seiyuu3

Just announced yesterday on her official site, Nana-chan will be appearing NHK’s music program “Music Japan” sometime in Feburary. NHK are opening up draws for tickets to the recording of the program taking place on the 2nd Feburary. There’s some pretty big guns from mainstream Jpop artists there for this recording, most notably Koda Kumi is going to be there, so Nana-chan is going to be mixing it in with some fairly well known names.

More ever, and this is far from being an overstatement, she’s going to be charged with the duty to make some much needed good impressions for the Anisong genre as a whole on the general public. The last time NHK riding on the wave of general public interest towards Akiba cultural, they tried to pass off Shoko-tan, AKB48, and Leah Dizon as THE representatives of Akiba culture music during their annual Kouhaku program for 2007/08, which caused much uproar on 2ch whom were demanding true Anisong singers like KOTOKO, JAM Project, Sakamoto Maaya and Nana-chan should appear instead - and for once I can’t blame them either because not only were they extremely poor choices as representative of Akiba culture (only Shoko-tan sort of makes the cut, the other two are out of the question completely), their singing just don’t cut it either, even by seiyuu standards they are pretty bad. The last thing Anisong image needs are images of inferior quality catering to obsecure fetishes. Though with how experienced Nana-chan is at live events, it shouldn’t be a problem for her to make some impressions with her awesome vocals. Just hope that they choose a nice song (I’m thinking with how things are going right now, probably “Shin Ai” will be the number) and don’t get into all the moe talk and it should be ok.

Some people are also speculating that this is a move to pave way to get Nana-chan on Kouhaku this year. Who knows, maybe it will come true too, but it’s WAY too early to think about the end of 2009 right now.

Nana-chan is at her best in live performances, there’re no arguments about that. So it’s good that she finally(?) gets a shot at a studio live on TV program Ongaku Senshi Music Fighter with her latest song “Trickster”. There’s not much to say about this other than that it sounds so good (as usual) that you would be excused to think she just lip-synced it.

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.

I only just realised that “Chelsea Girl”, one of the tracks from Yukarin’s upcoming album “Izayoi no Tsuki, Kanaria no Koi”, was actually made as the February ending theme song for Nippon TV’s late night variety program Shiodome Event-bu which airs on latenight Wednesdays. The show specialises in the coverage of upcoming events and programs that is related to Nippon TV. A short section from the PV for “Chelsea Girl” was shown for this week’s show.

It looks to me that King Records is applying the same formula which worked for Mizuki Nana onto Yukarin. Though I’m not so sure that Yukarin’s music style and appearance would benefit from such marketing tactics.

Nakahara Mai makes an appearance on TV Tokyo’s new TV drama 女子アナ一直線 ！ (Joshiana icchokusen!) and wins new respect and awe.

Appearing as herself, Mai makes a cameo as the voice coach for the female announcers in training. Although her appearance is short, she gives a stunning (and hilarious) demonstration of just what she can do and gives rise to the notion that seiyuu can do as well in TV drama as anything else.

Not to be missed!

Full of bias, probably makes no sense, and in no way representative of my opinion towards the actual show itself.

Claymore: Solid Houko performance. Houko has been settling into the deeper end of her voice spectrum for a while now and thus her role in Claymore is within expectation. I’m beginning to miss her Yurika days.

Darker than Black: Police woman Nana-chan FTW.

El Cazador: Kajiura Yuki, oh wait she’s not a seiyuu.

Hayate no Gotoku: My pick is Shiraishi Ryoko, she’s getting quite into these boy roles of hers and it’s good to see her finding her strong point which separates her from the rest. Kugimiya Rie’s Shana Louise Nagi is also fun to listen to, I don’t think I will get sick of THE tsundere voice for a while yet.

Idol Master Xenoglossia: It’s a game of re-mapping the Mai-hime/Otome cast.

Lucky Star: I like everyone except Hirano Aya, although I have yet to remember all their names yet. Sorry girls, I really do appreciate your performance, really, just give me some time so I can put your names down next time.

Nagasarete Airantou: Starchild’s long overdue Horie Yui’s personal marketing project, because we all know that her job with Aice5 is almost done.

Nanoha StrikerS: You don’t really want to hear me go on about Nanoha’s cast do you?

Polyphonica: I know you all think I’m going to say Nana-chan but it’s Tomatsu Haruka. Apparently she’s only 17 on her debuting role but she’s doing a hell of a job covering both range of Cordy.

Shining Tears X Wind: Hoshi Souichiro because he is not doing a whiny dude. Putting Ishida Akira and Okiayu Ryutaro in the mix surely would please the fangirls.

Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann: Konishi Katsuyuki. Because the person that talks like they’re STUCK IN CAPS is the *soul* of a super robot show.

sola: Normally I’m not much of a fan of Noto Mamiko, but for once I would side with the “Noto kawaii yo Noto” crowd. Nakahara Mai doing a mukuchi character is also refreshing to me.

What do others think?

So the official count is out - Nana-chan’s latest single “Justice to Believe/アオイイロ” ranks 4th on the weekly singles chart. No bad. Thus also making this her second time in ranking in the top 5 of the weekly chart. Probably thanks to this, it’s annouced on the official page that Nana-chan will be appearing, for the second time, on prime-time music program “Hey! Hey! Hey!” next Monday, with the actual recording session taking place Thursday this week. A lottery was setup to let a few lucky fans to get into the recording session (I’ve put in mine). I hope that Nana-chan’s management have learnt from their previous mistake and take a page from Hirano Aya’s appearance on the same program to make this second appearance a better one. I mean at the very least they should let Nana-chan do a live, because Nana-chan is still at her best when singing, and I’m fairly certain she would impress the two hosts with that.

Nana-chan scores another spot in mainstream exposure by offering her new song 「アオイイロ」 (Aoi iro) as the ending theme for yet one more TV program 「うぇぶたま」 - a variety show where people can send in their creative works and have it judged in turn for a chance to hit it big - broadcasted on TV Tokyo.

A 30 sec clip of the song, along with the promotional video, was shown at the end of the show.  Compared with the instantly impressionable Zankou no Gaia,  Aoi iro in contrasts sounds more like the typical Nana-chan upbeat genki song which is slightly disappointing, though on the other hand the PV has a nice draw to it.  I’ll let the video speak for itself. :)

Aoi iro will be the coupling track for the upcoming single “Justice to Believe”, which will go on sale on November 15th.

*EDIT*  The Youtube video has been removed by the user.  Refer to this post for another clip of Aoi Iro.

The annoucement on the official site came suddenly - just 6 hours before the airing of the program - but Nana-chan appeared on the the TBS TV program 「2時ピタッ！」on the Tuesday the 22nd.  I only found this out after the program went on air, but thanks to the internet, some fan had already share the video on Youtube.  Ah, how did we ever lived without you Youtube?

Presented in much better light then Nana-chan’s appearance on 「Hey! Hey! Hey!」, this piece touches upon the topic of seiyuu idols of yester-years such as Hayashibara Megumi and Shiina Hekiru, and how seiyuu idols had evolved with current names such Hirano Aya and Horie Yui what with their enourmous market penetration and their recent stellar rankings on the Oricon Charts in 2006.  Of course the focus was still on Nana-chan, and they managed to present in a fairly objective manner the duality of her work - both as a voice actor and as a singer.  On the voice acting side I was particularly glad to see that they decided upon 「鋼の錬金術師」(Hagaren no Renkinjyutsushi) as the anime to introduce Nana’s voice work.  On the singing side, they had taken much footage from the very recent Yokohama session of Nana-chan’s Live Universe tour which took place only last weekend.  So you can feast your eyes on some of Nana-chan’s costumes of this tour. :)

Enough rambling, go watch it already!

sent: So what did you think of Hirano Aya’s Hey!Hey!Hey! appearance?

houkoholic: Compared with Nana-chan’s appearance on the same segment, this one is so tame that it was actually enjoyable to watch. But the thing that got to me first was the number of female fans in the audience.

sent: Yeah, that was the first thing I noticed too. There were a lot of girls! What looked like 70-80 percent.  That doesn’t strike me as a ”random” draw.

houkoholic: I agree, I’d go out on a limb to say it’s definitely rigged. The reason, in my opinion, is that Aya’s management had learnt from Nana-chan’s mistake and rigged the draw so that more females will be in the audience. This is done so that the two hosts won’t have as much ammunition to make fun of the demograph of the fandom, which would be the Akiba-kei people. 

sent: Definitely. Nana’s management probably didn’t know what to expect for her interview on Hey!x3 but it was clear that it didn’t paint her fans in an elegant light. I expect that this time around Aya’s management were very smart to reduce that element as much as possible. Even if it meant that we didn’t get to go I think it was the right way to go. I was impressed with Aya’s handling of the interview too. Though I really wonder if her voice is naturally that high. She undoubtedly wowed the hosts with her display of acting skill there and then.

houkoholic: I think for Aya, she had the advantage of going from a high-pitched kiddy voice to a deeper sexy voice.  Whereas for Nana-chan it was the reverse, so she was caught out by the host because of her “punch line”.

sent: That was a trap and it gave them all they needed to pay out the Akiba-kei even more.

houkoholic: Yes I think so too, and unfortunately for Nana-chan she fell right into it thus giving the impression that she’s catering to the scary bunch of sister-complex otakus.  In Aya’s case I’m sure the girls are otakus too, heck one even wore a Haruhi-style headband, but well, they’re girls which is not the standard stereotype of Akiba-kei, thus the host had nothing to make fun of.

sent: Guys can definitely get too fanatic. The more I think about it the more I’m convinced it was a clever move on the part of her management. It’s a pity that Hey!x3 didn’t feature her live performance more but I expect that it’s more a problem with the length of that segment. The rest of her interview seemed pretty light and on the whole I think put seiyuu/kashuu in a more respectable light.

houkoholic: I think it helps that Aya is a cute 18 year old. :P

sent: Cuteness wins. :P Anyway, I think this is a win for the industry.

houkoholic: Hard to say a win, but it’s good exposure nevertheless. But I still have to say though - poor Nana-chan became the guinea pig. Maybe her documentary will give her the better coverage she deserves. :P

sent: Hey!Hey!Hey! is more about sensationalism I think. :P  I’m expecting much better things from the TBS documentary.