seiyuu3

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!

houkoholic: Yayz for Lyrical Party 3!!!!111111 Hooray for fire hazards!!!!!!!

sent: Lyrical Party for teh winz!!!!11111

houkoholic: ok let’s be serious now, what was your impression of LP3?

sent: Well, there were parts they executed well and some parts, not so much. Let me get this out of the way though, the guests were really done up well today. They looked great on stage. It’s a real pity only the 200 people or so at the front out of 7000 got to enjoy that eye candy.

houkoholic: Seriously, everyone was so glamorous and so beautiful, it’s a wonder why they decided not to, you know, actually put them on those 5 big screens in the venue and instead make us watch powerpoint slide shows.

sent: Ok let’s backtrack a bit for the readers and explain the setting a bit. Events like Lyrical Party are all about the seiyuu. They come on stage, play some games, give some commentary and generally the fans get to see them out from behind the screen. LP3 was much like last year’s Lyrical Party, except this year it’s been tripled in scale with around 7000 in attendance at the Tokyo Big Sight. 10 members of the seiyuu cast were there to celebrate the commencement of Nanoha StrikerS season. This included, of course, Tamura Yukari, Mizuki Nana, Ueda Kana, Shimizu Kaori, Sanada Asami, Takahashi Mikako, Yuzuki Ryoka, and 3 new comers Saito Chiwa, Nakahara Mai and Inoue Marina. That’s an impressive assembly. And with a surprise video message from Donna Burke (Go Aussie!), it could have been a hell of a fun event.

houkoholic: But, and it’s a BIG but, things are just mishandled in various places and the experience was significantly downgraded.

As mentioned earlier, everyone at the event were really dressed up and they all looked fantastic, special mention goes to Nakahara Mai and Yuzuki Ryouka who both looked especially classy. You would think for an event where they went to the trouble of assembling 10 fine looking female seiyuu and went to all the trouble of making them up for the camera in what is obviously a stage show that caters to fans of these seiyuu, they would have the sense to have decent camera work so that the 7000 people can actually see them. Instead, the camera work for the duration of the show was so poor that I barely got a glimpse of them, despite them having strategically set up 5 large projector screens to let people who are too far from the stage to see what’s happening.

sent: The event direction was below par. Not blessed with the best tickets at the event, the screen next to us was all we had to go on. I didn’t really need to be reminded, that yes, I am at Lyrical Party 3, 50% of the time. They needed more wide shots of the stage, and badly. Every time there was anything interesting happening on the stage, the screen cut to the powerpoint presentation telling us which segment we were currently experiencing and they only cut to the stage after it was all settled. That’s just poor direction. The fans are here to see the seiyuu and anything happening on stage is infinitely more interesting than powerpoint.

houkoholic: yeah, like during the picture message game. In any type of TV show that would be the perfect time to do a panning shot of the guests as they draw or when they show each other their drawings, but somehow it didn’t occurred to the video director until quite a few rounds after to do such a thing and swap out the powerpoint and that was extremely frustrating. By the way, I was surprised that both Yuzuki Ryouka and Inoue Marina were extremely good drawers, which makes up for the lack of Kuwatani Natsuko and Mizuhashi Kaori whom provided the amusing drawings from the previous LPs.

sent: This is not to say that the event was entirely substandard. There were parts that were up to scratch. Like the Shuffle Afureco. This is where they take a scene from last season, shuffle the roles and perform it live on stage. The talent of the seiyuus really shone through there and it was highlight of Lyrical Party. The first round was a classic featuring the ending scene from the first episode of Nanoha A’s. The Wii Bowling segment was also good show.

houkoholic: I would say all the games they organised were fun, just that I don’t really get to see what’s happening for the most part due to the poor camera direction. I was particularly impressed with the quick wits of the seiyuu in coming up with made up dialogues to go with the scenes. Vita the loan shark chasing Nanoha for money was funny as hell, and the NHK punch line had me cramping up with laughter. Also big kudos for the Gundam spoof in the second round.

sent: And as much as I like Mishima (note: he’s the producer of Nanoha), he only barely held up his role as MC. There were a few times where his direction could have made the games even more exciting but he seemed satisfied to sit back and let it play out as it was, much like he has in previous encounters.

In a broader sense, the lack of planning to scale is becoming a trend in many of the events that we’ve been to recently. They just don’t seem to know how to address the larger numbers of people. While these events used to be smaller and more manageable, they’re now beginning to reach higher crowd numbers, and evidently the event planners aren’t ready for it.

On a side note, I worry about the writing for Nanoha StrikerS. The style and presentation is certainly different to Nanoha A’s and while I could see what they were going for in the first episode setting up the strong friendship between Subaru and Teana, it lacks the impact that Nanoha A’s carried. Still with 26 episodes to play out the myriad of new characters there is plenty of scope for some classic moments. I would raise some questions about animation quality too but it’s early.

houkoholic: Nanoha is entirely cheese in its core, but I felt they already over did the cheese factor in the first episode with Subaru and Teana’s long chat during the mage rank exam. The opening animation is also not timed as well as it could have been and just didn’t have the same adrenaline rush like with A’s opening, even though I’ve already warmed up to Secret Ambition. On the other hand Subaru’s hand-to-hand style of combat did make for some fairly nice battle sequences. Overall though I say that the first episode of StrikerS is not as exciting as A’s, but with 26 episodes to work with I guess they felt they can ease into the story this time, so will just have to keep watching and see what they can pull off.

Music wise, for the mini-live section it started off with Ueda Kanna doing a very nice performance of “Snow Rain” from A’s. Then it was Nana-chan performing the 3 opening songs in chronological order. Afterwards it was Yukarin’s turn to perform the ending themes. We got to listen to the ending theme “Hoshizora no Spica” by Yukarin for the first time. The song this time around instead of the mellow songs of the previous two it’s more punchy to reflect the now matured and combat-harden Nanoha.

sent: No complaints for the music. Secret Ambition carries that elements garden touch and harkens to the great “Eternal Blaze” and may achieve the same greatness as time passes. Ueda Kana is surprisingly good live. She’s left a good impression on me.

That was it for Lyrical Party III. It had some classic hilarity that LP has become to be known for but execution in the directorial department leaves a lot to be desired. StrikerS should still make an interesting series but I won’t hold out hope for it reaching A’s quality.

I shook hands with Nakahara Mai today.  That’s all I wanted to say.

Okay not really. =P

While the らぶドル event was the first time I saw Nakahara Mai in person, it was still a good few metres away.  Today was up close and personal.  She seems taller than I remembered her from the previous event, but her hand felt smaller for a person of her size.  This handshake event was conducted as a promotion of her new mini album 「ファンタジア」(Fantasia), and to participate one only have to reserve the CD at Animate and pay full price up front in exchange for a ticket.  Embrassingly, while I remembered the event itself, I actually forgot to pickup the CD from Animate which was released way back on the 27th of September, though I managed to turn this into a conversation topic with Mai so it turned out not so bad.  Of course I also managed to push my foreigner angle which never fails to get a reaction from them, and I found out that she’s never been to Australia.  I should’ve volunteered to be her tour guide on the spot. =p  

Now back to listening to her mini-album.

Ok first let’s get the ugly bits out of the way - the first episode of Lovely Idol is terrible.  In brief, Lovely Idol is apparently a long running franchise where they had various “generations” of idols, and the anime is going to focus on the newest groups - the third generation, detailing on how these young talents are going to make themselves worthy of the Lovely Idol name.  The alarms went off as soon as I noticed that they reused an entire 10 second of animation sequence in the opening animation, and here I thought that opening animations were supposed to make people want to watch the show.  Pulling a Gundam Seed Destiny on us in less than 90 seconds has to be a record.  The show itself is uninspiring and it screams of a low budget bishoujo anime trying to capitalise on the diehard fanbase, and I don’t even want to get into the obligatory little sister character who has too much affection towards her older brother. 

While the first episode was cringe-inducing except for the impressive acapella performance by the character (of whom I’ve forgotten the name) played by Nogawa Sakura 野川さくら, the remaining of the event was entirely entertaining.   Besides the aforementioned Nogawa Sakura, the other seiyuu guests consisted of Nakahara Mai 中原麻衣, Momoi Haruko　桃井はるこ, Goto Yuko　後藤邑子, Chihara Minori 茅原実里 and Sakai Kanako 酒井香奈子. 

During the two talk sessions, as Nogawa Sakura, Nakahara Mai and Momoi Haruko were no strangers to events, thus they were all capable of handling what were thrown at them.  Chihara Minori seems to be settling more comfortably now and was able to stir up the atmosphere and get some reactions from the audience.  She also make some fairly interesting and non-stock answers to questions.   

The surprise for the day definitely goes to Goto Yuko.  Her witty comments and numerous good comebacks on comments made by the MC shows an entirely different image to her many on-screen avatars. 

On the other hand, Sakai Kanako’s lack of experience and her young age really showed through.  Stumbling on a few conversation topics and made a real blunder when she failed to properly read one of the ward names in Tokyo during the prize draw.  

Besides the usual talks, there were also live performances.  Nogawa Sakura skillfully handles the opening theme song by herself, and the very idolish ending theme, complete with equally idol-style dance moves, were performed by the entire cast.  Chihara Minori’s gunshot hand gesture was particularly cute, overloading the many, and very loud, Minorin fans with her moe-ness.

* Warning - the following are purely personal opinions based on what I saw on the day, so take it with a big grain of salt.

While during the talks the cast themselves insisted in their bondings during the recordings and puts up as much of a joyful mood in the event as possible, at the end of the event sent pointed out that somehow they didn’t seem to fit together.  I made the observation that it was more like a 2:1:3 formation.  The 2 being Nogawa Sakura and Nakahara Mai, 1 being Momoi Haruko, and 3 being Goto Yuko, Chihara Minori and Sakai Kanako.  Momoi Haruko didn’t seem to fit in at all and she did not once chat with the other seiyuu on stage nor follow up on any conversations.  Nogawa Sakura and Nakahara Mai were quite comfortable following up to each other, most probably thanks to them having worked together before.  The remaining trio seems to have Minorin in the centre, with her having worked closely with Goto Yuko in Haruhi, and that she’s co-hosting a Lovely Idol radio program with Sakai Kanako.  On top of that, Sakai Kanako also co-host a radio program with Nogawa Sakura and they seem to have a kohai/sempai relationship going on there.  Remember that Kanako blunder I mentioned?  While everyone else gave Kanako a little teasing laughter for her lack of knowledge, Nogawa Sakura was the only one who had her face all straight disapproving.  Also I can’t help but think that Nogawa Sakura wasn’t particularly happy that day with Minorin’s fans making up the majority of the attendees and Minorin having the loudest cheers.  It’s probably just me imagining things, but it sure made good conversation topic on the way home.

In a 50/50 split on veterans (Nogawa Sakura, Nakahara Mai, Momoi Haruko) and up-rising stars (Goto Yuko, Chihara Minori, Sakai Kanako), watching them in this event it strikes me as almost ironic to have such a cast in a show where it’s about uprising idols wanting to walk out from the shadows of their predecessors in the idol industry, as the cast seems to be themselves a reflection of the story they’re playing.  If it’s up to me, I would just forgo the anime altogether and let the seiyuus themselves play it out. 

THAT, I would pay to watch.