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 (1) | 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 Chilsea Girl DVD.
Yukari Tamura Love Live 2008 Chelsea Girl

Posted by Paranda at 2:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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 (2) | 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