For those of you who don't know Seiko Matsuda is probably the most famous female singer in all of Japan. She began her career in 1980 and continues to release new studio albums and perform live concerts to this day. I actually cannot think of any other Japanese artist so prolific even now. As well as gaining huge success and longevity in Japan she also managed to gain international success and released many covers of famous Western songs and well as making a dent in the dance charts in the 90's. I have many promo music LDs which feature tracks from this period. She also found time to star in a number of movies.

The laserdisc format beautifully captures her most successful period from 1982 to 1998 with a vast array of concerts, video compilations and promotional footage. I actually purchased my first Seiko Matsuda title way back in 2006 when I started collecting laserdiscs. Back then I had no idea it would take me another 9 years to acquire the remaining titles as most are very sought after in Japan.

There are many things I like about this particular collection of laserdisc titles.
It covers a very long period (17 years) representing almost the lifetime of the format itself.
So you get to see how the format evolved and it is fun trying to track down some of the final few late releases which are very rare even in Japan.
The packaging was often very lavish on many of the titles with several beautiful 2LD gatefolds, colourful multi-page inserts and concert/video companion pairs released for almost all her albums in the 90's.
Her music was released on all three sizes of laserdisc - 5", 8" and 12" discs.
She put on very impressive elaborate stage shows with each new release. Easily a rival for anything Madonna produced during this same period.







Closeup of the 2 gatefolds releases:




These are the last few late releases - a few of which will drive you bonkers trying to track down:


These are the 5" and 8" Seiko LDs from 1987 - 1991 period:

Never been my cup of tea, but a great collection. Not many remains huge in Japan for such a long time. But otherwise I have always seen rebecca as the japanese madonna, even if they warent as big as Matsuda. But I guess the amound of music, live show and so on Matsudo is in par =) Very impressive collection. I know how hard even common japanese music titles is to find. you find one there and one there, almost never in a batch. None have them regular for sale.

Do you have a Mari Iijima collection?

I have the 2 Mari Iijima LDs registered on LDDB.com:
Mari Iijima: Atchoo! [MJL-1016]
Mari Iijima: Live '90 - Something Special [AMLM-8003]

The second one is one of my favourite discs.

My personal favourite is Mari Hamada who has the best voice of all the singers I've heard from Japan and can sing anything from heavy metal to gentle ballads. A close second is probably Kaori Okui - the lead singer from Princess Princess who can do likewise.

So true! She is extremely heavy nowadays too, good she took that turn now =) I always feel her stage performance isn't so good. Of course it doesn't effect the music, but the concerts doesn't make the music so justice I feel. She is kind of stiff and calm. I get the feeling she is a singer and not an entertainer.

My favorite at the moment is Jun Togawa, which is an really interesting artist, still active. You have any of those lds aswell ? There is 2 releases that also was re-released so 4 in total. I am wondering if there is anything different in quality of picture and sound, I will only get one of each concert, hehe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whFqr3YYoY8

There is also an ld with Kiyohiko Senba & The Haniwa All-Stars starring Togawa, but I cant seem to find it in the datebase, but I know it exist. I wish to get that one soon becouse I think its a great concert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev9SbCuLkz4

I have the first pressing of: Jun Togawa & Yapoos: Tour Live '85~'86 [SM058-3041]

I was surprised
http://page6.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/f137802452

Wow, thats one of the most pricey tour books Ive seen. But I guess it rare, from her first tour, right ?

It seems there was two months earlier than this, but in fact is a first.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%BE% ... 6%E5%AD%90
（No description in English）

It confirms some Seiko collectibles in Japan are highly sought after even to this day. I've noticed Seiko minidiscs (MD) also fetch high prices.
Her earliest LD (the first yellow one shown in the pictures) often fetches quite high prices, particularly if mint as in the example shown. NOTE: A truly complete copy actually comes with 2 wraparounds- the normal OBI and the Videodisc CBS/Sony detachable card wraparound which is a separate entity. That is the only LD in my entire collection that has one of those. It must have been included with just some very early CBS discs to promote the format.

I saw for the first time this condition that it is extremely rare.

http://page9.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/k179098449

I was in AGEHA in Tokyo a few years ago and Madonna had made an impression by having a private pre-tour live event (4 songs) for the Confession Tour. Sadly I couldn't join that one, I got tipped only 1 hour before the show and AGEHA is just too bloody far from Tokyo center.

Some time later AGEHA had another event with a "special guest" announced during a Techno/DJ night... It was Matsuda Seiko, the audience exploded! She did a few of her popular songs with dancers and lights/smoke effects.

Julien

I remember Seiko had a US near-hit with "The Right Combination", a duet with New Kids on the Block member Donnie Wahlberg. It never got played on local stations but I saw the video on VH1 or MTV and bought the cassette single. I was pretty disappointed it didn't take off- I liked her voice on the single.

Yes the middle 5" VSD features that song with Donnie. I'll have to dig out my other 12" promo music LDs with the 90's dance tracks featuring Seiko that were released in Europe and USA.

AWESOME collection of Seiko lasers there! My LD collection includes a lot of J-pop titles that, sadly, never garnered a DVD pressing. I double dipped when the entire catalog Princess Princess (like Matsuda Seiko, a member of the Sony Music empire) made it to DVD.

Sadly a lot of Pony Canyon titles from the early 1990s (my beloved Otomejuku groups, CoCo and ribbon) never made the leap to digital so I've had to make sure that all my equipment is in good working order!