Mr. Tsutomu Aragaki held a concert today at the Nippon Budokan. He has accepted to sing for our second animation movie "JAPAN, Our Homeland."

It was about a year and a half ago when the director first got to know Mr. Aragaki. At that time the director was frequently traveling between Osaka and Tokyo on the bullet train.
It was one of those travel days on the bullet train, reading a book while listening to the radio on the headphones, just like every other time he was on it. The radio started to play Mr. Aragaki’s song "The Moon Over the Deserted Castle". "I felt thunderstruck when I first heard this song", the director recalls.

Director Nishizawa, who was just developing his idea for his next movie, decided to focus on this song in the movie.

It’s mysterious how people encounter one another. Is it by chance, or is it destiny? Just like our first movie was produced with the aids of many people whom we met by good fortune, "Our second movie wouldn’t be here without having discovered Mr. Aragaki’s voice", the director states.

Mr. Aragaki kindly advertised our movie before he sang "The Moon Over the Deserted Castle" at his own concert : "I am asked to sing for WAO Corporation’s animation movie which will be released in 2006!"

Some of the crew members attended Mr. Aragaki’s concert and enjoyed his live performance. This concert would be a great help for the crew to expand their creativity. It also gave us confidence to create a great movie.