Idolmaster Dearly Stars seiyuu announced
Saw it on the Nicodouga live stream. The seiyuu for the 3 new characters are:
Hidaka Ai: Tomatsu Haruka
Mizutani Eri: Hanazawa Kana
Akizuki Ryo: Sanpei Yuuko
The addition of Toma-chan and Kana-chan is a bit from the left field, since the im@s franchise haven’t been known to get established seiyuu, let alone the freshest and hottest idol seiyuu currently around (Kugimiya Rie was grabbed before her big break FWIW). Potentially this could be a negative thing, as these hot idols will be much harder to book for events and such (refer to Kugyu), so I’m thinking the direction of the DS game and its new characters might be slightly different than the current batch of idols we have so far. Also the singing skills of the seiyuu are a little on the average side, but either way I’ll still be looking forward to Toma-chan and Kana-chan covering the famous im@s songs such as Shiny Smile and Go My Way! because to me one of the most fascinating aspect of the im@s franchise is listening to the seiyuu with different voice qualities and abilities singing the same songs.
Both Toma-chan and Kana-chan made an appearance at the concert today and performed the theme song for the game “Hello!”. Follow the link below if you have a Nico account.
EDIT: For those without Nico accounts:
May 30th, 2009 at 23:36
…..brand new touch.
Toma can’t sing. Kana is even worse. No comment on Sanpei cos I haven’t heard her sing yet.
And this whole skill talk is so different from the legs chatting *runs*
May 30th, 2009 at 23:42
Oh wow, “Nagi” and “Zange” are back together. By having more famous seiyuu and a new cast of characters, it sounds lke Bandai Namco may be trying to widen their audience.
May 31st, 2009 at 04:32
> danie
I try to keep this place work safe, you erojiji fangirl.
> Honya
You are right, I think the big name seiyuu is a big bullet point which they wanted to include for this game. Overall it seems to be a bit more of an experimental one-off gateway game to put on the best selling console to try tapping into untested markets compared with the recent SP game, which was more of a reboot of the franchise with a definite long-term investments by taking in two completely new seiyuu picked specifically for the new characters.
June 5th, 2009 at 00:55
But,but all 3 of them can’t sing >.< but then again, There is Nakamura Sensei… I guess they haven’t found a genre that they are good at. Nakamura Sensei can only do wacky yandere tendency songs imo.
June 5th, 2009 at 02:15
おっと、先生の悪口はそこまでだ w
From the reports of the concerts, Nakamura’s live singing has improved yet again, and from the recent game DLC her cover of Tonari ni, arugably one of the two hardest songs to sing in im@s history ever (the other would be Aoi Tori), she HAD improved dramatically. Even the NicoDouga comments you don’t see the bad mouthing (and people actually surprised that Nakamura is pulling off the songs). I think it’s safe to say that she’s out of the race for the bottom of the pack now and the Dearly Stars seiyuu is going to fight for that “honor”.