http://www.musicals.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1248179

Toshiba Records - TOCT 8375-76 - Full Scans

Japanese troupes had been making annual tours of Les Misérables every year since its premiere at the Imperial Theatre, Tokyo, in June 1987, and two albums from 1994 would mark the first comprehensive recordings of Les Mis in Japanese. There had been one other Japanese recording of the show, released in 1987 through Pony Canyon Records, a 45 featuring Kaho Shimada's "On My Own," with a re-arrangement of "Do You Hear the People Sing?" filling out the B-side. Recorded over four performances at the Chunichi Theatre, Nagoya, between 23-27 February 1994, the Red Cast is my primary focus here, as I've yet to secure a legit copy of the Blue album. (Having heard several extracts, it's just not a high priority for me, especially considering the somewhat astronomical cost of the set.) As such, I'll simply make mention that the casts of the two albums are mostly different, and while both turn in fine performances, in my humble opinion the performances on the Red album simply overshadow those on the Blue, and the Blue doesn't offer enough in the way of interesting variations. The two sets also share the same cuts to the first act, note-for-note.

The Japanese Red album is an invaluable record of Les Misérables' original live sound. The mix favors the bass, percussion hits with a ferocity not heard before or since, and some of the tempi chosen by the conductor can verge on the insane (see "Stars" and both Soliloquies), but this *is* the Les Mis of raw DX-7's, when the Barricade sequences were allowed to breathe, and the employment of twenty-five musicians playing John Cameron's orchestrations every show was seen as a draw and not merely a running cost. It doesn't hurt that the cast throws an unmatched raw passion into every little turn of phrase. Takeshi Kaga still manages a vibrant plea in his "Bring Him Home," despite the song being taken down several steps to accommodate his lush baritone (this isn't exclusive to him and his celebrity status, by the way; it's a fairly common practice for Japanese Valjean's), Kaho Shimada is nothing short of mesmerizing in her native tongue, and no one hocks a Fantine loogie on record quite like Yuhko Ema.

The Japanese Red album (and the Blue, to the best of my knowledge) comes in a grey open-face box containing the CD's in two separate jewel cases. The color of the obi band indicates which cast. The back of the box contains basic production and album information

NOTE - Too little room for track listing