After the Rain and Serious Matters | Mafumafu blog post 2016.01.08
Good evening, Mafumafu here.
As I am writing this blog post, it’s 2am on the 8th of January.
By the time this blog post has been published, I believe the announcement livestream would have already ended.
First I’d like to make an official announcement here, and then talk about something on a more serious note.
I’d really appreciate it if you would read all the way to the end.
So, after working as Soraru x Mafumafu for 2 years and completing our ATR Live tour,
finally
we have finally decided on a name for our unit!!!
Finally! More like, why didn’t we even have a name for 2 whole years!
Truth be told, we’ve actually been thinking of a name for our unit ever since working on our first song.
But without any sort of reason or preface, just coming right out and saying “So from now on we’ll be working as 〇〇,” would surprise just about anyone.
That’s why at the beginning we just went along without fixing a name.
We didn’t even have a name for our circle, and ended up having a lot of trouble when we had to identify ourselves. Really, it was a lot of trouble.
Starting with our first album, “After Rain Quest”, and completing our first Live Tour, “After the Rain tour 2015”, we decided that we wanted to keep the name that had found a place in our heart.
Thus, we decided on the name After the Rain.
With that said,
2016.4.13
After the Rain will be releasing an album,
『Black crest story』 !!
We’re in the midst of production right now, please look forward to it!!
Release date: 13 April 2016
First-run limited edition CD A (+ tokuten CD) 2500 yen + tax
Tokuten CD will include music tracks (TBA) and Hikikomoranai Radio special edition
First-run limited edition CD B (+ tokuten CD) 2500 yen + tax
Tokuten CD will include a collection of MVs of the listed tracks and footage of live audio recording and interviews
Normal edition 2000 yen + tax
Tokutens available at the following corporations, applicable only to limited edition CDs A&B
Animate: Secret DVD “Soramafu goes to an Onsen” edition
Amazon: B3 poster (of Soramafu themselves)
Tsutaya: TBA music track CD (1 solo song each, total of 2 songs, vocaloid cover ver.)
Tower: TBA music track CD (1 solo song each, total of 2 songs, anisong cover ver.)
WIth that said, I’ve come to the end of the announcement.
Just writing the announcement already took up more time than expected.
It’s now 3:20am.
I’m sure there are those who are looking forward to what I’m about to say,
and on the other hand there are also those who feel anxious.
So let me start by addressing a few things first.
First of all, as usual, I will still be continuing solo activities as Mafumafu.
I’d like to think of solo x solo activities as a chemical reaction, which makes everything even more fun.
We also did not enter a company or sign any contracts.
We’ll be learning many things again now with a different setting, but I always, always want to treasure this freedom.
In the first place, even if I had the ability to listen to what other people are saying,
I don’t have the cooperativeness and social skills needed to make a decent living. (´-ω-｀)
All of our activities will be carried out following our intentions, with the album this time being no exception; everything from production, writing, composing, editing, mixing and mastering, all 100% of it will be completed with our own hands.
The big things that can’t be done individually, I believe they can be accomplished when the two of us combine our powers! We’ll definitely create a wonderful album so please look forward to it ヾ(*´□｀*)ﾉ
To be honest, I was really, really scared of everything and anything.
By experiencing all sorts of pain and sadness, I’ve become the person I am today.
I am someone who can’t really sense another person’s evil intentions, and can be quick to trust people.
Easily swallowing the tales that were told to garner my sympathy, I slowly started hating myself.
I will not disclose the details, but a few years back I was bullied terribly.
It was something made me feel socially, mentally and physically pressured.
Being woken up in the middle of the night by the door being kicked open, or being shouted at,
being dragged out while still in my pajamas, or just having insults hurled at me.
After doing some investigation, I learned that I, as well as a group of people, have been cheated by someone, and it seemed that they had the intention of sowing discord amongst us.
Now, I’ve already made up with that group, and we treat that incident as a joke, but at that time it was really painful, depressing, and scary.
Unable to overcome a part of this incident, wrecked by the spite and violence,
swallowed by despair, the one who reached out his hand to me was Soraru-san.
Soraru-san, who found out about the truth, defended me and made the culprit promise “Not to do anything to hurt Mafumafu again”.
He also said that he’d always look out for me, and thanks to soraru-san, I was able to find release.
Urata-san, Amatsuki-kun, luz-kun, all these friends were also there for me when I needed someone to talk to.
And after packing my stuff, and moving…
Just thinking that if things were left alone is enough to send shudders down my spine.
“What the hell is that? A story from some manga?” might be what you’re thinking right now, but this is all true.
In fact, all of this doesn’t even amount to a fraction of the whole incident.
With all these things happening, I started working together with Soraru-san.
I feel like it’ll come off as too staged if I were to praise this friend of mine right now,
so I won’t praise him, but just let me say that I’m utterly grateful to him.
Without knowing, it seems like I’ve told an unbelievable story, so it’s no surprise that I have such a gloomy personality right!?
It seems like I’m still trying to justify my gloomy personality. I seriously don’t know when to give up do I!
Being cheerful and having fun is still the best huh~_( _ `ω､)_
Our two albums After Rain Quest and Prism Ark,
as well as our ATR tour, have gotten amazing response.
Being so afraid of dying to the point of nearing death and having had my head trapped in an endless cycle of pain,
I transformed all these thoughts into songs and lyrics, which so many people hear today.
I can’t help but cower in fear under the eyes of others, to the point where I can’t even take the train,
yet I was able to stand on that stage, look forward and smile.
Last year was a peaceful year and I was able to devote a lot of my time to music.
I don’t really know how to put this into words, but I’m really happy that there are people out there who can accept the person that I am today.
Right now it’s 5am in the morning.
Just how long am I gonna take to write this…
I’m writing this while being in a state of half-sleep so maybe all this is just an incoherent mess? Will it be okay?
In any case, whatever I write will end up becoming a really formal essay right
I tried my best to write it in a lighter tone but well
It’s gonna be hard to read….(´・ω・｀)
My activities as Mafumafu, as After the Rain, as a composer,
whichever it may be, I’ll definitely create more good music in 2016.
I’ll write till I’ve written out everything I wanted to say.
I want to have the most fun when doing lots of fun things.
I kinda have an inkling as to what it is but please make a guess
So long wwwwwwwwww
wtf is this wwwwwwww I feel like someone who suffers from some communication disorder when they can’t stop talking wwwwwww
Thanks for reading all the way till here www
From now on it’ll be busy again but I’ll give it my all! Goodnight! ヾ(*´ー｀*)ﾉ
(t/n: really really grateful that mafu had the courage to come out and tell us about his past, his story, and it just shows how far he’s come as a person, how he’s grown, how important ATR is to him and how much Soraru means to him, how much he has saved him, and I’m really really glad they’re friends today. and mafu is a precious angel. congratulations on their major debut as After the Rain, congratulations to a lasting partnership, congratulations to mafu for being brave, to soraru for his courage to save mafu and I’m really super happy!!!!
side note first time translating one of mafu’s blog posts and it’s one of the longest and probably is BUT thanks for reading!! kinda gave up halfway cos mafu also kinda gave up talking coherently so what’s a coherent translation man
once again congratulations to soramafu!!!!!! ^^)
also first song of ATR!! check it out here
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