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Music news site natalie reports that the theme song for the upcoming Haruhi movie – “The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi” – will be sung by Chihara Minori. This wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone whom is familiar with the story of the novel, but without getting into spoilers for those not in the known, this particular story arc is heavily focused on Nagato, with Haruhi pretty much swept into the background and only making very sparse appearances, as such the movie theme song being sung by Nagato’s seiyuu is the only natural choice.

While the second season (or maybe season 1.5?) of Haruhi received mixed responses and arguably put a large turd on the once shinny brand, “Disappearance” has a very tight storyline as well as full of Nagato-moe that should have the potential to bring the brand back to where it once was. Minorin would be in a very good position to show off both acting and singing skills in the movie.

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 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!

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?

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.

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)

According to her latest blog post, Minorin will be releasing her second single of the year on August 6th. The title of the single is 雨上がりの花よ咲け (Ameagari no Hana yo Sake). The date suggests heavily to me that they are planning to get this out before Animelo for some promotional effects.

I wasn’t terribly impressed with Melty tale storage, and I’m starting to worry about Lantis’ spam tactics when it comes to their seiyuu and anime song releases – it seems they just don’t really know what to do with their seiyuu talents, they just know that they are popular and need to pump out CD after CD, but without actually finding the right direction for their artists to go along with.

Anyway, I’m still cautiously optimistic. So let’s see where this one will go.

PS. I’m now a member of Minorin’s official fanclub “Minori Smile Season (m.s.s)”, will be getting the fanclub goodies in a week’s time, woot!

Well they finally announced it – one of the hottest anisong events Animelo Summer is on this year and the official site is now open. A preliminary list of artists attending are already on the site – with familiar names such as ALI Project, Kuribayashi Minami, Mizuki Nana, Chihara Minori, Ishikawa Chiaki, JAM Project, Momoi Halko, Hirano Aya, and two new players GRANRODEO and angela.

This year’s key word is “Challenge” – and with that they are definitely taking some new organizational challenges by not only upping the venue scale from Budoukan to Saitama Super Arena (the capacity depending on layout can be up to double the size), but also splitting the concert into two days, with what appears to be different artists performing on different days. I’m a bit torn on this move – as much as I like the prospects of two days worth of awesome live performances of anisongs, I don’t like them leaving me no choices but to go to both days to see all the artists I want to see.

On a related note, one of JAM Project’s long time female member Matsumoto Rika broke news shortly after the closing of JAM Project’s domestic concert tour that she will no longer take part in JAM Project and JAM Project related events. While hopeful fans were praying that it’s a late April’s Fool, but the profile picture of JAM Project at Animelo reflected this change. It’s a big blow to JAM Project, especially that JAM Project is supposedly doing a world tour this year (and what’s up with that anyway? Hardly any news is out regarding the schedule). Otakon still has her listed as guest, but I guess it’s up in the air.

Linky. You can also see part of the PV for the new song “Melty tale storage” there.

Nice pic, very classy. This could pass for an ad for cosmetics. :P Not hard to understand why even some girls would turn yuri for Minorin. The PV seems to be fairly similiar to what they’ve been doing so far – lots of standing around in big open space with Minorin doing her hand-waving thing. Well you either dig it or you loathe it.

Anyway, track listing is as follows:
1. Melty tale storage
2. Sandglass~Kioku no Ryushi
3. Echo of Melty tale storage [red strings ver.]
4. Melty tale storage (off vocal)
5. Sandglass~Kioku no Ryushi (off vocal)

Single on sale 26th March.

Mizuki Nana’s 17th single “Starcamp EP” goes on sale next week – to all you people coming in looking for downloads and torrents, check the release date first ya fools! And for the record this site does not provide downloads and torrents – anyway this means that heavy promotion is about to begin. Yahoo Japan is going to stream the PV for Astrogation starting this Friday, and Nana-chan is scheduled to appear on television program “Oto Riko!” on the 18th. In the mean time a 15 second long commerical can be found below.

On a sort-of related topic (related to Nana-chan anyway), I was made aware of this certain scene from episode 17 of Majintantei Nougaminerou:

LOLZ at the two guys that were obviously drawn to cover the two Ns of “Nana”, so this can’t be a fluke. Looks like someone at Madhouse is a Nana-chan fan. If you are wondering where the source pictures are from and for, they are from the canned sweets which were sold on the recent Live Formula tour as part of the tour goods.

Info on Tamura Yukari’s new album is now up. Titled “Izayoi no Tsuki, Kanaria no Koi”, it will be released on 27th of February, which is also Yukarin’s birthday (she’s turning 17, again). The first pressing will come with a DVD containing the PV to one of the songs in the album “Chelsea Girl”. The release of this album also means that there would be plenty of new songs to look forward to for her Budoukan live in March.

Since both King Records and Yukarin’s own homepage fails at images, it is again up to Amazon JP to save the day with a nice big image of the cover.

Chihara Minori will also be releasing a new single on 26th March. Title is not yet known. I think there’s a good chance that we might get to hear it at the final sessions of her live tour.

Horie Yui just released her highly anticipated album “Darling” yesterday. The promotional train for this album is insane – Yui was literally on the cover of every single seiyuu magazine, with hm3 running a cover special which spans 3 consecutive issues no less. We’ve even spotted a big poster ad at Akihabara station (no pictures, sorry). No doubt it is part of VIMS’ plan to get back some lost ground now that a few of the other seiyuu artists are nibbling at Yui’s heels. Will be keeping an eye on the Oricon charts to see whether the big promotional effect is going to pay off or not. sent might also have a word or two on the album later on now that his copy came in.

Finally, one release that surely fell under the radar for many people is Takahashi Mikako’s album “sweet” which was also released yesterday. Not only is the album fully produced by Mikako herself, she also wrote the lyrics and composed the music to every single one of the 10 tracks in the album. Apparently it took her 3 years to do all of this. Mikako is a decent enough singer, I’m tempted to buy it, half out of respect for her effort and half out of curiosity.

The small image is not because of bias, just that it’s the biggest image I could find.