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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.

One more day to go!

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.

Opps, I sort of left this one on the side and forgotten about it, but here it is anyway, the PV to Minorin’s new song. Apparently the official English title is “Let the Flower Bloom After the Rain” – since they’re accepting T-shirt orders with the title printed on it from the fanclub.

For the song itself, I like this one a lot better than Melty Tale Storage.  The music’s got a bit of punch to it in a similiar way to Shijin no Tab, which is one of my favourite Minorin songs, so anything like that is welcomed. It’s also a more hopeful and happier song than most of the songs by her of recent, which I think suits Minorin’s bubbly personality a lot better thus she had a much better grasp of it and was able to channel her feelings through her performance a lot more easier.

As for the PV, is it wrong for me to say that I’m slightly turned on by a wet Minorin?

Complete with the signiture “キラッ☆” pose that is now an internet meme.

The key sounds just a tad lower than the CD/anime version to my ears but it’s definitely not bad at all, especially towards the second half where she seems to have gotten into the groove. She managed to deliver a stable performance, which is more than could be said of some others.

We really may have a new Ijima Mari in the making here.

Okui Masami is going solo on the Saturday session (please have another duet with Nana-chan! prettyprettyplease), and her fellow JAM Project bandmate Fukuyama Yoshiki is also detaching himself to get his own solo act on Sunday (oh man please can we now have a Basara + Sheryl duet?! But even Maka no Chikai will be AWESOME YELLING TIME anyway). LIA is also going to Animelo Sunday (Tori no Uta! Tori no Uta!), and with ave;new feat. Sakura Saori (True My Heart! Kiss My Lips!), MOSAIC.WAV (gacha gacha kyu!), miko (kirai, kirai, lovin’!), iM@S etc Sunday is turning out to be a day that would make any nico douga fanboy (especially of the nico nico douga kumikyoku type) weak at the knees just at the though of all these artists on stage at the same time.

Only a little more than one month left!

It’s hard to pinpoint who is responsible for something like this – either the producers at Bandai Namco are closet seiyuu ota or that the huge commercial success of IDOLM@STER means the marketing guys are dictating that every music game by Bandai Namco must have otaku appeal. The upcoming Happy Dance Collection (tentative title) game by Bandai Namco for the Nintendo Wii will feature a mascot character voiced by Mizuki Nana, not only that, but Nana-chan will also be singing a whopping total of 4 original songs for this dancing game. Besides the Nana-chan songs, there will be a bunch of well-known J-pop, old and new anime songs, and of course let’s not forget, IDOLM@STER songs.

While no definite dates are given, the game is scheduled to come out this year. With the huge penetration of the Wii, this might be a great opportunity for Nana-chan to get her name out amongst the general population. For seiyuu (Nana-chan) fans like us, who could pass up the opportunity to dance to Mizuki Nana and iM@S songs? I don’t know about you but I’m buying this for sure.

(The original story ran at Kotaku, but obviously they wouldn’t notice the deep seiyuu angle of this story)

Early reports are out – Nakajima Megumi’s debut single released under her character Ranka Lee in Macross Frontier sold an amazing 35,000 to grab fifth spot on the Oricon Weekly Charts. Extra bit of trivia – All 4 Macross Frontier CDs released thus far had ranked in the top 10 on the Oricon Weekly Charts during their release week, proving the draw power of the Macross brand.

I’ve been rather enjoying the contrasting differences between the songstresses of Macross Frontier, and they did a particularly good job at matching May’n (as Sheryl’s singing voice) against that of Nakajima Megumi. While May’n has a powerful and confident delivery of a veteran performer that belies her true experience, Nakajima Megumi has a diamond in the rough quality which really adds to the overall experience of watching (listening) her raise that is captivating in a different way.

Now let’s just hope the series will continue to deliver great music.

Kitamura Eri first personal single coming up?

The Animate online store has an entry listing which essentially says “Kitamura Eri 1st Maxi-single” with a serial of LACM-4513, coming out on July 23rd. Since KitaEri has released numerous character singles for anime such as Seto no Hanayome and Kodomo no Jikan already I’d take it that this is going to be her first single under her very own name. I’m pumped for this release as I think KitaEri is another power seiyuu singer that has plenty of potential to make it big. However, LACM points to the single being released by Lantis, so there’s this looming bad vibe about this which I can’t shake off as well.

Either way, this is a good time to re-visit KitaEri’s Hyakka Seiran anisong covers to see why I’m excited:

Tamura Yukari’s Budoukan Live DVD set release confirmed

Anisong site Axive has reported that Yukarin’s historical live at Budoukan “Love♡Live 2008 *Chelsea Girl*” will see a DVD release on July 23rd (damn what’s with this day?!). A DVD release is expected and anticipated by many, but the real bit of news is that they are going to have a 5.1 soundtrack – a first for King Records’ seiyuu DVD releases I believe. Due to various circumstances I actually had to pass on this concert, and while there is no substitute for physically being there, at least a nicely mastered DVD with 5.1 soundtrack can capture part of the magic. Yukarin is taking one for the team here – as I’m sure depending on how this release is recieved that a 5.1 track for Nana’s Live Fighter concert for this year would be a given. So here’s hoping that the release will be good.

I have Minorin fanclub goods

Lazy man way to finish off this entry.

Deculture! May’n, currently better known as the singing voice of Sheryl Nome of Macross Frontier, has been added to the August 31st session of Animelo.

May’n is not too bad at live, having heard her free live at Bunkahousou not so long ago. Still not quite enough to push me over the fence just yet, but it’s getting awfully close for me to want to go to the Sunday session too. If only they would throw in Maaya or Nakajima Megumi into the Sunday line-up and do a massive Macross song session complete with JAM Project’s Fukuyama Yoshiki who was Basara’s singing voice, THAT would be enough reasons for me to go.

Mizuki Nana tops this week’s Oricon charts

Mizuki Nana’s concert DVD Live Formula sold some 16000+ copies in its first week, beating old-school famous Jpop duo CHAGE and ASAKA’s Live concert DVD released on the same week to claim first spot on the Oricon Music DVD Weekly, as well as ranking in 4th on the Overal DVD sales ranking. Note this is actually not the first time that Mizuki Nana had claimed top spot on the Oricon Music DVD ranking – her PV collection NANA CLIPS 3 was the first to do so. NANA CLIPS 3 was also the first ever seiyuu music DVD to rank first on the Oricon Music DVD Weekly charts. The result of Live Formula proves yet again that when it comes to seiyuu artists, Mizuki Nana is in a league of her own.

Following on, supporters of anisong singers and seiyuu artists has a lot to talk about in the past week when it comes to Oricon rankings. We first have Sakamoto Maaya/Kanno Yoko making a bit of history with the Macross Frontier opening theme song “Triangler” staying in the top 10s for 3 consecutive weeks, then you have May’n’s Sheryl songs ranking in 3rd on its debuting week. The power of Culture ™ is not to be under-estimated. Now when Nakajima Megumi releases her debuting CD as Ranaka Lee we will know for sure the branding power of Macross.

Kugimiya Rie’s appearance on NHK’s Anigiga

Now usually I have issues with NHK’s reporting (long story), but Kugimiya Rie’s recent TV appearance on Anigiga on the 14th May was actually a very nice piece of interview that is worth watching if you have even a remote passing interest in her. Her mentioning about how she was not much of an anime fan early in childhood due to her being raised in Kumamoto and how she utilise her interest in books to help her get into the voice acting was surprising, seeing how that there is an increase tendency for seiyuu to be huge anime fans as of recent. The other interesting thing was how her parents, wanting her to stay close to home, suggested her to be an announcer instead. I can’t picture this myself because her current vocal image is too deeply ingrained into my brain. For those who’s not fluent enough to watch the video raw, I still suggest you to watch the live adlib in the studio. The video file is now floating around on the Intertubes at the usual places.

I know it’s not a particularly flattering picture, but I like what she said there.

Chihara Minori loves Chinese dresses

Just an excuse for me to talk about Minorin, she posted a picture of herself in yet another Chinese dress (her fourth time). The dress (shown on the far right below) is a gift given to her by Inoue Marina. Let’s all give a big “Thank You” to Inoue Marina! Thank you Marina for indirectly giving us Minorin eye-candy!

Nobody beats her when it comes to “dressing up” though:

Can you tell who that is? (no clues in the tags, har har)