If you ever wanted to hear a duet between Chihara Minori and Mizuki Nana…

…don’t expect to hear it on the Minami-ke character album.

Albums
KimiKiss pure rouge Character Song Album

I only watched 1-2 episodes of kimikiss, and still get it mixed up with Myself;Yourself even now - not a huge fan of the genre *shrug* But anyway, prior to this CD’s release I took a look at the seiyuu cast list and facepalmed. Out of the 9 girls, I’d say only two of them were actually proven singers (Tanaka Rie & Nogawa Sakura). The rest range from middling to crap, with the exception of Ikezawa Haruna who doesn’t actually sing much, but I have fond memories of the songs she did for Memories Off way back whenever.

Praise the wonders of good production, for they are able to make even Noto Mamiko, Hirohashi Ryo and Kawasumi Ayako sound great on record! But of course, what really matters is the quality of the material and I’m pleased to report that it was a more pleasant experience than I expected. The best song is definitely Tanaka Rie’s fantastic Kibina Koko Koka - it’s one thing being a bad singer, but it takes real skill to sing so completely off-key like that. Two thumbs-up!! I’m going to make it my ringtone soon. Apart from that, Ikezawa’s many many smile and Kawasumi’s Kaleidoscope are the pick of the bunch. Some of them (Hirohashi, Koshimizu, Mizuhashi) weren’t particularly memorable but I didn’t dislike anything enough to press the skip button, which is a good sign.
Rating:

Minami-ke Biyori

Wait. I didn’t know they were gonna sing in character >_> Which means we don’t get Chihara Minori singing in Minorin mode - we just get her singing in Chiaki mode twice, one with Mizuki Nana’s Toma spouting rubbish at Chiaki in the background and the other with inner Chiaki spouting rubbish at outer Chiaki in the background.

Minami-ke is a series that is close to my heart, so I’m gonna make an attempt to speed review through the album’s 12 tracks. Refer to the chart below (yeah, yeah I drew it up in 3 seconds using Excel) for individual scores for each song - Vocals does NOT refer to how well each seiyuu can sing, but rather how close they sound to their characters (since they are singing in chara mode after all). Song is obviously, how good the song sounds (to me). Both categories scored out of 5.

1. Sato Rina’s own speaking voice is so close to Haruka’s - not really singing in character. The song is cheerful but bland - just like Haruka (and Rina).
2. Well, Inoue Marina certainly sings as annoyingly as Kana no doubt would. The song’s annoying too, which is not a good thing.
3. Woah. That sounds exactly like how I’d expect Chiaki to sound if she were singing ^_^ Pretty amusing song too - love Toma’s cameo too. This is probably the closest you’ll get to a Chihara Minori-Mizuki Nana duet, folks.
4. Eh? That doesn’t sound like Toma, it just sounds like Mizuki Nana >_> But it’s the best song on the album by a long, long way though I fail to see how it fits her character.
5. No, that doesn’t resemble Makoto/Mako-chan either. Morinaga Rika needs to work harder at singing like a manly man. Dreadful song too.
6. KitaEri successfully replicates her squeaky, cutesy Uchida voice on a song. Toyosaki Aki’s not half bad either. Song is quite fun, but repetitive.
7. Oh lordy. Apart from the fact that Kakihara Tetsuya’s singing is hideous, it sounds nothing like what I expected Fujioka to sound like - why must he sing so low? I do actually like the song though.
8. Erm.. what did Riko sound like again >_> Goto Saori’s Keiko is spot on, but that’s cos she only ever produces one type of voice ^^; It’s a half-decent, but not particularly memorable song.
9. The singing is more Ono Daisuke than Hosaka really - I enjoyed Sato Rina’s random lines though. Song is amusingly silly, in a bad 80s enka pop way.
10. Ahhhh. Which is Maki and which is Atsuko again? I always enjoy Takagi Reiko’s singing though (she’s a sentimental fave of mine since voicing Waya in Hikaru no Go). Girl Jundo ↑ is one of the better, upbeat songs.
11. Sensei! Ninomiya-kun! Sensei!! Ninomiya-kuuunnn!!! Thankfully the lyrics had a lot more words than that. The song is horribly cheesy but that was to be expected. I was surprised at Ohara Momoko’s above average singing.
12. The full version of track 3 minus Toma. Inner Chiaki can be quite fun.

So yeah, it was a mixed bag but I’m sure Minami-ke fans will find something to like here. Maybe Hosaka’s Ahaha-ahaha-ahaha? And Kitamura Eri really needs to make an album ASAP - I’d buy five copies of it straight away.
Rating:

GUNSLINGER GIRL-IL TEATRINO- VOCAL ALBUM

What’s worse than 8 different versions of Happy Material? Seven versions of doll, that’s what. Yeah it’s a better song that HM could ever hope to be (maybe), but not when it’s sung seven times on an eleven-track disc. And annoyingly, the arrangements are indentical >_> Add some maracas or something! By the time the one version I had been looking forward to (Enomoto Atsuko’s) rolled around, I was already sick to death of the song. But Acchan’s was still my favourite out of the 5 seiyuu. Mizuno Risa was better than I expected but Shiono Anri’s singing is still as poor as ever and Hanazawa Kana sounded like a singing robot. A cute singing robot. That’s me done with this album, ain’t gonna touch it til the next decade.
Rating: