freedom in matters of music, which she liked so much that their collaboration extended to most of Masimo's later paintings. For example, Masimo never poses clear restrictions or tasks for the composer, allowing her to record everything that comes to her mind when she sees the animation. Then he simply selects from the proposed works the most appropriate in his opinion and mounts them where he thinks fit. Their last joint project (as of June 2006 ) is Tsubasa Chronicle .

In 2002 , the See-Saw duet participated in the creation of the second famous anime series Bee Train - .hack // SIGN , which became the cornerstone of the widely known multimedia project .hack in Japan. Albums with the soundtrack of the series sold over 300,000 copies. While working on SIGN, Kajiura met Emily Binger , an American singer who had previously collaborated with Yoko Kanno . Thanks to her vocal abilities, Bindiger performed more than ten songs that sounded in the series. At Anime Expo 2003, Kajiura jokingly called the American her " English teacher" ^[4] .

One of the most popular songs released by See-Saw was the ending of the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ("Anna ni Issho Datta no ni"), whose single sold over 200,000 copies, becoming a sensation among fans of Japanese animation. Dream Field , the first See-Saw album in nine years, also became a hit in 2003 , with a total circulation of over 100,000 copies sold. In the same year, Kajiura released her first solo album, Fiction , and in 2011, the long-awaited release of her second solo album, Fiction II , was held.

While working on collaborative solo projects with other musicians (such as Yuka Nanri , Asuko Kato and Kaori Oda ), Kajiura uses the name FictionJunction. Perhaps the most successful and famous project of this kind was FictionJunction YUUKA with Yuka Nanri . In 2004, their duet became the creator of the soundtrack for the next series, Koidi Masimo - Madlax , and the following year released their first joint album Destination .

Anime Soundtracks

The names are given in Latin transliteration, and the links below them lead to Japanese Wikipedia .

Game Soundtracks

Movie and TV Soundtracks

Musical works

See-Saw Albums

(vocals: Chiaki Ishikawa )

Work as a producer

Solo albums

Fiction

Fiction is the first solo studio album of Yuki Kajiura, in the recordings of which vocalists such as Emily Binger , Yuri Kasahara, Deb Lions, Kaori Nishina and Tulivu-Donna Cumberbatch directly participated. Ranked 49th for 4 weeks on the Oricon weekly chart ^[5] .

List of Songs

1. key of the twilight (from the English - “The key to twilight”)
2. cynical world (from the English. - "Cynical world")
3. fake wings (from the English. - "Fake wings")
4. fiction (from English - “Fiction”)
5. vanity (from English - “Vanity”)
6. red rose (from the English. - "Scarlet Rose") (only in the Japanese edition)
7. canta per me (from Italian. - "Sing for me")
8. zodiacal sign (from the English. - "Zodiac sign")
9. awaking (from English. - "Awakening")
10. open your heart (from the English. - “Open your heart”)
11. winter (from English - “Winter”)
12. salva nos (from lat. - “Save us”)
13. lullaby (from the English. - "Lullaby") (only in the Japanese edition)
14. echo (from the English - “Echo”) (only in the Japanese edition)

Fiction II

Fiction II is the second solo studio album of Yuki Kajiura, in the recording of which such vocalists as Emily Binger , Yuriko Kaida , Eri Ito , Kaori Oda , Keiko Kubota , Wakana Otaki , Deb Lyons, Margaret Dorn, Clara Kennedy, Joan Sarah Ml took direct part ., Hanae Tomaru, Emily Curtis and Tokyo Konse. Ranked 31st for 3 weeks on the Oricon weekly chart ^[6] .

List of Songs

1. in this winter (from English - “This winter”)
2. the image theme of Xenosaga II
3. lotus (from English - "Lotus")
4. my long forgotten cloistered sleep (from English - “My long forgotten foggy dream”)
5. I swear (from the English. - “I swear”)
6. forest (from English - “Forest”)
7. Sweet Song (from the English. - “Sweet song”)
8. Ego
9. everytime you kissed me (from the English. - "Every time you kissed me")
10. I reach for the sun (from the English - “I reach for the sun”)
11. LA
12. March (from English - “March”)
13. heigen ( rum. from Japanese 平原 , "unpretentious" )
14. maybe tomorrow (from English - “Maybe tomorrow”)

• Yuki Kajiura's Homepage
• See-Saw Homepage (Japanese)
• Yuki Kajiura (Japanese) at Victor Entertainment
• Discography of Yuki Kajiura (rus.) At Last.fm
• Yuki Kajiura on the VGMdb website