A fast denial

Ono Ryoko: Mystery bus tour "ToHeart2 'Mizo'teri Travelers" Mizoteri = Mystery
Kogure Ema: Who the hell thought of this name?
Ono Ryoko: It wasn't me yo

Mizoraji show was on break last week since they were doing their third all-night event "Boku ha mizo ga sukunai" (somebody pls write event report). I now realize how important listening to this show is to my Monday morning moods. Oh god so ronery without them...

Withdrawal.

Posted by Paranda at 12:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mizoraji 200

Instead of spam twitter, I'll just liveblog Mizoraji episode 200 here as I listen. Shit is hilarious so far.

A bit of background, Mizoraji is the nickname for "Sasara and Ma-ryan Seitokai Kaichou Radio for ToHeart2," a radio program that I've been really into for the last few months. Thanks to catsspat who raved about it a lot, I finally checked it out last summer and I've been hooked since.

The two hosts are Ono Ryoko and Kogure Ema, who are voice actors for ToHeart 2 characters Sasara and Ma-ryan respectively. Each episode is between 30 and 60 minutes long and only has a few basic corners. Special corners like voice requests only last a few seconds, so the majority of it is what feels like mostly unscripted talk in response to questions (futsuota and fukigenyo). In general they seem to have a good time and the talk can derail into amusing ramblings on whatever subject they want. Describing their own show, they once compared it to "two tipsy ladies talking way too loudly at an izakaya."

More than once, they'd say something that they joke about not being broadcast material on air, but of course it always gets aired. In a recent episode, they even dragged Saito Chiwa into a continuing discussion on panties. Ema remarked on a later episode, it was a good thing she didn't have her manager there during the recording or he might have nipped it in the bud.

Ono is a fast talking, gives-no-fucks, wisecracking type, but overall is a nicer and optimistic person who is the "light side" of the duo. Her normal voice is a bit abrasive, but when in the right mood, she will turn on the charm like a faucet and speak in the most godly cute voice. Despite her speech sometimes being very masculine, she's actually more girly of the two, more easily embarassed, sometimes says sappy lines, and tries to give Ema makeover tips (like trying to make her grow her hair out).

In contrast, Kogure Ema a.k.a Ema-sama is the "dark side" of the duo. She's more pessimistic and has a bit of an S personality although I feel it's overstated by many people. Rather she's kind of like Yukarin but even lazier. She's also a bit of a shut-in who stays home all day and claims she has no people skills despite her tremendously clever wit. Notably her abuse is usually self-deprecatory in nature as opposed to Yukarin's tendency to dump on fans. Still that doesn't stop her from occasionally calling out a fan's actions, teasing Ryoko, or finding innuendo in things she says.

At public recording in Tokyo
Ema: So is anyone here from Hokkaido today
Fan: Me!
Ema: What? Are you stupid!?
Ryoko: *sweetly* Oh, could it be you came all the way just to see us?
Fan: No I'm just on a business trip
Ema: Of course not. I knew it!

Their two personalities mesh quite well together almost as if they were like two best friends, and despite the differences, there isn't any dominant personality. Both are very talkative, very funny, and neither one can resist getting a nice burn in at the others expense. A while back, I tweeted a segment from fukigenyo which I think is good to pull out as a good example of their usual banter. Episode 199's Christmas special is also a good example of the general mood between these two: Ema getting a foot massage (slightly abridged).

For the 200th episode which just aired minutes ago, the show dropped the usual format for a special theme where Ryoko and Ema called listeners of the show and interacted with them directly for a strictly timed 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

Amusing stuff so far...

-------

Near the end of the first call

Ema: Which do you like, Sasara or Ma-ryan?
Fan: I knew this was coming
Ryoko: Don't hang up, don't hang up!
Ema: Now tell me!
Fan: Maaryan
-time limit cuts him off-
Ema: NOOOO EVEN THOUGH HE SAID HE LIKED MA-RYAN
Ryoko: That was really good timing

-------

On calling a fan at the office

Ryoko: Huh are you at work right now?
Fan: Oh, yeah
Ryoko: Well then, get back to work!

-------

So fucking awkward lol

Ryoko: Guess who?
Fan: Ono-san
Ryoko: Ohhh awesome
Ema: Nah I bet he's talking about a different Ono
Ryoko: Wow you really know me. Thank you, I'm Ono.
Fan: Yeah
*silence*
Ema: Ema's here too
*silence*
Fan: Oh

-----

Ema is way too clever

Ryoko: Do you know who we are?
Fan: Uh It's...mizoraji, is that right?
Ryoko: Is that right?
Ema: Yeah maybe I might be Kogure Ema

-----

So jealous he got character voices. I like how it suddenly dawns on him he's speaking THE Ma-ryan senpai and Sasara

Fan: Hello
Ema: *in Ma-ryan voice* Yasu-ryan
Fan: Yes, speaking
Ema: *in Ma-ryan voice* Yasu-ryan right?
Fan: omg
Ema: *in Ma-ryan voice* Who could it be?
Fan: Ma-ryan senpai?
Ema: *in Ma-ryan voice* It's Ma-ryan. By the way, Sasara is here too
Ryoko: *in Sasara voice* Kusugawa here

-----

Ema truly is a Hikkikomori

Ema: So the theme for this time is, what did you do for Christmas?
Ryoko: Do you wanna know?
Ema: If we tell you, you have to tell us. You need to promise
Fan: Ok I promise
Ryoko: Ohhh. Ok, as for me, I worked. Worked on 24th and 25th
Ema: I'm so jealous.
Ryoko: I did an event.
Ema: *backing out*
Ryoko: Hey we had a deal!
Ema: I was doing a Monster Hunter party the whole time. 23rd, 24th, and 25th.
Ryoko: You're living it up
Ema: In a way

Posted by Paranda at 11:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Spring Party notes

Earlier this spring, I went to a sphere concert. I wrote some notes about it but it never materialized into a real "live report." Eventually the motivation went away so I'll just dump the snippets and close the book on that.

• The jump timing for a lot of songs don't make any sense. Basically don't expect to go with the flow on calls. Need to know them beforehand
• Ayahi is really popular with girls. I saw some female sphere fans in full Ayahi jumpsuits that were pretty neat
• Aki gives off big sister vibes even though she's smaller than me. Also she doesn't really tower over others as much as I thought
• Didn't hear anyone use Tomacchan nickname. Fans called her Harukasu instead. I guess the name from the photobook?
• Tomatsu's color being orange means she gets the benefit of a ton of people pulling out UO
• Minako did the most in terms of crowd leadership (calls, waving signals, clapping, etc). Also the whole stage turned purple.
• Really long intro where 4 members read a sappy script about spring time.
• During bowing session, other sphere girls would turn their heads to look at you directly, but Haruka did shifty eyes instead lol
• Sphere fans pretty organized. Guy next to me had a big case of glowsticks divided into 4 compartments for each member.
• After costume change, Aki in her green miniskirt + green boots gliding around the stage on supports totally looked like feminine Peter Pan
• There's an interesting mechanic where a secondary stage would actually split into 4 parts while the girls were on it. Each stage would move through the concert halls down one of the aisles and recombine in the middle and back of the stage. Very clever to give everyone a chance to see them up close considering the randomized seats. Sadly it was underused - they only went down the aisle this 3 times, which means every section lost out on 1 member
• The concert title was "Spring Party is Here" and so seating blocks were arranged as YTRAPS with Y all the way at the front row and S in the last row. Backwards it spells S. Party. Unfortunately, I got screwed with "S" but it's good experience to know for future Sphere concerts if they randomize the seats. You can sort of guess the arrangements based on the title and pick a letter in the middle to be safe. Or gamble on the end letters. On the up side, I was in the aisle so the members came right by me when they went around the hall.

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Tamura Yukari LOVE LIVE 2011 SPRING *Mary Rose* day 2

On April 16th, I attened Day 2 of Tamura Yukari's spring concert in Budokan. This is a much shorter supplemental report to cover new MCs and variations in the performance or set list. For the original set list, see Day 1 report here.

My location for today was the front row in Arena B6 block, directly along the center aisle like so:

So every time Yukarin came down the aisle, she crossed directly in front. She was also directly above us during the cage part for Shinseiro, but no feathers happened to float down by our section (or maybe I was just too mesmerized to notice).

During 1st MC, Yukarin surveyed the crowd comparing the colors. Since it was 千秋楽, in addition to the pink parka and happis, there were also a ton of people wearing the limited edition pink T-shirts. Yukarin remarked that this time there was a lot of pink that fit well with the spring atmosphere.

Waving to whole audience: "All the people in pink are like cherry blossoms"
Pointing to a few guys with green cyalumes: "Green is like the leaves of the cherry tree"
Pointing to two guys in red live t-shirts: :Are you two guys friends? This will probably get cut, but you two are like Atashi Sakuranbo:
Pointing to people in blue shirts (actually these guys are technically wearing the wrong shirt, because blue was supposed to be for the first day): "Blue...blue is like what??"
JACK suggested the sky, which Yukari gladly obliged. "Blue is like the cracks of blue sky you can see between the cherry trees"
Pointing to black shirts: "Black is..the darkness in peoples hearts." Laughing and clapping from audience for that one.

For song #5, Spring Fever was replaced with Tenshi no oshigoto, a c/w song on Douwa Meikyuu that was only performed on tour during Sweet Milky Way 2007. It's recognizeable by its "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" opener and it's simplistic and repetitive tune makes it easy to follow along.

For song #8, the acoustic version of YOURS EVER was replaced by Yoimachi no hana, another rare track from her Gin no Senritsu, Kioku no Mizuoto album that was only performed during fancy baby doll concert in 2006. The sound quality was a little bit better than the day before which I'm thankful for, but since this is a faster song I think it could have been better still if they tuned the instrumental down slightly so her voice can stand out more.

For second MC, Yukarin talked about her baby blue sky song again. "It's not played often, but it's the first song I wrote by myself. You all got really pumped for it huh?"

Well you told us to yesterday!! Although the truth is it's not really a kind of song that matches heavy calls, and she knew it.

"Although it kinda died down near the end. But you put lots of effort so thank you!"

By this time Yukarin had already changed into her purpleish candy wrapper and bow outfit, and as she was looking at it she mentioned it was really cute. "Don't you agree? It's really cute. Although it's totally different and the designer probably doesn't even know, it's kind of like Meruru right? Well the real Meruru outfit is a lot more revealing, but this outfit has a kind of magical girl feel to it right? Maybe not everyone knows who Meruru is, but her song..."

At this point a good part of the audience pretty much explodes into cheering with anticipation of Hoshikuzu Witch Meruru, but Yukari takes great joy in crushing their dreams

"..is something I can't sing"

Crowd: EEEEEEEHHH?

"Huh you really want me to sing that? But I can't. Danshaku doesn't know it. I considered it, but if I did it..."

Yukari flashes a smile to audience getting their hopes up

"JASRAC will get mad. So I won't sing it. But this outfit really is cute.."

Having been denied their Meruru, the audience gives up. But they insist on a consolation prize: one twirl at least! The 回って call is a long tradition at Yukarin concerts and there's no way to deny it. Yukari played along but not before more required teasing of the audience. Turn...like this? She half-started on a cartwheel, a front roll, and other moves. "But I can't do that! If I do it (a cartwheel) my skirt will fly up. No way!" Eventually she relented and just did a normal spin.

After she did it she caught a glimpse of herself on the big screen behind and got interested in playing with that. "How fun, I can see myself from the back." So she ordered the camera to zoom in, then slowly zoom out. When the camera had pulled far enough, she yelled STOP! Neither audience nor camera guy had any idea what was going on. The camera just did as it was told and we watched while she barked more orders.

"TOO FAR, ZOOM BACK IN! OK NOW ZOOM OUT A LITTLE MORE. NOW STOP! STOP!"
...
This is "zettai ryouiki"

She had stopped the camera exactly so the bottom of the screen would end an inch below her skirt, thus creating the perfect gap.

For song #15, Hoshizora no Spica was replaced with another Nanoha song, Beautiful Amulet. Similar to the previous day, she went down to the center of the stage for an extended period of time, so I got a full blast of Yukari up close. Beautiful Amulet had pyrotechnics as well, but it didn't fit as well as Spica.

During MC after Meron Ondo, Neko rowed Yukarin back to the stage again, but she had some fun toying with the staff who was actually pushing the platform. She told them to stop, go back, and go forward, changing her mind several times. "I was just lying, sorry. But you should be grateful, fans would love to do this job!". I'm sure if Yukarin were a boss, this is how she would give employees paycuts too.

Once the cats did their magic trick to disappear behind the curtain again, Yukarin tried the same routine. But instead of Cherry coming out like the previous day, Tamachan came out instead. At least this time people remembered his name. Once Yukarin reappeared, it was meron time. Since Yukarin bragged that kokumin only become meromero for her, Masanyan got the stick to test out that theory.

Everyone became meromero for Masanyan.

Yukari got up in a huff, went up to the front of the stage, pointed to everyone and said "ARE YOU PEOPLE STUPID?"

"I told you! You should only become meromero when I do it!"

Next the stick passed to GOD. While GOD was getting ready, Yukarin was making motions behind his back telling all the audience how to react. She feigned a slumping motion and winked at the audience, then told GOD to go ahead.

Everyone became meromero for GOD.

Again Yukarin pouted in the same tone as before "HEY! ARE YOU PEOPLE IDIOTS?"

HA! It was time for the audience to tease Yukarin this time. Every cast member decided to try with similar results. During each member, Yukari tried to remind the audience NOT to meron, but it was useless. During Hatabou's turn she tried to make a special appeal.

As we all know from SCS, the H in Hatabou stands for HENTAI. "Hatabou, they are not going to mero~n for you because you are hentai". But instead Hatabou got loud HENTAI chants and a subsequently huge mero~n.

Now Yukarin was puffing her cheeks and getting frustrated that the crowd even mero~ned for Hatabou. But she quickly rationalized it away.

"Ah, I get it. Those weren't REALLY serious. When I do it, you'll give me the true super mero~n."

Almost nobody became meromero for Yukarin.

The tables have turned himesama. It is us who denies YOU! Instead everyone went into slumping position that she had been trying to get people to do earlier. She went into shock. Has everyone graduated from Yukari Kingdom? she said sadly. Wait it must be broken, so she tried again and again.

Only a few people did it each time.

"People who don't read the mood and do whatever they want to stand out are not good."

Woah, a bit of a harsh scolding from Yukarin? I thought she'd congratualte their loyalty instead, but the correct move was to follow the audience and no-sell yukarin mero~n

Though personally considering the mero happened in some sections of the 2nd floor rather than single individuals, I think it's just parts of the audience misunderstanding due to following the leads of clueless people. There has been some speculation online on whether Yukarin was trying to use this opportunity to say something that had some deeper hidden meaning, like telling people to wear the proper shirts, use only pink lights, do normal calls, or don't yell loudly during her MCs, etc. It could be reading too much into it, but I decided I'll change even my own behavior to retire Fenix mounted pink lights for the next Yukari concert I go to (even though it's pink, having less bright normal pen lights is easier on her eyes). Crowd harmony is important.

Finally, she decided it was time to give the rest of us who had desperately been resisting mero~n a chance. So for the final wave, after we all agreed it would be for real, she hit the audience with several waves of mero~n and got a huge thunderous response back.

For song #19, Koiseyo Onnanoko was replaced with Love Love Baby Happy Star. This is a great choice, and as I mentioned from last year's lives, one of the most fun songs to do live on the recent Citron no Ame album. ゆかりと視線ぶつかる～♪ *faints*

Apparently this song got upgraded into a "puppet song," although they didn't warn us beforehand. The instructions on the puppets very clearly said "Use during Koiseyo Onnanoko and Sugar Tune, so I was about 10 seconds late in getting Chocola out after I realized the stage dancers all had them. I didn't even have time to put it on so I just held her normally. Lots of timed jumping, but the song is still too new for the audience to get fully coordinated so IMO there were some misjumps/heys.

The final encore MC was mostly the same thing as the previous day, announcing her participation in Anisama 2011, Universal Studios Japan events, and the release of BD/DVD for SCS and today's live sometime this summer. One new thing she told us though was she was really glad this time's concert went well. During the previous time in 2007, she was actually really nervous back then because she had gotten throat surgery a little while before.

After the concert, since this time's concert was recorded for BD/DVD and we had finished so earlier (only 7PM), the crowd tried to start a second encore chant but this fizzled out after lights came back on. Still given the set list we heard in the last two days, it was still a really satisfying concert and I'm glad I went and the best part is in 6 months time I'll be able to relive it again through the BD release.

Interestingly for both days, Yukarin did not make any tongue in cheek references to her age. Is the 17 years old joke finally played out?

Maybe not

Day 1 Set list
01.LOVE ME NOW!
02.Picnic
03.Happy Life
04.Platina Lover's Day
05.Tenshi no oshigoto
06.Don't wake me☆ up!
07.Nagareboshi Jenny
08.Yoimachino hana (acoustic)
09.floral blue
10.baby blue sky
11.Super Special Day
12.Koi ni ochita painter
13.Koi no ageha
14.Shinseiro
15.Beautiful Amulet
16.Mero~n Ondo
17.Oshiete A to Z
18.You & Me
19.Love love baby happy star
20.Cherry Kiss
21.Kono yubi tomare
22.Chelsea Girl
23.Gratitude
24.fancy baby doll
25.Super Special Smiling Shy Girl

Next will be image-heavy goods post.

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Tamura Yukari LOVE LIVE 2011 SPRING *Mary Rose* day 1

On April 15th 2011, I attended Tamura Yukari's spring concert in Budokan. A good live experience begins with a day of queuing, so at 4AM I struck out for the concert hall from my hotel on foot. By the time I arrived, it was nearing 5AM and there were already plenty of people around.

The last time I went to Budokan (quite disasterous if you'll recall) it was very late at night, but today, it was already light out so I finally got a first good look at the place. Budokan's layout is a bit like a fortified castle. To enter, you must first walk halfway up a big hill, cross the bridge over a wide moat surrounding Kitanomaru Park, and then step through large imposing gates into a stone walled courtyard.

Though there were still 5 hours until merchandise tables opened, many fans were already wearing official goods bought from the previous day's early sale, and the throng of similarly dressed fans pressed against the courtyard's outer gates at the top of the bridge made it look like an organized siege from some invading force (in this case the Yukari Kingdom army). By 5:15 AM, the crowd at the gate had grown to about 200 strong, an impressive number for so early in the morning. However, it turns out the line started at the street instead of the gate so when a suited guy helped up the "最後尾" sign at the bottom of the bridge he nearly caused a stampede.

Luckily for me, I was near the bottom at the time anyway. I had figured 200~ was still a safe number, and saw no point in squeezing into the mass at the top. My decision to stay at the bottom and snap some photos of the cherry trees filling the entire park instead means I had the luck of winding up 50th in line.

The guide led the group through the courtyard then through another set of gates to the Budokan grounds where a long row of booths had been set up. Since the weather was nice, the wait wasn't too bad. There was no freezing rain to contend with for example (see Niigata). Each time the wind blew, we'd be treated to a shower of cherry petals and it was almost like a big group doing hanami, in a way.

We watched staff unload boxes of goods into the booth until 10AM, when the line started moving. With upwards of 10 separate purchasing stations taking on customers, I was in and out of the goods line within half an hour. I tried to stick to the planned list, but as usual, this planning is wasted because I always break budget. The most popular items this time around were the Cherry puppets, puppet one piece, redesigned happi coat, and gachagacha - all of which sold out within 2 hours. Since I could get into a lot of details for each of them, I'll do a separate post about individual goods in the next few days.

After goods, many fans stuck around in the area. There was some chatter about whether or not Yukarin would make a surprise appearance and wave to the crowd from the top balconies (referencing her stunt as seen during the "Making of" segments in Love Live Chelsea Girl 2008 DVD). She didn't appear, but we were fortunate enough to get to listen to a full sound check in the afternoon, where she went through several songs including Cherry Kiss. A nice enough reward for waiting around!

At 5:00 PM, Budokan doors opened and people starting making their way inside. In some corners, groups would first erupt into "Go Happy, Go Happy, Go Happy Yukarin" chants before going in. I found my seat in the third row of the 1st floor balcony, which offered a decent view of the stage as well as the crowd below. Woah it was a sea of pink! With vast majority in happi or parka, this audience was definitely the most uniformly colored group out of all the Yukarin shows I've been to so far.

An hour later, lights dimmed and the arena got flooded with pink glow of pen lights. Introduced by the giant screen up top, Momoiro Danshaku, NEKO and NECO, and Momoiro Mates came out to lots of fanfare, and there was even a fully suited Momoiro brass band. When the dancers all pulled out pompoms, it gave away the 1st song and the crowd cheered in anticipation for "Love Me Now." It was a surprising choice considering pompom songs usually came at the end during previous lives.

Once the music hit, Yukari rose from the trapdoor in the center stage (but no jump this time). She had a silver/white two piece dress that ended just above the knee and a crest of white feathers in her fixed up hair. When she raised her pompom, the crowd followed in kind, jumping and waving with pompoms of their own. This song has its own unique moveset thanks to being worked into a PV, but it's pretty easy and possibly less complicated than even just default concert calls (Love me now *HEY!*). Having experienced this song live twice already, I was able to follow things without much trouble.

Then out of nowhere, a familiar brass opening...and then "OMG CAN IT BE??". As someone who has rewatched Pinkle Twinkle Party DVD about 3 dozen times (not all complete rewatchings), there was no way I could mistake the first song of that fantastic 2006 concert: Picnic! It's one of the few songs that I can recreate all of Yukari's motions by heart, so I was able to see she nailed the performance with the same grace as back then, but with a few variations (improved shuffle). Picnic is one of my all time favorites, but it seems it was just a normal song for the crowd or it was simply too old for current fans ("のんびりいこうぜ、ゆかり！" and "笑って" calls were a bit sparse.

Next song was Happy Life, an upbeat song that called back to the time when she first performed it live here in the same location during Chelsea Girl 08. For this song she took off the top layer of her dress to reveal the skirt was actually part of a frilly one piece, then joined her dancers on a large moving platform that sent them down the middle aisle of the arena. The platform traveled all the way to the end of the arena where it stopped for the rest of the song before returning to the stage to do MC.

First MC was a bit shorter than average, but pretty standard fare for Yukarin. She welcomed everyone to day 1 of Budokan. "But even though it says "Opening Day" it's only just a back to back performance." Then as usual she played with the audience, running around the stage calling out every part of the stage (Arena, 1st floor, 2nd floor, etc). Amazingly she resisted the usual temptation to omit certain sections.

Typically, it goes something like:
"Arena!"
"YAYYYYYY"
Second floor!
"YAYYYYY"
Ok that's it"
*1st floor goes EEEEEEHHH*
"Ok fiiiinnnnee. 1st floor"

But today Yukarin was surprisingly nicer than usual and hardly had an insult for anyone. Ok, she did at least try to tease the fans in the stage side seats, calling them はみ出席 being in such a bad position but it winded up being cute instead. She would run all the way to one side of the stage and hide　behind a speaker, poke her head out, and say "Hah if I do this you can't see me right?". It was so cute the other side demanded she hide for them too. Guys with full balrogs of ultra bright glowsticks started going nuts trying to flag her down. Yukari seemed to enjoy the spectacle since she gave them plenty of attention, though I get the feel that fans who do full hands of glowsticks are more numerous in recent times than the old lives shown in DVDs. Without any official endorsement though, the opinion on this shift is divided among fans especially since some of the guys don't even use pink (why would you balrog ultra green at this kind of concert)??

Interestingly, she also didn't do any weird crowd surveys this time like getting age ranges, male/female ratios, working vs unemployed, people who came by train/plane, dads who brought their kids, guys who went to comiket and bought dirty books, etc (all real things asked in past lives before). Instead of her usual prolonged teasing, she transitioned pretty into full blown SERIOUS teary eyed mush mode (typically reserved for finales) and concluded the MC by thanking everyone who came, wishing for everyone to have a good time, and hoping they'd take back great memories. Woah? Spoiled princess Yukarin being so nice to us in opening MC. She must have thought hard on this and decided to open with a more sincere note to really appreciate people who came in light of recent earthquakes, though she didn't reference this directly.

She sang the title song of her latest single Platina Lover's Day. The song is too new to get its own special cheers but it got a pretty good response crowd-wise since we all knew this song would be included. It's a good medium tempo live song that fits "Yukarin" calls well. Then she jumped back in time again, to Spring Fever from her 2005 album Kohaku no Uta, Hotohira. This is not an often performed song, but enough people knew the calls since she had a four-stop tour in 2005 named after it (see extras on Cutie Cutie DVD). It was a good choice considering the season, though I personally did not know it too well - only watched those Cutie Cutie digest extras once or twice.

Next was Don't wake me☆ up. It's a very simple yet catchy tune that I used to loop quite a bit when Tomorrow came out and pretty much describes my work life. Inexplicably, it got skipped in the set lists for both Dreamy Maple Crown and Princess a la mode, so I'm glad it finally made live rotation at least once. During the song, Yukari came over to top of the stairs on the left and right arms of the arena so that 2nd floor sides (where we were) could see her up close. After the song, she left for a costume change while announcer Haramaki Kouji (and Yukarin's real life cousin) narrated for band member introductions.

Momoiro Danshaku was the same members as usual except...the brand new P-tan on keyboard, who has now replaced Nobupyon. Looks like they are still trying to find a permanent keyboard position ever since Julian left (stripped of baron nobility??). As an aside, I believe Masanyan currently has the longest tenure among the danshaku right now. While most band members played a quick piece, GOD as usual came out with his own special pompom dance.

Once the band was introduced again, Yukari reappeared on the stage with a new costume: a deep blue skirt with white polkadots, shoulderless red top lined with black trim, and high heel slippers to sing Nagareboshi Jenny, the c/w song on the latest Meron Ondo CD. Of course at the time, I only just bought the CD hours before and hadn't listened to it yet, so I was standing around wondering "WTF when did this song come out?" But it's great. It had this 1950s musical feel, with dancers coming out in opposite colors of Yukarin (red polkadot skirts, blue top) and doing a zigzagging line dance that looked like it came straight out of a broadway production. Yukari's dance routine for this is also really RELALY cute - possibly one of her best routines ever - with her kicking her tiny heels up and back like a swing dancer during the "only you" sabi (and she has such nice legs for it)! It's something I'll rewatch on a DVD just for the dance.

After this, the stage went dark for YOURS EVER, the first acoustic performance of the night accompanied by P-tan's piano. It was another song I didn't recognize, but actually it's on the Sincerely Dears album, (I only listened to that 2 or 3 times so I must have just forgotten). No matter, acoustic corner is time to just enjoy singing without worrying about calls so I just tried to soak in the sound. I mentioned in older live reports that acoustic corners are one of the best parts of a live since it gives you a chance to just take in a performance. Although 神曲 are really fun, they also divide your attention as you desperately multitask between watching the singer, listening to the song, trying to do calls, and watching others do calls out the corner of your eye to make sure you're not doing everything wrong. So I took these rare opportunities to listen hard. Unfortunately Budokan's acoustics (or perhaps my location) was not too good so I felt like the sound was a bit off. I remember from Niigata when she sang Namida no Loop it was so sultry my ears nearly melted off. Yukarin tried her best today, but the sound just wasn't on her side this time. I hoped next time might be better.

Following the acoustic performance, Yukarin moved on to Floral Blue (c/w song from Platina Lover's Day) Yukari sang while two dancers appeared at the top of the stairs in short blue one pieces to perform some sort of slow tango.

Giving band members time to set up again, there was another round of member introduction for Momoiro Mates, who each entered after being announced with the slightly oddly phrased "Number 1 *adjective* Girl." In Yukari Kingdom, everyone is No. 1 in something! Each girl had a few seconds to show off some dance moves. There were high kicks, cartwheels, spins, and jumps although some dancers did some hilariously out of place moves like booty grinds.

Unlike Momoiro Danshaku, I didn't recognize any of the Momoiro Mates. It's hard to keep track because there are so many regulars who rotate in and out of lives, and the absence of some known members doesn't mean they're gone or replaced. I really only remember MAMIKO and NATSUMI's faces because they taught me the Meron on Theme dance in the Chelsea Girl DVD and Happy Loop in Pinkle Twinkle Party respectively. So I looked for either of them, but no luck today.

Once dancers were done, Yukarin reappeared in a fancy dress that looked like a big purple candy wrapper and was adorned all over with large ribbons that circled her entire person and went into the next song baby blue sky.

Now getting to the the third song I didn't know, I was starting to wonder if I had missed an album release lately. I prefer getting to know and like a song before I hear it live so I was kicking myself for not researching new releases. But, a lot of the crowd was also a bit lost so we just tried to fill in with normal cheering.

Then came MC which explained everything.

Wait! Wait a minute everyone! This song was the first song I ever wrote
Audience: "OOOOOOOHHHH"
"So how come there's such a pitiful reaction? It's more like people are going 'what the heck is this song?'"
*Crowd laughs and denies, even though they know it's true*
Tomorrow. If, IF by chance this song happens to play, I want you all to get really excited about it. Even though you don't recognize it. Because you know, if this song gets on DVD, I get paid 0.03 yen in royalties! Well that's less than 1 yen per copy, but anyway if this gets played tomorrow I want you all to get pumped up for it! First, when you hear this opening, I want you to yell KITAAAA. Let's practice

Ahhh greedy Yukarin is the bestest. Yukari opens her arms wide and starts singing the little tune and yelling "KITA!" The band plays the opening again, and everyone feigns extreme excitement. After a HUGE KITAAAA scream, Yukari leads the fans in "hey" chants, and then mimes out her fantasy scenario of seeing tomorrow's fans getting totally confused by the heavy cheering. She also mentioned very specifically not to reveal the plan online. Apparently she wanted them to get the same weird feeling we all got, but intensified even more because hey EVERYONE ELSE KNOWS IT! When she asked who really didn't know the song this time and got a big response, she explained that it was a coupling song from her 2002 single (Love Parade). Woah that's before I even became otaku, but unlike Baby's Breath it was never played enough for most people to know it unless they were really long time fans of Yukarin. On a separate tangent, she finished off MC by telling a story of the previous day about how she tried to make some melt some chocolate cream over bread, but when she baked the combination, it hardened instead.

"Ok it's about time to get to the next song. Super Special Day"

What!? Don't announce something as awesome as Super Special Day so casually! Even though not many people knew a song from 2002, they sure as hell knew this. Though this song is even older (2001), it got the biggest reaction of the night so far. To be fair, this is a popular fan favorite from Tokimeki Memorial 2 and has actually been played during lives with its own calls (L. O.V.E. Yukarin!) And the calls were very loud. Everyone was just so excited about this coming back since it hasn't seen at a live since Sweet Milky Way in 2007. I personally didn't think I'd ever get the chance to do this song or picnic.

Jumping forward to more recent times again, Yukarin followed with Koi ni ochita painter which was one of the songs on her Citron no Ame album that she didn't get to sing during SCS tour. After this song, Yukarin changed costumes again while each brass band member did a piece. No member got introduced by name though.

Koi no ageha is a jazzy song from her 2008 album Komorobi no Rosette. Though I'm not a huge fan of the melody on this specific song, these jazzy songs in general are interesting because they let Yukarin drop a few octaves and go into deep voice mode. It was a good choice especially since she had the full brass band today and could make good use of them, so we got all the real instruments instead of a recording. I couldn't remember if she was usually supposed to have a cane in this or not, but she didn't have one today.

For Shinseiro, another newer song on her latest album, Yukari got on the moving platform again and it brought her to the center of the stage. As she was singing, a gilded white cage lowered in from above. After she stepped in and closed the door, the cage lifted back up until she was around first floor eye level. The lighting changed again, and a slow rain of feathers came down all around her. This must have looked pretty dramatic from the front, but being at the side, it just looked kind of weird. The cage was slightly tipped at an angle from her weight, and all the feathers were falling slightly behind. So my view was basically this:

That's not a complaint though. Yukari in the bird cage brought her within much better viewing distance to us, and any effort to do that is always highly appreciated.

Next was Hoshizora no Spica. This is a pretty popular song that got a decent reaction. Similar to Douwa Meikyu, its live rendition is accompanied by pyrotechnics. During climaxes of the song, blasts of fire would shoot from the stage in a pattern as if someone were playing a flame organ. It did seem to be manually operated because I recall the at least one time when they forgot to trigger the flame. I guess the operator was too engrossed in the scene.

Finally came the most highly anticipated moment of the night, Meron Ondo time. A video came up with NEKO and NECO in Happi coats. They went over each move, step by step and paused at each segment for the audience to repeat what they just learned. Narration was done by Yukari in her "Yukari-chan" voice (I believe that is the name given to her chibiko form now, at least according to the FC page's web comic). This is the same voice as used to say "めろ～ん音頭がはじまるよ～" She even did sound effects, going "aaaahhn" when having everyone lift their hands which drew muffled laughs from the crowd. Now imagine an entire instructional video like that.

Once the video was over, Yukarin came out along with several members all wearing the happi coats. Rather than just having only the 8 dancers who were already introduced, there were also some new faces including a bunch of kids in the group. Some of them seemed no older than 12 yrs old (woah shouldn't you girls be in school?). I guess they were all there to give it a "festival feel."

With everyone out on stage, we all raised our hands into the starting position. The dancers stayed on stage, while Yukarin, NEKO, and NECO all got onto the moving platform to lead the audience from the middle of the arena. Then music started and it was all *clap-clap-clap* A~SORYA for a few wonderful minutes. This is certain to look sooo crazy on video. My only wish was that they clarified the correct starting side, because the problem with Yukarin moving on the center platform is for everyone in the front half of the arena including us, halfway through the song we need to turn around and then...uh...which direction should we do now? Same "mirrored" direction as before, OR, copy Yukarin exactly now that we are facing the same way? Eventually I settled on copy exactly, swapping between mirror/original depending on the location. Minor details such as this aside, ondo was definitely a fun time.

After Mero~n Ondo, NEKO/NECO treated the platform like a canoe and rowed Yukarin back to the stage. On stage, NEKO did a disappearing/reappearing trick with a cloth and the stage trapdoor. It was pretty obvious how it worked, and anyone on the side could easily see behind the cloth but everyone humored the magic trick anyway with applause and cheering. Once NEKO finished, Yukarin also wanted to do it too. Her trick involved an extra step where she switched places with a Cherry puppet before finally returning. "Ah but I forgot my meromero stick! That means I can't do mero~n"

Cue a guy coming in with the stick while chanting "UnUnSodaSoda" which the crowd also copied. As an aside, I always get my hopes up for Meron no Uta when this chant starts but it never happens. So this guy says he COULD give Yukarin the stick, but he wanted some attention first. "Come on guys, what's my name?"
Audience responses were: *silence*, "Uhh", and "おまえ!！" orz
Finally someone got his name. Actually it was sound producer Tamachan. After I heard that, I remember I saw him twice before during Starry Candy Stripe tour, but I forgot his face entirely.

Yukarin took the stick and did usual demonstration by waving all the band members. Since P-tan was new she told him to pay special attention to his first ever mero~n. Masanyan actually dodged mero, but Yukarin must have not seen it because she didn't give him too hard a time. Once danshaku all fell to the floor after getting meromero she said it looked like BL.

Then it was the audience's turn. Since she mero~ned a few times already without n~rome, we all just assumed n~rome wasn't coming. So when she did try it everybody had to scramble back into mero~n position. Redo! She tried it again but just decided to freeze the audience in their backbreaking position without releasing them. "Ahh I'm tired." Fans yelled "EEEEHHH" but she just said she enjoyed seeing such a wonderful lit up sight of everyone's face in pain. So cruel, himesama! Finally she returned everyone to normal with n~rome and started into Oshiete A to Z.

I got plenty of "A to Z" practice last year so it was easy to follow along. The standard fare during this song is the double-clap, single-clap rhythmn.

When she followed up with You & Me immediately after, that was the signal that we must be getting close to the end. You & Me is such an energy hog, since the audience winds up shouting 30% of the song. Not much to say about the song that I haven't already said for SCS, but the audience seemed especially loud today. Fans just really love their rap.

Next was Koiseyo Onnanoko. YES! The 1st Yukari song I ever memorized the entire choreography for. I had only did this song once during Animelo 08, and I didn't have a puppet back then. I had hoped for it during SCS but it never came. Now was my chance, and this time I was able to follow everything, from jumps to waves to drawing giant hearts in the air. For my puppet, I chose to use Chocola with the latest one-piece, because she's such a good girl.

Keeping the momentum of high level songs, Yukarin jumped onto the moving platform and continued with Cherry Kiss, a very popular song is usually saved for ending concerts on a high note like Dreamy Maple Crown and Princess a la Mode. I love this song, and knew to expect it from the sound check, but I often confuse the chorus with that of candy smile (they're pretty similar and both act as closers IMO) so I was constantly thinking "hey when she was gonna do that famous kick?" After was Kono Yubi Tomare, another from the latest single. This is a fast paced pop tune that is definitely going to be a staple of lives in the future. Lots of "hey, hey" in it that fits well with concerts. Yukarin and dancers all held up towels that they started to swing around during the chorus. All the fans did the same. Well, except me, because I didn't buy one of the Live towels that day and I certainly wasn't going to use the microfiber towel with Yukarin's picture on - way too fragile. Made a mental note to go buy a pink towel the next day.

For the final song, she ended with Chelsea Girl - now an "always play" during lives that we all know and love. But, I don't think we've had Chelsea Girl with full brass band since the last time she did it in Budokan in 2008, so that was a major plus. As is usual with final songs, during the chorus, ribbons shot out and fell into the crowd to celebrate the end of the show.

After wave and waves of encore chants, Yukari returned to do Gratitude. I have great memories of this song thanks to SCS tour, and the ARIGATOU parts still lifted my spirits as much as ever. It's easy to overlook if you only listen to it on CD (as I did before SCS) but as soon as I heard it live I fell in love with it and I was very happy to hear it live again.

For final MC
Wow it's really hot in here isn't it. Gotta replenish water. But if I drink too much I'll have to go to the bathroom. If I keep drinking like this I'll be in trouble. lolwut? She said it in such a worrying tone too, not like a teasing fans kind of way but a "oh shit I've got a real dilemma here" kind of way. Yukari also had 3 announcements to make.

1st announcement was that she will be part of ORICON INFINITY MUSIC 2011 at Universal Studios Japan. Apparently her love of Terminator 2 came about because she took a ride on the T2 attraction in the past.
2nd announcement was that she will be part of Animelo Summer Live 2011's Day 1 Lineup
3rd announcement was that the last day of Starry Candy Stripe 2010 in Tokyo Kokusai Forum, plus tomorrow's 4/16 Spring Mary Rose concert will be on BD/DVD by sometime this summer.

Second to last song was fancy baby doll. During the extended bridge for FBD, as always, Yukarin brought out a big basket full of bunny dolls but this time there was a special bonus. While she threw a few in every direction of the arena, NEKO and NECO prepared the big guns to reach upper balconies. Enter FBD Cannon, a huge muzzle-loaded single-shot air cannon that blasted a cluster of dolls out 50-70 feet - far enough to reach the 2nd and 3rd floors. They had several of these cannons that she would just fire one after the other. The first time she took it out we were curiously cautions, then *BOOM* bunnies just fly out and smack against the balcony wall with the crowd going "WOOOAHHHH"

And finally the true last song of the night was Super Special Smiling Shy Girl, enough to kill the last of any energy we had for the night, as well as our voices. Near the end Yukarin turned the microphone toward the audience so arena, 1st floor, 2nd floor, and 3rd floor all got their own separate turns to sing the final segments and do chants.

After everything was over, Yukari did her farewell wave, going to each side of the stage plus the moving platforms so she could cover every part of the concert hall. Each section also started its own Yukari chant. Yukari even started a coordinated wave on the third floor, something that didn't happen last year. Yukari's really good at doing farewells because she just exudes this aura of gratitude - like she REALLY doesn't want to leave, and we don't want her to go either. But it was already close to 9:30PM, so after 3 long hours...LOVE LIVE 2011 Spring Mary Rose Shonichi was finally concluded.

And just as I was thinking how crazy awesome that is and how my trip was all worth it and done, it hit me that yeah, I've still got tomorrow :P

Day 1 Set list
01.LOVE ME NOW!
02.Picnic
03.Happy Life
04.Platina Lover's Day
05.Spring fever
06.Don't wake me☆ up!
07.Nagareboshi Jenny
08.YOURS EVER (acoustic)
09.floral blue
10.baby blue sky
11.Super Special Day
12.Koi ni ochita painter
13.Koi no ageha
14.Shinseiro
15.Hoshizora no spica
16.Mero~n Ondo
17.Oshiete A to Z
18.You & Me
19.Koiseyo Onnanoko
20.Cherry Kiss
21.Kono yubi tomare
22.Chelsea Girl
23.Gratitude
24.fancy baby doll
25.Super Special Smiling Shy Girl

Number of songs by year of release
2001 - 1
2002 - 1
2005 - 3
2006 - 1
2007 - 2
2008 - 3
2009 - 3
2010 - 6
2011 - 5

Next post will be Day 2 MC and set list variations, followed by third post for goods report. Speaking of goods, I think I spent over $700 on them this time. Where hell did that all go? Even I haven't accounted for it yet.

Posted by Paranda at 2:19 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Seiyuu Paradise 3 goodies

Seiyuu Paradise 3 arrived today. The magazine itself has 12 full pages of Tamura Yukari including full photo spreads and a lengthy interview about her latest single. She talks a bit about the driving themes of the spring, and about her own upcoming birthday. She also speaks to the single event and the 400th kurousagi radio broadcast. Plus there is also a concise Q&A page where we learn, among other things:

- Her childhood dream was to be an idol.
- The animal she likes is cats (eh, not rabbit!!!?!?, but we knew she loved cats from Cats Living).
- She eats a lot of Pokotto Cheese
- Her favorite time is when she's at home. Sleeping.
- She's bad at interacting with people. (IMO she says this all the time, even on her blog, but you can never tell because she seems like a good conversationalist!)
- She likes the sound of steel drums, and windchimes, and totally-not-the-sound-of-money.
- When asked about foreign countries, she said she likes Japan best and didn't name drop any countries. No mention of France.

Has some good info and nice pics, but really I only ordered it so I could get the pouch :P. Turns out it's actually just a pencil case with a cardboard insert. Looked better in the previews, but hey who can argue with free magazine bonuses?

Case and box

Cover

Back

Sample page.

Case, outside.

Case, inside. With DS for size comparison

Other stuff in Seiyuu Paradise 3: Hocchan and Minorin pinups and interviews, live event coverage for Milky Holmes, iCarly interview with Mizuki Nana, ridiculous cheesecake Chiaking photo, big portraits of Sphere, big portraits of Hanazawa Kana and Kobayashi Yu, and Naosan's Hopes for 2011

Posted by Paranda at 12:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Minorin day at NYAF

Though I missed Friday's events entirely, I had a pretty good Minorin-centric Saturday, starting at 2AM when I went to line up at Javitz for autographs. It was cold, but at least not too boring after moy and alexd showed up a few hours later. After the con opened up at 7 and we got tickets, alexd went back to his apt, while moy and I went to the nearest couch and promptly passed out dead for a bit. The moment of rest was short lived. By 11AM I was back camping the panel room for Minorin's Q&A.

Though there was no fan participation this time, the East Meets format is pretty interesting. It consisted of Minorin (east) opposite several western voice-over actors (west) having what amounted to a semi-scripted and friendly dialogue to discuss their different experiences in voice acting. Welcomely absent from the panel...

- Biographical questions that could have been looked up 2 seconds on Wiki
- "Who/what is your favorite" dilemmas
- What's your inspiration? x 10000
- Guys more concerned with promoting themselves than asking the guest anything

Admittedly I do derive a bit of guilty pleasure from seeing the occasional oblivious fan ask questions of a career-ending/bridge-burning nature if talent were to answer truthfully. It's funny to see seiyuu rack their brains trying to formulate fluff non-answers to dodge things that most people would know better than to ask.

There were good bits and pieces which will no doubt make it onto youtube. In one part, some of the western actors talked about how they auditioned for a role by recording a demo-tape at home. Minorin misheard and thought American voice actors could phone in entire sessions in their own home and flipped the fuck out for a while before somebody picked up on her confusion and re-clarified that it was for audition only. Minorin totally froze up and went "Oh yeah. Of course, we do that too!" with a REALLY embarassed look on her face and started laughing. It's ok Minorin, nobody thinks you're an airhead for missing a translation (they think it for the million other reasons). Probably the funniest part was after Minorin learned that for American cartoons, voice actors would record with only a script and some storyboards, but no video. She just burst out with very loud and cute "EEEEEEEHHH?" several times while the translator was explaining things. The english VAs thought she was adorable with the reactions. I think that may have also been a bit of misunderstanding at work though - Maybe Minorin didn't get that for our cartoons, the animation is done to match dialogue after the voice recording, because she was asking stuff like "how do you know how the pace of the lines?" and remarking how incredibly hard it sounded.

After the panel, we took the group picture that is now posted on Minorin's blog, and then immediately rushed to autographs. I previously got a name-personalized pinup thanks to moy, and this time a non-personalized autograph on Kimi Ga Kure Ta Ano Hi, an older single. When I brought out this CD, one of her handlers (anyone else feel she looked like an older version of a certain other seiyuu?) was really amused and called over another handler to share like there was some inside joke associated with this item. I wish I had asked what was so special about this item but I was momentarily starstruck by Minorin being way too close, and didn't really have time as they were rushing us through the line at top speeds. So I give my CD to the handler, and she gives it to Minorin who signs it in just a few seconds - even faster than May'n. But even though the encounter was brief, Minorin has a way of looking straight at you and delivering a killer smile that makes all that time waiting in line overnight worth it.

Since I didn't have a VIP ticket, I figured I had to line up as early as possible to get a decent chance at finding a seat so right after the autograph I grabbed a quick lunch and then headed straight to IGN theatre. By this time, the lack of sleep combined with the effects of post-lunch food coma caught up with me and made those 3 hours wait in line an absolute torture. I was in a zombified state yet unable to sleep because of the hard floors and cramped space. Finally the doors opened a little past seven. I wish the staff had allowed people to file in a bit earlier and in a more orderly manner, because as soon as they started letting people in it turned into a mad dash for the best remaining seats. Originally, I was in 6th row all the way on the sides, but somehow got moved up to 4th row center-right into VIP seats reserved for people that were no-shows. Still I was away from the main FC section to my left (see video - I'm the lone UO guy on the right side while most fans with UO are on the left). As I tweeted earlier, there are advantages and disadvantages to this. First, in my section people were sitting down while the FC section was all standing up. At first I was really low key with my glowstick and actions because I felt like a bit of a jerk being the ONLY stander blocking the view of people behind me, but by the middle of the first song I decided "hey how many times do you get to see Minorin perform this close live, if people aren't going to stand up...well fuck-em" and went into full-on concert mode. It was also harder for me to see what others were doing and follow along since it meant I would have to turn to the side and divert my attention from the main act (I decided to just do whatever felt right based on experience from other concerts, and it turned out all right and mostly in synch). Some advantages were the extra space from the aisle being so empty and the fact that being the only standing and participating person in the area, whenever Minorin came over she waved to me a bunch of times (yayyyy).

Minorin came out in a short blue dress and thigh high leather boots, but more impressively she was rocking the same hairstyle as she had during Anisama 2010. She must have gone straight to dressing room right after the autograph session to get it ready in time. Similar to what MELL did at AX and Otakon before, Minorin's MCs were 100% in English for the entire night. The sentence structure wasn't very good, and the english wasn't polished at all, but it only made the MC better because she was trying so hard with what she had memorized and added a certain charm like she prepared her speech herself with only minimal translator help. "Do you like Haruhi? I like Haruhi too!" *trademark minorin giggle*

As predicted, the set list was dominated by Haruhi songs. In order:

Yuki, Muon, Madobe Nite
FC went UOs. I should mention though that it's well known that full blown "otagei" is frowned upon at Minorin concerts, so even though we were standing up, we just did calls with high intensity and standard stuff. No craziness. Still I was kind of pissed that most people near me were sitting down though, even though they got free glowsticks. WTF, didn't you line up for hours to get to the front and all you wanna do is take crappy cellphone pics (despite the ban on photography), check mail, and watch the jumbo screen?

SELECT?
Almost 100% blue glowsticks

Junpaku Sanctuary
Slow song, but pretty popular. Got a decent reaction when she announced it. FC went all white

Tommorrow's Chance
UO. Crowd starting coming alive at this point. Couple of people starting standing up as well and coming up behind me.

Freedom Dreamer
UO. It's VERY fun to do live with all the call and response, and especially the coordinated jumping. This is probably what broke the ice for most of the crowd though and people starting getting up and participating as they got the hint during "everybody jump". Frankly she should have opened with this song as it set the tone for the rest of the night. I was doing leaps at full power several feet off the ground, so I can't walk now.

Paradise Lost
UO. Because Minorin doesn't want us to rest.

Keikenchi Joushouchuu
When Minorin did MC and said "Do you know...Minami-ke?" the crowd erupted into cheers. FC went UO again. She must not do this very often live though as there was a bit of confusion about the glowstick waving pattern. Even FC was confused, so it was very much a learning experience for all of us.

Yasashii Boukyaku
Blue/White. Break time from excitement.

Hare hare yukai
UO finisher. For the final song, Minorin called out Christi-nyan and another dancer Carrie and they all did the Haruhi dance. Minorin called for everyone to do the dance. I think it was the only time the FC got outmatched though, most of them, and myself didn't really know the moves and had to resort to hasty copying. In a reversal of roles, a lot of random people in the audience without glowsticks DID know the dance moves.

At the end Minorin read her thank you message in English and said how much fun she had coming to NYC. After she left, the FC "leader" put up his beacon and tried to start an encore chant but unfortunately it kind of fizzled out since not enough people were chanting "Mi-no-rin". Lights came up soon after so we left the arena and freed up seats for people who were there primarily for masquerade.

Afterwards, some fans had BBQ and afterparty but given how much energy I expended at Minorin concert I was on the verge of collapsing so I headed home for the night.

Final goods:

Autographed Minorin poster and CD

Not pictured, signed Puffy Ami Yumi CD.

Posted by Paranda at 12:44 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Starry Candy Stripe in Sendai

For Sendai, I won't go into songs since the set list was the same as Niigata which you can read here. I was hoping to catch Koiseyo if Yukari was going to mix up the encore, but looks like all the tracks are going to be identical for each live. Still, there are some interesting experiences to mention, because the MCs are different and the fans are different.

Sendai Sun Plaza Hall was very cozy, and even though it seated more people they felt closer to the stage. Since I had no pressure to buy limited goods this time, I came only one hour before the live thus skipping all the lines and arriving fresh with maximum energy. When I went to the goods table, I was surprised to see the limited Sendai-only t-shirts hadn't sold out so I bought one. It must be the unappealing green color and weird drawing on the back this time that killed the sales. After I got into the hall, I found that my ticket, originally thought to be 6th row center based on a seating chart, was actually third row again since the hall was using a compact layout. My section was a tiny little patch roped off by cords way in the front and the best seats in the house. Wow that's lucky! When I sat down this time, all the fans in the area around turned around and said "yoroshiku", a little bit of camraderie building that was repeated for everyone who entered the section. Since people were being really chummy in this section, I introduced myself to the fan next to me and he showed off a Nanoha costume that he put together himself for the "Cherry" puppet. I'd have taken a picture, but the staffers were being very strict about cameras even attached to phones and I didn't want to get kicked out for any dumb reason.

Yukari has been in Sendai before so the tone of her MC was kind of like that of a reunion. She remarked this time that people looked like bugs with all the green t-shirts, and what was up with that? The audience went "EEEHHH? This is your own T-shirt!" Well she was totally taken aback "WHAT? That's the gentei shirt? Sorry, I really didn't know. I'm serious I really didn't see it before!" In the middle of talking she noticed the ropes that were sectioning off the different zones, and said it really looked like a cats cradle. We got called the dangerous section since we were roped off from all sides. When she followed the lines, she also found that left and right sections' seats come to a single point. So she rallied up cheers for the people who had solo seats on the tips. Never trust Yukari's kindness though, because she continued "How come you're sitting alone? Don't you have any friends?"

She followed up by asking how many people came to Sendai the same day like her, so I and a big group of people rose their hands. Then she asked who came in the day before, and another small group rose their hands. Finally she asked who was in Sendai about even before that? Another big group rose their hands. "What? Why? What did you do before?" Fans yelled out "Well we live in Sendai" to explain, but she shot that down with "Oh, if you live in Sendai then shut up I don't wanna hear you." She revealed that she herself was part of the first group, and that she actually didn't come to Sendai until that morning. So what about that tweet she posted the previous night about eating gyutan (Sendai's local specialty)? "Actually I had that in Shinjuku lol." Another huge "EHHHHH" from the audience. Oh Yukarin...

In the second MC, Yukarin joked that everyone probably staked out at the Sendai Animate for nothing, since she only just came to Sendai today and the only thing she did was go to eat ramen. She said the full name of the restaurant, but I don't think anybody knew where it was.

In the third MC right after acoustic corner where she had changed into her frilly skirt, the audience coordinated claps and she got really interested and wanted to try. She became de-facto clap leader. It started out innocently but of course with Yukarin, it ended up with her trying to fake out the audience with surprise claps and odd patterns. Yukarin asked who came from Niigata and some fans cheered. Then she asked who was coming to Sendai for the first time, which was the majority. She said she was disappointed. "Did you check online to see what the set list and stuff was gonna be?" Fans replied yes, so she said "Ok then, quiz! What dance did I do in Niigata?". She proceeded to once again do that ridiculous dance (only halfway this time though).

She was in the middle of talking when a staffer tried to move from one side of the hall to the backstage area. Unfortunately, he wasn't stealthy enough as he caught Yukari's attention when he was hunched over. Since his shirt was riding up, Yukari yelled "Ahh I can see his underwear!" as he embarassedly scuttled away. Then she debated whether it was boxers or briefs. As she was on the topic of underwear, she suddenly asked the audience "know what I have on underneath this?" For this dress, she implied she was wearing something that wasn't safe to show to keep the form (not bloomers) and teased lifting up her skirt but then said "I'm definitely not showing you." Since she brought it up, it was fair game for the audience to keep calling for it. I didn't quite understand the exchange after, but somehow Masanyan and the drummer Hatabou ended up taking the blame for the fan reaction, and Yukarin loudly exclaimed "The H in Hatabou stands for HENTAI." It became a running gag for the rest of the evening that the drummer wanted to see Yukarin's pantsu and the rest of the band tried to assist him with this like positioning his seat directly under the big staircase where Yukarin stands to perform. They also joked that he had a camera hidden in his shoe when he was standing awkwardly near her.

The Sendai travel video was less interesting than the Niigata one, probably because she only had one day to shoot it. She went to Sendai station to buy some omiyage and had some noodles at Tanaka. Actually the most interesting part was just when she was sitting in a car trying to guess what HDTV stood for (HAADO, no, HAI...HAI...DISSOLUTION? DIMINITION? DEBANATION, DEFEENEESHON? HAI DEFEENEESHON *whips out portable english dictionary* DE-FUH-NI-SHUN. DE-FUH-NI-SHUN. HAI DEFUNISHUN TEREBI SETTO!). The engrish was cute, but her attempt to imitate the american accent in her dictionary was just so damn funny. But I guess the humor is lost to non-english speakers - I was the only person laughing at the final "correct" pronounciation.

During MERON time, Yukari tried to find her staff but this time they wised up and were nowhere to be seen. Angry and disappointed, she resorted to using just using band members to demonstrate this time. She also meroned the girl holding the camera (during which we suddenly became aware that unlike Niigata this event was being taped). Then she turned to the audience. Since this hall had balconies, she did meron and reverse meron starting from the 3rd floor down to the arena. It was standard fare for the 2 balconies, but when it came to our turn in the arena, she froze it, and froze it way longer than last time. Then she went to get water, and everyone in the arena, still frozen in back bridges, managed to force out strained "omizu oishii" yells. She thought it was funny how painful the calls sounded and did an impression of it. "Even though your'e meromero, you'll still yell that?" She threatened to start the next song without releasing meron.

Aside from unique MCs, the live mostly went the same as the one in Niigata but I had as much fun the second time as the first time around, and I gained a further appreciation for just how wonderful the acoustic corners are.

Goods for the day: just a green "mushi" T-shirt

Bonus:

Yukari fan spotted on the Matsushima island cruise.

Posted by Paranda at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Starry Candy Stripe in Niigata

On 9/23, I attended Tamura Yukari's LOVE LIVE 2010 Starry Candy Stripe in Niigata

I arrived at 5 AM and there were already about 30 people in line, probably from the night before as they were clearly in for the long haul with folding chairs and thermoses. More people showed up around 7AM and the line grew very quickly after that. Looking at the line, most people were wearing Yukari shirts from the previous year's fanclub event or live, and a lot of girls were cosplaying as Yukari. I guess it's kind of easy to replicate since a lot of her wardrobe is from Baby, The Stars Shine Bright line, but a few fans went the extra mile and duplicated costumes such as her bunny outfit from Love Live Chelsea Girl (aff. link). This wasn't a great day to wear expensive clothing though. Niigata was cold and wet. It rained the whole day, very heavily at times, so by the time the goods booth opened at 12:00, almost everyone was totally drenched even though they had umbrellas.

After entering, there was a big prop sign welcoming people and speakers playing Citron no Ame album tracks in the background. Multiple tables were able to process people quickly. The most popular goods were obviously the limited stuff, but especially the Chibi Yukari doll - virtually every single person in line bought one. Gentei shirt this time was an orange T-shirt with onigiri drawn on the back (rice being a specialty of Niigata). The hoodie was also a popular choice, and even though it wasn't limited it sold out pretty quickly. Pink wristbands, pink towels, and pink shirts were also selling faster than their other colors since it's the official Yukari Kingdom colors. I got everything I needed, but when I went back to check on the booth at around 4pm, all of the above were sold out. After goods, I played gacha to try and get the special prize. I ended up winning on my fourth try, and turned in the winning ticket for a leather Yukarin pocket book. I decided to keep playing gacha anyway though because I wanted to see what other stuff came out. Exhausting all my 500 yen coins, I ended up with some neat stuff like mint tins, tiny dolls, and a bunch of posters (many extras). I've got Poster A x 3, Poster B x 2, and Poster D x 2. I'm happy to give away the extras, but will gladly trade for a Poster C if you got it (trades get 1st priority).

Fans waiting in the rain for goods

After gacha, I just chilled on the couches in Niigata TERRSA's lobby with other Yukari fans until they started letting people into the hall. When we were walking in, some fans gave out callbooks which looked pretty professional and had full color pages.

I found my seat in the third row and immediately noticed that the stage was very close - about only 3 feet away from the front row's do-not-cross line. The rows were also close together, so I'd judge that the stage was probably about a total of 12 feet away from me. Not only that, but I was sitting on the inside corner towards the center of the stage so it was a great unobstructed view. Around starting time, people started taking out the Yukarin happi coats and tying headbands. I had mine with me but I decided it was too hot and just stuck with T-shirt. I'm not that hardcore of a fan anyway to go in uniform.

Around 6pm the lights dimmed and there was a brief countdown before Yukarin stepped out of the mist and came down the steps. Her first outfit was a spotted red & white top, a poofy dark blue skirt with white frills, and white lace-up boots. She launched a strong opener with Heavenly Stars, then Chelsea Girl. I probably watched and memorized various performances of Chelsea Girl about 200 times across different DVDs so often it was really hard to fight the urge to copy her movements, since I should be harmonizing with the fan calls instead. Looks like some fans next to me had the same problem, and were trying to decide whether to copy Yukarin or just go with the crowd actions and would switch from one to the other and back again. Next was Oshiete A to Z, another recent favorite with its own unique synchronized clapping.

After she finished there were lots of very loud "YUKARI" screams. She opened up her first MC asking if anyone actually knew the full name of the venue. Nobody replied, so she read out the concert hall's incredibly long english name "Niigata Town Employee Relax Refresh Social Amenity" (Niigata TERRSA) and its introduction. When she went to get water, some dude yelled out "omizu oishii" which became a main focus of MCs later on.

Niigata TERRSA

The next song was Kamisama Rescue Me!!, a tropical sounding tune with steelpans that was choreographed with hula hoops held by each dancer. When this song started, Kusundeneko and Kusundenaineko, who I didn't notice were missing for the first few songs popped out onto the stage. She tore off her blue skirt to reveal a frumpy pair of short red bloomers. Following was Goody & Happy with a very jazzy feel to it, and Little Wish ~first step~. It was pretty surprising to hear Little Wish so early. This is a fan favorite which everyone in the audience knows and loves, so all the calls and hand motions were practiced to perfection. During the final chants, she went behind the stairs to change costumes while a video narrated by Donna Burke played to introduce the band members and dancers. When she came back, she had changed into a short cyan dress and matching slippers. Then, she did Shooting Star and Suna Ochiru Mizu no Kyuuden before she took another break to talk to the audience.

This was a fan teasing segment, as Yukarin started to talk about how she got creepy messages on twitter where people said they licked her thighs in her pictures. Secretly, she's actually quite proud of it. Since she was wearing that really short dress, she teased hiding her thighs by crouching down and turning to the side. All the upper rows started going "eeeeeeh" and yelling "let us see!" When she was gloating to most of the audience, she suddenly looked in our corner's direction and went "Ah, even though they can't see, you guys have a nice position right?" Yeah Yukarin, lined up a pretty open view for the bottom left side from that angle. If this were an anime, it would the part where the entire row shoots nosebleed fountains.

Lobby just as they opened doors into the live hall

When she got back up, unrelated to any topic at hand, she did this incredibly stupid looking dance out of nowhere which looked like a sumo prep routine but with more stomping and flapping your arms. After she did it once, the audience started chanting "mouikkai" but she became embarassed about it and refused to do it unless everyone else did it too. So we did! The entire audience started doing the same ridiculous looking dance while she lead on.

Next was Hadashi no Princess. She went ran back and changed into a red dress with fringes and an elaborate skirt that folded around the back but left most of the front open to show off her legs before coming out to do Tomorrow. The song included some pyrotechnics, so there were flames shooting out from parts of the stage. Next was Cursed Lily and Love Sick. During Love Sick, the audience tried to do motsu's parts. I barely knew this song so I just mumbled gibberish - you can't tell the difference during a live anyway. But, it didn't seem like too many people knew the parts in my section either. It must be too new. Yukari's dance for this song was nice though, and it had her doing a lot of interesting steps outside of her usual predictable idol moveset. She was really moving around a lot for it.

There was another break for costume change. We watched a video of the cats trying to wake her up. They starting with yelling, then escalated to banging pots and pans, tickling her with cattails, and throwing ice on her. At one part, they came out in Yukari Happis and started doing Yukari PPPH which got the entire crowd to follow along. This woke her up, but she told everyone to shut up and went back to sleep. After a long time, she finally woke up and the cats put on her new outfit and stepped toward the screen. Real Yukarin synchronized her exit onto the stage in the same outfit, an elaborate pink lolita dress with ribbons. During the video, the band members had swapped out all of their electric instruments for acoustic ones to do Namida no Loop. For the song, Yukarin came really close to the audience and sat in a chair to sing the ballad supported only by these instruments. Everyone stayed pretty quiet and just enjoyed her singing voice. Acoustic corners are one of my favorite moments because there's no pressure to do any calls, and the complete silence from the audience allows you to just sit there and really take in the atmosphere and focus 100% of your attention to the singer on stage. You could listen to all the intricacies of the singing and it was really nice. I never really listened to this song much on albums, but it sounded really great live. I guess she uses corners like this to remind people that yeah she's actually a good singer and it's not all about idoling and cheering.

During MC, she showed off her changed costume. Fans yelled out that the ribbons were cute so she told them jealously if they liked ONLY the ribbons so much they should just marry it. Continuing the theme of the evening, every time she went to get water, or even reach for water, people yelled "omizu oishii." She tested it out with other band members and had the same thing happen to them. Then she had every band member drink from their water bottle while the crowd cheered, and asked them "omizu oishii?" When they said yes, the crowd exploded into way overly enthusiastic celebration. IDGI I guess Yukari fans are really easily amused?? After all the band members had water, she asked if everyone in the audience also brought water, and people held up their water bottles. What happened next was crazy: she went to each section (middle, left, right) and picked a random person in the first row. Then she went over and sat REALLY close, like legs dangling over the stage close, leaned into them, made them drink and asked the same question. As a bonus for our section, when the guy started drinking she started panting really heavily and said in this totally deep ero voice like "....is...is...that water good?" Even for us in the third row, it was the best and closest view of Yukarin all night. In another segment, she asked fans what specialty should be eaten in Niigata, and the prevaling answer seemed to be yakisoba with meat sauce. Gotta try that when I'm back in Niigata next week.

She announced her next song Sugar Tune, which got a loud crowd reaction and also made people bring out the koiseyo puppets. The song also has its own hand motions which had to be copied, so it was a good thing I watched some concerts beforehand and followed along. Then, Metausahime came. If there was any UO song, this was it, but from what I've seen Yukari concerts only accept one color: pink. During the "hizamazuke" line, the ENTIRE crowd just went down quickly and it was an awesome sight to see. The "Haaahaaaaaa" chants also involved throwing yourself down in a bow, immediately followed by scrambling back up again to yell out "Hime, hime, hime hime hime." In all, it was pretty intense and definitely one of the highlights of the night.

Another break this time. She played a clip where she went to the animate store in Niigata the day before. At the store, her goods were selling at the end of one aisle so she hid around the shelf to see if anyone was buying it. She was really disappointed when nobody was looking at her goods so she tried to hide close to where customers were standing, yell a really quick "AHEM~SELLINGYUKARIALBUMSHERE" in a disguised voice, and then duck away. When the people ignored it, there was a huge EEEHHHHHH from the audience. After a lot of tries, someone finally came over and Yukari happily ambushed the surprised customer. When he revealed he bought the album, she signed it for him and initiated a handshake. This got a huge reaction from the concert hall. She did this with a few more customers and was then asked by animate staff to sign her name on one of animate's store posters. She couldn't spell the kanji for Niigata so she was trying to copy some tiny text on the bottom corner of the poster, but messed up with a hilariously ugly looking 潟 and had to write "niigata" in hiragana on top of it to clarify - if you go visit animate in Niigata you'll find this amusing mistake still displayed on the wall for all to see.

After the video, Yukarin came back in a white sailor (officer style, not the school kind) blouse, layered checkered skirt, and knee high white boots. She did one more song Koi no Time Machine before it was Meron time. The fans pre-empted the great reveal because they saw Meromero stick on the counter and called out for it while she was still talking about other stuff, so she had no choice but to cut her MC short and bring it out. For the usual demonstration, she caught several staff members (trying to flee) and lined them up execution style alongside the band members and meroooonnned them all. Then she said "I wonder if this works in reverse" and waved them back into standing position while going "nrooomeeee~". She tried the same thing with the audience, MERON and then reverse NROME. On the second pass, since we were all expecting backwards meron everyone froze after doing the meron wave but she just cut it off after meron and went "wtf are you all doing?"

After we got all got our fill being zapped with meromero, she did You & Me. There was a lots of hype for this song since everyone was pumped to do the motsu rap part. Yukarin feat. kokumin was a great success and very very loud. During the rap, Yukarin looked like a kid who just made a huge heist from the cookie jar with that smile on her face. I guess she had a good time getting everyone to yell out such long segments. Then the band immediately transitioned into Fancy baby doll. There are two kinds of people in this world, people who have yelled out "Sekai ichi kawaii yo!" during a live FBD performance and people who haven't. The latter is missing a vital life experience, which I'm glad to say after years of waiting I finally got. She also continued the usual tradition of throwing out usagi dolls randomly into the audience. Before the final sabi, there was a segment to introduce band members and dancers. When the song resumed at the climax ("and I'm Tamura Yukari, 17 years old") the crowd just went into insane overdrive. The next few songs had almost no breaks, but there was just so much energy I think we all forgot to be tired. She went through Love love baby happy star, a song from the new album which will probably become one of the most fun and energetic live pieces in her repertoire, and candy smile. In the middle of candy smile, she removed her top and skirt to reveal a tiny orange one-piece. For the last two songs, Gratitude and Love me now, a ton of people busted out pompoms that they must have kept from FC events earlier this year (recall Love me now PV). Also during the Gratitude climax, there was a big pop and gold ribbons dropped from the ceiling onto the audience. For the rest of us without pompoms, we just continued to use pink penlight or ribbons that we caught. Again, Love Me Now had a special dance that was taught to fans during the FC event so you couldn't just rely on usual call instincts. Luckily the dances have a certain predictable pattern to it, and I was able to copy easily.

During the encore, I took time to turn around and fully absorb the feeling of an entire mountain of people behind chanting and waving pink penlights. Yukarin quickly came back in a pink concert t-shirt, miniskirt, and Chibi Yukarin doll attached to her hip. She thanked everyone for the encore and launched into Douwa Meikyu, which always ranks very highly during the FC events. Next was Super Special Smiling Shy Girl which was so much fun with fans singing part of the chorus and yelling "SUPER SPECIAL SMILING SHY GIRL" together.

During the last MC, she was supposed to blow a dinky little trumpet and surprise everyone while GOD (saxophonist) secretly busted out a sax solo from behind, but she missed the cue and messed up the timing causing everyone to laugh at her.

For the final song, she sang My Wish My Love, an appropriate track to wind everyone down for the night. At the end, she held hands with everyone on stage and asked everyone in the audience to do the same to take a huge bow. Some guys were hesitating, but she used some reverse psychology which appears to have worked. She said, "if you don't want to do it, just shake off the person's hand like this" while doing a disgusted throwing motion. After that, everyone started reaching across even between the aisles until all the lines were connected and then the whole audience took a huge coordinated bow with Yukarin leading.

I thought there would be a second encore, but Yukarin signaled it was the true end and stood on the stage to wave at people for a long time - like a really long time. She moved really deliberately from each aisle to aisle and made direct eye contact and waved to every single person who attended, which was pretty cool - you could just see her eyes moving across each row slowly, waving, and doing a smile. Whenever she reached a new aisle, the aisle coordinated a big "Se-no, YUKARIN" yell that she enjoyed getting each time. Finally after almost half an hour of waving she gave one last actually sincere sounding "thank you" and left the stage while blowing kisses. When the lights came back on, fans led the post-concert chant and everyone did the clap-clap-clap-HEY thing that you see in at the end of DVDs all the time.

Goods table

Outside in the lobby, they had tables that were selling a ton of Yukari CDs and DVDs, including some really older ones like Sugar Time Trip. They were giving away special items for purchases over 2000 yen, so I picked up a B Gata H Kei vocal album in order to get a clear file. I also talked with the fanclub staff near the Yukari passport stamp counter for a bit, but unfortunately they said they had no way of handling overseas addresses (Momoi spoils us so good).

Even at 9:30 PM, it was still pouring outside, but as I stepped into my cab I could only think about the overall fantastic set list, with more of my favorites than I could have hoped for. Her MCs were a lot closer to her radio personality this time too given how dirty some of them were, maybe because Niigata isn't being taped. Performance-wise, Yukari and all of her costumes are totally adorable up close, and her live singing is the real deal. My only wish is that I could have heard Yukarin-solo version of Koiseyo (only heard Yukari x Nana version at Anisama 2008) but it's a minor complaint considering how many good songs I did get.

Final goods for the day:

Bonus:

Close-up of super limited Chibikko Yukarin doll (only one per person)

Next, MOSAIC.WAV and Yukarin again in Sendai.

Posted by Paranda at 2:41 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

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 (5) | 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