Catalyst Castle

I recently bought the album Koi Tegami (translation: “Love Letter”) by Oku Hanako, a singer, songwriter, and pianist famous in her native Japan for her piano ballads. My first introduction to Oku Hanako was through her song “Garnet” which was written and produced for the anime film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. After seeing the film I was interested in hearing some more of her music, so I picked up Koi Tegami on Amazon.com.

Oku Hanako has a beautiful singing voice, and her music is very pretty. It’s easy listening and makes pleasant background music for writing, drawing, etc. without being obtrusive. The only problem is that there isn’t a lot of variety in the sound, and not being able to understand the lyrics I have a hard time telling one song from the next. I’m sure if I knew the language better I would enjoy her songs even more.

Here is a sample of her music. This song is from Koi Tegami.