The Old School Otaku Lounge

With Japanese music...like some people, I started out with this....



I'll admit that I struggled with purchasing Japanese CD's because it was so expensive. But as for my first CD's, I believe my first CD purchase was this:



"Ranma 1/2 Ongaku Doujou" album (PCCG-00192) from 1992 which translates to Ranma 1/2 Music Gymnasium.

I remember when I bought this soundtrack, I was a bit bummed because it was so expensive for me at the time and there were only the opening and ending theme plus the Heart Naishou/2 song, I was hoping for more vocal tracks. But you do get the music from the first season of the series, so all was not lost. I ended buying all the CD soundtracks for the series, so all is good But for those looking for "じゃじゃ馬にさせないで" (or known to many as the "Yapapa Song"), it's on this album.

But a sysop for a New York anime BBS told me to try non-anime music and he sent me a cassette tape with Mr. Children, The Boom and others... And it got me interested in Japanese music.

For non-anime related Japanese CD, this was my first:



While my father has a lot of Japanese LP's, but through my father I was introduced to Japanese music ala... Pink Lady, which I bought this CD many years later...

My first Japanese CD was the soundtrack to Chrono Trigger...which got stolen (along with a lot of other games/CDs) from my hotel room at one of the early Baka-cons. (Partially my fault for bringing my CD carrier of the bulk of my CD collection, though...I wanted to have music and games to play during con downtimes. :/ I never did get to re-purchase a lot of those again...)

I don't buy a lot of physical CDs anymore because sometimes they just end up taking space. I still occasionally buy CDs from my favorite artists, though (I think the last one I bought was a single from Tomoyasu Hotei, for example.)

Kndy, those cassette tapes are amazing! And I think I have that exact same Pink Lady CD.

My first Japanese CD (and my first CD ever, on top of that) was the Tenchi Muyo in Love soundtrack. I found it by accident in a Sam Goody and it had to be mine. I didn't even own a CD player, but thankfully my new-at-the-time computer could play them. I played the heck out of Alchemy of Love.

After I got my first CD Walkman, my first Japanese CD was Princess Mononoke OST.

I had a Japanese friend in college, a girl in my algebra class I was sweet on. I asked her to get these CDs for me when she visited her family in Japan during summer break and paid her for them:


Kiki's Delivery Service, Animage


Porco Rosso, Animage

Those were the first two imported CDs I ever bought.

Both great soundtracks, too <3