seiyuu3

So after the big/huge/gigantic news of Nana-chan’s performance on Kouhaku, you have to admit that everything else is not that news worthy, and even downright boring. So after turning my nose up at the other pieces for a few weeks, here are some things which are finally worth posting.

Mizuki Nana stars as lead in new Pretty Cure
Well had to begin with Nana-chan now that she’s on after burner towards mainstream stardom and recognition. As all Nanatards will know, Nana-chan has the tendency to star in either shitty throw away side characters of good shows, or good characters in shitty throw away shows, with very little exceptions. So now that she finally gets to be the heroine of the biggest anime franchise in Japan watched by little girls AND lolicons “big adult friends” alike for a full year, it’s time to celebrate that she’s going to actually live up to the voice acting part of her seiyuu career (probably). Oh, and Nanoha fanboys should be happy to see that Nana-chan gets to play more ass-kicking, brutal fist-fighting magical girls that would make most modern day shounen heros look like pussies.

Mizuki Nana sings for new Metal Gear Solid game
Just can’t stop the big news once you’ve gone to ultra-celebrity status can you? As revealed in her blog, Nana-chan just recorded an insert song titled “恋の抑止力” (Koi no Yokushiryoku, Love’s Deterrance) for the latest Metal Gear game. Kojima Hideo is a pretty big seiyuu fan (some may say even an otaku?), so it’s not too surprising that he would create an opportunity for Nana-chan to show off her vocals in his game. Perhaps he even went out of his way to make this happen to satisfy his inner seiyuu-ota, who knows. Now whether the English version of the game would have this song though is a different story, but I would recommend people to play the J-dub anyway as I’ve found the franchise had always felt too Japanese in its presentation style and writing thus fairly incompatible with an English track (it’s like dubbing a Kung-fu movie you know? no matter how good you do it, it just doesn’t work), Nana-chan being in there or not.

Tomatsu Haruka’s new photo book sample photos
The title is “Pi Touch! High Touch!” (sorry for the lame Idolmaster breast-touching event joke), and as promised, there’s the bikini shot! They seem to have toned down her approachable cutesy girl-next-door image for something a little more young adult. Want or Do Not Want? That’s for you to decide.

Takahashi Chiaki to release photo book and DVD
As she wrote in her blog here, while this is not anything new and hardly news worthy, I liked how she gave her motivation for doing these things in a recent Famitsu interview (thanks for pointing it out Dom! Would’ve been too lazy to read it otherwise) – “Because those celebrities and gravue idols are coming here [into the voice acting world], so I’d thought I’ll go over there too.” – a strange yet great display of her pride in voice acting in doing what is, as she sees it, as essentially the same thing (rookies light-heartingly entering into another profression’s world). The full interview is fairly interesting too, like how when she told her parents she was going to become a seiyuu instead of going to university, her father kicked her out of the house hoping she would be deterred in her quest and come back to her senses, but he still gave her a million yen anyway as living expense before doing so.

IM@S Christmas Live
Looks AWSME, all those bitching about the commercialisation of Christmas can die in imaginary hell fire because it gave us Santa Girl costumes (probably the only thing worth celebrating on Christmas for an atheist like me, LOL). Now when are those Blu-ray/DVDs coming out, pretty please?

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.

Instead this is a review of Kagamine Ren/Lin cover album by Shimoda Asami – because as I’ve said when the news about the release of this CD came out, I’m more excited by this CD than Ultimate Diamond from the get-go. I know Nana-chan had broken records etc etc, and even with both albums on hand I find myself coming back to this a whole lot more. Plus many others had already reviewed Ultimate Diamond, so I don’t feel the need to preach to the choir either.

I must first confess though, I actually haven’t heard any of the original Vocaloid versions of the songs before the announcement of the CD. Even at that, I’ve only listened to the ones that I’ve linked to on this blog and maybe one or two others at most. So I’m going into the songs with a fairly clean slate.

The album overall has some pretty good variety in its music – and anyone who’s read my CD impressions should know that I LOVE variety from my seiyuu singers CDs. There’s a couple of ballads, a few cute songs, anisong, normal j-pop and electronic. Asapon also didn’t pull any punches when it comes to showing off her voice abilities – throughout the entire CD she employs different tones and vocal range depending on the style of the songs, whether it is a slightly more mature tone rarely heard from her thus far (頑張ろうよ, Soundless voice, ジェミニ), her signature child-like playful one (おてんば姫の歌♪,イタズラムスメ), mimicking the surreal and robotic Vocaloid voice (ココロ, 炉心融解) and even employing two completely different tones within the same song (リンリンシグナル, South North Story). Some of these songs were obviously not composed with the limit of a human pop song singer in mind and contains some pretty crazy sections where the notes just keeps climbing higher and higher, such as in 頑張ろうよ (Ganbarouyo) and 炉心融解 (Roshinyoukai). Asapon manages to pull off those notes though, the result is eerily good that one can’t help to think that if it’s really her or they just employed the help from the Vocaloid software.

On the flip side though, the major failing of the album is that it’s hard to get a feel of a particular music style for Asapon – the album is a cover of songs not belonging to her and it shows. Asapon did a great job covering the Vocaloid songs and she plays into the different characters and stlye of the songs with ease, but none of the songs felt truly representative of her own singing style. As stated by the album this is Kagamine Rin/Len featuring Shimoda Asami, so I suppose we are to treated this as a character image album, rather than a personal album. It doesn’t pose much of a problem for a first release as the priority now is just to get her name out there in the most effective manner possible (and I do firmly believe that using the Vocaloid name here is an effective marketing strategy), but if Asapon is serious about getting a personal singing career she would need to find her own image later.

Overall the album is very solid. Fans of Asapon has no excuse in not picking this one up. Others thinking of dipping their toes in should find comfort in that the singing is good and there’s enough music variety in there and you are bound to find something you like.

Top picks of the album in no particular order:
頑張ろうよ, イタズラムスメ, リンリンシグナル, Soundless voice, 炉心融解, South North Story

If you’re still on the fence about the Kagamine Rin/Len cover album by Shimoda Asami, you can now head over to the official homepage and check out samples of all 13 song at the discography section.

Currently I would say the songs リンリンシグナル (Rin Rin Signal), Daybreak, Soundless Voice catches my attention the most. Since I’ve became used to listening to Asapon’s Futami Ami/Mami playful and nasal singing voice a lot due to im@s, these 3 songs seems to provide the different angle, the more serious and mature angle, to her voice which I’m looking forward to sample. I also like in Rin Rin Signal where Asapon switches between the Rin and Len voice.

The CD goes on sale on the 10th of June.

The Shimoda Asami Channel at Nicodouga has also been updated with a video of the CD jacket photo session. Must watch for fans of Asapon.

When they missed the original May 1st release date last Friday and replaced the icon with an “preparing release” I’ve figured that they ran into a little problem but with the long Golden Week holiday in Japan starting last weekend it would mean the earliest we would see the song would be when everyone got back to work (which is today), and true enough the song is now available on the Japanese iTunes Store here. It’s an iTunes Plus song (ie no DRM, unlike the US store the Japanese store has not gone completely DRM free so it is not a given to be iTunes Plus) and cost 200yen. Although I’ve tried searching from the other stores such as US/UK/AU it doesn’t seem to be available internationally. So if you really want to buy it and can’t wait for the album release you might have to jump through the usual hoops such as to buy a Japanese iTunes Store point card from exporters.

As for the song itself, it’s a fairly catchy song and Asapon managed to keep it fairly close to the voice that is produced by the Vocaloid software, which is a good sign of what to expect from the upcoming album. Here’s a sample of the song.

On a related note, the second video for the Shimoda Asami Channel on NicoDouga is now available, and a new track to be included in the Prism album is revealed to be “soundless voice” by ひとしずく (Hitoshizuku), whom to the surprise of the many NicoDouga fans turns out to be a female user of the Vocaloid software. The song itself is a slow sorrowful ballad and is a Ren song (the boy voice).

The channel is here and viewing the videos doesn’t require registration. Though if you want to become a member of the channel’s community (and thus be able to comment on the videos of the channel) you will need to have a NicoDouga account.

Also Asapon’s first cover of a Kagamine Rin song イタズラムスメ (Itazuramusume, original can be heard here) will be made available on the iTunes Music Store (hopefully *not* limited to the Japan store) on May 1st.

Official site here.

As I’ve written in my 2008 review post, Shimoda “Asapon” Asami was one of the two great seiyuu discoveries for me last year. So I’m really excited about this album (perhaps even more so than Nana’s upcoming “Ultimate Diamond”). With the recent success of several ameteur release of Hatsune Miku albums, it’s not too surprising that more people are trying to make real cash off Vocaloid music. Although one could argue that part of the charm of Vocaloid songs is the slightly mechanical tone of the voices, but it’s also undeniable that there’s a lot of demand for renedition of the songs by real people/singers. Out of all the 3 Vocaloid sound bank seiyuu contributors – Fujita Saki as Miku, Shimoda Asami as Rin/Len and Asakawa Yuu as Ruka, the sound produced by Rin/Len’s remains the closest to the vocal range that Shimoda Asami herself is able to actually sing in (unlike say, Fujita Saki as Miku). On top of that, Shimoda Asami has an excellent track record in singing a wide variety of songs as well as being a capable singer, combined with some spill-over from her army of fans on NicoDouga (no doubt also realising this, the PR machine plans to start a Shimoda Asami channel on NicoDouga to promote the album) due to her role as Futami Ami/Mami of Idolmaster, this album could potentially be a big hit and rip up the charts similiar to the other recent Hatsune Miku albums. Although this is going to be Shimoda Asami’s first solo album release, the formula here seems to contain enough of the stuff that attracts good publicity to give her a solid boost in her career. Finally, Shimoda Asami herself will pen lyrics to the title song “Prism”, which is a completely original song.

The album will go on sale on 10th June.

EDIT: Youtube links to a few songs that will be covered:

ココロ　(Kokoro)

リンリンシグナル (Rin Rin Signal)

Finally for good measure what Shimoda Asami sounds like live. スタ→トスタ→ (Start Star) from Idolmaster.

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.

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.

*  No Kiss My Lips.  That is just not right. :(

*  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!

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.