The light novel series Kyoran Kazoku Nikki (Frenzied Family Journal), written by Akira (日日日) and illustrated by 6suke is getting an anime, scheduled to broadcast this coming spring season. At the recent Winter Comic Market a promo video was shown and a special drama CD was on sale. The promo (below) looks crazy, and the same goes for the CD - guess it’s another show to add to my ‘To-watch’ list.
I heard the news that Mariaholic was getting a drama CD sometime last month and again, I paid it no attention cos the basic premise of the manga already made me laugh. Brief outline-
Sola (pronounced Sora, unsurprisingly), one of the upcoming spring season anime. Animated by Nomad (Rozen Maiden), series composition by Hanada Jukki (Popotan, Rozen Maiden, the upcoming Idolmaster Xenoglosssia) and music by Fujima Hitoshi (wai~~~, he’s part of Elements Garden and is also the brother-in-law of Agematsu Noriyasu - he’s married to his sister Agematsu Mika).
The prologue of sola mini drama CD was sold at Winter Comic Market 71, and features a drama track and a lovely image song called Binkan no Fuukei performed by Ceui (Kyoshiro ED) and written by Hata Aki & Okubo Kaoru. Surprisingly it was subbed by Doremi (not a lot of drama CDs get subbed, though I guess sola was because there was a Chinese sub available).
The drama track itself doesn’t actually tell you very much about the premise of the show, but rather serves as an introduction to some of the main characters. I also want to point out that it’s this month’s featured program on CharaRadio, all four episodes are up now, and hosted alternately by Noto Mamiko and Nakahara Mai.
Character designs - bleh. I think I preferred the ones that were in the prologue CD - are they from the manga?
Seiyuu (L to R): Okamoto Nobuhiko, Noto Mamiko, Nakahara Mai
Honda Youko, Shimizu Ai, Fujiwara Keiji
Kaneda Tomoko
Kaneda’s character looks like a Rozen Maiden reject >_> But for once, I’m actually looking forward to hearing her in an anime! She’s not playing one of her usual annoying gyagya/waiwai/urusai! hypergenki chibis. In fact, she almosts sounds like Sawashiro Miyuki in the mini drama CD. Mayuko appears to be one of those deadpan, sarcastic characters who’s always ready with a comeback for whatever you throw at them. O-tanoshimi!
The rest of the seiyuu? Noto Mamiko sounds like well…. Noto Mamiko. Fujiwara Keiji sounds like….. Fujiwara Keiji. Okamoto Nobuhiko is a new seiyuu - his only major role so far is John Brown in Ghost Hunt. Erm…. just take away John’s Kansai-ben and that’s how Yorito sounds. Shimizu Ai is playing another imouto role @_@ Nakahara Mai voices a slightly different character to the happy-go-lucky, energetic teenage girls she usually does; Aono seems to be icy cool - she’s supposed to be Yorito’s older sister but the hair colours ?_?. Haven’t heard too much from Honda Youko apart from Ichika in Utakata so not much to say about her; but Mana (her character) sounds pretty much like a normal oneechan type.
Koshimizu Ami, Yahagi Sayuri and Ono Ryoko are also supposed to be in the anime but their characters didn’t appear in the drama CD and I have no idea what they even look like, so it’s not possible to comment on them yet.
Setsuna is the star of this drama CD (despite her not being on the cover). There’s actually very few Konoka scenes, most of it focuses on Secchan, Negi, Asuna and Chamo.
Was quite surprised to see this up on Tokyotosho, didn’t really expect anyone to get hold of this. I’m too lazy to read manga nowadays so unfortunately I can’t tell you much about it, but I made a half-assed attempt to dig up some info.
I really shouldn’t be listening to this - I’ve got an exam later today hahaha. I really enjoyed it though, it has Haruhi forming a band with the SOS-dan members for the next cultural festival and features more bad warbling from Mikuru, lifeless singing from Yuki and hideous rapping from Kyon and Itsuki. It was funny hearing Hirano Aya play all of the other characters on Voice no Chaos though. She made a really convincing Mikuru, and well… anyone can play Yuki really. Aya got all of Itsuki’s mannerisms down ‘Yaa, sumimasen etc’. I don’t really like First Good-bye, the song that Haruhi ‘wrote’ though - doesn’t actually stick in my mind very long (unlike the SOS-dan members).
Oh, and also listened to Character CDs 6 (Kyon’s sister) and 7 (Kimidori Emiri). I prefer Emiri’s cos her song fixed mind is less annoying than Kyon’s sister’s (any song that features the word ‘potato’ in the lyrics isn’t going to appeal to me), but of course it’s partly because it’s Shiratori Yuri (Sayo from Negima, Mokona from Rayearth etc). Both have re-arranged versions of Harehare Yukai and again, I prefer Emiri’s gentler version. Partly because Aoki Sayaka’s singing sucks.
A little aside, Chihara Minori’s (Nagato Yuki) single Junpaku Sanctuary didn’t debut in the top 30 of the daily Oricon chart today (Kyon’s sister - No.11, Emiri - No.13) which is a little disappointing, considering she’s on avex (home to Hamasaki Ayumi) and not Lantis, Starchild or any of those predominantly anime-related record labels. She does seem to have built up a substantial otaku fanbase, but nowhere near Hirano Aya’s it seems.
I personally really like the single itself, but maybe she’s destined for the same fate as ppl like Nonaka Ai - apparently really popular amongst the otaku crowd but not achieving major mainstream success. Unlike Mizuki Nana, Horie Yui and Tamura Yukari who’ve all made their mark on the charts. Well, I’ll see how it goes over the next week but I doubt sales will be getting any stronger…. on another note, Goto Yuko’s album GO TO SONG has passed the 5000 sales mark. Brilliant stuff! Comparisons (for stuff released in 2006):
Mizuki Nana’s HYBRID UNIVERSE: 51430 copies
Tamura Yukari’s Gin no Senritsu, Kioku no mizuoto: 17904 copies
Makino Yui’s Tenkyuu no Ongaku: 10197 copies
Nonaka Ai’s Ai no Uta: 4692 copies
And she can’t even sing…….I did actually quite like the album though, mainly helped by the fact that most of the songs were written by Hashimoto Miyuki, one of my favourite anisong singers. Oh, and nearly forgot to mention it but the Haruhi Drama CD debuted at No.9, one place above the twice-as-expensive Negima 1000% Box set (featuring all the versions of 1000% SPARKING and A-LY-YA!). It’s a shame about Negima though, remember when all the otakus were trying to get Happy Material to No.1? A lot of them have shifted their focus to Haruhi now and sales for the 1000% SPARKING single were a little disappointing, despite it being about 1000x the song that Happy Material was.
© j1m0ne’s blog: reaffirming that all female seiyuu are closet rezboes since 2006 
