j1m0ne's blog

Was quite surprised to see this up on Tokyotosho, didn’t really expect anyone to get hold of this. I’m too lazy to read manga nowadays so unfortunately I can’t tell you much about it, but I made a half-assed attempt to dig up some info.

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I’m sure most ppl will be familiar with the Mousou Voice series by now, which features a bunch of seiyuu/talents saying a bunch of lines (or words) revolving around a specific theme. The first volume was the Oniichan CD which consisted of 12 tracks, around 4 minutes on average for each with the seiyuu just repeating Oniichan over and over and over again……it’s awful. Not to mention I didn’t have a clue who any of the ppl featured were. The following sample is by somebody called Shirayuki Miruku.

The second volume is the Oshikari CD which is slightly more well known I guess, since it features some more illustrious names like Ito Shizuka, Kawaragi Shiho, Endo Aya and Mizuno Manabi. This is Kawaragi’s track:

So why am I talking about this now? There was an event for the 2nd CD yesterday as this blog documents; at which the 3rd volume was announced. Due for release on 28th of March, the theme this time is Kokuhaku (Confession), and features some even bigger names like Nogawa Sakura, Koshimizu Ami, Inamura Yuuna, Kobayashi Yu, Inoue Nana and Abe Reiko. W00t.

Not only that, the 4th volume called Arienai Kokuhaku CD is due for release on the same day, which features ‘unreleastic kokuhaku situations’ like asking someone Kekkon shite kudasai (will you marry me) whilst eating a banana, Anata no akachan ga hoshii (I want your babies) during a school lesson and Suki desu, tsukiatte kudasai (I love you, please go out with me) whilst drunk. 10 seiyuu, 50 arienai kokuhaku situations; though it doesn’t mention which seiyuu will be involved.

EDIT: I keep forgetting to test my posts in Firefox first…..depressingly, I use Maxthon these days cos FF just effs up my laptop and hangs about 95% of the time. And I also forget that most ppl’s connections aren’t as fast as mine, sorry to those on dial-up who might have trouble loading the whole page.

Animelomix #4
I’m sure most ppl don’t need to be told what Guten Tag means. Unlike Kobayashi Yu, who fell for Goto Yuko’s big fat lie. She’d probably gotten tired of explaining everything to Yu-tan, who didn’t know what a manbaken (万馬券, a betting ticket that pays 100-fold) was, or what the term 生まれたてのヤギ (umaretate no yagi – a newborn goat; a listener used the term to describe an old lady he gave up his seat on the train to) meant.

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I’ve spent the best part of 3 hours listening to nearly a dozen versions of 1000%SPARKING and A-LY-YA! on my iPod and I think I won’t be too bothered if I never hear some of them again…..unlike the original Negima’s Happy Material which had the singing line-ups according to their student number, these have them (roughly) in their own little groups – the cheerleaders, the Walking Club etc. I don’t know why, but for the most part the versions of 1000% SPARKING are almost always better than A-LY-YA!.

I’ll start off with the first OP/ED single.

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WARNING: Possible Spoilers

Cute.

Weird.

Creepy. The smell of shampoo!!! Kono-chan no kaori da!!!

Pantsu.

I♥Makie.

Eva evidently enjoys her tea.

Suka card.

Sums up my current feelings about Negima!?

Black Rose Baron = Nekane? (pretty obvious really >_>)

I really shouldn’t be listening to this – I’ve got an exam later today hahaha. I really enjoyed it though, it has Haruhi forming a band with the SOS-dan members for the next cultural festival and features more bad warbling from Mikuru, lifeless singing from Yuki and hideous rapping from Kyon and Itsuki. It was funny hearing Hirano Aya play all of the other characters on Voice no Chaos though. She made a really convincing Mikuru, and well… anyone can play Yuki really. Aya got all of Itsuki’s mannerisms down ‘Yaa, sumimasen etc’. I don’t really like First Good-bye, the song that Haruhi ‘wrote’ though – doesn’t actually stick in my mind very long (unlike the SOS-dan members).

Oh, and also listened to Character CDs 6 (Kyon’s sister) and 7 (Kimidori Emiri). I prefer Emiri’s cos her song fixed mind is less annoying than Kyon’s sister’s (any song that features the word ‘potato’ in the lyrics isn’t going to appeal to me), but of course it’s partly because it’s Shiratori Yuri (Sayo from Negima, Mokona from Rayearth etc). Both have re-arranged versions of Harehare Yukai and again, I prefer Emiri’s gentler version. Partly because Aoki Sayaka’s singing sucks.

A little aside, Chihara Minori’s (Nagato Yuki) single Junpaku Sanctuary didn’t debut in the top 30 of the daily Oricon chart today (Kyon’s sister – No.11, Emiri – No.13) which is a little disappointing, considering she’s on avex (home to Hamasaki Ayumi) and not Lantis, Starchild or any of those predominantly anime-related record labels. She does seem to have built up a substantial otaku fanbase, but nowhere near Hirano Aya’s it seems.

I personally really like the single itself, but maybe she’s destined for the same fate as ppl like Nonaka Ai – apparently really popular amongst the otaku crowd but not achieving major mainstream success. Unlike Mizuki Nana, Horie Yui and Tamura Yukari who’ve all made their mark on the charts. Well, I’ll see how it goes over the next week but I doubt sales will be getting any stronger…. on another note, Goto Yuko’s album GO TO SONG has passed the 5000 sales mark. Brilliant stuff! Comparisons (for stuff released in 2006):

Mizuki Nana’s HYBRID UNIVERSE: 51430 copies
Tamura Yukari’s Gin no Senritsu, Kioku no mizuoto: 17904 copies
Makino Yui’s Tenkyuu no Ongaku: 10197 copies
Nonaka Ai’s Ai no Uta: 4692 copies

And she can’t even sing…….I did actually quite like the album though, mainly helped by the fact that most of the songs were written by Hashimoto Miyuki, one of my favourite anisong singers. Oh, and nearly forgot to mention it but the Haruhi Drama CD debuted at No.9, one place above the twice-as-expensive Negima 1000% Box set (featuring all the versions of 1000% SPARKING and A-LY-YA!). It’s a shame about Negima though, remember when all the otakus were trying to get Happy Material to No.1? A lot of them have shifted their focus to Haruhi now and sales for the 1000% SPARKING single were a little disappointing, despite it being about 1000x the song that Happy Material was.

When I watched the first episode of the OVA series I realised just how much I had missed Marimite. I’ve given up trying to follow the novels so I only have a vague idea of how things will be going down the road, and frankly I’m not sure I like it >_> I know the focus has shifted from Yumi and Sachiko’s relationship and more to Yumi’s ever tiresome search for a petite soeur…. But then again, the OVA’s something like 10 volumes behind the novels so it’s not gonna get anywhere near that I don’t think.

Anyhow, I was more concerned that Toyoguchi Megumi (probably one of my top 5 favourite seiyuu) was never going to appear in the OVA. I remember her saying on the radio show last year that she’d voice anyone, even girl A/B/C/X as long as she had a role. But the fact that each OVA episode is an hour long (I thought it’d be 30 minutes) plus the provisional list of the DVD titles made me happy since Volume 3 (Suzukaze satsu satsu) would have Sei in it. Here’s the afureko report (episode 2 isn’t even out yet) though Koshimizu Ami (Kanako) isn’t there – scheduling conflicts no doubt.

Top Row (L to R): Ito Shizuka (Rei), Satou Rina (Tsutako), Saito Chiwa (Mami), Shimizu Kaori (Noriko), Toyoguchi Megumi (Sei)
Bottom Row (L to R): Ikezawa Haruna (Yoshino), Ueda Kana (Yumi), Itou Miki (Sachiko), Noto Mamiko (Shimako)