Stream It Or Skip It: ‘LiSA: Another Great Day’ on Netflix, Where The Japanese Singer Considers Her Life And Career

LiSA: Another Great Day (Netflix) catches the Japanese singer and songwriter whose real name is Risa Oribe in a contemplative mood as she considers her career ten years after her solo debut, rising notoriety in the world of anime, and popular breakthrough as LiSA – “Live is Smile Always,” also known as the “rock heroine.” Oribe explores her evolution as a person during that time, too. And for her conclusions, it might be as simple as the advice her mom offers: “Loosen up.”

LiSA: ANOTHER GREAT DAY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: “I will sincerely believe in myself. Good things happen when you believe.” For singer, songwriter, and lyricist Risa Oribe, whose performative persona is LiSA – an acronym for “Live is Smile Always” – the distance she’s traveled in her career and all of her success still traces back to her upbringing as the child of a divorced, working mom who instilled in her Risa and her sister Yui the traits to be sensitive, determined and respectful people. The non-linear narrative of Another Great Day skips around – LiSA on stage, singing one of the anime themes that made her a star, LiSA recording vocals in a studio, LiSA shooting a music video, LiSA offering a few confessionals to the camera as she travels in a car or plane – but it’s at its most revealing whenever the cameras follow Risa Oribe back to her mother’s house, where she’s joined by mom, grandma, and Yui for meals, viewings of childhood VHS recordings, and conversation about life, productivity, and morality.

Like the bulk of recent music documentaries, the pandemic figures heavily into the proceedings of Another Great Day. In 2020, LiSA and her team were preparing for a large-scale concert performance that would mark her decade as a solo artist when lockdowns hit, and the doc follows their masked-up meetings to navigate emergency closures and other restrictions. But the time off also helped Oribe step back and add context. “Ever since I became a singer, learning how to hype up the audience during my concerts and making sure they have fun became very important to me,” she says in voiceover. “So, improving my singing skills wasn’t high on my list of priorities.” But during COVID, she had some time on her hands. And not wanting that time to go to waste, “I began to relearn singing from scratch,” which has granted her more confidence and range as a vocalist. “I feel like there is a song out there that I never knew I could sing.” And appropriately, the finale of Another Great Day features LiSA singing a ballad onstage in rich adornment and full production value.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Parts of LiSA: Another Great Day detail the preparations for and mounting of the singer’s “Eve & Birth” concert in 2022, and that show is featured in full in Netflix’s busily-titled LiSA LiVE: is Smile Always, Eve & Birth: The Birth at Nippon Budokan. The streamer also features BLACKPINK: Light Up the Sky, with a ton of tantalizing offstage morsels for fans of the mega-famous Korean girl group. And if it’s more footage of choreo workouts and arena concert prep you crave, check out the music doc Ariana Grande: Excuse Me, I Love You.

Performance Worth Watching: As LiSA, Risa Oribe’s fashion sense is a wondrous and constantly evolving blur of pink and black hues, patterned denim, giraffe print sweatshirts, faux leather jackets, agitated tutus, oversized concert T’s (her Eraserhead text crossed with the cover art of Remain in Light by Talking Heads is a huge highlight), and stage wear that incorporates formal Japanese kimonos, parasols, safety pins, and, to perform “Homura” at the 2021 NHK Red and Whtie Year-End Song Festival, an immaculate gown of black silk complimented with an enormous flamingo pink ruffle.

Memorable Dialogue: “I think that ever since I was a kid, I realized that life is very lonely,” LiSA tells a colleague in Another Great Day. “But because of that, whenever I feel my friend’s or peoples’ warmth, it moves me. My family and my team are always kept at a certain distance. But I’m not maintaining that distance because I’ll be sad when they’re no longer around me. It’s because I understand that from a certain point onward, it’s my own personal battle.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: It’s natural for an artist working and performing in the public eye to process feelings of detachment from what she’s created, to try and nail down the quavering, dissociative line between the public and the personal. And it’s natural for this soul-searching to occur during music documentaries. (Pink made some great points about this dichotomy in her own doc All I Know So Far.) But Risa Oribe’s take on where she exists inside the persona of LiSA is one of the more contemplative and interesting versions of this conversation. “I think when I go out there as LiSA, I make sure I put on makeup,” she tells composer Shota Horie during their songwriting sessions for her song “New Me.” “LiSA doesn’t belong to me. So, in order not to betray the people who place their love and expectations on LiSA, Risa Oribe has to work very hard. And Risa Oribe is not as fierce. Risa prefers these comfortable clothes” – here, she gestures to her chunky shawl-style sweater and dressed-down leggings – “but LiSA wears fishnets and mini skirts. As for my contribution to LiSA, I’m just the seed. I’m nothing but spring water. But everyone’s hopes, desires, and dreams are what dig around that spring, creating a river and an ocean.”

Our Call: Stream It. LiSA superfans will thrill to the segments of Another Great Day that reveal Risa Oribe’s intimate bond with her family. But it’s also a testament to how much coordination and preparation goes into the daily work of being a singer who operates at concert arena levels.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges