Nano‘s third album, Rock on., was finally released yesterday! I’ve waited for this moment to share this PV Flying Dog uploaded on their official YouTube channel more than a month ago. In all honesty, this is my personal celebratory post for this milestone of one of my favorite J-rock artist!
This PV features the titular album track (lyrics here), which is the theme song to the now showing Arpeggio Movie. As usual, nano sports a new hoodie, her trademark fashion, which not only prevents revealing all of her facial features, but also clouds her with an air of charming mystery.
To be honest, I find the majority of the non-anime tracks of the album forgettable. They even sound almost the same, like clones of SAVIOR OF SONG (probably because of the prominent synths?). If I were to compare this album with nano’s earlier works, this is the weakest. “N” still remains the most memorable album with consistently catchy tracks (e.g. Nevereverland, Now or Never, Remember My Friend), whereas “nanoir” comes close to it by also offering high-calibre tracks for a debut album (e.g. EMPTY SHELL, Hysteria, magenta).
“Rock on.” is not as bad as how I make it sound. The album comes with the anisongs SAVIOR OF SONG and Born to be. Nano has clearly improved her singing and it’s really apparent with Rock on. and One Life. The latter is especially a really good slow rock song, just the type of song I think best fits and highlights the femininity of nano’s voice (and I prefer this a lot over her more masculine-sounding songs). Mind you, her ‘manly’ songs are often the most played songs in my music library (music preference is indefinite like that). That said, I think I still need to constantly listen to this album to have a better grasp of the songs.
Just a little trivia: This PV was shot in Gunkanjima (or Hashima) Island in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. It used to be a coal mining facility from 1887 to 1974. Today, it is one of the many uninhabited islands in Japan.
Yep, that’s right. This place was also one of the filming locations of the upcoming live action Attack on Titan films. From watching the PV above, you can tell why this site was chosen as an ideal place for filming the movies, giving an eerily appropriate desolate and lifeless mood as an aftereffect of Titan invasion.
Anime Vios 
It is a good song, and I also like how at around 2/3 the singing stops with only guitars playing, and then it starts again.
Thank you for mentioning the trivia. I watched a documentary about this island a while ago. It is incredible how they were able to build essentially a small town there.
You mean, when the slow part starts? 🙂
I really like that slow part. Hence, the post title.
My pleasure^^ Oh, I wanna watch that, too! Do you have a link to that documentary?