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[Midorikawa Hikaru] [Hayashi Nobutoshi] [Okiayu
Ryoutarou] [Ishikawa Hideo] [Sakaguchi Daisuke]
Entertainment Music Unit
(1995-2000)
It's hard to really know how to introduce E.M.U to the complete novice.
Anyone who is familiar with any kind of anime will likely have heard of
at least one of the Seiyuu involved in the band - Bleach's Byakuya, for
example (Okiayu-san), or Gundam Wing's Heero Yuy (Midorikawa-san). But
to understand the E.M.U phenomenon it's really necessary to understand
the Japan Seiyuu-band phenomenon. And that this is not a random
incident. In fact, it's not unusual for seiyuu to do a lot of singing
and even form bands of this nature. (On this site there's media and
information relating to another, WeissKreuz, which is also tied closely
to characters and anime.)
For the record, since this has
happened once before, this group has nothing to do with Aucifer's rival
group (spawned from the series Kaikan Phrase). That group is e.mu (note the lower case and the punctuation)
and they were spawned three years after the Sotsugyou/Entertainment Music Unit
project was launched ^_^, not even releasing their first single - as
far as I'm aware - until the same year E.M.U shut up shop. This site
has no connection to Kaikan Phrase at all - the M world is completely
different (just to clear up that slight and irritating misconception).
In short, this page is dedicated to the
original E.M.U ^_^.
The interesting thing about these acts (to me anyway) is their
dedication to whatever characters they originally represent. E.M.U's
characters are little known in the English speaking world, because none
of the memorabilia was ever translated into English. (It's a shame,
because I've really come to love these characters, and I'm doing my
best to redress that balance - more about that on the Sotsugyou M page.) Yet in Japan, for a
lengthy period of time, they were a popular phenomenon as both
themselves as the M boys. Even during live
concerts (certainly during the First Live), the seiyuu not only
introduce themselves with their character name as well as their own
name, there is also a live drama as part of the event - role playing on
a grand scale, you might say :) Such is the uniqueness of Japanese
seiyuu-music units (and long may it continue!)
E.M.U as a musical unit are (at least to the 'outside' obsessive
fantype non-Japanese world) probably better known than the story
characters with which they identify. Their style of music varies widely
(another common habit of Japanese bands - this world called J-pop
actually incorporates everything and anything you can think of!).
However in general it can be put into two categories - "pop" (think
Eurovision in Japanese...if you know what that is...heh), and "rock"
(guitars, keys and drums aplenty).
E.M.U are the only Jpop (I hesitate to call them Jpop, but I suppose
they are) band I've come across which also had the guts to perform
occasional tracks in English. In fact, not only performing in English,
but mashing together a medley of four very well known American rock
classics and (cleverly) pulling it off. (Midorikawa-san and Hayashi-san
singing The House of the Rising Sun is one of those things that stays
with you ;))
They also do (occasionally) play their own instruments (and do so very well, may I add!)
There exists (as far as I know) two released concert recordings for E.M.U - the First Live (from May 96), and the Equal Live Tour. There is also the "Thank You" DVD which comprises snippets from each plus a couple of unique tracks. They're none of them easy to get a hold of and all of them out of production. The same goes for all of E.M.U's CD releases and all of the memorabilia connected with Sotsugyou M. Consequently the only place to get a hold of this stuff is through the Japanese second hand market, although very occasionally items pop up on American eBay. (Speaking some Japanese does help!)
The band's CD releases span several albums although certain tracks
are repeated or re-mixed. There exists a CD release for the Equal Live
Tour and certainly the First Live video performance was released on
Laser Disc as well as VHS (because my copy is on LD.) I imagine this
means that the others were also released this way although LD doesn't
seem to be a very popular media outside of Japan. The most
comprehensive release of E.M.U music is the Memorial CD box set.
But...yeah, you guessed it. It's also out of production.
(Bleh).
The quote at the top of the E.M.U pages (romanised, it says "Ore-tachi ga EMU da ze!" or "We're EMU!") comes from Okiayu-san introducing the band during the First Live. He introduces them first as "eh-mu" then - if I'm hearing him right - he goes on to say "Ee - emu - yuu te kaite...ehmu te yobu da ze." (which translates pretty much as "Spelt as "E.M.U", we're called "Ehmu").
(I feel this is important to mention, since my younger sister likes calling them "Emu" (as in the bird you might see on safari...)
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Disclaimer
This site is a fan-site and not for profit purposes. The images of bands and seiyuu that appear on this site are for fan-purposes only. All music, images etc are copyrighted to the original producers and not to me! For reasons of copyright there will be no featuring of full songs or video files of songs on this site - merely snippets for evaluation purposes. If you like the sound, please, support the artist(s)...go out and buy their stuff!!