Sakamoto Maaya, Part 1 of 2: Replica (LE) + External Bonus (08/20/14)

PURCHASED/AFFILIATE

It's that time again when I have a new release from Sakamoto Maaya, and I'm both extremely excited and once again anticipating the next one. The never-ending cycle...

Anyway, not even a month ago I wrote this post sharing some information regarding Sakamoto's newest single, Replica. This past Wednesday, 08/20/14, it was released, and my copy ~that I preordered a long, long time ago~ (not really - the end of June) arrived from CDJapan on Friday.

I've thought about it, and even though my last Sakamoto review - Be Mine!/SAVED - was a single post, I've decided to break this one up into two parts. The first - which you're reading right now - is about the limited edition single's packaging and any first press/external bonus(es), and the second will be my actual review of the songs on the single. I'm going to try to get Part 2 up later this week,  but for now let's enjoy some pretty pictures!

Sakamoto Maaya: Be mine!/SAVED (LE) + External Bonus (02/05/14)

AFFILIATE, PURCHASED

Last Wednesday, February 5, 2014, Sakamoto Maaya released her newest single(s), yay! Not surprisingly, I preordered my limited edition copy back in, oh I don't know, December or so, and I finally picked it up from the post office this past Saturday. I had it shipped to California, since I was there during the release and didn't want to wait 'til I got home to open it, haha.

You might be wondering why I say newest "single(s)," and I'll clarify that now: technically speaking, Sakamoto released two singles last Wednesday. But, when it boils down to it, the only difference between the singles is the official single title - Be mine!/SAVED for one, and SAVED/Be mine! for the other - the arrangement of the tracks, and the anime artwork sleeves. Otherwise they're identical, down to the limited edition extras.

You do not need to own both, content-wise. The only reason to order both is to own both sets of anime artwork, as the two main tracks are from different anime. But that is wasteful in my opinion, hence why I only purchased one.

The differences could have been slightly more interesting, but whatever. I can only see one logical point as to why this decision was made - and I'll get into that briefly later - but, besides that, I'll never understand the marketing behind it.

Anyway, so the copy I decided to pick up was Be mine!/SAVED, purely because "Be mine!" is the opening song for an anime and "SAVED" is the closing song for another anime. It chronologically fit.