Mioko Yamaguchi = Mioko Yamaguchi
月姫 Moonlight Vinyl Edition

Listening notes

Mioko Yamaguchi's 月姫 Moonlight Vinyl Edition was released in 2023 on Sony Music, catalog number MHJL278. The record presents Yamaguchi's work across genres catalogued as Electronic, New Age, New Wave, Pop, and Synth-pop, a combination that positions the album at a crossroads of styles that were each, in different ways, central to a particular era of Japanese popular music.

The vinyl edition is formatted across two sides. Side A opens with "Yugao (Aware)" at four minutes and forty-eight seconds, followed by "Natsu" at five minutes and two seconds, "Shizumi Yuku" at two minutes and forty-nine seconds, "Kagami" at five minutes and forty-eight seconds, and "Koi Wa Shunkan" at three minutes and forty-nine seconds. Side B leads with the album's longest track, "Hakuchumu," running six minutes and twenty-one seconds, then moves to "Tsuki Hime (Moon-Light Princess)" at three minutes and fifty-one seconds, "Satemo Appare Yume Zakura" at four minutes even, and closes with an instrumental version of "Natsu," for which no duration is listed in the available documentation.

The tracklist titles move between Japanese and romanized forms, with several carrying English subtitles or parenthetical translations. "Tsuki Hime," rendered as "Moon-Light Princess," shares its name with the album's title, suggesting it as a thematic or structural focal point within the sequence, though the specifics of that relationship are a matter for further research.

The 2023 release date indicates this is a relatively recent vinyl edition. Whether it represents a reissue of earlier material or an original release in this format is not confirmed by the available facts and should be verified before publication.