Random seiyuu news bits
Chihara Minori announced 4 more sessions to her “Contact” live tour – according to reports it’s going to be at Osaka Nanba Hatch, Nagoya Diamond Hall and Tokyo Shinagawa Stellar Ball. At least this time the venues are of respectable sizes (all are 1000+ venues), and I get another chance at ticket draws as all my previous applications (5 goes) failed to get me any tickets.
Yamaha is releasing a music score book for Mizuki Nana. Apparently it will include some behind the scene off shots from live tours etc. I wonder if this has anything to do with the recent “I tried to play it” music boom on Niconico Douga – basically people who took videos of themselves playing their favourite anison with various musical instruments, and Hatsune Miku.
Some Nana-chan related “I tried to play it” links (requires Niconico Douga account)
1 Guitar player who played various Nana-chan songs
2 “Rush & Dash” drums
3 “Crystal Letter” on oboe
4 “Secret Ambition” on a koto
Old school famous seiyuu singer Kasahara Hiroko is re-releasing 5 albums from her earlier days. The trend of veteran seiyuu coming out and trying to recapture their music career seems to continue.
The Second Seiyuu Award has added a special new award – the Tomiyama Kei Award – to be award by the jury to the seiyuu that has the widest and broadest media reach as a seiyuu, or put simply the seiyuu with the most media “buzz” apparently. Personally I think the criteria is unclear and nature of the award seems iffy because it appears to be one of those “I can’t please everyone so I’ll just create another category” type of filler awards. Will wait and see who gets it and whether it turns out to be what I suspect the purpose of the award is what I think it is.
December 8th, 2007 at 15:33
Thanks for this post. Great to hear Minorin is getting more dates. My first thought on the special award was that it should go to Hirano Aya, based on stated criteria. Even just her little parlor trick of doing various voices in various registers on TV shows seems to be giving the seiyuu profession good publicity in a year when it has gotten enough bad publicity. Perhaps you were suspecting the same recipient, but not thinking she was quite as deserving as I do?
This awards show does have the smell of industry goals about it, it seems to me. But that doesn’t bother me any more than the magazine lists do, since they are voted for by specific portions of the anime audience. Anyway, the industry people have to avoid embarrassing themselves with choices other industry people will think are ridiculous. At least I hope they do.
December 8th, 2007 at 17:09
> Hashihime
No, I’m just against the nature of such filler awards. Competition by its very nature means there are going to be winners and losers and if the judges are doing their job properly there shouldn’t be a need for more “prizes” such that everyone “wins” and that irrational fanbois don’t get upset, let alone one where the judging criteria is so subjective (what is considered “buzz”? And does it have to be good buzz or not? But then what is “good” and how do you judge its effectiveness in promoting the industry etc). I would be equally against say Mizuki Nana being award this award (she arguably had a lot of cross media buzz due to her spectacular music career as well) because they want to be “fair” and give the singer award to someone else so that Nana-chan doesn’t get it twice in a row because let’s face it, the reality and numbers proves that Mizuki Nana’s music career is miles ahead of every seiyuu out there right now and anyone else getting this award will stir up the Nana fanbois, for example.
I remember in the HK music scene, there used to be only a “most popular singer” award in the industry, at some point in time they just decided to add another “most popular HK singer in Asia” award so that the top 4 rivaling singers don’t lose face for not getting anything and that rabid fans don’t get upset, and thus they created more awards so that they can deal out the awards “fairly” and rotate the awards around so that no one can claim the awards for more than two years in a row. Currently to me, this award feels the same in nature – that they’re just setting up an exit plan and if they do use it as such would make it a totally meaningless award. Though the final call would be who gets it in the end, and it would be especially ironic if it was a person without true merit too.
December 8th, 2007 at 17:40
After listen to this http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm849426
Now I wish artist like Rin’ to redo this song in their style and maybe Nana-chan as vocal.
Same as long time ago I wish for “Sekai ni hitotsu dake no hana” which 12 Girls Band on music and SMAP on vocals.
December 9th, 2007 at 04:15
I don’t know if I should celebrate or “make myself taller” knowing this news of Minorin. On one hand, many more fans can attend, preventing over crowding tensions like in the birthday live. On the other hand, this means more rubbing in that I can’t go even though I have a code for the application… Good luck getting the ticket!
It’s a good thing they’re releasing a Nana score book. Then it’d possible branch out for other seiyuu song books.
December 9th, 2007 at 05:35
The problem with awards shows is that exact criteria are impossible. In many cases, there may be several worthy candidates. Under these circumstances, it is not unreasonable to try to find ways of honoring the ones who are not chosen in any particular year.
December 10th, 2007 at 05:56
I’d buy some Kasahara CDs… Missed out back when she was popular.
February 16th, 2010 at 02:35
Anyone know how to do things like this?