j1m0ne's blog

So er… people have been posting all about Chihara Minori lately and I didn’t want to feel too left out -_-
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Since the Seiyuu Awards are basically screwed, I don’t think I shall bother voting seriously this time around. So I decided to pick them randomly.
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Just to quickly follow up moyism’s post on Minorin’s new single – as speculated, Paradise Lost is indeed the Ga-Rei Zero OP theme. Lantis has quickly updated its site with the cover, but no further details on the CD contents or extras as yet.

The song is typical Kikuta Daisuke fare, but I think it’s the best of all the songs from Parade we’ve heard so far. And if you wonder why I’ve hardly mentioned Minorin’s new album recently it’s because I’m thoroughly underwhelmed by the music – don’t like Voyager Train much. I am enthusiastic about the prospect of a photobook with the Dream limited edition though!
Go get Adobe Flash Player!
Sorry no Minorin pics, I’m in the office and my image archives are miles away at home I offer a LQ sample of Paradise Lost instead.

Edit: Oh and I forgot to mention that this is Minorin’s first ever anime opening or ending theme – dunno if Ga-Rei has enough fans to pull in more sales though, and with it being so close to Parade’s release date… maybe Paradise Lost won’t be on the album?

「喰霊-零-」超自然災害ラジオ対策室 – Ga-Rei Zero Cho-shizen Saigai Radio Taisakushitsu (what a mouthful) has already started its broadcast on Lantis-net (link). Anime watchers will want to hear the segment towards the end of episode one where the three seiyuu talk to producer Ito Atsushi, who outlines the plans for the Ga-Rei anime in more detail.

some of the information:
- the rest of Ga-Rei Zero will focus on Yomi and Kagura’s backstory
-Ga-Rei anime has been in planning for close to 2 years
-the original plan by the producers was to tell Yomi’s backstory, about how she became an evil spirit etc so consider the anime a prequel of sorts
-they have the blessing of the mangaka Segawa Hajime to tell their own story, and there is no planned overlap of plot between manga and anime
-Shiraishi Minoru, Mizuhara Kaoru & Chihara Minori knew from ages ago that they were going to host the radio show
-they also knew that the first episode would be setting up viewers for a surprise and wondered what the general reaction would be
-unusually, the music for the anime was only composed (by Agematsu Noriyasu) after the episodes had been animated and the voice acting lines recorded – the same technique was also used in Lucky Star. This means Agematsu has to be present at every episode’s recording session

edit – Copy paste from my post on animesuki:

Since my post got linked here I’ll try to make it clearer. Producer Ito Atsushi said that in the planning stages, the discussion with director Aoki Ei was that the Ga-Rei anime would only be made if it were to talk about Yomi and Kagura’s backstory rather than directly drawing from the manga material. After consulting with the mangaka Segawa Hajime they went ahead with their original plan. And that is still the current plan, unless the makers decide to spring any more surprises on the viewers.

I would like to point out that Ito mentions little of the manga beyond the fact that Yomi’s arc has already ended, and that the staff couldn’t save storyboard/animation time by tracing scenes from the manga as most anime usually do because the anime was ‘mostly original story’.

Ito does not explicitly say that no material from the manga will feature at any point in the future, but he did stress a few times that the anime is supposed to tell Yomi’s backstory on how she became an evil spirit. Apparently they spent something like 6 months just brainstorming the concept behind the anime, so I’d like to think they’ve already got the whole story planned out well in advance.

Also I am not a manga reader at all, and the info I posted here is based on my interpretation of what was said on the radio show.

non-anime related
-staff/cast is full of weirdos interesting characters
-the three seiyuu are all in awe of Wakamoto Norio
-director Aoki Ei looks like a trendy schoolteacher (he’s 35 years old)
-sound director Takayama Katsuhiko has long hair down to his waist. One day he forgot to tie it up when going to the studio and Minorin called it sexy
-Minorin related that she was practising her lines at home and since Kagura’s part involved quite a bit of shouting it got a bit noisy. Apparently her flat’s walls are quite thin but she thought it would be ok since her neighbour didn’t make any complaints… only to discover the next day that said neighbour was moving out.
Minorin: Was it my fault?
Kaoru: (Did you) shout out 悪霊よ (akuryo yo! – there’s an evil spirit!) or something (to scare them away).
Minoru: Or 魍魎! (moryo! – goblins/spirits!) It would be OK if you had just said stuff like Ah! or Ta! but if you said something like どうして殺したの？(Why did you kill [it]?) then… well, I hope Mr. Neighbour found a nice room to move into!

I thought it was a pretty interesting radio show, the chemistry between the three seiyuu was easy to hear. Definitely worth listening to if like me, you are watching Ga-Rei Zero. Mizuhara Kaoru has such a sexy onee-san voice <3<3

I failed to do the customary blog round-up over the last few months for a variety of reasons i.e. I forgot. I guess a triple helping of pointless news will make up for it?
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The Ga-Rei website got a complete facelift with Yomi and Kagura now on the frontpage, new profiles for the characters in the second episode and news of a radio show to be hosted by Shiraishi Minoru (Sakuraba aka the suitcase dude), Mizuhara Kaoru (Yomi) and Chihara Minori (Kagura).

I suppose with Minoru, Mizuhara and Minorin hosting the radio it means those three characters will be sticking around for longer than Natsuki and Tooru did? God knows if the show will mislead us again but the radio page does call Kagura and Yomi the ‘two heroines’.

Guess I couldn’t avoid Minorin’s voice acting this season after all, heh. Also, for all the seiyuu idol followers, some speculation – Minorin’s new still-untitled single is due to be released in 2 weeks’ time & has been heavily tipped to be the Ga-Rei opening theme. I actually heard rumours about this weeks before Ga-Rei started but not seeing Minorin’s involvement with the anime at the time, I dismissed it – not sure now! It’s pretty unusual to have a release with such vagueness surrounding it, and it’s definitely not been cancelled as Lantis still lists it on their site and they’re usually good at keeping stuff updated. We’ll hopefully find out tomorrow night when Ga-Rei airs.

Also, the insert song Dark Side of the Light in episode 1 was by FayLan (飛蘭), a totally unexpected and welcome surprise for me. She was a doujin vocalist who has been used by Agematsu Noriyasu for various video game songs (Gakuto!’s Never Slash, Touka Gettan’s Gekka no Rasen, Reconquista) but has now signed to S-inc, the same agency as Sato Hiromi so expect to hear more of FayLan in the future.

I enjoyed the first two episodes of Ga-Rei (I like cheesy action) with its twists, though I expect the rest of the series to be more straightforward – Yomi & Kagura’s backstory etc. I totally had to laugh when Wakamoto’s voice boomed out of those freaky looking brothers in episode 2

Inoue Marina megane pics as promised.
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