Monaco is a popular Japanese artist who has worked across a number of domains, such as being part of a band and working as a dancer.
In the past, she went under the English version of her name ‘manaco‘ when carrying out solo activities, even in Japanese, but that was four years ago. Now, with this release, she is putting out a new solo song for the first time in a long time and has changed to writing her name in the Japanese script ‘まなこ‘ in Japan to mark the new departure.
The name of the track is ‘precious’. Its music video was directed by Eri Yoshikawa, who has worked with numerous popular Japanese artists such as ATARASHII GAKKO! and ≠ME.
This track was written as an homage to the TV anime series ‘Blue Exorcist’, which manaco loves. manaco also took the lead in writing the song lyrics, which reflect the inner feelings of the character Kamiki Izumo, who appears in the series. The lyrics honor the anime and the original work with lines such as “Under the mask is the most precious thing to me, the real me”, evoking the loneliness of Kamiki Izumo, the conflict she experiences and her liberation from it.
There are references that fans of the anime and manga will be certain to understand scattered throughout the music video, so be sure to check it out. Moreover, new official artwork for manaco has been released, showing a slightly different side to her than fans will be used to.
Speaking about this release, manaco commented:
“I felt as if Kamiki Izumo, who appears in this song, resembled me in some respects and there were lots of areas in which I could relate to her, so I could compose the lyrics quite easily”.
“I took a lot of care in how I used words and sang them in a style that was my own, to evoke the life that Kamiki Izumo has lived.
What’s more, for the music video, images of a number of different ‘manaco’ were filmed. I hope that you enjoy all of the different surprises scattered throughout the music video when you watch it”.
Moving forward, manaco plans to produce more tracks that are based on her favorite manga and anime so be sure to look out for them.
Watch the music video below:
