j1m0ne’s blog

So I haven’t been listening to radio shows as much these days, mostly skipping those that run on AM radio and sticking to the ones that air on the interweb. Anyway I had to split the original post into two parts as it was getting too long - the first is focusing on specific episodes of shows that I found interesting and the second will be a short intro to some of the autumn anime’s radio shows.

This is gonna be a pretty long read ^^; so unless people are really into any of the finer details of seiyuu’s everyday lives I don’t expect you to read everything.

Mikako @ Payopayo #328
feat. guest Kobayashi Sanae

Time sure flies, it didn’t seem so long ago since Sanae appeared on Payopayo but flicking through my archives, her last appearance on the show was #276 - exactly a year ago. That was a live recording, but this episode was done in the studio. Sanae still hasn’t gotten used to saying ‘Payopayo’ out loud it seems - ‘Don’t you get embarassed when you say it??’

Outline:
-Sanae and Mikako have never appeared in an anime together as regulars. A few guest appearances here and there, but somehow they became friends anyway. Takahashi recalls the first time they first met - apparently they sort of brushed shoulders in the toilet and Mikako greeted Sanae but was ignored ^^; She then thought ‘Oh, this person’s giving me the cold shoulder…. samui!’ Kobayashi has no memory of such an event happening though.

-They haven’t seen each other in a long time, and their only link at the moment is Ito Shizuka, who provides both of them with updates on the other (Shizuka + Sanae are working together on D.Gray-man, and Mikako + Shizuka are on Hayate amongst others). The last time they met was when Sanae had nabe at Mikako’s place.

-Takahashi is a well-known gamer and has a Wii at home, which Kobayashi quite liked and wanted to buy. Sanae’s dad called her early on a Sunday morning saying “I’m lining up for a Wii now!!”. “Ganbare, oto-san!” was the reply, and he ended up buying two, one which is kept at the Kobayashi household in Shizuoka and the other he brought to Sanae’s flat in Tokyo. Ah, how sweet.

-There was this really weird bit where a listener sent in a mail reminding Kobayashi that when she was in grade school, she had a friend who taught her how to…. erase the clouds from the sky by the power of imagination. Which of course, Mikako wouldn’t believe in but Sanae still insists that it’s true - except that it only worked when she was a kid and not now that she’s an adult. This made me think Kobayashi’s got a screw loose in her head somewhere………

-Kobayashi had originally wanted to be an illustrator, having enrolled in Art & Design at junior college but discovered that maybe it wasn’t quite her kind of thing. The moment Sanae realised she didn’t belong in the art world was when one of her college mates handed in their project - a canvas covered with just white paint; nothing else, and three lecturers stood there praising the ‘work of art’. And Kobayashi thought わかんない (I don’t understand this world at all), and eventually hung up her paintbrush.

Mikako @ Payopayo #329
feat. guest Inoue Marina

Inoue’s second appearance on Payopayo this year, it’s a live recording this time around.

Outline:
-Marina has a dog named Chiku-tan, which was her older brother’s childhood nickname given by their grandmother (his real name is _ _ki, Marina didn’t want to reveal it on air). The discussion came about from one of the fans asking Inoue her opinion about his choice of names for his dog (Café au lait or Chabin [Cha-iro/brown + Robin]). They then ended up talking about animals in general - Mikako doesn’t own any & favoured small things like snails & goldfish when she was young. Marina said Café au lait seemed more like a girl’s choice, similar to names like Milk, Choco…. or Tissue?? Turns out that’s Saito Chiwa’s dog’s name….Tissue(!). Lol.

-One of the letters asked Marina about what job she could imagine herself doing if she wasn’t a seiyuu. Her dream? To be the manager of a girls’ idol agency a la Hello! Project, or as Inoue put it; a reverse Johnny’s. She wants to go out on the streets scouting for cute girls…..^^;;;

-Marina was invited to perform at Waseda University’s recent Gakuensai. She wrote a blog entry about the event, and one of the pics was with the uni’s Society for the Study of 2-D Culture (二次元文化研究会). Anyway during Payopayo, Marina said she wanted to sing some anime character songs since they rarely get performed live - and mentioned she was disappointed Erio (Nanoha StrikerS) didn’t get his own song when all the other characters did.

-They were talking about seating arrangements during voice recording sessions, and mentioned that for both Hayate no Gotoku! and Nanoha StrikerS they never have fixed seats because of the large number of cast members which rotate every episode. Inoue was referring to Hayate! in particular where any random assortment of seiyuu can turn up every week apart from the three main characters (Hayate, Nagi & Maria). And that’s when Takahashi whispered in her ear ‘Me, me!’ ^^;; Mikako voices Nishizawa Ayumu in Hayate, and she has a ‘perfect attendance’ record so far, albeit random 3-second appearances with food most of the time. In fact, her record is better than Hayate’s, who didn’t appear in episode 10. Well technically he did, only as a cardboard cut-out.

*In other news, Inoue is set to host the web radio show for Karen Broadcasting Club (カレン坂高校可憐放送部), for which a drama CD will be released next year. It’s based on a series of light novels written by Suzumoto Beni & illustrated by Hibiki Reine, serialised in Cobalt (where Marimite, also illustrated by Hibiki runs). KBC revolves around the life of students in Karen-zaka High School, formerly an all girls’ school which has started accepting boys in recent years. Other cast members for the drama include Noto Mamiko, Ono Daisuke, Asakawa Yuu, Yamaguchi Kappei, Kuwashima Houko and Takahashi Mikako.

Mikako@ Payopayo #330
feat. guest Matsuki Miyu

First time on Payopayo for Miyumiyu. She’s well known for being a bit….strange, and her slurred speech at the start was countered by Mikako’s ‘Are you drunk?’ To be honest the whole show was like having a conversation with a Martian. Matsuki kept going off on a tangent talking about random things that barely made sense which had Takahashi and her producer in fits of laughter.

Outline:
-Matsuki’s ideal man is Makabe Shun from Tokimeki Tonight. The main trait she looks for in a guy is that he’s faithful, she doesn’t care if he likes gambling or whatever apparently. And she likes guys who’ll flatter her by telling her she’s thin…..for God’s sake, she’s not fat -_-

-Some of the talk was in connection with Matsuki’s turning 30 years old, and the birthday live (Misoji Matsuri) she held for her fans. And how she ate unagi after the show to celebrate.

-A listener asked if there was any country that Matsuki would like to visit - she doesn’t have a passport anyway, but her first answer? Guam. The furthest she’s ever been is Hiroshima -_- So Mikako encouraged her to go on trips in the future when the timing’s right, and Miyu’s answer - ‘Like on my honeymoon?’ I think at that point Mikako had had enough of her and ended the show.

I was scratching my head through most of it myself, half the stuff Miyu said had nothing to do with the question in hand and like Mikako, struggled to follow her train of thought. I wonder what she was like at school………

Minami-ke no Minakike
Hosts: Satou Rina, Inoue Marina & Chihara Minori

I’m fairly enjoying watching the anime at the moment, somewhat gotten used to Chihara Minori’s voicing of Chiaki. Of course, Inoue Marina’s Kana is the real star of the show….. As for Minakike, it’s less a radio show and more like a candy party sometimes……… you can hear them eating half the time -_- and it can get pretty noisy with 3 people trying to talk at the same time.

Of the trio, only Satou Rina resembles her character in any way - she’s pretty much the reliable elder sister that Haruka is in the show eventhough she’s not the oldest among the seiyuu. That’s Minorin, who is unfortunately nowhere near as quick-witted as Chiaki - something I already know anyway having listened to a lots of Makenai Radio. Inoue Marina is the smartest (on paper), being the only one who went to university. Completely unlike the bird-brained Kana.

There’s tons of corners, some of them pretty odd - Denwa kara Minakike in episode #3 had Inoue Marina speaking really bad Engrish trying to promote Minami-ke to some gaijin called Michael. Kitchen kara Minakike has listeners sending in their recipes and tales from the kitchen. I prefer stuff like the Hondana kara Minakike corner which tests their ‘intelligence’ with really strange questions i.e.:

Q: What is happy when the wind blows?
A: A wind turbine.

WTF.

At the beginning of episode 4 they were trying to solve a 5th grade math problem and only Marina made any attempt to answer the question whilst Minorin continued eating her snacks and offering moral support when in truth, she knew nuts about maths.

Question (vaguely):
The length of a train station platform is 12m. There is a alarm system in place where it will start ringing when a (front of) train is 2km away from, & approaching the platform, and it then stops the moment the (back of the) train leaves said platform. If a train is travelling at a uniform speed of 106km/h passing the platform and the alarm rings for exactly 1 minute 12 seconds, what is the length of the train?

Answer:
Conversion - 1km/h = 5/18m/s
Let length of train = X
–>(2000 + 12) + X = (72×106x5/18)
–>2012 + X = 2120
–>X = 108m
以上。None of them could provide the correct answer btw.

Not sure that I did such questions when I was 11 - it was mostly 12 times tables and stuff like that IIRC, but ah well. I can only do basic conversions and simple algebra these days, my math has gone down the toilet since I left high school. Guess it’s the same for the three seiyuu, none of them even thought about converting km/h to m/s, and Minorin already started out on the wrong footing by reading 12m as 12cm :/

Anyway, Minakike is a pretty fun listen if you have the time. Plenty of corners to keep things fresh and interesting, though I really do wish Minori would stop crunching her snacks so loudly - it makes me hungry everytime I tune in to the show -_-

Sayonara Zetsubou Housou #11
feat. guest Kobayashi Yu

Zetsubou Housou continues to be one of the more entertaining anime radio shows airing at the moment, thanks to the the hosts - Kamiya Hiroshi and Shintani Ryoko, who are good at keeping the jokes flowing. Kamiya had wanted Kobayashi as a guest on the show even before it aired, and so he finally gets his wish. So we get two straight-talkers with someone rather thick, and predictably plenty of chaos along the way. Kamiya imitated Yu’s mannerisms a couple of times, and they talked about her ‘lovely personality’ for a while (director Shinbo Akiyuki seems to be a fan of Kobayashi’s too). Generally both hosts were extra nice to her, much more civil than they normally are to each other, heh.

Outline:
-Kamiya thought that Zetsubo-sensei marked his first meeting with Kobayashi, but she’s got a pretty good memory it seems; Yu whispers ‘Erm, no it isn’t’. Then Kamiya says ‘Hang on, was it the Minami-ke auditions then?’ [Note: Turns out Kamiya, Shintani and Kobayashi all attended, but failed their auditions for the show ^_^;;] Kobayashi says no, and reveals that it was on Princess Princess when she guested on one episode - coincidentally Shintani was also a guest in exactly the same episode. Weird.

-They talked about the parody (nicovideo) of Kimura Kaela’s Level 42 PV (Kobayashi voices Kimura Kaere) in episode 10. Basically, Kobayashi was told to ad-lib parts of it, though she was supposed to go ‘1,2,3,4….Yay!’ at the start but accidentally counted up to 5 instead. Kamiya asked her why she did that but she didn’t even notice that she did ^^; And why ‘Ma….ma…?’ Yu’s answer - ‘Cos I felt like it…. Kaere told me to do it’.

-Kamiya also briefly mentioned the recording studio - the mic is set lower than usual because of the overwhelming number of female cast members. Kobayashi’s taller than all the other girls (actually, she’s taller than Kamiya by 1cm too) so she has to squat a bit lower to record her lines. He continued to say that during Yu’s recording of the parody bit above, the cast watching behind her were in stitches with her going ‘Ma’ and ’sshushhush’ when Kaere was sweeping the floor.

-In the Futsuu de Iu na!! (Don’t Call Me Plain!!) corner, a listener sent in a mail saying ‘When I’m alone in the elevator, I absent-mindedly do a little dance…. is that normal?’ and Kobayashi said that she thought that it was normal, and that she’d practise dance routines by herself in the elevator sometimes. Urk.

-There was a listener who sent in a mail saying that he always lip-synched during his class vocal performances cos he couldn’t sing to save his life. Kamiya then said he could totally understand the guy’s feelings (Let’s just say that Kamiya isn’t the world’s greatest singer), and that he too would lip-synch if required to perform at events. Shintani then slip that ‘Well it doesn’t matter since (Noto) Mami(ko) lip-synchs at events too cos she has problems controlling her breath when she’s singing’. And she promptly got scolded by Kobayashi ‘You can’t say things like that!’

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Hmm, still turned out a bit long but I didn’t feel like doing individual posts for each show cos it’s a one-off thing - I don’t intend to cover anime radio shows regularly. The second half of the post coming up shortly.

Posted on November 10th, 2007 under radio, seiyuu • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback