j1m0ne's blog

There goes KitaEri again, she’s just had another one of her blood vomiting episodes – this time over Inoue Marina.

So while Marina’s eating zenzai, Kitamura’s busy taking photos of her with her inner monologue going:

マリーナ可愛いぉ(*´д｀*)ハァハァ (Marina’s soooo cute…pant, pant)

心の猛吐血、マリーナにバレてないでしょーか。 (I hope Marina doesn’t notice my heart’s severe blood loss)

(つд・｀ ) 　チラ (Flutter)

ドキドキ。 (Heart throbbing)

At this rate, OtaEri will need not only a blood transfusion but multiple organ transplants. It only happens with certain people though. She can have a perfectly uneventful, non-blood loss inducing lunch with Nakao Eri, who I hesitate to say, is not as cute as Marina. I wonder how Eri survives recordings for Minami-ke since Marina, Chihara Minori and Mizuki Nana are all there.

Kitamura Eri’s blood type is A. You can forward all blood donations to:

Kaleidoscope Inc.
〒152-8799
Meguro, Tokyo
Japan

I was actually rather surprised to see Anime on Bossa get picked up for release by Nipponsei. Oh well, since I’m not likely to get my hands on my own copy for another fortnight or so I thought I’d give it a bit of a preview – also means I don’t have to open the CD when I do get it. Er yeah, I’m one of those people who buys albums purely for the satisfaction of owning them, there’s some I’ve bought and never even bothered opening ^^;;;

It’s hard to see who on earth anime on bossa is supposed to appeal to. Well I guess if I can be used as any sort of barometer, it’d be someone who is familiar with anime music and at the same time, can appreciate Japanese jazz and bossa-nova artists like Modern Conya, DOIS MAPAS, dorlis and Qypthone (to name but a few). The blurb for anime on bossa compares it to Sotte Bosse, a bossa nova group who used to exclusively do covers of famous Jpop tunes, and are pretty popular with the Jpop-buying public. I do like them myself, so we’ll see if I feel the same way about Iwao Junko’s attempt at applying the style on anime songs….

Right, so I’m reviewing each song as I listen along to the songs – that means it’s well and truly my first impressions of them. It helps that I know all the original songs off the bat – it’s easier to make a comparison that way. Note: the song titles are Youtube links for the original videos.

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Most seiyuu treat voice acting purely as a job; something that puts food on the table, keeps clothes on their backs and the taxman away from the door. It’s no different from being an office lady – paywise it’s not a whole lot different, but at least you get to sing and appear at live events, you might even earn a few fans along the way; who knows?

And then there are the mad ones who wanted to be seiyuu since they were kids, working hard at achieving their dreams so that they could one day bring their favourite animated characters to life. This is the life story of such a person, who describes being a seiyuu as ‘a way of life’ (生き様) and something she feels privileged to do….

…..なんちゃって。(As if). Actually, that was originally the intro to the Kitamura Eri profile I wrote some 7 months ago which I ended up discarding because it sounded lame. Still, I ended up saving the whole thing just in case I found a chance to use it someday… so there you are ^^;;

Moving on, I feel that KitaEri generally doesn’t get enough coverage (on English language sites anyway) and since I appear to be one of her few religious followers…. I’ll do my best to cover what she’s up to once in a while, in the vain hope of converting others.

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Not sure many people will have noticed, or are indeed, bothered that I’ve ceased doing weekly Jpop reviews. Such are the woes of working life that one has to consider which of their hobbies to cut down on and for me, Jpop (and video gaming) was it. Too time-consuming and not fulfilling enough unfortunately. Nevertheless I intend to cover the music scene albeit on a smaller scale and taking all things into consideration, I’ve narrowed it down to coverage of anime-related releases only. Not too tough a choice to make, I suppose.

I aim to do a quick round-up of what I dub the ‘Lantis & Starchild Release Day’, which, if anyone follows the anisong release schedule will realise happens at least once every month. For this month it’s the 23rd January – a large percentage of the winter season’s theme songs are getting released on the day, which also makes me think that anime record companies are bonkers. Who the hell has that much money to spend on all those CDs anyway? Why not spread out the release schedule to maximise sales? The mind boggles. But that’s not what I’m gonna continue prattling about. Onwards!

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Because I’m lazy, to save time and to extend the length of this post – I’ll get all the birthday wishes out in go, it’s the proverbial ‘killing four birds with one stone’ thing.

Happy Belated Birthday Makino Yui!
-Oh well, a day late (19th January is the date). She’s 22 this year.

That’s Makimaki (as Asano Masumi christened her) with the Gyao jockey staff members.

Happy Birthday to Inoue Marina!
-Just 1 and a half more hours of the big day left, 20th January. Marina’s 23 this year.

Happy Birthday to Mizuki Nana!
-Just 1 and a half more hours to the big day, 21st January. Nana’s 28 this year.

A cake from an advance surprise birthday party thrown for Nana by staff members.

Happy Birthday in Advance to Paku Romi!
-Oh well, a day early (22nd January is the date). She’s an unbelievable 36 this year.

I realise that my blog is gradually turning into an Inoue Marina shrine. I just found it really odd how the other 3 (Makino, Mizuki and Paku-san) are connected to Marina in some way.

1.Makino Yui is one of Inoue Marina’s best friends in the seiyuu world – they first met on Zegapain.
2.Mizuki Nana is Inoue Marina’s most frequent castmate/collaborator – 6 regular TV anime together (7 if Minami-ke:Okawari is included) + 1 OVA (Tokyo Marble Chocolate). And now Nana is Marina’s senpai at the Sigma Seven seiyuu agency.
3.Paku Romi is currently Inoue Marina’s twin in Suteki Tantei Labyrinth, was in Zegapain with both Marina and Yui, and also in Gakuen Alice- one of Marina’s earlier shows.

But it’s probably just me being overly anal, cos Paku Romi and Mizuki Nana’s history goes way back to Shaman King, and has also included Naruto and Fullmetal Alchemist along the way. A very shonen history ^^;

Oh well, happy birthday to all of them again, though only Inoue Marina will have received notice of my wishes. お誕生日おめでとうございます！♪ 素敵な一年になりますように ♪

Listen to Minakike this week!

http://www.animate.tv/digital/web_radio/detail_108.html

Plenty of highlights, including the fact that Rinyan and Minorin (also on guitar) sang the stupid birthday song for Marina that they also sang for Minori last time. But wait! The biggest highlight for me has got to be the fact that the birthday message I sent in for Marina was read (cue hysterical laughter). More on that later.

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Another month, another Marina update.

I’m sure you’ll all know from one of my earlier posts that she has shifted agencies from Voice & Heart to Sigma Seven. The move would mean very little to your typical casual anime/seiyuu fan as on the surface, not a whole lot will be diffrent. It’ll be business as usual for Marina in terms of voice work – what you can expect is changes on the music and promotional side of things. Maybe a record deal with Starchild or King Records is coming? She’s certainly been doing a lot of promo for them on Zetsubo-sensei and Minami-ke related stuff. Moving on…..

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