j1m0ne's blog

I think that Special A has one of the worst pairs of opening and ending themes in anime history, they both make my skin crawl.

Special Days. Goto Yuko

…well, that was hideous. I’m used to the fact that Goto sings through her nose most of the time, but this time Special Days sounded like she sang intoxicated, with a clothes peg on her nose and earplugs in her ears. Those…vocal inflections (you know, when she goes ri-iii, ga-aaa etc) make me wanna tear my hair out and er… shove it down her throat. Not only is her singing shit, both the songs are shit too. Maybe that’s because I’m too used to the quality that companies like Starchild or Lantis usually produce (Pony Canyon are the ones behind this).

And after hearing Special Days (as well as Hidamari Gate), you start to wonder why the heck the music producers ever thought of letting any of those 7 seiyuu near a microphone. Or perhaps the sound director is to be blamed for hiring 7 seiyuu who (mostly) can’t sing to save their lives. Have they ever considered the welfare of the people suckered into buying the CDs? Avoid like the bubonic plague.
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Hidamari Gate. Fukuyama Jun, Shimono Hiro, Yonaga Tsubasa, Horie Kazuma

Argh, my ears. Hidamari Gate is full of squeaky mice! Only Horie doesn’t sound like a 12-year old boy whose voice is yet to break, but it’s too bad that his singing is rubbish. I’d never heard him or Yonaga sing before and on this evidence, I never want to hear either of them exercise their vocal cords ever again. OK, maybe (Yonaga) Wing-kun isn’t that bad, but I still don’t like high girly-boy sing-song voices. Ugh. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Hidamari Gate is an awful song. Almost as bad as Special Days, but at least parts of the verses are a bit tolerable.

In an attempt to counter all that shrill, high-pitched gayness of the first song, Fukuyama decides to sing Midnight Moon about two octaves lower than his usual range and it’s so comically painful I’m at a loss to describe just how I feel about it – I think I need to wipe the blood that’s oozing out of my ears first. But at least Fukuyama isn’t singing through his nose >_>
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WHEEL OF FORTUNE (Unmei no Wa). Shimamiya Eiko

The phrase ‘Wheel of Fortune’ doesn’t particularly hold fond memories for me: 1) It’s a lame TV gameshow (I watched the one with Pat Sajak when I was a kid) 2) It was also the name of the Saint October opening theme. Thankfully no such traumatic experiences here. WHEEL OF FORTUNE turned out sounding like neither Higurashi no Naku Koro ni nor Naraku no Hana which is a good thing given how I’m almost unable to tell one I’ve song from another these days. I prefer the slow-burning Diorama over WOF though.
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Always in My Heart. LAST ALLIANCE

I had this sinking feeling when I heard the opening bars of Katahiza no Yogore – man, that sounds like a L’arc~en~Ciel song :/ Thankfully it didn’t quite turn out like that. It’s slightly less melodic and edgier than the majority of LAST ALLIANCE’s back catalogue, but only a little bit. C/W I.O.J.F.K. sees the band back on more familiar ground and that song rocks hard.
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Watch: Katahiza no Yogore PV

Kaeritakunatta yo. Ikimonogakari

So you’re wondering ‘What does this have to do with anime music?’ Well, the C/W song Nokori Kaze is actually the theme song for the BLEACH The 3rd Phantom DS game, which I suppose more or less qualifies it to get a review here. Of course I’m also a keen fan of the band, who never fail to amaze me with their consistency at churning out pop hit after pop hit, and at regular intervals too – it’s only been two months since the release of their sophomore effort Life Album after all.

Kaeritakunatta yo is yet another pop gem that they’ve conjured up – it’s one of those soaring, string-laden ballads, a bit like Akaneiro no Yakusoku, the single before last. The upbeat Nokori Kaze is however, even better than the lead track. And they can afford to leave such strong tracks languishing as B-sides @_@ it’s a masterpiece on the level of Beethoven when you compare it to most of the crap polluting the top 10 these days.
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Watch: Kaeritakunatta yo PV

Tears…for truth~true tears Image Song Collection~. Various

This CD almost completely follows the sola template of image song albums – that means, hire professional musicians to write and sing the songs and please don’t let the seiyuu loose on them! So why the heck did they let Takagaki Ayahi sing in her Noe voice T_T I despair when Ayahime chooses to sing in character (her Da Capo character CD was a bit of a disaster too). If she really has to, I wish she’d employ the deeper voice that she used for Venus Versus Virus’s Ruchia character song inner world.

Still, the rest of the album more than makes up for that dreadful Aburamushi song – so quickly whipping through the highlights. eufonius’ Sonomama no Boku de is the one that people will be most familiar with, having been played during that scene in episode 10. And the duo also turned the Noe theme on the OST into Angel on tree, and I thought that worked really well.

Rita is the latest doujin singer-songwriter to crossover from eroge to anime, and harmonia (not to be confused with RYTHEM’s Naruto song of the same name) is so polished I had to dig my ears to make sure I wasn’t hearing things (hint: doujin music often has poor production). Atsumi Saori’s Takarabako is of course, wonderful. Anything by Atsumi-san is wonderful in my eyes (and ears). Ito Masumi’s dreamy new days is the other high point on the album, but really – the 10 songs do a good job of conveying the world of true tears and I’m pretty sure I’m still gonna be listening to them 8 months from now.
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What I’d really recommend you go check out this week:
Life. ACIDMAN – It’s ACIDMAN. ‘Nuff said. Of course nothing quite matches up to the eternal highs of stuff like Sekitou or Zouka ga Warau for me, but it’s still a solid effort.

I would also like to mention that I don’t think that Special A is even half as interesting or funny as Ouran, and based on the first two episodes I’m almost ready to drop down the toilet hole. It’s partly because I can’t bear listening to Goto Yuko anymore, so Nabatame Hitomi/Akira, give me the strength to persevere…