Nakagawa Nami, the incredibly talented vocalist and sometimes voice actor who sang for the NieR and Drakengard 3 soundtracks, will be celebrating her birthday on Monday, April 4th. For this special occasion, she put a really great concert together with other members from mo2. Also read more on Nami’s possible involvement with NieR: Automata below!*

*Confirmed: Nakagawa Nami will be singing for the Automata soundtrack. She sang the theme from the PGW trailer live at the NieR Music Concert & Talk Live.

First of all, I should probably tell my story of the day. I’m still very much in the middle of interview hell and I was supposed to have started a new job on Friday, which I did…but one thing lead to another and I didn’t feel comfortable signing the contract and left 30 min early. I can tell more about that story later. So, I was physically and mentally exhausted after that joke of a day…and immediately continued looking for jobs.

I quickly got a message from another school and the man I spoke with wanted to speak with me via an online call Saturday morning sometime between 7-10am (he was calling from New York). So, I got up early and got ready for the pre-interview and had a really nice time talking with him. I will have an interview for that position later on Wednesday.

Then, after that, I had an appointment to get my hair cut…and once that was done, I was dying for some karaoke, so I went to sing for 2 hours before heading home to relax for the rest of the night. I even ordered a pizza for dinner. <3

Then around 6:20, my phone buzzed to remind me of an event I had scheduled… !!! With everything going on, I completely forgot about her show. T_T For a brief moment, I thought about not going. I specifically made a reservation for both the show and the after-party…so I it would have been bad if I just didn’t show up. 😛 I quickly called and cancelled my pizza order then ran out of the house. On the way, I realized that the battery was pretty low on my phone because I had recorded some songs while at karaoke earlier… and I didn’t have my charger or anything else with me. T_T

Anyway, getting to the location was a bit wonky. I would have had to transfer several times, but didn’t want to bother and risk the chance of getting lost, so I went as far as I could on the one train line and got a cab the rest of the way (it was less than 10 minutes away). But once I got out of the taxi and checked the map on my phone… it lead me to a weird building. I went in and the venue was on B1, so I took the elevator down…and once it opened… AHHHH!! It was like that under construction, restricted area at the end of “Adventures in Babysitting”. It was dirty and had a ton of junk lying around, and thank god there wasn’t anybody there… I jumped back into the elevator and left. AHH!

So, I looked at the map again and couldn’t find the place at all. Then I realized that the info listed the name of the building *before it was changed* and I was able to find it that way. 😛 Long story short, I made it to the venue about 30 min late. *sigh*

Anyway, Nami sang duets with other mo2 members all night and it was really great. I didn’t know anything about the other members, but they were all amazing singers, too!

Sometime, about halfway through the concert, Nami mentioned the Drakengard/NieR series and commented on how quickly tickets sold out for the NieR concert later. She said that they were sold out within a day… but actually they were sold out within just a few seconds. ^^; I wonder if she knew that. xD

After the concert but before the after party, they sold a bunch of mo2 related CDs, including a new album with Nakagawa Nami and Yoshiyama Hiromi that was just released at the end of February.

As the after party got underway, Nami personally went to greet everyone. I’m always stupid shy talking with people like this, but I wanted to give her a small bouquet of flowers I picked up on the way. I told her that we are both April birthday girls since my birthday is next week. She stopped me mid sentence and walked away for a moment. When she came back she gave me another one of the CDs that was on sale! ^^;; It felt very awkward to accept such a thing, but it was very sweet. <3 She said that I would probably like one of the songs on it since it has a sort of darker tone to it like NieR.

Next at the after party, there was a small buffet with pasta and rice, as well as a nomihodai (free refills on drinks). Each participant was given special stickers and a cup with our name written on it when we first entered. Nami even signed my cup! <3

There were also specialty drinks for 200 extra, but I just stuck with my good-old Highball standby. On my recent trip back home to the States, I found out that this word is not commonly used in English. A highball is basically whiskey with soda. 

Toward the end of the party, the lights were turned off and we sang Happy Birthday as they brought out a cake with candles for her to blow out.

She seemed so happy and excited over the yellow chick on the cake…that she took a huge bite out of it just a few seconds after I took this photo. xD

Then some of the mo2 members gave both Nami and Hiromi some gag gifts… They gave Nami a full, yellow body suit ^^;; and Hiromi got a daki “hug” pillow of himself. lol

It doesn’t look like I have a good photo of the other side of the pillow unfortunately. His shirt’s opened a little to show his well-toned abs on the other side. xD He seemed very embarrassed about it, but the other members reminded him that the original photo was part of a “batsu” game (punishment for losing at some game). heehee

Lastly, before the end of the night, we were able to request photos with any of the mo2 cast, 500yen per photo. Due to my hectic day I must have missed the details about it. I didn’t find out until the very last minute that they took requests for photos earlier in the evening, but as I was about to leave, I asked if I might be able to get a photo, too… and they said OF COURSE! 😀 Yay!!

What a totally sweet lady! Although it was her birthday party, she really gave so much of herself to fans; it was very lovely. I’ve been a fan of hers since I first learned about her performance on the NieR soundtrack, but now I want to hear more of her work. 😀 Thank you so much for such a wonderful end to a crazy day!! <3

For anyone who may be interested, I would recommend picking up any of her CDs (I’ll list a few below). Not only does she have an insane vocal range, but she’s also extremely talented in singing various genres, too, from rock to classical and many more!

Nakagawa Nami – viridian
Lumino-scope – F
–->Nakagawa Nami’s Blog

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Regarding Automata…

It has been confirmed that Nakagawa Nami will be coming back for the NieR: Automata soundtrack. This is her singing the Automata theme from the PGW trailer:

Compare that with this short clip that I put together from Nami’s newest album “viridian”: