I’m sure most out there will have read the news about the ARTSVISION head honcho Matsuda Sakumi being prosecuted for sexually assaulting a 16-year old seiyuu wannabe. I read about it about 2 days ago but didn’t really have time to go over the details. I guess I was a little annoyed that both ARTSVISION and I’m Enterprises‘ (a subsidiary of ARTSVISION) sites were down from all the influx of traffic, and are now carrying the typical ‘apology’ blurb.

dormcat does post some stuff about Ochiai Yurika and her supposedly cryptic blog messages, at least I’ve an idea now why she quit ARTSVISION so suddenly last year…..and there’s those ‘subtle’ hints from Asakawa Yuu’s blog a year or so back too. I’m sure ppl will dredge up all other manners of damning evidence….

So what now for the rest of the artists on both talent agencies? The message on both sites insists that the incident has nothing to do with them, asking for continued support and all that jazz but you do wonder. Incidentally, Tamura Yukari made the move from ARTSVISION to I’m Enterprise at the start of the year whilst Asano Masumi made the opposite move a few years back. Though Yukarin’s is supposedly because of changes in her management team or something similar, I can’t recall the details…..

Not too worried bout the I’m artists (Nakahara Mai, Saito Chiwa, Takahashi Mikako etc) but a little more for the likes of Horie Yui, a supposed ARTSVISION favourite I guess. It might all be swept under a carpet and all be forgotten in a few months, much like the Yukana furore eventually died out. Oh, the drama.

This probably still isn’t as entertaining as the whole Fanlib ’scandal’ though.

Edit: Looks like it’s change all around:

New ARTSVISION head: 町田泉 (Machida Izumi - former Baobab president)
New I’m Enterprise head: 江崎加子男 (????? - former Mausu chief rep)
New Nichinare head: 木村文彦 (Kimura Fumihiko - promoted from chief secretary of the board of directors)
*Nichinare is the seiyuu training school run by ARTSVISION.

So they’ve split Matsuda’s three roles. I’ve heard of the I’m dude before, though I have no idea how to pronounce his name (Ezaki?Esaki? Katsuo?Kasuo?). Shows you what a sad person I am that I can tell you which agency a seiyuu is signed to off the top of my head. Ito Shizuka? KenPro. Fukuyama Jun? Baobab. Ohara Sayaka? Haikyo. Seki Tomokazu? Atomic Monkey. Ochiai Yurika? GenkiPro. Kakihara Tetsuya? 81Produce. Woahhhhhh I’m sadddd.

Just showing signs of life. Dunno if I’m gonna get round to acquiring/uploading the Emma raw this week - have exams on Wednesday and Thursday. As usual, self-imposed anime ban ^^; Thankfully I can only study when there’s noise on in the background (otherwise my bed looks oh so inviting) so my music/radio hobbies don’t suffer. The rain has also been good I guess. Prevents me from watching the French Open and the cricket…..

Some other random bits and pieces:
1. BACCANO! cast announced

I hadn’t really been thinking of watching this anime (starts in July), but the cast list somewhat piques my interest. My two favourite Kobayashis (Sanae & Yu), Onosaka Masaya, Saito Chiwa etc. Romanizing the names was a rather amusing exercise, I’m sure I got at least half of them wrong….

Yoshino Hiroyuki - Filo Procenzo (フィーロ・プロシェンツォ)
Aoki Sayaka - Milia Harvent (ミリア・ハーヴェント)
Arimoto Kinryuu -Cerrad Quetz (セラード・クェーツ)
Kobayashi Sanae - Ennis (エニス)
Kobayashi Yu - Nice Holystone (ニース・ホーリーストーン)
Miyamoto Mitsuru - Maizer Avarro (マイザー・アヴァーロ)
Morita Masakazu - Crea Stanford (クレア・スタンフィールド)
Onosaka Masaya - Isaac Dian (アイザック・ディアン)
Saito Chiwa - Carol (キャロル)
Sakaguchi Daisuke - Jacuzzi Sprott (ジャグジー・スプロット)
Wakamoto Norio - Gustave St. Germain (ギュスターヴ・サンジェルマン)

2. New Nagasarete Airantou ED
By Horie Yui again, called Koisuru Tenkizu (恋する天気図) - single out 18th August. Wonder what Hocchan’s next project will be, now that Aice5’s dissolution has been confirmed. Hopefully an album, though she still has that Kurobara Hozonkai DVD single due out at this summer’s Comic Market.

3. Tetsudo Musume Character CDs
I haven’t a clue what Tetsudo Musume really is, I’m not into trading figures (too expensive). The site seems to tell me that it’s a collection of figures (all female, unsurprisingly) dressed in railroad/train-related clothing (conductors etc). They have thin arms and elephant legs ¬_¬ I’ve never understood all this obsession with maids etc. What’s so sexy about train conductors anyway?

Er I digress. Character CDs - three volumes announced so far, all released on 26th June;
Vol. 1 - Kurahashi Minami (Hirano Aya)
Vol. 2 - Kuji Alice (Fujimura Ayumi)
Vol. 3 - Takano Miyuki (Matsuki Miyu)

4. Other random release news
i) Polyphonica Character Vocal Album (25th July)
- Makes me happy, cos Mizuki Nana & Satou Rina are on it ^_^
ii) Motteke! Sailor Fuku remix single (8th August)
- Oh dear. Milking the otaku crowd now, are we?
iii) New Nogawa Sakura album (1st August)
iv) New Idolmaster XENOGLOSSIA OP (8th August)
- Singer unknown.
v) New Nonaka Ai single (8th August)
vi) New Misato Aki album? (8th August)
vii) Love☆Sensation (らぶ☆センセイション) (17th August)
- 2 separate new versions (Negi/Asuna & Konoka/Setsuna) of a rubbish song. Are Negima fans still that gullible? There’s some cast commentary and PV extras included on both CDs.

Rumours abound of a new Nanoha StrikerS ending…. I wouldn’t hold my breath for a new opening though, Nana-chan has a pretty dire record of about 2 singles released every year since her debut.

Anispa

Don’t normally listen unless there’s guests on that I’m interested in - and the last two weeks saw line-ups of Ito Shizuka and Kobayashi Yu so I just had to tune in. Shizuka-sama was mainly there to talk about El Cazador, but there was a free talk session about some of her ‘incidences’ with close friends Ueda Kana and Nabatame Hitomi spilling the beans.

There were the usual drunken episodes - Shizuka accidentally doing a jumping knee move on a stranger, thinking he was a friend; making someone else’s nose bleed in a separate, but similar kneeing incident etc. Naba and Kana both accused Shizuka of sexual harassment - (common knowledge maybe) Kana said Shizuka probably knows the size and shape of every female seiyuu’s boobs (Oppai Ranking!), groping everyone instead of greeting them ^^;; Naba said she was used to being groped by now………. Host Asano Masumi was already one of Shizuka’s victims, and she let Masumin return the favour (but warned her that there was a lot of padding). They both agreed that groping Nabatame was no fun though, cos she shows no reaction whatsoever ^^;

Kobayashi Yu appeared on the show last Saturday to promote her first single Sora no Kotoba (Saint October ED2) out this Wednesday. She was her usual overly formal and polite self, and as usual they played on her lack of drawing skills. The picture below is her portrait of host Washizaki Takeshi.

Asano Masumi’s comment: 男性器だよね？ (Aren’t those male genitals?) Of course, this made Yu-tan all flustered. For one thing, her parents were listening to the show (AGAIN). She didn’t mention that at first, but when she did after a while - Masumin was embarassed and began apologising profusely (Aa!!! Otosan, okasan, gomen nasai!!!), I guess for her loose mouth ^^;

Washizaki: This isn’t Asano-san, is it?
Asano: If this was me, I’d hit something. HARD.
Kobayashi: No, it’s actually….. my dead pet bird.
Asano: Wait, what are those drops below the bird? Is it having a crap? (feces/shit etc)
Washizaki: Yeah, so it is!
Asano: Look, there’s a piece of crap under Take-chan(Washizaki)’s nose too!
Kobayashi: No!! It was supposed to be some little birds (雛), but after drawing a while they turned into…. snakes (蛇).
Asano/Washizaki: Huh??

I did think Take-chan and Masumin were incredibly amused/impressed by her politeness.
Washizaki(reading from a listener’s mail): Have you ever gotten angry?
Kobayashi: ……er…..I think I will get angry when I should get angry…. (thinks) …..(silence)

Shimizu Kaori asked her the same question on the School Rumble Off-Kai DVD special and Yu gave a similar answer. Kaori remarked that she didn’t believe Kobayashi has a single enemy in the world - and was touched to tears (I’m lying, she was actually laughing her head off) when Yu obliged her request of mimicking Lala Gonzalez’ gorilla mannerisms.

Ah well, back to the books now.

23 May 2007
I really don’t think I’ll get much revision done this week…… Must. Pass. Exams. So. I. Can. Graduate. Oh, and I’m starting to get into point-and-click adventure games again (Guybrush Threepwood rules!) - playing Beneath a Steel Sky now, wonder why I never did pick it up earlier….

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….It’s Christmas! Not a lot else happens really.

Raw Torrent or here
Edit: The tracker might be having issues. Just wait or something….. The second one works better I think.

I never really bothered watching PVs but it seemed in the past week or so there’ve been a steady stream of new ones from some of my fave artists which resulted in me going on a PV downloading spree. And with Youtube it’s so easy to get hold of them these days…. a few years ago it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Ah, the wonders of technology….

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16 May 2007
Hahaha. Yukarin’s Hoshizora no Spica outsold and outcharted Hocchan’s single last week (20,033 to 16,255, No.7 to No.8)…. I’d say it was the StrikerS tie-up that helped, but both Little Wish and Spiritual Garden did pretty rubbish so that can’t be it. Whatever. Spica’s sold more in its first week than either of those two singles did, and by next week will probably have outsold their combined totals (24,326).

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Ah, so we’ve arrived at one of my fave scenes from the manga. Oh poor Eleanor you deserve better than weedy William.

Torrent

What’s Stepmania?
I’ve mentioned Stepmania a couple of times in my posts without ever really going into detail about what it is, though I’m sure most people will have vaguely heard of it. Stepmania (free & open source) is essentially Beatmania simulating DDR for your PC. It can be played with a standard keyboard, or with PS2/Xbox/dance pads. Don’t know if using pads instead of keys is any easier or more fun but I guess the only thing you really need to play Stepmania is a sense of rhythm ^_^

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