THE IDOLM@STER added to Animelo lineup
Completely unexpected – Animelo’s official site has pre-announced that THE IDOLM@STER will be attending the Sunday session of Animelo Summer 2008.
THE IDOLM@STER is the group of seiyuu behind the Bandai Namco game of the same name, and the members are:
Nakamura Eriko (Amami Haruka)
Imai Asami (Kisaragi Chihaya)
Ochiai Yurika (Hagiwara Yukiho)
Nigo Mayako (Takatsuki Yayoi)
Wakabayashi Naomi (Akizuki Ritsuko)
Takahashi Chiaki (Miura Azusa)
Kugimiya Rie (Minase Iori)
Hirata Hiromi (Kikuchi Makoto)
Shimoda Asami (Futami Ami, Mami)
Hasegawa Akiko (Hoshii Miki)
Not to be confused with the spin-off anime Idolmaster Xenoglossia made by Sunrise with an entirely different cast of seiyuu, THE IDOLM@STER and the seiyuu behind them had gain a strong cult following thanks to devoted otakus posting self-made AMV on video sharing sites such as nico nico douga and Youtube, and the makers proping up the interest by continously releasing some pretty decent songs for the fans to play with. There are some fairly talented singers in the group – Imai Asami and Takahashi Chiaki are especially skillful which I greatly admire and respect, while others like Shimoda Asami and Hasegawa Akiko had also came a long way.
Finer details will be revealed tomorrow night at 7pm Tokyo time, probably related to whether the entire cast will be available at the concert or not. To this date I think they have never managed to assemble the entire cast for any events, including THE IDOLM@STER’s own events. Kugimiya Rie and Ochiai Yurika are currently the two with the most “no show” record – both of which had cited scheduling issues as the reason behind it. While it’s understandable that Kugimiya Rie with her “tsundere queen” status which leads to her voice being on everything from anime to consumer electronics thus naturally comes with a super cluttered schedule, on the other hand for the relatively unknown Ochiai “Yurishii” Yurika many otakus speculate this is due to her links with the Arts Vision scandel leading her to be surpressed within the industry. Here’s hoping they can actually get everyone there as it would be a spectacular sight to have them all on stage.
June 16th, 2008 at 22:15
It’s weird Animelo keeps announcing performers since they’ve recorded the theme song last week. Not that I’m complaining, I girly-screamed when I read “Misato Aki” there.
Yahoo! Auction is going crazy with front-seats. The highest bid I saw was 90,000 yen. And now that the Idolmaster craze joins in… I’m glad I secured a (not-too-bad) ticket, lol.
And waa~ai for Takahashi Chiaki!
June 16th, 2008 at 22:36
Contract work for a big show like this may go all the way up to the week of the concert. I think the past couple years they’ve left people out in the theme song single as well, as they join the fray in a last-minute manner.
June 16th, 2008 at 23:23
I sure hope Yurishii goes, she needs the exposure. Might be a good boost for her own singing career too.
June 16th, 2008 at 23:34
..no, I don’t think they ever cut any initial artists out from the theme song (excluding “special guest” like Hirano Aya or Takahashi Yoko), at least in ‘06 and ‘07 CDs. I don’t have Oneness.
June 16th, 2008 at 23:48
motsu, the rapper of m.o.v.e, didn’t get to sing for last years theme song even though yuri (the female vocal) did, if you count that. Which was a shame too, because his rapping bit added so much more to the song during the live version.
I have Oneness, but I need to go back to check because I can’t remember off the top of my head.
June 17th, 2008 at 04:04
Animelo just got a whole lot more interesting this year for me. If only my work was not killing me so.
June 17th, 2008 at 18:42
So it’s just Eriko, Chiaki, Mingos & Shimoda then :(
June 17th, 2008 at 21:39
Chiaking~~~_>
June 17th, 2008 at 21:44
ah crap, the sign.
@houkoholic:
motsu was a nice surprise, but yuri did sing, which means m.o.v.e joined Animelo before the recording.. so I wouldn’t count that. ;)
but anyway, now they have so many performers that it rly looks like 2 separate concerts. And maybe they even gonna have 2 versions of the song –I don’t think day-1 artists will appear in day-2 only to sing it together.
…my dream to see Nana/Makkun in one stage is shattered now.
June 23rd, 2008 at 05:52
[...] information can be found at seiyuu3.net. As highlighted @ seiyuu3, its really sad that once again, the entire cast of idolM@ster is not [...]