seiyuu3

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 Animelo 2008 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’m not a religious person, and the Japanese treats Christmas as a couple’s night out, so I hardly feel the festive mood here. That said, this doesn’t mean I can’t join the holiday spirit by posting pictures of seiyuu dressed in Santa costumes. So happy holiday to you all.

Which Santa do you like?

EDIT: Guess I should put some names.

(more…)

Linky.

There’s 20,000 spot this time. Admission starts at 18:50 Tokyo time (GMT +9) on the 23rd and the event starts at 19:00. There’s a countdown clock on the page so it’s easy to work out the time in your own timezone.

キラッ☆ and out.

According to a piece on Anime! Anime!, the 3rd Seiyuu Award will have a new category “Overseas Fan Award”. As the name suggests, this is an award open to overseas fans, even those living in Japan, to vote for their favourite seiyuu. Voting will be done via Internet and the English page (http://www.seiyuawards.jp/eng/) explaining the nitty-gritties will be open on the 29th of this month.

A quick piece of news that was announced during today’s fanclub birthday event which took place at Shibuya O-East. Minorin’s second music clip collection DVD is coming out next year.

Although I would really like to write about today’s event, my position for the event was so bad (at the back of the second floor) that I couldn’t see anything at all so all I’ve got were just sounds. So all I can do is give some brief summaries.

The beginning Minorin and her manager apparently showed some footage of Minorin going on a trip somewhere and taking the JR train that is also named Minori, but that’s about as much as I’ve got as I don’t get to see the footage.

After the talk it was the live corner section. First Minorin sang 3 character songs as voted by the fans – they were Chiaki of Minamike’s 過度の期待にご用心。 (Kado no Kidai ni Goyoujin), Nanaka of D.C.2’s 桜笑み君想う (Sakura Hohoemi Kimi Omou) and of course Nagato Yuki of Haruhi’s Yuki, Muon, Madobenite. After the character song section it was the accoustic section with Minorin and her guitar and she sang two songs she composed herself – Iddosen (I think that was the name) Ittousei 一等星 and La La La. I really love her own accoustic songs and wish someday they would release these songs on CD. And finally she finished off with Paradise Lost.

After the singing we gave a surprise to Minori per her manager’s instructions – everyone broke out an ultra-white glowstick which we recieved at the door and sang Junpaku Sanctuary in acappella. While I couldn’t see Minorin’s face, from her voice I’m almost certain she cried. A cake was probably brought out as well as calls for blowing out candles was heard, but I really can’t tell. And that was about it for the event.

Finally we also got to shake hands with Minorin before going. As there were about 1300 people today the handshake was expectedly brief. However I’ll still complain that one person only got about 2 seconds which is even shorter than the Nana fanclub events with 3000 people, so I’m not too happy with the management there.

Didn’t get much satisfaction from this event, especially compared to the likes of Nana and Yukarin’s where there are much more interaction with the fans with all the games and audience involvement while this just felt like a normal concert event, so I hope they can do better next time.

The news is up on the official page, as reported both the Blu-ray and DVD version of Live Fighter are to be release on Christmas Day this year. The difference is that the Blu-ray box is going to be a 2 dual-layered disk set which contains *both* days of the Live Fighter concert in one package, while the DVD versions are split into two 2-disk set – each set covering the different days. The Blu-ray version will set you back 9450yen while the DVD version will cost 4200yen each. While the difference in total price is only 50yen, I think going for the Blu-ray version is going to be a no-brainer if you have the equipment for it such that you can enjoy watching Nana-chan’s legs in glorious HD as well as awesome surround sound (I’d presume they would offer 5.1 LPCM). Plus I guess shipping will be cheaper too for those not in Japan?

So reserve your Christmas present today and start saving!

Someone must have poked around King Record’s server to get this off them – since the official release is not suppose to be till tomorrow night.

I actually quite like this song and PV. The whole throw back to 80’s disco thing tickles my fancy. It’s probably a sign that I’m getting old and weak when nostalogia for campy stuff that reminds me of some fuzzy childhood memory which sits somewhere in the under-utilized part of my brain which may or may not even be true is enough for me to swallow it hook line and sinker. So shake those booties and let’s party like it’s 1985 baby!

Highlight of this PV: the scissoring V-sign gesture over the mouth during the Chu-ru-chu-ru bits, VERY CUTE.

Dengeki Online had posted an indepth report of the The IDOLM@STER 3rd Anniversary Live.  The report can be accessed here.

The report is full of photos, all the thumbnails are clickable for access to some pretty decent size pictures (VGA resolution)  – except the ones that has Kugimiya Rie in it.

Now this may seem strange to some of you, but Japan has a concept of “Portrait Rights” (I seem to recall that some other countries such as Hong Kong has it too, but don’t quote me on that) – I won’t go into details, there’s a much better article about the concept here, but basically it boils down to that you are not allowed to use any pictures of any person without their consent because it is a violation of personal rights as well as property rights, this is one of the reason why if you visit Japanese blogs, especially those similiar to the Akiba blog varity, you would find the webmasters painstakingly mosaic out all the faces on the photos.

While I won’t go into the debate of whether this is a stupid law or not, what this law means is that in the Japanese entertainment industry it is actually possible for celebrities and their management to control exactly how, when and where their faces appears in most forms of media and publications, such as magazines, videos and websites.  The fact that this report is missing pictures of Kugimiya Rie had caused all sorts of negative speculations amongst the diehard iM@S fans – because thus far, it’s only ever been anything related to iM@S that has received the block-out treatment, while everyone knows that Kugimiya Rie had no real issues posing for her other works.   No one knows for sure what the true reason for this is – whether it is because Kugimiya Rie personally objects to it, that her management refuses to have her being associated with the iM@S franchise, or simply a failure of contractial negotiation, but the implication is that the chances of getting a non-butchered (considering the amount of performances she was in), let alone uncut, version of the concert on DVD is slim when even something as simple as a coverage report gets the big NG, which of course greatly disappoints all iM@S fans.

Count me in as one of those that is disappointed. :(

In our hunt to actually get some tickets to the Animelo 2008 Saturday session, which has turned out to be a lot harder this year, we’ve ended up with some spares. So if any of you who are making the trip over still need any, now is your chance.

We have two pairs of tickets for the Saturday session only. For those who want/need them, same deal as last time. Send us an email to seiyuu3 (at) gmail (dot) com and make sure you include the following:

Full name
Email address
Date of arrival in Japan
Country you’re coming from

We’ll sort out where to meet, payment, etc in the emails.

The Sunday session is turning out to be pretty awesome too but we don’t have any spares for that.

Cue expressions of lament!

Announced today at the concert. Now we can watch Nana-chan’s awesome legs concert in glorious HD and (hopefully) awesome PCM 5.1 surround sound. moyism with his new screens is probably drooling already. :P

P.S. No crazy psychotic stabbers today, but the incident did make the news. 33 wannabe copycats since the Akiba stabbing, man people are more screwed up than I imagined.