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With 5 singles released over a one-and-a-half year period, Tomatsu Haruka’s debut album Rainbow Road finally arrives. Not sure that anybody’s really paying attention apart from the hardcore fans (such as yours truly) though, since her popularity within the Music Ray’n circle probably ranks second to that of the K-ON!-crest-of-wave-riding Toyosaki Aki.
When I first got into seiyuu, high-quality magazine scans and images were almost non-existent. It was hard to import magazines, most of what you saw online was thumbnail-sized and heck, I didn’t even own a scanner then. Of course it’s a totally different story nowadays with most of the major mags (Seigura, Seiyuu Animedia, Voice Newtype, PUV) easily obtainable and scans a cinch to find on places like Seiup and Seiyuup.
I have been collecting whatever images I could find of my favourites online for a number of years but sad to say, lost great batches of them in two separate hard drive crashes. Perseverance has enabled me to claw some of them back, but I’ve found myself getting annoyed by various things people do with scans:
1.watermark them with their silly online username or website
2.put them in a rar file with a password which is only obtainable if you lick the scanner’s ass
3.make people ‘pay’ for them on forums with shitty forum points or whatever
For god’s sake it’s just a piece of paper, you don’t own the copyright. If you’re so cheesed off about people ’stealing’ your (already stolen) scans then don’t upload the bloody thing in the first place. The pictures are bound to get around the interwebs sooner or later regardless of your efforts.
So in the interest of sharing and sticking up two fingers at these selfish people and whatnot blabla, I’m starting a Photobucket that will hopefully keep all my images organized (since they’re completely messy in my archives). They’re a mix of my own scans and stuff I’ve leeched from some forum, dug out of 2ch’s nether regions etc etc. You can usually tell which of the scans are mine cos they’re really crap – I have a small scanner and I don’t like pulling my magazines apart.
Anyway, if anyone’s interested in contributing pics (particularly older ones) then feel free to email me or leave a comment or something. For now, the gallery is mostly Sphere and Tomatsu Haruka images, since those are what I spend most of my waking hours salivating over but Minorin, Kobayashi Yu and KitaEri albums are likely to come soon. Probably (gasp) Ono Daisuke too.
And so Chihara Minori’s fourth album is here. Generally my expectations for Minorin’s music are set rather low since I’ve already been burned too many times, watching her lurch from disco to high-octane dance-pop to bubbly galge with confusing results. Even so, I’m a fan of her voice and personality so each new release is approached with typical optimism.
The first thing you’ll notice when you look at Sing All Love’s credits list is the fact that Elements Garden wrote/produced less than half of the tracks, with more of Lantis’ favoured songwriters on hand to help out this time around. This may or may not be a good thing depending on which type of Minorin fan you are, those who liked her from the Tenjou Tenge/HEROINE days (meaning you’ll have heard the worse of her pop days) or those who came on board after Haruhi (those weaned on her EleGa material). Will the move to shake things up pay off? We’ll find out.
Continue reading 'Spinning: Chihara Minori’s Sing All Love'»
Quickly noting some of the pre-announced Fourth Seiyuu Award winners, news was upped to the site and is on Mainichi:
Special Services Award (posthumous): Takahashi Kazue
The late Takahashi was most famous for her roles in Kaiju Booska and Sazae-san, as well as dubbing for The Lucy Show. She passed away in 1999 at the age of 70 from cancer.
Services Award: Genda Tessho (81produce), Sugiyama Kazuko (Aoni Production), Tanaka Nobuo (Haikyo)
All three are long-serving veterans, I covered a bit about Genda in my top 100 seiyuu list, Sugiyama was Heidi in Alps no Shojo Heidi and Tanaka was in President X in Gatchaman.
Tomiyama Kei Award: Mizuki Nana (Sigma Seven)
Supposedly for her Kohaku appearance. Well, they had to give her something after her toils in 2009 and the Tomiyama award (which rewards the ‘broadening of the seiyuu profession through the media’) was the only real option. Sure as hell ain’t gonna win any awards for her voice acting while K-ON!’s very likely got a lock on the Best Singer award this time. Nobody should be surprised with this one really.
Synergy Award: Mobile Suit Gundam, awarded to Furuya Tohru (Aoni Production), Ikeda Shuichi (Haikyo)
This award has been given to Astro Boy and Kamen Rider in past years, and with Gundam celebrating its 30th anniversary last year it’s as good as any an option. It’s at least nice to see Ikeda get an award.
Kids/Family Award: Mizuta Wasabi (Ken Production)
For being the current-generation voice of Doraemon. Is Oyama Nobuyo, the original voice for around 30 years not going to complain?
The rest of the awards are ‘officially’ announced on 6th March, though we should all expect them to leak earlier when pre-sales copies of Voice Newtype end up in the wrong (or is that right?) hands. Yeah, I’m still totally cynical about the whole Seiyuu Awards crap so I can’t muster any sort of enthusiasm for anybody who wins awards, deserved or not. Maybe one day the Committee will surprise the whole world by actually releasing a proper nominees list before handing the gongs!
If there’s one prediction I am 99.9% sure of, it’s that Inoue Kikuko, Makino Yui or Shimoda Asami won’t win anything because they’re attending events elsewhere on the same day. Kinda like how no seiyuu from the Negima series won during the first (or was it second?) awards because they were all at the Princess Festival.
I’m bored and I’m losing my mind. This post idea originally started with a discussion between a few friends, me and kurogane and at some point danie joined in and j1m0ne gave the killing blow. This post has nothing to do with seiyuu, something to do with anime moe characters and a certain game character. Don’t blame me if you read this till the end and got traumatized.
Here’s a small introduction to how this topic works. It all started with kurogane complaining about the crack and weird pairings found in fanfictions. From yaoi to yuri to ridiculous cross overs, we have ‘em all in the internet. Then I remembered how I once stumbled upon a fanfiction with a pairing of Sephiroth (FFVII) and Yuna (FFX). I remembered cringing, laughing and pondering while reading the story. (Unfortunately, I lost the link and I think the story is incomplete so, meh). Anyway, so that’s where the idea started. I’ve decided to pair up a certain male character with many different main female anime characters and we shall analyze why it may work or it may lead to path of disaster. Be aware that some pairings can be really crack and ridiculous since I discussed this with kurogane, our friend karl and danie (who happened to stop by Malaysia), while drinking lots and lots of coffee.
Actually I’ve written this post prior to Valentine’s Day’s but I forgot to post it on the day itself since it is also the first day of Chinese New Year. I was busy eating nosebleed inducing food such with many endangered animals involved inside. So here’s my belated valentine’s day’s give to all of you out there. Mwhuahaha. Continue reading 'A Belated Valentine’s Day’s Crack Post. Imagine Sephiroth x ….'»
I’ve been watching Hanamaru Kindergarten lately and caught this strange case of kindergartner-squeeitis disease (Koume hnnggggg) but I’ll leave that to one side for now.
Basically I went into this winter season blind (or should that be deaf?) – without doing a preview guide like in seasons past, I had no idea which seiyuu were in what show. (As a side note, I don’t really watch anime for the seiyuu or else I’d be torturing myself with Ladies vs Butlers & Heartcatch Precure).
That turned out to be a good thing, it was refreshing to be able to go in with a clean slate and play the ‘identify the seiyuu’ game, which is kind of an ego trip thing for most fans I would think. I’m sure we all enjoy that Eureka! moment when you hear a recognisable voice popping up in random episodes of anime you happen to be watching, like how I was able to instantly pick out Minagawa Junko in recent episodes of Cross Game and Railgun.
Continue reading 'I think I’ve heard her somewhere before…'»
Sometime within the last 2 weeks online media research website Otalabo revealed the results of a poll of ‘Young Seiyuu to Watch Out For in 2010′ (2010年注目の若手声優ランキング) and they’re as follows:
1. Kaji Yuki (梶 裕貴)
2. Nakajima Megumi (中島 愛)
3. Toyosaki Aki (豊崎 愛生)
4. Hanazawa Kana (花澤 香菜)
5. Kakihara Tetsuya (柿原 徹也)
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6. Suzuki Yuto (鈴木 裕斗)
7. Tomatsu Haruka (戸松 遥)
8. KENN
9. Irino Miyu (入野 自由)
10. Terashima Takuma (寺島 拓篤)
Continue reading 'Seiyuu in the Spotlight -Winter 2010 Edition-'»
I recently started reading Koe de Oshigoto!. For the uninitiated, it’s a manga that talks about a 16-year old girl named Aoyagi Kanna who becomes or rather, is forced to become a seiyuu at her sister’s ero-game company Blue March (short form Buruma, lololol). The focus is mainly on the culture of the eroge industry, but you do get glimpses into seiyuu concepts like nukidori (抜き取り) and paper noise so it’s a fun little read for everyone regardless of whether you’re into adult stuff or not. Though I can’t say I have the ability to visualize ero scenes just from listening to a good seiyuu performance like Kanna does…
This is a round-up of the news that involved seiyuu throughout January. I’m not saying I’ll do these regularly but there was just a convenient abundance of noteworthy items from last month. If you want a regular shot of seiyuu news snippets do follow my Twitter, I’m more likely to post random stuff there.
Chinese New Year is approaching and as someone who celebrates it every year, I very much look forward to my red envelopes or “angpow” from all my relatives. Unfortunately, a certain Chihara Minori is going to tax most of my windfall. Let me tell you why…
Continue reading 'Minorin is taking away all my CNY angpow money! ;A;'»
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