Thinking about 1980 birthdays

The following ladies are about to be eligible for the 17 club this year.

Arai Satomi
Chihara Minori
Itou Shizuka
Kadowaki Maii
Sakakibara Yui
Ueda Kana

They'll be joining Endou Aya, Kaida Yuuko, Kobayashi Sanae, Mizuka Nana, Morinaga Rika, Noto Mamiko, Sakamoto Maaya, and others for 2010 inductees

Actually this year probably has the most people ascending to the next level that I can remember in recent history. For shows that I've watched at least...

It's a good year for 30s. One of these days I'm going to plot the ages of all the seiyuu I like against some arbitrary perceived favorability point system to see the distribution. If a tenuous link to ageism can be made at all, it actually seems to work in reverse in this industry - at least up to a point. Or of course, the other explanations being experience, "paying your dues", likelihood to land breakout role are probably better indicators.

Then again I can just write everything off as a stubborn refusal to admit there are people younger than me in the work force. I only graduated a little over two years ago dammit I'm still a kid and I want to watch my cartoons without feeling guilty! 24+ or bust!

Posted by Paranda at 3:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yukarin's average skirt length gets shorter every year

I said that aloud when I flipped my calendar today to see this May/June 2010 page.

Since I was thinking about it anyway, I decided to go back through some old concerts to take a look. Results...

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

There is clearly a trend as the hemline begins creeping above knee length. But of course we must be objective observers. Before we draw conclusions, how do we know it's not just random or if Yukarin is merely representing an overall larger trend? Well we'd have to compare it to a benchmark. Unfortunately, with my weak Google-fu I could not find year-over-year average skirt length data in Japan. So I used the next best thing. Normalized Nikkei 225 prices pulled for all of the concert dates. Why substitute a Japanese equities index? For the sake of this post, let's just make the completely ridiculous assumption that Hemline theory holds and that whatever tracks this mythical hemline has a beta of one.

So with that, if we consider the index to be reliable, it can be shown conclusively that KTS (knee-to-skirt) spreads on Yukari have been widening drastically since 2006. We can only conclude Yukari is clearly diverging from the trend with skirt length reductions which cannot be explained by overall shifts in the skirt fashion trends. Thus there is a strong possibility these changes are intentional and will continue further.

So... with Princess a la mode about to ship in a month, do we have to prepare for nosebleed levels?

Posted by Paranda at 2:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yuzuruu no kobeya visual book arrived

For some reason I bought this. If you were a yuzuruu follower you probably remember getting bombarded with hype for several days. I guess tweet spam got to me and I had a moment of weakness.

Originally a C77 product, Yuzunee's venture into doujin publishing recently became available for mail order on Kirakira Shokai..

Seiyuu doujinshi is not unheard of. After all, Halko Momoi has manned Comiket tables herself and already published two volumes of Siesta, each containing her essays, short stories and other bits of literature.

Yuzuruu no kobeya of course, is just a leeeetle bit more lowbrow. Not that I'm complaining. It is a visual book and I knew what I was getting into.

That's actually just the back cover. I didn't get lucky with a signed one (1 in 30 odds). Rats :(

The contents are a mixture of cheesecake, photo montages, and scrapbooking.

Considering her past, I don't think anything here qualifies as risque though, contrary to some more outlandish claims on her site. It's actually pretty tame and you won't have to worry about the mailman looking at you weird if he sneaks a peek into your package.

The highlight is probably a four page feature inside where guest seiyuu doodle animal representations of Yuzunee. I didn't post the inside since she has been using it on her interview as a big selling point, but there are plenty of recognized names in there including Ueda Kana, Kugimiya Rie (lazy lazy tsk tsk), and Nakahara Mai among others.

If you buy the CD, you are also treated to two half-hour recordings, and a mini exercise track (see "yuzuruu to issho ni training" above). Supposedly, they are all recorded on location by what seems to be handheld equipment given the enormous amount of background noise but they do have a nice amateur feel to them. The first track is Yuzuki chatting with Koyama Tsuyoshi and has a home video kind of feel to it. The second track is supposedly a "real life bath" but it was so awkward and embarassing I had to turn it off. I can't listen to someone talk with running water in the background. Maybe you'll have better luck.

Ordering both book + CD as a set (now sold out) netted a bonus gift of Tirol chocolate squares with a special Yuzuki wrapping paper. Apparently, Tirol is known for its collectible wrappers and there are even hobbyists who dedicate their lives to cataloging candy packaging.

Since I am a rube I just opened it up like a normal person - no gloves or tweezers involved.

The chocolate itself is nothing special, but it looks nice and has a tasty chewy filling inside.

Posted by Paranda at 11:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March means double Yukarin calendars

Momoi's calendars run from January to December and come in a nice case which doubles as a table stand. Tamura Yukari on the other hand, is too good for us plebes to care about our limited wall real estate. So she'll just make her 2010 Calendar start in March, even though her 2009 calendar runs through April. Inevitably, with this overlap, both are hung together and I am drawn the compare the two.

2009 Calendar

Calendar dates as "tear off strip" on edge of poster. This means you can reuse each page as a B2 poster.

2010 Calendar

Calendar dates are part of the B2 portion of the poster. This means it looks pretty bootleg to hang these up once the month has passed - unless you're willing to live with the slight offset

And talk about a noticeable downgrade. While 2009 kept the dates as extra removable strips outside of the B2 area of the posters, 2010's calendar date cuts into the poster itself. BY TWO WHOLE MILLIMETERS!! Thanks a lot Yukari!

Update: actually I must have been hallucinating when I wrote this (at 1AM). Just took a spare B2 I had lying around and you know what I realized? Both calendars are actually B2 size including the date strip. That means if you tear the dates off along the perforated lines, you have non-standard size posters. I've been living a lie this whole time!

Or so I would like to say if I were into sperging about minor details, but hell I just appreciate some seiyuu make huge calendars. This year's picture selection is quite good so all is instantly forgiven.

Now come on, Momoi, sell me some B2s!!!

Posted by Paranda at 1:16 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Punkolle - listen once, then sweep it under the rug forever

After over a month of waiting due to some shipping snags and the delay of another accompanied item, my copy of Punkolle ~voice actresses' legendary punk songs collection~finally arrived last weekend. Well..where to start?

It's fitting that the cover features moe avatars of the six seiyuu all delivering the middle finger squarely to the listener. I suppose that is exactly what was promised though - terrible renditions of songs pronounced with atrocious engrish accents in ridiculous voices. In fact even the "engrish" part is suspect as many tracks are utterly incomprehensible. The liner notes naturally do not contain any lyrics, since it is clearly a wasted effort. I suspect the recording process involved the recording crew ambushing stumbling drunk seiyuu on the way home from a bar with a microphone and betting if they could sing from memory.

Of course for everyone who happily listens to the Moetans, Maritans, and countless other "this is a pen" style attempts in the world by seiyuu to cutely mangle the English language, concerns about quality or clarity take a backseat to novelty. With this in mind as context, Punkolle was generally a success. Sure some songs had a few wasted opportunities to get creative with the source material, but most tracks met expectations nicely, and three particular ones exceeded way above and beyond. In order of preference:

1. Sex and Violence. This song practically defines the entire compilation.
Momoi opens the album on a high note, taking generous artistic liberties with "Sex and Violence." In order to compensate for having exactly one line, each slightly-too-happy reptition is done with a slight variation on the voice or background effect that progressively escalates into the absurd. By the second half, Momoi has gone clearly lost her mind and has gone from just adding "cha cha!" in between lines to declaring herself to be a cat, yodeling in high falsetto for the backing vocals, slurring her speech like an old man, and inexplicably screaming "Oniitan!" (in a song about Sex and Violence). Listen carefully and you can probably pick out more than two dozen different voices in all.

2. God Save The Queen. I have no future.
Ikezawa Haruna's take on God Save The Queen is excellent and probably my second favorite track on the entire album. Ikezawa has a decent enough voice, but what really distinguishes this performance is that instead of just singing the words, she makes a ridiculously cute attempt to throw in an accent, tons of vocal slides, and plenty of style. She even rolls the R's! The effort is quite amazing and at some points it almost seemed as she really did believe she was a punk superstar. The song sort of runs away with its own personality and makes for highly amusing listening. She does this well in Basket Case as well, although to a lesser degree. Either way, Ikezawa's strange accent is something I can't quite pin down but I know I like it.

3. Pretty Fly (フォ・ア・ホワイト・ガイ)
Since "Pretty Fly" is already a satirical work in itself, intentionally corny, and a popular target for parodies, I figured there wasn't really much potential in this song aside from maybe the humor in Kadowaki Mai calling herself a white guy. Yet somehow, Mai manages to create a musical abortion that few people can ever be ready for. The entire song sounds like it was done by a second grade student desperately trying to recite lines for the school play while making "> <" eyes and running out of air. The delivery is occasionally broken up by her piercing "ahaa ahaa" that is enough to make me nervously check over my shoulder for policemen (explaining the situation probably wouldn't make things better). This is the track you can show to annoying people if you want them to look at you funny and leave you alone.

While there are a few other nice covers, these three tracks are all that make the entire album worth getting. Of the remaining titles, Momoi's Call Me was probably the strongest in terms of singing ability. Other fun tracks included Goto Yuko's surprisingly non-abrasive "Smells like Team Spirit", "London's Burning," and Shimizu Kaori's "Blitzkrieg Bop" which sounds like it was ripped out of an Adventure Island level. The weakest tracks were Tanaka Rie's covers which, while not actively bad, did suffer from extreme dullness. Punkolle could be a historical album noted to be one of the few song compilations where Goto actually comes out ahead of somebody else.

So I guess I lied in the subject, because the truth is I actually might listen to it a few more times, but only certain songs and I probably wouldn't admit it under any non-otaku social setting. In the right situations though, it is a nice CD to bring out especially since it appears to have flown under the radar in the English speaking community (I only read 2 - 3 sites talking about it at all). As proven in Hawaii by another Momoist, it can be weaponized for highly effective use during road trips - great for springing on a captive audience. To avoid severe bodily harm when listening in a group setting such as the above, make sure everybody involved has a safety word established in case things get out of hand.

Buy it!

Also, I got the Momoi card :P

Posted by Paranda at 11:15 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

DMC concert goods

I'm back home finally. Forgot to post this before I left:

Despite eventually bailing out on attending Yukarin's Dreamy Maple Crown 2009 tour, I managed to get a few concert goodies shipped over thanks to nyol (lots of overlap between Momoi and Yukari fans) who sacrificed many hours on line and some $200 in my stead.

In the picture starting from top left, going clockwise: Yukari Oukoku Hachimaki, bag, DMC B2 poster, mon cheri single, METAUSAHIME single, 2009 B2 calendar (six poster pages), Cherry key holder, portrait set, and pamphlet/photobook.

I wish I could have gone but the circumstances just weren't right. Here's looking at 2010. Maybe then I'll finally put these to use:

Koiseyo puppets are serious business.

Funny story while at Chuck's in Hawaii: Another Momoi/Yukari fan asked me who I liked more: Momoi or Yukari. On my seiyuu idol fandom scale from 1 - 10, Momoi would be the only 10, Yukari would be an 8, and most everyone else would be somewhere below that so it wasn't a super hard question. However when I replied out loud, I somehow slipped and said "もちろんゆ-" before correcting myself. It was too late - she commented on the "yu" part. How can I live with myself after such blasphemy?

Posted by Paranda at 10:25 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

DMC sadness

As I have learned over the weekend when looking for DMC tickets, Yukarin's concerts appear to employ a remarkably fair ticket system to prevent resellers from picking off good arena level seats and auctioning them. The entire front arena section is apparently determined by random drawing for those who buy specific fan club lottery tickets, with final seats revealed about 10-14 days before the show dates and then mailed to you. When browsing through the general public tickets, I have only seen listings for second and third floors. While I could opt to participate in a fanclub drawing through a proxy, it would be cutting it pretty close with a number of things potentially going badly. In the end I feel this element of uncertainty makes the trip not worth it. I'll probably just save the money for Animelo 2009 and aim for Yukari in 2010 if she does something major again with a more transparent ticketing process like Budokan.

I will have to be making trips in March and May to see Momoi anyway, so this gives me some breathing room. Note: there have been pretty big price drops for tickets to Hawaii for that exact weekend March 12 - March 16 so if you are still thinking about it, take a look at some airlines - the prices are cheaper than you may think.

Posted by Paranda at 9:10 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Age cults

Since Tanaka Rie's birthday passed over the weekend, she is now eligible to be 17 years old, a concept she once lampooned (in character as Maria) during an episode of Hayate no Gotoku.

The age 17 sect is probably the most well known club in the seiyuu industry, with a motto that embraces eternal youth with an sense of bittersweetness. The criteria for membership include being a female seiyuu, being 17 years old plus a minimum of 156 months, and being personally recognized by the cult leader Inoue Kikuko. Members can usually introduce themselves using their name followed by a proclamation that they are "17 years old" which gives the crowd an opportunity to call out a response or cheer depending on the person.

Although Kikuko did not proselytize, the movement gained momentum in 2006 when notable seiyuu Tamura Yukari was officially initated into the club. Horie Yui followed Yukari's example shortly after. Although many seiyuu after have adopted this line of thinking, the list of actual members remains small due to the strict membership requirements.

Due to broad appeal but surprising exclusivity, a number of interesting situations have arisen in response to this organization.

For those supporting the movement, some seiyuu seem to have earned a transitional status in the club where they are implicitly endorsed, but do not hold official membership because they do not meet all eligibility requirements.

There are also power struggles and resistances. Lately, as anyone who has seen the last DVD can tell, Yukari (supposedly bored with the central tenets) has injected some sarcasm in her declarations as opposed to deadpanning the usual lines. Then again, with the release of Meron no uta~Yukari Oukoku Kouka (Melon song~Yukari Kingdom's National Anthem) her religious heresies have been more or less retconned into a very blurred dual personality explanation.

My own theory is that the highly disparate modes she can switch into implies there are actually two Yukaris: One being the normal witty professional voice actor Tamura Yukari, and the other being her delusional alter-ego, an eternally 17 princess who believes she lives in a castle on a pink moon, has magical staff powers activated by winding herself up and then spinning in circles, and is also simultaneously married to Horie Yui and Mizuki Nana (presumably fantasies created as some sort of defensive mechanism to cope with the reality of the soul crushing seiyuu business). This kind of tongue and cheek cheating is still diverging quite a bit from Oneesan's original vision though. Still she remains an official member to date.

Additionally, the 17 brandname has faced the threat of dilution with various spinoffs such as the 10 years old cult formed by Kaneda Tomoko, and the 23 years old cult formed by Takahashi Chiaki, and even radical resistance movements. Team 30, an underground counter-cult originally formed by ARIA seiyuu during a radio broadcast, has declared that veteran seiyuu should embrace the reality of being over 30, and as such have marked the 17 age sect to be its sworn enemy.

Posted by Paranda at 11:54 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Spring concert plans

Since my vacation days are about to replenish when 2009 rolls around, I have already started thinking about some events that are coming up. I'll post my plans early in case somebody else making the same trip would like to enter into some sort of buddy system to make traveling safer and easier and less boring.

First thing I am eyeing is Tamura Yukari's LOVE LIVE 2009 *Dreamy Maple Crown* tour from mid February to early March. Back when Pinkle Twinkle Milky Way came out, I swore to myself that one of these days I would run the Yukarin gauntlet and attend a bunch of concerts back to back. Love Live Chelsea Girl reinforced those intentions, and finally the "sample" Animelo performance pushed me over the edge. I can't wait any longer. I must attend this tour!!! An early search for airline tickets is showing me about $950 for a round trip during most of February. This is about $200 less than my flight for last September's Animelo trip, plus it is eligible for a first class seat upgrade thanks to a bunch of unused frequent flyer miles that I accumulated from the last trip. Additionally, if I factor in President's Day, it is entirely possible to attend 3 concerts in this tour while only using up 7 vacation days: Leave New York morning of 2/12, arrive in Tokyo 2/13, take shinkansen to Fukuoka and attend the 2/14 concert, do some random stuff in between, attend Osaka performance 2/21, Tokyo performance 2/22, and return to the US on 2/23 (arrive same day thanks to the time zone difference). This makes this trip very attractive economically, but things could get pretty expensive if I start bidding on FC front row seats instead of just buying general public tickets.

Second event I am looking at is the 2009 Honolulu Festival. US fans who missed out last time rejoice, because Momoi is a guest once again. Given the incidents that happened in Hawaii that time (wotagei on stage, going for a swim, shooting a fan video with Momoi), this trip is very very difficult to turn down if only for that 0.001% chance that they might happen again. This would be a short trip using just 4 vacation days (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday). Honolulu Festival itself is FREE, so the only costs would just be flight, hotel, and a few cases of glowsticks. Unfortunately, seeing that this takes place March 13-15, there is less than one month to recoup costs from "Dreamy Maple Crown." This makes budget a rather large concern, and may require a strictly enforced diet of bread and water, freezing cold nights without heat, and giving up all figure/CD purchases from now until March...especially as it would be unwise to dip into savings given the current environment.

So..if I had to pick only one, which should I choose?

Update 01/05/09:
Much to my dismay, I discovered there is a mini Momoi event (part of a larger Ani-Uta live) in Japan on the same day as one of the Yukari concerts. There is a slight gap in times, but it is too risky to attempt the two consecutively. Since the purpose of the trip is to attend Dreamy Maple Crown, I am forced to choose Yukari who has the more focused event. I will of course go to Hawaii in order to ease the pain of choosing one over the other. Also, I will likely shorten the Yukari trip to just one weekend 2/21 - 2/22 in order to conserve vacation days and expenses thus making the cost of all the trips manageable (spending another week in Tokyo to see only one more show costs nearly as much as simply flying out again in the future - not worth it). My second motivation for this cost cutting is due to anticipation of another *unconfirmed* Momoi event in May that, if finalized, I will attend (you know the one).

Posted by Paranda at 1:47 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

More details on 'Punk Collection' tracklist?

Bookservice.co.jp is the first site that I've heard of with an update to the Omniverse Seiyuu Punk Collection item on their order page.

Based on this list, some singers and trackes have been changed. None of this can be corroborated with any other source so far though, so take It with a grain of salt.

[update: 12/26/08] Amazon has the same list up which I guess is a confirmation of sorts.

1. Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen (Ikezawa Haruna)
2. Green Day - Basket Case (Ikezawa Haruna)
3. Iggy & The Stooges - Search & Destroy (Kadowaki Maii)
4. The Offspring - Pretty Fly (Kadowaki Maii)
5. The Clash - London's Burning (Goto Yuuko)
6. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit (Goto Yuuko)
7. The Clash - White Riot (Shimizu Kaori)
8. Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop (Shimizu Kaori)
9. T.B.D (Tanaka Rie)
10. T.B.D (Tanaka Rie)
11. The Exploited - Sex & Violence (Momoi Halko)
12. Blondie - Call Me (Momoi Halko)

They should have gotten Ueda Kana to do one since she rages against the machine (presumably the establishment consisting of old men). Someone obviously spent too much time on XBL.

[update: 01/06/09] Release date pushed back to end of February :(

Posted by Paranda at 11:30 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Seiyuu Punk Compi[lation]

Let's talk about the punk cover project that Momoi is participating in. People who get the CDJapan newsletters have probably already seen the advertisement for Seiyuu Punk Compi preorders.

The current roster consists of Momoi Halko, Sakura Nogawa, Ikezawa Haruna, Kadowaki Maii, Kuwashima Houko, and Shimizu Kaori. According to mu-mo, this CD will have twelve songs so I'm guessing we'll either see these six seiyuu covering two songs each or another six announced to make it one seiyuu per song (which would be awesome*¹). We know Momoi can pull off some radical style changes, but the rest of the cast is untested in this genre as far as I've ever heard - pls. post examples if they exist. I suppose of the remaining group, Sakunyan is most likely to pull off something that doesn't sound like a donkey braying as I have a good idea of what voice she will probably use. This is not a knock on the member selection though. If they announce more artists, seiyuu like Morinaga Rika or Watanabe Akeno would probably feel right at home but I like this theme they're going with where they apparently select people at random with a dartboard and no regards to how much anything fits their projected persona or musical history.

So far we have a pretty diverse group of songs revealed (in no particular order):

Sex Pistols - Anarchy In the U.K.
The Crash - White Riot
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
U2 - With or Without You　
Green Day - Basket Case　
Ramones - Blitzkring Bop
Rancid - Rudy Soho　
The Offspring - Pretty Fly

There is no indication of which seiyuu is covering which song and I have not been listening to any radio recently, but looking at the above list my guess is that Momoi would probably cover "Smells Like Teen Spirit" given that she is a Cobain fan. I don't know if the singers choose their own songs and how strict the genre guidelines are but another possibility could be Momoi covering a Weezer title. There is no mention of whether these songs will be rearranged to be more suited to the seiyuu, or if they are expected to imitate the originals. It is also unknown whether the lyrics will be Japanese or English. If they go with the latter options, the results will probably be a lot of fun in that jaw dropping train wreck sort of way, but something that any self respecting person could only hear exactly once before taking out a sledgehammer, smashing the CD to bits, and then if the hammer is still intact, smashing themselves to bits (assuming having lived through Kadowaki - hopefully she is placed at the beginning to put us out of our misery early). Therefore, for my own sadistic sake, please let it be the trainwreck.

Sound work will be done by FREE-WILL who has worked with some big names like DIR EN GREY so at least we can expect it to get polished to a mirror shine. Maybe it can even be used as a weapon for blinding.*²

P.S. Momoi's Hot Shot Jr. released tonight!

*¹ No Hirano Aya please.
*² Add Goto Yuko and it will become an illegal weapon of mass destruction.

Posted by Paranda at 2:31 PM

Matsuki Miyu owes 27% of her best songs to Momoi?

So I've basically been MIA for the past few weeks due to the unique combination of insane credit markets, CFA cramming, presidential election obsession, and an inability to resist reading economist blogs when I should be sleeping. A.K.A. "Getting the Grima Wormtongue makeover." But I will come out of my cave to mention that Matsuki Miyu's new "Best Songs" album released in late September caught me by surprise when hitting the playlist. Four out of the fifteen songs in there are written by Momoi including "Musume Gokoro Otome Gokoro," which I actually had never heard before. It's interesting stuff. In fact I hadn't realized Miyu was the singer for the Coco version of Kokodayo. It also has Camera=Mannenhitsu (Miyu's labeling doesn't include the !!! part even though it probably should), a bit of an amusing coincidence because I was really looking forward to hearing the same song in Momoi's self cover album coming out next month. Matsuki says they are really cheerful songs. Momoi is not mentioned by name in the liner notes commentary though

Posted by Paranda at 12:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Chiiiii

Pretty good location to watch from :)

Rierie is one of the earliest seiyuu I ever liked before I became a Momoist - in fact probably the first one. To this day, I never outgrew my initial Rie fandom, so when I was able to see her perform live today it was an incredible rush. When she sang "Let me be with you," or when she spoke to the audience as Chii and did her signature '~chiiiiii' my inner Chobits fanaticism (shamefully buried away since 2003) manifested itself and I started waving my glowstick like a maniac. Rie doesn't have too many songs so it is difficult to judge her singing ability, but she does have a few (one?) good albums and she is decent live (on key, loud enough, and very stable). Of course she also cosplayed, though I'm not sure as what. Overall I am very satisfied, though it is my opinion that Rie needs MORE SONGS MORE LIVE. It would have been better if it lasted more than 20 minutes, but just seeing even that was enough for me.

The biggest complaint I have is with the location of NYAF itself. If Javitz Center is someone's first experience to NYC, I can understand them having a terrible impression of the city. The area around it looks like a third world country with torn down buildings, empty parking lots, crumbling bridges, graffiti everywhere, and a certain section on 38th street that inexplicably smells...'farmlike'. I hope she can enjoy Times Square and some of our more famous nicer areas without that part of Manhattan leaving a sour taste in her mouth.

Now to get some rest so I can camp out tomorrow for autographs.

Posted by Paranda at 7:56 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Some photos taken over Animelo weekend

Ikebukuro. This will be home for the duration of the trip to Japan.

There is lots to see and do. But since this is a Momoist/otaku blog, let's just skip all the other touristy stuff I did and get to the substance...

animate! 9 floors of stuff. Took a good 4-5 hours to look through it all.

k-books (lots of good used stuff and comiket items)

Only bought a few things...spent conservatively since if I want to waste money on things that should never see the light of day, there was still all of Akihabara and Nakano Broadway.

Spotted while heading toward Animelo on 8/30.

Was so excited to be walking toward Saitama Super Arena

The Arena.

Merchandise tables. Combo sets and wristbands were sold out unfortunately by the time I got there. Picked up 2 shirts, towels, and pamphlet.

Outside map. Momoists set up camp in the marked area the next day.

Crowd began to swell as time got closer.

Had a blast at the concert. Jaw dropped when trying to find the number marked on the ticket and then the realization they were direct stage-side seats. Damn this thing was long. A great time was had, but I learned my lesson this time. 2 ultra oranges, 2 pinks, and 2 neon sticks is NOT ENOUGH. Wanted to UO on so many good acts but blew my entire stash right out the door with Yukari.

Goods obtained from the concert. Managed to catch a streamer that got shot out of the cannon during the encore. Since the thing was right next to me, when it went off I thought something exploded and nearly ducked for cover.

8/31

Posing with another Momoist.

Huge group of Momoists hanging out in the lower food court while waiting for seating to open. It was the same reliable group that has been to every concert I've ever seen so far. They came from all over. Some big trips to see Momoi include travellers from Osaka, Aomori (8 hrs by train), and even Korea.

T-shirt present for Momoi. Everybody included their own personal message. Takayama Saki (actress of Momoi from Haruko Update) was also attending Animelo to support Momoi and showed up to sign the shirt and say hello to Momoists.

These seats were actually pretty good and you could get a clear view of the performers as well as the entire arena. The "not as lucky" comparison is only relative to day 1, but otherwise it was awesome.

Lesson learned from day 1: stock glowsticks!!! Used up 15 ultra oranges, 6 ultra pinks, 2 ultra greens, 4 red and blue glowing bracelets, and fully drained 6 AAA batteries for neon red and neon blue light sticks.

Picked up 2 MOSAIC.WAV shirts along the way.

Still in Japan right now this is concise to save time. If you want to see parts of day 2 including Momoi you can probably find some recorded segments on Nico or Youtube although I won't bother posting the links since they will be constantly deleted/reuploaded. Also consider visiting seiyuu3 for a more detailed description of other artist acts.

Visited Akiba and a few other famous Momoi spots and specific stores/buildings thanks to a local fan who took a full day off to play ad-hoc tour guide. Maybe will visit more Momoists in Kyoto and we have a Suara concert to go see on Saturday. Let's see how it goes.

Posted by Paranda at 11:35 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Blah

Day 1 of Animelo just passed. It was a bad idea to explore Ikebukuro in the morning because the concert itself is a massive test of stamina. After tomorrow I will never walk again. Too tired to title this post.

Highlights of the day include seeing Suara, Mizuki Nana, Minorin, and Yukari. ESPECIALLY YUKARI...getting to draw hearts to Koiseyo Onnanoko, getting zapped with the MEROMERO stick, and actually implementing the moves taught to the meron song in the latest Chelsea Girl DVD (good thing I watched that before I left).

Posted by Paranda at 10:29 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Yells ~It's a beautiful life~

The new Animelo theme song has come out this week. Since a version has begun floating around online I couldn't resist but preview it while I wait for my copy. The song is rather simple but I derived great enjoyment at the constant switching up of singers, which occurs much more frequently than the previous three Animelo theme songs. Aside from a slightly annoying pronunciation of "Yell", the song has quickly grown on me after multiple listening sessions, and I currently rank it somewhere above Generation A and below Outride.

This year, Momoi got to have three solo lines, slightly up from last year, and more noticeable thanks to more balanced artist rotation (though some still got more coverage than others). Meanwhile, Mizuki Nana, Arika, and most of JAM Project except Makkun got major cuts in their line count, possibly in favor of promoting some newer acts and also because of how many verses they had in previous years.

Unfortunately despite her increased role, Momoi does not appear much in the accompanying video since she was not present during the taping of the group session. The only Momoi footage was of her individual recording session, which is played during her solo segments. This is a shame because she appears in the video very sharply dressed and in perfect makeup, giving off an incredibly radiant smile that would have been sure to draw some attention from anyone getting their first exposure to Momoi in this video. One thing that Momoi is really good at is smiling. Also as consistent with last year's DVD reveal when responding to a comment by Yoffy, Momoi always records sitting down so it was interesting to see her posture again in contrast to other artists who did their singing while standing up.

Thoughts on other artists:
1. Best delivery goes to Suara, for her version of "立ち止まらずに歩こう" compared to everyone else who sang the same line.

2. Tanimiya looks WAYYYY different from what I expected him to look since he is usually so clean cut in cast pictures.

3. I almost didn't recognize Ishikawa Chiaki despite seeing her in person at AX last year, and almost missed it since she only got one solo line like Arika. She looks like she reverse aged 20 years.

4. Kitadani is awesome as usual and likes to acknowledge the camera. Yoffy still does his handwaving. I miss seeing Naonii do his neck twisty thing whenever he sings though...this was not the year he should have sat out now that I'm finally going to see it dammit!

5. I have no clue who the hell May'n is, why is she part of Animelo again? I guess I am ok with her though, based on the video.

6. It is going to be fun seeing how they are going to split this up between like 40 people on stage for each day. I also seriously cannot picture denpa singers like Shaori or MI~KO doing anything this poppy at all. My mind will be blown.

Posted by Paranda at 1:53 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Happy Love Live 2007 was pretty bad

In anticipation to clear my watching queue for when Momoi DVDs arrive, I finally found some time to watch two other seiyuu concerts I had been putting off.

Biggest letdown: Sakakibara Yui's Happy Love Live 2007. I really enjoy listening to Yui, so it was a major disappointment to discover that she can't actually sing very well live. You have some seiyuu idols who sing so perfectly on DVD that you can't help but wonder if there is some sound engineer heavily doctoring up all the audio before release and piping in a studio-recorded dub (Yukarin, but maybe she's just that good), and then you have performances like Yui who gets winded by her own movements. I think I will stick to listening to her CDs from now on. I managed to go about 4 minutes before I could no longer resist the urge to hit fast forward. Even the MCs were boring.

The concert was just two hours of mediocre singing and dancing, two things which Yui can't seem to get to mesh together well. In fact she is so unremarkable, the only way I could tell her apart from her own background dancers was knowing to look in the center.

I fared better with Chihara Minori's Contact First Live Tour, although I already had experience with her live singing from earlier Animelo and Lovedol DVDs so I was familiar with her approximate live singing skill. Even so, I still did a lot of skipping since a lot of the songs just didn't really appeal to me...I think I just stuck to the more well known songs that she released in singles earlier. Since I don't really follow Minorin closely, one thing that I was surprised about was that she seemed much more subdued than her "strawberry" loopy uncontrollably giggling self shown in last year's Lovedol concert or from her AX appearance. MCs were still interesting to watch through though, and Minori could still get a good reaction from the audience. My favorite part was probably the encore, which I didn't skip any of at all.

Posted by Paranda at 2:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

20% off Izayoi no Tsuki, Canaria no Koi

Surprisingly, what made me post this today was because of a Yukarin album that was featured on the front page CD sale at CDJapan. Can't they move enough of these without the sale?

Bargain-binned for $6 off, this limited edition album with DVD is actually cheaper than the regular edition. With SAL costing $5, the discount effectively nullifies shipping costs. Now I have no excuse not to get it.

Izayoi no Tsuki, Canaria no Koi.

Speaking of Yukari, I am a big fan of Yukari live concerts. Even though I don't listen to her music that much by themselves (except for the 8 - 10 songs that I tend to loop), she is probably the most entertaining live performer I have seen other than Momoi, and her concerts are roughly equivalent in terms of infectious fan energy (I am unable to resist drawing big hearts with my hands during Koiseyo Onnanoko). She also delivers cute talks, sends people into matrix-like convulsions with her mero-mero-stick, and makes jokes about her dancers in cat costumes (it must be really hot in there...*breathes heavily*).

Probably the most appealing thing about Yukari is that she is essentially a character. In fact it is so well defined I could probably borrow her name as an adjective to describe other things. That something is Yukari-like...

Off stage, Yukari carefully cultivates a single idiot-savant image that renders Tamura Yukari the person virtually indistinguishable from Yukarin the 17-year old. Even her walking mannerisms are deliberate, as she "shuffles" in a particularly awkward gait (that I guess is supposed to be cute) yet when actually singing, she can be rather graceful. Keep in mind prior to becoming a seiyuu, Yukari worked in a finance position at a corporation in Fukuoka and holds several professional certifications in the field.

Although I do not know when I will have a chance to experience a true Yukari concert myself, maybe I will get a small hint of it at Animelo this year (plans are still tentative but chance to go is greater than 50%).

In the meantime, I will be getting my next Yukari live fix from the upcoming Chelsea Girl DVD.
Yukari Tamura Love Live 2008 Chelsea Girl

Posted by Paranda at 2:38 AM

Momoi injures leg in PV shoot

While shooting the PV for her next single, Momoi fell from the stage and injured her leg. She received stitches for the first time in her life. And yet she's still not even taking that much time off still and is still zipping from one event to the next. Don't work too hard Momoi! Health comes first! Please recover soon.

In other news, San Seto obliterates competition in Saimoe. Defeating a heavy hitter like Souseiseki is truly something. Go go Momoi seiyuu magnum opus!

Posted by Paranda at 4:46 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

I love CHIAKI

Now unquestionably the best Aice5 member.

Other Chiaking exploits: Victim of a punishment game on the radio, creating an incident on AT-X due to skimpy clothes, impersonating Nishioka Sumiko, countering Inoue Kikuko's "eternally 17" cult, and more. Eronechan has no shortage of quirks.

Posted by Paranda at 9:27 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Can Horie Yui please not be in every show in existence?

Ah Horie Yui, responsible for one of my first tastes of seiyuu fandom. I remember when I was still a budding seiyuu maniac, I would occasionally watch an episode of something, go "Hey that sounds like Hocchan" and beam proudly later when the credits confirmed my guess. Gone are those days. She is in everything, so when you suspect a voice to be Hocchan, you already know you are right. I wouldn't go so far as to say I dislike her now, but in the last six months, the novelty has certainly worn off.

I like watching her live performances in Aice5 and I do enjoy Horie Yui's cute voice, which I feel is fine for doing characters like Manabi or Suzu, but when there are too many roles done in the exact same voice, there is a point of saturation where you can only associate the voice with the actress, and no longer with the character. This is somewhat bearable if the voice at least matches the character personality, but things gets very bad when it doesn't. She often tends to dumb down characters even more than they were probably originally intended to be and I cannot stand her brand of predictable "moe" stupidity when it doesn't seem to fit the character at all.

I am especially critical of two of her latest roles: Higurashi Kai where she essentially plays an emo dope, and Sky Girls which when comparing her performance to the excellent performances of Shizuka, Ayako, and Saori, allows Hocchan's annoyingness to stick out like a sore thumb. I do not want to hear a high ranking military commander say "hauuu." If Horie Yui wants to do anything more than 3 shows per season, I would hope she stayed out of relatively normal character roles, because she really can not do those well. Sure there are some times where she actually tries to discipline her voice to match the character, but recently more often than not, she injects her own trademark style into the character.

This is a good thing right? Well, usually yes. But with Horie Yui and the sheer number of roles she plays in one season, no. I wind up cringing because of her inability to resist shoehorning her hamfisted Ayu style into clearly NOT-AYU characters. Ayu is in fact my least favorite character in Kanon so the less I am reminded of that Taiyaki eating retard, the better.

And yet the strange thing is I would probably still consider myself somewhat of a Hocchan fan, in most aspects at least for now. I just hope she scales her acting projects back a little, because she doesn't have the range to stretch herself across so many series. Idol seiyuu should just stick to being idols :3

Posted by Paranda at 5:36 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Riepantsu

I was looking through Nico video yesterday as usual for seiyuu stuff, and one clip of Kugimiya Rie stood out as a testament to how creepy some hardcore seiyuu fans can be. In some guest appearance on Takahashi Mikako's show, Kugimiya does a cute stomping action on TV. Since she was wearing a skirt, there was apparently a panty flash for like one millisecond. Given the context of the action, and the length of exposure, there really should have been no way for any normal person to notice it. The fact that somebody was hawkeyed and vigiliant enough to see it blows my mind. It shouldn't even have occurred to them to check, unless they originally watched the entire appearance with the specific intention to catch something like this. They must have went through frame by frame. Who the hell does this?

Posted by Paranda at 10:24 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Seki Tomokazu & Noto Mamiko at Otakon

That kind of news means I'll probably have to go to Otakon for the third time, if work doesn't get in the way. I'm disappointed it wasn't Halko after a bunch of US hype from J-ENT, but these guests are pretty good so I guess I'm not in a bad mood.

Aside from being the guy behind some legendary characters, Seki is an awesome guy based on his HM3 articles and it will be great to finally see him in action, in person. This notion is further reinforced by other famous seiyuu, such as Kawasumi Ayako who named him as her favorite to work with last year. I am currently having trouble deciding what I plan to get signed. It's down to copy of a Seki-featured HM3 or a Pierrot poster.

And, ah, Noto Mamiko, the seiyuu famously known for transforming all of her female coworkers into temporary lesbians. I'm not a huge fan of her voice work, but she is one of those people I'm actually a bit scared to meet, just because she is so pretty that I by comparison, feel like some variant of pond scum, and by pond I mean an open-air septic tank. I'm fear my self image may never recover were I to approach her for any sort of autograph. What the hell do I get signed anyway? She doesn't have any solo albums, and I refuse to look like an otaku by bringing character singles instead (although by being there at all I suppose this is pointless). Much thinking about this will be necessary.

Posted by Paranda at 6:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I've overlooked Goto Yuko for a while

And now it's time to atone. The more I read and listen to Goto Yuko, the more I realize how incredibly good she is at her job. Although she's not a great singer, she makes up for it in a lot of ways. Rapid-fire speech, a fine tuned ability to harmonize with her character roles, quick interview wit, a very appealing "default" voice (for live appearances and events), insightful prose even for a daily blog, and all around sense of natural style combine to make a powerful seiyuu, and one that quickly wins fans.

She might not have the same vigor of some of the younger seiyuu, but she's already got some moderate fame and recognition, and I think it has the potential to snowball into something much larger if things go right - which they appear to be, if her recent victory at the Seiyuu Awards means anything. I just hope she doesn't get lost as another cog in the machine that is Production baobab.

Posted by Paranda at 10:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ar Tonelico, 18 hours and counting

After killing myself for two weeks with a MASSIVE amount of work, I've finally had time to take a break. Reviewing Haruko UP DATE 2 is temporarily on hold as I spend this precious weekend mass playing Ar Tonelico before I return to another week of midterms and papers. Luckily, the game is short enough that I can probably beat it by today.

Ar Tonelico is a 2D RPG game with zero grind, a light hearted story, plenty of distractions to break up the crawl, cute character designs, heavily disguised (and sometimes not-so-well-disguised) sexual dialogue, and plenty of moe dating game elements. I've gotten pretty tired of the sheer amount of boring tasks required to complete games for RPG perfectionists, especially after sinking some 90 hours into FF12 in nothing but dark dungeons. Ar Tonelico, with its short zero tension romp through bright forests and villages, was the game I needed to cleanse my mind from FF12's dirty aftertaste. But how can it get better? Ar Tonelico's three main characters are voiced by none other than the RAMS power cast.

There's RAMS's flagship female, ultra veteran Nogawa Sakura as Misha, the childhood friend. Representing Clover, the high pitched "gyaorurururuu" Miyazaki Ui plays Aurica, the traumatized girl with no confidence. And, my favorite rookie superstar Sakai Kanako stars as Shurelia, the heavily armed oneesama.

edit: Finished.

The no "new game+" is bullshit though. I should have saved more at critical plot points. I had to betray the Aurica storyline I was running throughout the entire game because Sakai Kanako seduced me with her voice at the last second :D

Posted by Paranda at 8:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I mean this in a good way

I fucking love Saito Chiwa. 良い意味で!

Posted by Paranda at 11:10 PM

I need to satisfy my urge to praise Itou Shizuka

So I'm going to do it. Things have been going well for Tama-nee recently. Although debuting in 2002, she has really only been in the spotlight these past two years. After further dearimasu-ing her way into my heart as Wilhelmina, among other significant roles here and there, I realized I had to watch at least one show where she was the lead. I chose Asatte no Houkou for my Shizuka-sama fix, and I was not disappointed. There is nothing more aurally satisfying than listening to an angry Itou Shizuka, and in this show, she is quite angry. Combine with the visual absurdity of that voice coming from a little kid, and it becomes even better. Whatever Shizuka lacks in range of "alternate" voices, she makes up for more than enough in range of emotions displayed. She is eerily convincing in the role of the serious Shouko, especially since Itou generally acts so awesomely laid back and semi-stoned when out of character (in one guest appearance, she intentionally banged her forehead on a desk when bowing, and cradled a bottle of wine like a baby. She also let her hair down and unrestrained so it kept getting in her face and she had to push it out of the way every five seconds during the interview). Behind that facade is some hidden serious conviction her work (see also her Zoids Genesis duet with Koyama Kimiko). Itou has racked up somewhat of a wild reputation though. I just hope she doesn't wind up dead from one of her hobbies - there's too much talent at stake.

Posted by Paranda at 12:44 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

HM3, not Megami

I've been reading HM3 for a while now, and I find that it is only partially like the Megami of seiyuu magazines, because their scope is kind of limited since there aren't that many seiyuu superstars yet. I complained about Hirano Aya's mass appearances back in August, but that was before I started getting an actual monthly subscription. Now I realize I was getting unlucky, as it's not just Hirano. It's pretty much the same people every other month. On the female side, Mizuki Nana shows up the most. After her is Tamura Yukari modeling her gothic lolita dresses, Nogawa Sakura, Horie Yui, and Iizuka Mayumi.

On the male side, Naozumi Takahashi is by far the most featured (probably more for his live stuff than anime voice work which is very little), followed by Tomokazu Seki (generally a cool guy who isn't afraid to do ridiculous poses for the camera) and Takehito Koyasu who sneers an awful lot for someone who plays some very funny characters, and also appears to be best buddies with Tomokazu Seki.

Posted by Paranda at 1:15 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

They gave Kugimiya's character to Tamura!

So it seems Kugimiya Rie's character will be instead played by Tamura Yukari for the anime adaptation of Idolmaster.

My response: What the fuck?

I haven't seen/played Idolmaster before, but from the looks of the bio page, Minase Iori appears to be a nasty tsundere type. Hey I love Yukarin but I'm sorry, there is nobody who can beat Kugimiya at her own game. That character just LOOKS like someone Kugimiya needs to voice for. I don't care if she doesn't sing as well, this is just a baffling to me.

Since I skipped out on Zero no Tsukaima (for time reasons, and also because it looked like shit), I have been seriously starved for Kugimiya for far too long. The brief Shana OVA last month did nothing other than push me over the edge of insanity by making remember just how much that voice can affect me. I must hear it! Now I can only hope Alisa Bannings appears a whole damn lot in Nanoha Strikers to make up for this awful state of affairs.

Most arguments I hear against Kugimiya knock her on range. This probably more due to the fact that her very different roles tend not to overlap with the same audience. She pulls off some incredible stuff in her demo. We all know she can do stuff like Shana or Alphonse Elric, but the demo has one more surprise. It starts off pretty standard and typical "Rie", but then suddenly jumps into a horrifyingly impossible segment where I actually thought Kugimiya Rie had secretly been swapped wtih Satou Akemi instead. Kugimiya imitating a 98% accurate Shiori-style voice out of nowhere is to me, almost as impressive as Saitou Chiwa going into "deep sexy" mode from her usual voice. Speaking of deep, Kugimiya is also a surprisingly good live singer, although one wouldn't think so.

Another good thing about Kugimiya is that she seems to bring the best out of Park Romi.

Posted by Paranda at 11:52 PM

HM3 Issue 42

January's issue 42 features Mizuki Nana yet again and the guys from Marginal Prince.

They usually give you big posters too, like this fold-out Mizuki Nana poster.

The pages are pretty thick they're bound more like a photobook than a magazine, so there is basically no way to scan these without ruining the spine. I care too much about my precious volumes to scan these myself, so I also simultaneously grab the online version whenever I get my physical one. This issue has a lot of good pictures, including two Momoi photos. I've posted six selected ones below. Click for large.

First off, Nonaka Ai, one out of a series of photographs.

Next, Kanda Akemi. Kanda was interviewed for this month's Aice5 article where she talks about herself and opinions on all the other members of the troupe. She has a much longer history than I thought (FYI: Last month's interviewee was dear Chiaki).

Momoi and Goto Yuko do a joint interview about their respective Lovedol characters, so here is one from them. Last month's Lovedol feature was Nogawa Sakura and Nakahara Mai (dream team <3).

Goto also has an extra two pages dedicated to her new album so she gets another pic.

Mizuki Nana, being on the cover has the most pictures in this issue, in addition to that rad poster.

I also included an image of Shintani. I'm not a really big fan of her but I know pantsgoblinx is so he might like this image. It's part of a pretty big pull-out booklet promoting her recent album.

Posted by Paranda at 11:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Surprise of 06: Takahashi Chiaki

Blah blah blah New Year. I'll be brief: Went up to Canada for the holidays this year. Surprisingly, NO SNOW in Ottawa. When has that ever happened before?

Now that I'm back..I've created a new category since I think a lot of my "anime" posts are more about seiyuu than any show itself...such as today's.

The title is slightly misleading, since I have already dedicated 2006's "best seiyuu" title to Nakahara Mai (and she damn well deserves it), but I must say I have been incredibly impressed and surprised by Takahashi Chiaki. Not only is she the best singer out of Aice5, she also gave the most memorable performance in Otoboku as the fiery Takako. I've always liked Horie Yui and Asano Masumi before, and I knew the rest of Aice5 well but I wasn't too familiar with Chiaki. Apparently she did have a big role in japanese dubs for American cartoons, i.e. Rugrats' Angelica, but in the anime world, mostly erogames (under the name Ishibashi Tomoko) or small TV roles.

It might also be fitting to mention that I have never seen anyone more flirty in front of a camera than Chiaki (based on the Love Power PV and "behind the scenes" segments). She appears to be eternally posing and winking during every scene, and her spastic speech and jerky movements are kind of endearing. Her demo style also reminds me a bit of cross between Kuwatani Natsuko and Sanada Asami for some reason, although she doesn't really sound like either of them. I'm not sure why.

I decided to watch Otoboku mostly as part of my goal to see Sakakibara Yui's two debut series, and partly for Aice5. Little did I know Chiaki would steal the show from everyone! May this year bring many more leading roles come to her. I shall follow with great interest.

Meanwhile, Sakakibara Yui's voice acting debut has been a bit bland. It's not bad, but I expected more after hearing her radio and demo work. She was pretty good as Hisako in Otoboku, so my complaint is primarily against Happiness, which she had the lead role as Kamisaka Haruhi. She just sounded so forced. Maybe that was how she did her game lines so she was stuck with using the same method? Did she wing it because she suspected everyone would have their ears on Yuimoto Michiru instead?

I have no idea, but I know it was a wasted opportunity (though I can say differently for Naruse Mia who, for a game actress, did a great job with Anri on TV). That's ok though, because Sakakibara made up for it with ridiculously awesome accomplishments in singing. She may be more suited as idol seiyuu. Oh well. More answers will come this year.

Posted by Paranda at 6:42 PM