I purchased MIMI’s second album (夜をだきしめる時。) without listening to it first, and unfortunately it didn’t live up to my expectations (i.e., it was not an optimal financial decision).

I usually don’t “go in blind” with my CD purchases. ~30% are purchased retroactively (i.e., you later discover this song, then the album, then hope that the publisher is still selling these dated CDs or you have to search across e-stores for used goods (and pray that the prices are acceptable (the album I purchased with the most amount of second-hand markup was ダーリンシンドローム by かいりきベア at ~$60 - I checked everywhere weekly if not daily, and $60 w/ obi is actually a steal when it popped up on yahoo furima (I do see a ~$57 w/ obi on mercari right now)))), and ~half are purchased when they release after listening to at least promotional videos / crossfades, etc.

I pulled the trigger because I was very into MIMI, especially last month. About one-fifth of my “now playings” were MIMI’s more famous and less famous songs. Their first album was (and is still) sold out; to be precise, that second album was literally the only item that has stock in their findme store. So I bought it without ever listening to it online.

LP or EP?

10 songs, 24 minutes 58 seconds. I know MIMI’s songs are on the shorter side, but 25 minutes is really on the shorter side of a complete album I have encountered so far. (I did glance on the back of the CD before I put it in my disc drive, I didn’t see the reflective difference between data and null so I thought it was fully loaded with audio, maybe the border was too close to the center that I missed it.)

overly-similar composition

track02 and track09 has some differences compared to 03~08, but most of the tracks from 03 to 08 share a very similar A-B-B’ (depends on how you cut it) composition - some opening, the episode, then the same episode with an up-shifted pitch. This is typical MIMI, yet listening in succession feels bland like eating similar foods.

Will listen again to confirm on my thoughts.