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.
Going to one of Tamura Yukari’s concerts is quite something else. Her fans are very very dedicated, enthusiastic and organised. They are hardcore. 「田村ゆかり Concert Tour 2006 * fancy baby doll *」 in my mind, demonstrated to me the raw tenacity, the likes of which I have not see before.
