seiyuu3

Track List (it was a hefty 3 hour concert):

1. shiny smile [Short Ver.] (Hasegawa Akiko, Wakabayashi Naomi, Kugimiya Rie)
2. Agent Yoru wo Yuku [Short Ver.] (Takahashi Chiaki, Imai Asami, Shimoda Asami)
3. GO MY WAY!! [Short Ver.] (Nakamura Eriko, Nigo Mayako, Hirata Hiromi -> All members)
<MC>
4. Do-Dai (Nigo Mayako, Imai Asami, Shimoda Asami)
5. Watashi wa Idol (Wakabayashi Naomi, Takahashi Chiaki)
6. Here we go!! [REM@STER-A] (Hasegawa Akiko)
7. My Best Friend [REM@STER-B] (Hirata Hiromi, Kugimiya Rie)
8. relations + [Normal->REM@STER-A] (Nakamura Eriko, Wakabayashi Naomi)
9. 9:02pm [REM@STER-B] (Hirata Hiromi, Hasegawa Akiko)
10. Taiyo no Jealousy [REM@STER-A] (Imai Asami, Shimoda Asami)
<Ochiai Yurika Video message>
<MC Drama>
11. Kiramekirari [Short Ver.] (Nigo Mayako)
12. Furu Furu Future [Short Ver.] (Hasegawa Akiko)
13. Futari no Kioku [Short Ver.] (Kugimiya Rie)
14. Start Star [Short Ver.] (Shimoda Asami)
15. I WANT [Short Ver.] (Nakamura Eriko)
<MC Drama>
16. Positive! [REM@STER-A] (Takahashi Chiaki, Nigo Mayako, Takita Juri)
17. Ohayou!! Asagohan [REM@STER-A] (Hirata Hiromi, Shimoda Asami, Kushida Akira as Yakiniku Man)
18. Ippai Ippai [Short Ver.] (Wakabayashi Naomi)
19. Me ga Au Toki [Short Ver.] (Imai Asami)
20. Meisou Mind [Short Ver.] (Hirata Hiromi)
21. Tonari ni… [Short Ver.] (Takahashi Chiaki)
22. Merry (Nigo Mayako, Kugimiya Rie, Nakamura Eriko)
23. ID：[OL]  (Takita Juri)
24. THE IDOLM@STER [Short Ver.] (All members)
25. Mahou wo Kakete! (Imai Asami, Wakabayashi Naomi)
26. Valentine (Hasegawa Akiko, Shimoda Asami)
27. YES♪ (Hirata Hiromi, Nakamura Eriko)
28. inferno (Imai Asami, Takahashi Chiaki)
29. shiny smile (Kugimiya Rie, Wakabayashi Naomi, Hasegawa Akiko)
30. Omoide wo Arigatou (Nigo Mayako, Shimoda Asami)
31. Sora (Takita Juri)
32. my song (Takahashi Chiaki, Hirata Hiromi, Nakamura Eriko)
33. Aoi Tori (Imai Asami)
<PSP game announcement, new characters introduction>
34. Over Master (new song) (Hasegawa Akiko, Hara Yumi, Numakura Emi)
MC
35. Massugu (Nakamura Eriko, Kugimiya Rie, Nigo Mayako, Takahashi Chiaki, Wakabayashi Naomi)
<Encore>
36. THE IDOLM@STER (everyone)

Just a reminder of who plays who:

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
Takita Juri - Otonashi Kotori
Hara Yumi - Shijyo Takane (new character for the upcoming PSP game)
Numakura Emi - Ganaha Hibiki (new character for the upcoming PSP game)

Some random thoughts and trivias:

*  The character Takita Juri plays - Otonashi Kotori - is actually not an idol in the game but one of the workers of 765 Production (the name of the production house in the IDOLM@STER games, it’s a pun since 765 can be read as Namco). Kotori had become a really popular character ever since her appearance in CD dramas and such, as well as having her own songs.

* In the beginning, they used the newly released 3D model of Otonashi Kotori to tell people not to do otagei as Kotori was doing it on the screen.  It was hilarious.  For why the fuss and info on what otagei is, go here for j1m0ne’s coverage on the story [Sakakibara Yui Bans Otagei at Her Live Shows?].

* Leading on from above, the crowd was actually very withheld.  Even the normal jumping and cheering was well beneath normal accepted levels.  Maybe something to do with the gaming crowd being a little less scary?

* Special guest Kushida Akira for number 16 is a veteran anime/tokusatsu song singer. You can find his English homepage here.  As for why he’s there as Yakiniku Man, well, you’ll just have to listen to the song which can be found on one of the CDs.

*  Takita Juri is a great performer - both for her singing and her narration during the MC dramas.  Even though her character Kotori is not officially an idol in the game her singing is very high quality.  A quick look at her profile reveals that she used to be a member of the Minami Aoyama Shoujo Geikidan.  If that doesn’t ring a bell, Chiba Saeko and Nanri Yuuka (AKA Fiction Juction YUUKA) are both graduates of this musical group.

*  There were a few instances where Kugimiya Rie slipped out of her high pitch voice when singing, it sounds surprisingly pleasant.

*  Shimoda Asami is really really crazy.  I still can’t believe she actually did the stupid hand-poking-into-the-air dance move from Do-Dai and her mic didn’t flew out from her hands.

*   Hirata Hiromi sounds much better live than on the CD.  I think it has something to do with her deep voice which seems to fill a concert hall better than being delivered via recording.

*  Imai Asami finally managed to sing Aoi Tori when she is in her best shape - and boy it was awesome.  Last time she sang that she was not well so much so that she collapsed backstage after the performance.

*  Chiaking +  Asamingosu’s version of “inferno” was great.  Too bad for Ochiai Yurika (the original song was a duet by Imai Asami and Ochiai Yurika)

*  Nakamura Eriko’s performance is still abit shaky if she moves too much, otherwise she’s definitely getting better.  Hopefully she can improve more before Animelo since she’s by far the weakest link out of the 4 iM@S seiyuu that are attending.  It’s not really her being terrible though, it’s just that the other 3 being Takahashi Chiaki, Imai Asami and Shimoda Asami are just more skillful.

*  The owner of the rival production house of the PSP game - 961 Production (read Kuroi Production, again a pun on the number reading, also “kuroi” means black) seems to be voiced by Koyasu Takehito.

*  Just for the record, there were a few girls there.  We were particularly traumatized by two really dedicated stealth fangirls in front of us.  “Stealth” as in you can’t tell they were the crazy type since they look absolutely normal (they were pretty too) until they decide to whip out 10 different glow sticks each and wave and cheer like what normal teenage girls would for their favourite boy band, except of course in this case, the performers are all female….

EDIT:  Nearly everyone’s blog has some photos of sorts, but the blog for Chiaking (Takahashi Chiaki) and Asapon (Shimoda Asami) has the most photo spam, so much so that I’d rather not try to steal them.  Go visit Chiaking’s blog here and Asapon’s blog here for photo goodness.

This is what happens when you don’t teach history properly and watch too much animu (especially too much of the pro-Zeon Gundam works) - you think Nazi uniform makes perfect concert dress material. Hey as long as it looks cool right? And Japan wonders why it has issues with its neighbouring countries.

Just for the record, this was one of the costume she wore for her recent Live Fighter concert, sent and I facepalmed when we saw this on stage. I was going to write about it earlier, but pictures are better (or worse, in this case) than my words alone. I’m gonna dread watching this again on Blu-ray that’s for sure.

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!

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!

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.

I’m sure most of you will know about the recent Akiba stabbing incident, in which it was widly reported that the offender had announced his plans to commit the crime on the infamous Japanese BBS 2ch several weeks before the incident. There has been a number of half-copycats after the incident - “half” because people are posting announcements but without actually carrying it through/or was arrested before they could carry it through (thank goodness!). And now one of the latest incident took an interesting seiyuu twist.

According to the report, a 21 year old man had posted the following message on 2ch with his mobile phone:

「お前ら安心しろ。水樹奈々と水樹信者はダガーナイフと２ｔ（トン）トラックを使って、俺が代々木で皆殺しにしてやるからよ」

Roughly translating to “You guys don’t worry about it. I’m going to use a dagger and a 2t truck and kill Mizuki Nana and all her rabid fans at Yoyogi”.

Why Yoyogi? Well that’s because Mizuki Nana is going to hold her Live Fighter Concert at Yoyogi this weekend, and it’s anticipated that there will be at least 15,000 Mizuki Nana fans there.

The man confessed his crime. His reason? He just wanted to see the reaction.

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.

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.