Say (album)

Say is the second studio album released by Japanese singer-songwriter misono. The album was released a year after her debut album Never+Land. It debuted in the top twenty on the Oricon Albums Charts at No. 13, but dropped in rank to take the No. 20 slot, remaining on the charts for five consecutive weeks.[1]

The cover for the albums, which showed misono without a shirt and holding a mask with a different expression, was done to show the success of her weight-loss after Girls meet Beauty.[2][3] Initially, there were only rumors of misono going shirtless on the covers.[4]

The album contained her singles from her Rock Singles Project, in which she released four singles written and composed by four different Japanese rock bands: "Zasetsu Chiten," "Juunin Toiro," "Mugen Kigen" and "Ninin Sankyaku."[5] The project was done after misono's success with the Girls meet Beauty program and most likely done to help her popularity, as with what was done with her sister's, Kumi Koda's, 12 Singles Collection project between 2005–2006.[6][7][8] Along with the singles from her Rock Singles Project, the album featured the songs "Hot Time," which was a single from her never+land album, and "Pochi."[9]

"Juunin Toiro"'s title and theme was based on the Japanese proverb "juunin toiro," which means "ten people, ten colors." The meaning being that everyone is different and has a different story.[10] The saying comes from the Japanese word for "ten" (Juu / 十) combined with the word for "person" (nin / 人); "iro" (色) in "toiro" is the Japanese word for "color."[11] For "Zasetsu Chiten" and "black & white ~Kuroi Sunglasses Kaketa Hi Kara~," misono worked with rock band Straightener's bass guitarist, Hinata Hidekazu, who wrote and produced the songs.[12] Takanori Ohkita performed the drums for the song and Hinata arranged and produced both "Zasetsu Chiten" and "black & white ~Kuroi Sunglasses Kaketa Hi Kara~."[13][14]

Say was released in two editions: CD and a CD+DVD combo. The CD contained all of the a-sides from her singles, along with the b-sides "black & white ~Kuroi Sunglasses Kaketa Hi Kara~" from Zasetsu Chiten, "GizaGiza Life" from Juunin Toiro and "Last Song" from Mugen Kigen. It also contained six new songs, which were recorded strictly for the album. For the DVD, alternate versions of the music videos from her Rock Singles Collection were used.

For the music videos on the DVD portion of the album, alternate versions of the videos from her Rock Singles Project were used.

While the original video for "Zasetsu Chiten" carried a boxing theme, showing misono having lost a match, the version on the album was the "Box" version. This alternate rendition used only the scene of the effeminate form of misono in the box enclosure, showing her being "trapped" in the constant trying and failure. For "Juunin Toiro," instead of having one incarnation of misono reading about the lives of the others, the screen was split into ten different segments, showing all ten incarnations at once. The rendition was so-titled the "10 misono's" version.

The "painting" version of "Mugen Kigen" was a continuous shot of misono splattered with neon-colored paints. As for the album version of "Ninin Sankyaku," two alternate shots were used: the version of misono, seemingly upset, and in front of the mirror. These were the only shots used for the video.

All lyrics are written by misono (#4 was with Akiko Noma).

• misono Official Site
• Straightener Official Site
• Anthem Official Site