So far we’ve got two old timers JAM Project and Kuribayashi Minami leading two new additions – seiyuu unit Sphere (Kotobuki Minako, Takagaki Ayahi, Tomatsu Haruka and Toyosaki Aki) and fripSide of A Certain Scientific Railgun fame on Saturday, and already a huge star cast of Nana-chan, Yukarin, May’n and Momoi Haruko on Sunday.
Nana-chan and Yukarin on the same day is expected as this year is the year of the Nanoha movie. So expect Phantom Minds and My Wish My Love as part of the song list on Sunday, and maybe they would finally get around to do the whole Nanoha/Fate duet that all those fans had been dying to see.
In addition to the main Animelo event, this year we also see two spin-offs – Anisummer Girls’ Night and Animelo Summer Live in Shanghai (!). Girls’ Night as the name implies is going to be limited to female performers only and shall take place sometime in late October to early November in Tokyo and Osaka. While Animelo Summer Live in Shanghai is going to be the first overseas Animelo and will take place around late November in Shanghai (duh), and they are aiming for a 10,000 crowd venue.
Posted by houkoholic on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 19:12
Long leg idol seiyuu Tomatsu Haruka announced in her blog a few days ago that she will be releasing her second photo album as well as her first solo album Feburary next year. She also mentioned that this time there will be swimsuit shots (!). The sound you just heard is a combination of a thousand fanboys (and fangirls) falling to the ground due to blood lost from picturing her in a swimsuit while the album weeps quietly in the dark corner for being ignored.
The im@s girls and Shimoda Asami made the cut to this years Animelo Blu-ray and DVD, but somehow Shoko-tan didn’t make the cut (nobody cares though, right?) yet GACKT did. Proving yet again that the Elevens suck at negotiating rights. The days till they release a full concert is nowhere in sight.
Kawakami Tomoko apparently had a role in the second season of DARKER THAN BLACK, prompting fans to speculate that she came out of hiatus. She went into hiatus due to health problems around July/August of 2008.
Posted by houkoholic on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 18:53
Finally we’re getting something more interesting at Animelo 09 other than the goods and greats, but still rather run of the mill, vocalists that we’ve been served with thus far.
Ohtsuki Kenji and the Zentsubou Shoujo-tachi from the Sayanara Zetsubou Sensei series is now added to the Sunday line-up of Animelo 09. The Zetsubou Shoujo-tachi currently involves 9 seiyuus of the 2nd year female students and they are:
Nonaka Ai
Inoue Marina
Kobayashi Yuu
Sawashiro Miyuki
Shintani Ryoko
Sanada Asami
Tanii Asuka
Goto Yuuko
Matsuki Miyu
Depending on the songs, the members will be different, but in general the ones that are the regulars are Nonaka Ai, Inoue Marina, Kobayashi Yuu, Shintani Ryoko and Sawashiro Miyuki. My prediction is that Nonaka Ai, Inoue Marina and Kobayashi Yuu will almost definitely appear due to their King Records involvement as well as being regulars of either personal concerts and/or King Records events. Shintani Ryoko with her Lantis ties and her vast experience in concerts would also mean she’s unlikely to reject this opportunity to perform at such an event. That leaves Sawashiro Miyuki as a bit of a wild card. While Sawashiro Miyuki’s not much of the concert and event type, she does have some theatre experience, so her appearance is not totally out of the question. Though my personal predicition is that we would see the group without Sawashiro Miyuki.
I’m sure that similiar to last year’s im@s appearance we will find out exactly who will appear as the day of the concert drews near, in the mean time we’ll just have to wait and see.
Posted by houkoholic on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 06:48
Animelo 2009 RE:Bridge
I missed the livecast, but thanks to everyone’s live-spamming of this site (lol), I got to know the initial line-up for Animelo 2009 without even having to check the official site! User-generated content FTW? Anyway, with them going to the lengths of setting up an English site, I guess keeping up with this year’s line-up will be much simplier. Now just a summary of what artist we have thus far:
It seems to me that Saturday currently lacks the 萌え idol seiyuu singers while Sunday is lacking the 燃え GAR/male singers. So I’m predicting that they will probably do something about that to balance the two days up in the upcoming annoucements. With Nana-chan and Hirano Aya both on Sunday (FWIW, they have gone head-to-head on the same day before when Aya appeared as special guest in 2007, though I guess most people had sealed that memory away due to that horrendous punk version of Bouken Desho Desho) it’s going to be a sell out for all the rabid fanboys and it would probably be just short of a riot when it comes to them fighting over tickets. If it is up to me I would think that they would do a temporary reunion of Yamato Nadeshiko (Yukarin and Hoc-chan) on Saturday to get the fanboys to step and craw over each others’ smelly bodies for Saturday’s session too. For GAR singers, well, I’m not that knowledgible in those, but I wouldn’t mind if they bring back GRANRODEO or something along that line. Oh and if m.o.v.e makes another appearance, please sing something else besides Gamble Rumble. You have an entire catalog of good Initial D theme songs, use them!
First iDOLM@STER Concert Tour
On other concert news, the iM@S girls are going to have their first ever concert tour in 4 major cities in May. The cities they are visiting are in the order of Nagoya, Osaka, Fukuoka and final stop at Tokyo. Appearance of the seiyuu are all over the place though from the initial announcements – like Takahashi Chiaki “Chiaking” only appearing at the Tokyo session and Shimoda Asami “Asapon” at Fukuoka only, plus the usual absence of Ochiai Yurika “Yurishii” and Kugimiya Rie “Kugyuu~”. Unless they change the line up it just means that it would be impossible to see to all the performances in one session. Someone made a reference guide for the line-up and I’ve just PS the English bits myself. While Tokyo looks the most delicious (as expected, and competition for tickets will be fierce), the lack of Asapon is going to be a real let down for me.
Nana-chan New Album on 20th May
So we now have a date, apparently it will contain 15 tracks, and the first press comes with a DVD of the secret event for Trickster which had Nana roping in a bunch of her other seiyuu friends such as Sugita Tomokazu, Suzumura Kenichi, Sawashiro Miyuki, and Kuwatani Natsuko and TEH Wakamoto (even though only as narration) did a play. I wonder if the epicness of the DVD will boost the sales even more by getting a few more sales from the fans of the other seiyuu?
Posted by houkoholic on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 03:50
It’s only February but the promotion machine for Animelo 2009 is about to be fired up again with the livecasting of the press conference on Nicodouga this Thursday (26th) at 1pm Tokyo time (GMT +9). We should get a first glimps of the artist line up during the conference. I guess we will see the usual suspects (JAM Project, Nana-chan, Kuribayashi Minami), so the fun is going to be what surprises they have in store.
Posted by houkoholic on Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 02:15
I’m watching the TBS Animelo special right now and this came during the CM. So there you go, Blu-ray and DVD release on the 25th March, with each day on a separate disk sets – also the product code indicates that they are 2 disk sets for each day even for the Blu-ray version, and the minimum price difference makes it a no-brainer if you have the equipment (Blu-ray for 900 yen more? I’m in).
Posted by houkoholic on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 09:34
Hopping onto the bandwagon. Categories not in any particular order, I’m just writing it as they come to my mind.
Most Memoriable Seiyuu Moment – I killed Ueda Kana in Halo 3
It wasn’t memoriable just because I fragged her, but because she was actually a competent player. While I am not so shallow as to think that there are no female gamers (some of my friends are quite heavy gamers), but you have to admit that a certain amount of skepticism is in need about the way Ueda Kana professing her addiction to typically very male orientated games like FPS and Monster Hunter that I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see for myself if it was just an act or was she for real. It turns out she is the real deal and all the more respect from me to her.
Oh and sorry about the video, I’ll probably never get around to it. *runs*
Most Memoriable News Announcement – Brief Return of the Sakamoto/Kanno Golden Team
When they announced that Sakamoto Maaya and Kanno Yoko were going to work together again for Macross Frontier, I was ecstatic – I’m the old schooler that thinks everything non-Kanno Yoko by Maaya is crap (yep I’ve said it). While opinions on Triangler seems to be leaning towards the negative side, personally I much prefer it to the more popular Lion. Only Maaya can screech and still sound sort of good.
Best Concert/Event I Attended – (tie) THE IDOLM@STER 3rd Anniversary Live and Animelo 2008
A lot of the other concerts/events I went to seems to suffer from little things which keeps me from enjoying them to the fullest – such as Nana’s horrible wardrobe in Live Fighter or the unsatisfying Minorin Fanclub event. In the end, it is only for the IDOLM@STER concert and Animelo2008 where I can say I was completely and totally pumped and excited for the entire duration of the concert. Too bad neither seems to be coming out on DVD anytime soon.
LULZ Award – “Aya Style”
Hirano Aya’s bikini screw-up leading to the coining of the new term “Aya Style”. It was even funnier because it was a female friend who pinged me about it in the first place and said, quote – if she wasn’t flat as a board, that would hurt. It made me laughed so hard that I had a stomach cramp.
Best New Personal Seiyuu Discovery – (Tie) Imai Asami and Shimoda Asami
It seems that not only do they share the same given name, but also some other similiarties too – similarities which also happens to be what made me like them.
One is their singing abilities. They are both really really good singers with distinctive voices. Imai Asami has a deep powerful mature voice while Shimoda Asami can sing in both her normal voice and her nasal character voice which is quite a rare talent even amongst great seiyuu singers. The second are their quirky personality. Imai Asami “Mingosu” is a gamer-erojiji-lolicon-otaku with a chest complex, while Shimoda Asami “Asapon” is a multi-facet character (which includes her normal female self, a cute/dumb/wtf elementary school loli personality as well as a, you guessed it, lesbian side where she likes to claim fellow cute seiyuu as her waifu under her male personality named “Asao”) with a talent for voice imitations and writing original lyrics to songs and performing them live on her radio show. Sounds too good to be true? Think it’s all a marketing gimmick? That’s probably true, but that’s what makes seiyuu idol personalities interesting and warrants closer examination, right?
MVP – Tomatsu Haruka
Tomatsu Haruka without a doubt is the new rising star that dominated this year with a very strong list of memorable characters and roles. Nakajima Megumi may have gotten better limelight, but she hasn’t demonstrated the same versitility and range that Tomatsu Haruka had shown. Ever since Polyphonica last year it was pretty clear to me that Tomatsu Haruka has that something in her to make it big, this year was the year that she capitalised on it to make her mark on everyone’s radar. Even though I’m not found of Kannagi, it’s hard to argue that Tomatsu Haruka’s Nagi was quite a vital attraction of the show.
It also helps that she has very nice legs.
Best Seiyuu Gaming Moment – Senjou no Valkyria
It was an all-star cast for an incredible game (though not my Game of the Year though, that would actually be Fallout 3). You can read about what I had to say about the game here. While the presence of Fukuyama Jun did add a big LOL factor, it was Inoue Marina that made Valkyria for me. I really like Inoue Marina’s protrayal of the down-to-earth girl that is Alicia, it’s distinctive yet subtle, it catches your attention without being loud. It would be nice to hear Marina repraising the role of Alicia in the upcoming anime version.
Favourite Song – Shiny Smile from THE IDOLM@STER Live For You!
As it was my most played song which was released in 2008 according to my iTunes log it takes the crown of Favourite Song of 2008. To be honest 2008 was a pretty rough year for me, and Shiny Smile was one of the songs I went to for a pick-me-up. It’s a very simple catchy tune that gets you to sing along instantly, plus it has the right lyrics and attitude – the never give up, never stop moving forward and to just go for the goal with a bright smile was really what I needed when I’m feeling a bit down and just don’t want think too much while helping me to keep a positive attitude.
Someone went to the trouble of subbing the song and post it on Youtube. The translation is stiff but it gets the jist of it.
Most Disturbing Seiyuu Related News – Crazy People Making Death Threats to Seiyuu
Mizuki Nana and Chihara Minori both recieved death threats this year which made it to headline news. While they both seem to turn out to be nothing more than pathetic pranks when the police caught the ones responsible, it is still disturbing that people would use such things for fun, especially for the fact that they seem to be inspired by the tragic incident in Akiba.
“About f#@king time” moment – Area 11 Discovers the Rest of ZA WAARUDO!
In the form of half-heartedly setting up the “Overseas Fan Choice Award” in the Seiyuu Award. Doesn’t change the fact that the award itself is still a joke though.
“I can’t believe he/she did that!” Seiyuu Moment – Miyano Mamoru’s Shotgun Marriage Announcement
I will not claim knowledge on how fangirl logic would work (though I’m guessing it is probably not that different to how fanboy logic works), and I know that the entertainment industry here are generally pretty harsh when it comes to idols coming out with “shameful” and image damaging news such as these – and sure enough they pretty much cleanse the usual sources of his video message announcing his marriage, including his own official page, and tried to pretend that nothing happened (but the internet being the internet, you can still find the video if you spend 10 seconds on teh googles). That’s some gutsy thing Miyano did, but ultimately foolish with how the industry here works and I wish him luck and hope that he’s not going to be regretting this decision of his anytime soon.
“I can’t believe I did that!” Seiyuu Moment
Thankfully this category is empty as I haven’t done anything to any seiyuu that would have me writing this from inside a prison cell.
Posted by houkoholic on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 04:12
Famitsu is on their game again so official track listing can be found here. As predicted, today was Niconico Douga Meme Song day, if you are a fan of nicodouga, especially of the Nicodouga Kumikyoku, you’ll no doubt get a massive kick from hearing the meme songs being performed full live – we definitely did. Anyway again some highlights:
* Omoide wa Okusenman performed by JAM Project as an opener. What a starter! Hang on, Makkun isn’t in there but replaced by Misato Aki. Hmm what happened?
* After the song, Kageyama Hironobu announced that Makkun fell sick, and her condition worsen because she forced herself to perform yesterday and the doctor gave her the order to not to perform today. DAMN.
* Misato Aki sang nicely – taking over Makkun’s role in such short notice and as the first performer, great effort on her part.
* Elisa’s voice is simply beautiful. After 2 acts the bar for the night is set pretty damn high.
* After two slow songs from Elisa, angela Domestic Love Band started the night’s long run of goth-metal music. It’s quite a departure of her old stuff. Yeah, even Shangri-La was pretty out there.
* Sound Horizon had some interesting sounds, and lots of members and vocalists. My favourite part though has to be the electric violin in their music. Might check them out later.
* Yui’s goth band is a good gag act. I like how they made fun of themselves with the whole “toilet break act” gag, even though they were far from that level of terrible.
* Momoi Halko did a real-life Idolm@ster-style “performance accident” – she literally tripped and fell on all four after missing a landing from a jump. She recovered from it straight away though, that’s a pro performer right there.
* Mosaic.wav’s Gacha Gacha Kyu~~~ I was waiting for this piece and the fun metre explodes when everyone in the stadium does the hand gestures.
* Everyone sang true my heart – the call for “Kishimen!” was insane, Lelouch by the power of the Code Geass MAD meme orders you all to obey and sing!
* Sakura Saori’s talking voice scares me since it sounds just like when she sings. It’s like she’s constantly on helium or something.
* miko (IOSYS) for Marisa – complete with the original flash movie on the big screen. There’s something magical about everyone yelling “yi er san yi er san one two three one two three ichi ni san” at the same time.
* Tori no Uta, another totally expected piece. It’s a nice song except that for all of the 2 to 3 times I’ve seen it live Lia can never perform it well in a live situation and this time was no exception, which is a pity.
* iM@S performed a medley of their most famous songs, which is awesome because there is just no way they can get through all their cool songs any other way. Asapon was the most in character, Mingosu did well with her solo Aoi Tori section, and even Nakamura Eriko managed to sing pretty well too.
* Makka na Chikai was sooooo intense. I’ve never seen so many people get so psyched up, except for JAM Project’s SKILL.
* May’n does her Macross Frontier Sheryl act. That’s all there is to say about it.
* Psychic Lover does a ballad, wow. It’s so not their usual image.
* Hirano Aya improved her singing – it is no longer as painful as last year’s because she stopped trying so damn hard to do her weak attempt at a vibreto (thank god).
* anisong Uninstall was another piece that I really want to hear live, and Ishikawa Chiaki delivers it in spades.
* Woo, another new unreleased song in full – Gundam 00 second season’s ending Prototype.
* Gundam-gasum continues with a medley by a Ishikawa Chiakii/Yonekura Chihiro duet doing their most famous Gundam themes.
* I can fly! You can fly! We can fly! Motto motto!
Today’s concert was enjoyable in a completely different way compared with yesterdays. While yesterday’s – as expected by such a strong line up of strong singers – wins purely by the sheer high quality of the performers at performing live, today’s was exciting for the concentrated bursts of pure FUN as meme songs and recent cult hits gets performed live on stage and how everyone joins in with the acts at the same time to create an unbelievable live atmosphere. So both days were awesome in their own rights.
Also it looks like they’re already planning for next years Animelo, so see you next AniSummer!
Posted by houkoholic on Sunday, August 31st, 2008 at 02:43
The full track listing can be found here for those who can read Japanese, I might get around to translate it later. In the mean time just some moments worthy of mention:
* Concert kicks off with – what?? Yukarin’s “Koiseyo Onnanoko”! But wait, there’s one more person! OMG it’s a duet with Nana-chan!
* Nanoha Yukarin and Fate-chan Nana-chan than sang Nana-chan’s “Anone – mamimume☆mogacho”, wow, Yukarin doing the monkey too!
* First solo performer is Yukarin, despite this being her first Animelo appearance. She did three songs in her usual top performance. She even got the entire stadium to do the melon stick wave, it’s a great act to get people to warm up for the concert.
* AAA is a very well packaged mainstream Avex J-pop young band – complete with the pretty boy singer, rapper, girl vocal formula sang to eurobeat songs topped with well chronographed dances. Bonus for them being actually able to pull it off.
* Karen Girls were not bad, but still a very painful act to watch.
* yozuca, Minorin and savage genius sang FictionJuction YUUKA’s “nowhere”. That really came out of nowhere.
* savage genius sang a new song “Just Tune” which is the opening to one of the autumn show “Yozakura Quartet”, not a bad tune.
* Akino! 愛してる (Aishiteru)!
* bless4 were pretty amazing with their a cappella. Really talented group of young people.
* GRANRODEO (lead vocal is Taniyama Kishou) replaces Takahashi Naozomi as THE male seiyuu act of Animelo. They brought with them some pretty heavy J-Rock which is a welcome change. While Takahashi Naozomi is by no means a bad performer, one has to admit that one thing Animelo doesn’t lack are feminine acts.
* Suara sang the only slow song for the night. Her performance is still so perfect.
* Kuribayashi Minami covered up even more parts of her body this year, even though she’s still wearing a really skimpy skirt. I guess the organisers still think she’s wearing too little?
* Minorin got a big share this year, performing 3 (4 if you count Contact which IMO isn’t really a song) solo pieces.
* Minorin Makkun Rondo Revolution duet! But they sang it to the inferior Makkun tribute album remix of the song, so last year’s Nana-chan/Makkun duet is still the one to top.
* Nana-chan’s super-awesome Dancing in the Velvet Moon performance complete with sexy costume. Every year she still simply OWNS the show as she bursts onto the stage.
* The last piece is Eternal Blaze, ZOMG it’s a Nana-chan/Arika (Ali Project) duet! They kept their promise!
* Mic volume level problems during the final 3 group songs. Hope its just a live-mixing problem such that they can fix it for the DVD release.
Posted by houkoholic on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 21:46
News had gotten out that famous Japanese online video website Nico Nico Douga will be streaming, live, selected sections of the Sunday session (August 31st) of this year’s Animelo in their Nico Nico Live section. The live-cast is to start at 4pm Tokyo time (UTC + 9) and is limited to the first 10,000 users. Don’t know why they aren’t doing the Saturday session as well, but besides the usual rights problem, I’d wager that it might have something to do with how the Sunday session currently looks awfully like they took a artist roll-call from the songs used in the Nico Douga Kyumikyoku. Afterall, the people behind Nico Nico Douga, dwango, is also the major sponser to Animelo, seems like a perfect opportunity to cash in on some cross-promotion.
Either way, this maybe a great opportunity for those overseas who can’t make it to get a glimps of what it is like – provided they don’t put in IP blocking that is.
The Law of Information Sharing on the Internet Rule 1. Anything can be found on the Internet. Rule 2. If Rule 1 appears not to apply, you haven't looked hard enough. Rule 3. Given sufficient time for Rule 2, somebody else will find it for you or upload it hence fulfilling Rule 1.
- seiyuu3
