It’s been a case of (and still is) playing catch up for me, I haven’t even gone through the summer anime radio shows and another season is upon us already. Awesomeness. Over the past couple of days I managed to sift through a few that were top priorities for me, though a few months out of the loop and I’ve no real idea what shows are hot and what are not so it’s a case of throwing darts at the anime radio wall and seeing what sticks.

Once again, repeating the very useful site I use to keep track of what shows are airing. You can get hold of all the shows below by searching on NicoDouga.

Toaru ‘Radio’ no Railgun 1-3 (とある“ラジオ”の超電磁砲)

-Hosted by the awesome duo of Toyosaki Aki & Ito Kanae, the moe little-and-large (laurel & hardy?) pairing. Plenty of chemistry here, helps that they know each other so well (from Shugo Chara)
-Briefly: Aki is 168cm, Kanae is 147cm. Aki is the one who sounds like a kid, Kanae the one who doesn’t. Aki laughs like Tomatsu Haruka, Kanae talks like Tomatsu Haruka. This is how I tell them apart (actually it’s not hard at all).
-Toyosaki does an awesome impression of Arai Satomi/Kuroko’s JUDGMENT DESU NO. line, very impressive.
-There’s about 4-5 corners, the ones that interest me most: the ‘general knowledge’ one where the girls have to explain the answer to listener questions no matter how ’small’ they are ie why is the sky blue? why does beer after work taste so nice? Incidentally Kanae doesn’t drink beer, prefers soya bean milk instead
-Reused the Index Radio’s ‘Ability Judgment’ segment, they decided to give Kanae’s Level 1 power the name ‘Ukkarin Pikkarin’
-Another corner is Mezase! Zettai Nouryoku Level 6 – the title itself (Aim! Definitely Level 6 Power) is lol since Saten & Uihara are level 0 and 1 respectively. The first time they did this segment, Kanae said she would like to have the ability to eat a whole round cake at one go, and Aki would like 1) the ability to slice tuna perfectly (also wants a chef’s license) 2) to be able to do magic 3) be able to play a super yo-yo 4) the ability to know the filling of a onigiri just by looking at it 5) being able to identify whether fruits are ready/ripe to eat…. and the rest of it digressed into talking about food :/
-A bit of talk about the live radio recording (which is over now) and suggested they do live tuna slicing (とあるマグロの解体ショー www). Well it didn’t happen, all they did at Dengeki Fes was (attempt to) draw pictures of tuna, boo :/
-Biribiri w00t.

Umimono Radio~Aishiteru! 8 (みものらじお～あいしてる!～)

-Hosted by Asumi Kana & Kotobuki Minako, guest this episode was Sawashiro Miyuki.
-It was Mina-chan’s 18th birthday, and they threw a little party for her, she was so excited she described the chocolate cake as follows ‘AAAH There’s a black cake right in front of my eyes’
-Both Asumin and Miyuki got presents for Mina-chan, a tote bag and a hat(?) respectively. Her excitement at receiving the presents was so cute ^^
-I still lol at how Mina-chan is called Bukimin (following on from Asumin) on the show. Totally reminds me of 不気味 (bukimi/weird)
-Mina-chan shares a birthday (same day, same year) with golfer Ishikawa Ryo (Hanikami Ouji!) and errrr Nakayama Kinnikun lolololol
-There was a special envelope in amongst all the listener mail and the letter started off with ‘Congratulations on turning 18, you are now old enough to marry (Mina: eh wasn’t it 16?) etc etc.. I bestow on you a life partner. From Gibu Yuko’. There was also a souvenir inside that had ‘Jamamin’ (Jama + Amami-Oshima + Asumin) engraved on its back which sent Asumin & Mina-chan into fits of laughter.
-The story goes like this – Asumin had gone to Amami-Oshima for work and saw a row of the toy dolls lined up in the hotel she stayed at. marble got one of them for Asumin, Asumin passed it on to Gibu Yuko (Giburin) as a gift and now it’s passed on into Minako’s hands.
-Lol at the two girls’ poor use of language that implicated Sawashiro Miyuki being in some sort of relationship with composer Murakami Ken
-They wanted to call Sawashiro Miyuki Shiromin but she refused, cruelly suggesting that Asumin stop calling herself Asumin ;_; Miyuki’s blunt way of speaking never changes orz
-Awww there was a sweet story from a girl about how her boyfriend proposed to her while they were watching an episode of Umi Monogatari together. At first she wanted to tell him to shut up and watch the anime, but things turned out OK and they’re going to register their marriage in December.
-The country Mina-chan most wants to visit is Australia, because she… wants to hug a koala. And… wants to do battle with a kangaroo.

Hayane Hayaoki! Kanamemo Radio 1 (早寝早起き！かなめもらじお)

-Hosted by Toyosaki Aki & Kitamura Eri (who are also the Yoshino & Uchida bakappuru in Minami-ke ), the title means ‘early to sleep, early to rise’ so the show updates on the site at 5am
-KitaEri said she went to get her fortune read and the guy told her ‘you love loose change’ (as opposed to ‘you love money’ lol) while Aki’s fortune was ‘you are a fool’ (愚か者)
-lol KitaEri said listening to Kana’s voice makes her sleep lololol (like… how?)
-They were talking about part-time jobs they’d done in the past – Aki has worked in video rental/bookshops with all staff wearing matching suit/shirts and black aprons (like a sommelier)… except that the shop ran out of black aprons and gave her a yellow one instead ^_^
-KitaEri wanted to work in an apparel shop but she hates jobs that require standing so she applied for a data entry job at a computer firm and got accepted… but somehow got pushed to doing packing as they were low on staff numbers.
-Lololol KitaEri described the seiyuu trio (Toyosaki, Mizuhara Kaoru & Kugimiya Rie) that sings the Kanamemo opening theme Kimi e to Tsunagu Kokoro as the ‘Ougon no Loli’ (Golden Loli) combination. Incidentally Mizuhara was the first to record her part (separately), followed by Aki then Kugyu.
-The ‘challenge’ corner was fun as always. This time they got the two girls to create a ‘route map’ (think newspaper delivery routes!) based on what they like about each other but all the points have to be connected, the first one to get it wrong loses…
-It goes a little something like this: Aki likes KitaEri’s personality –> Aki likes KitaEri’s personality therefore KitaEri likes Aki’s fluffiness (ほっこり) –> Aki likes KitaEri’s personality therefore KitaEri likes Aki’s fluffiness (ほっこり) hence Aki likes how KitaEri sits next to her during recording –> Aki likes KitaEri’s personality therefore KitaEri likes Aki’s fluffiness (ほっこり) hence Aki likes how KitaEri sits next to her during recording and KitaEri likes how Aki always wears stylish shoes of a different colour, shape, type & smell all the time and admires her for it –> Aki likes KitaEri’s personality therefore KitaEri likes Aki’s fluffiness (ほっこり) hence Aki likes how KitaEri sits next to her during recording and KitaEri likes how Aki always wears stylish shoes of a different colour, shape, type & smell all the time and admires her for it and Aki likes how eventhough KitaEri is cheerful all the time she still needs to go to Shinjuku sometimes to recover her strength –> Aki likes KitaEri’s personality therefore KitaEri likes Aki’s fluffiness (ほっこり) hence Aki likes how KitaEri sits next to her during recording and KitaEri likes how Aki always wears stylish shoes of a different colour, shape, type & smell all the time and admires her for it and Aki likes how eventhough KitaEri is cheerful all the time she still needs to go to Shinjuku sometimes to recover her strength and KitaEri likes how Aki always wears a shirt has some weird animal (bear? rabbit?) print on it cos it looks good on her
-At that point Aki gave up, so she collects a punishment point –> whoever reaches 3 first gets a punishment.

Ura.Shanghai Hanten.Hebi Tsuushin (裏・上海飯店 蛇通信)

#1
-One of the three CANAAN radio shows, this one is hosted by Tanaka Rie (Liang Qi) and Okawa Toru (Cummings). The other two are hosted by Nanjo Yoshino (Maria) and Tomatsu Haruka (YunYun), and Takagaki Ayahi (Nene). This one was originally a mobile streaming service which is why the quality isn’t great.
-They spoke about how they did get in some people from Shanghai to do Chinese lines within the CANAAN anime.
-A listener suggested that they do a challenge corner where the winner gets to go to Shanghai… I guess everyone wants to go to Shanghai ^^;
-They were asked what phone straps they used – Rie just replaced her phone (dropped & broke the previous one) so she didn’t have a phone strap. Okawa’s is a normal light blue Hanshin Tigers strap with phone cleaner attached.
-Liang Qi-sama no Okotoba corner is done in character, with Rie dishing out advice to dumb listener problems (I eat too fast, it’s bad manners. What shall I do?) in either sweet or evil tones. This kinda reminds me of a similar corner within the Rozen Maiden radio show.
#6
-This show aired right after Liang Qi died in the anime and the opening segment was total LOL, how Rie pretended to be dead etc (why am I here, I’m supposed to be dead)
-The reason cheongsam have slits in the side is apparently to make horse riding easier lmfao
-Both pondered Liang Qi’s questionable taste in lingerie (hearts?)
-Lol Rie is so competitive, she screams so loud during the nazo-nazo segments. I don’t really get the questions (as you’d expect) except for the puzzle ‘Liang Qi and Cummings are involved in an accident. One dies and the other is unhurt. Which of the two escapes unscathed?’ (er it has something to do with Cumming’s balls, don’t ask)

Ito Kanae no ChoRaji Girls 28 July 2009 (伊藤かな恵の超ラジ！Girls)

-Guests were Toyosaki Aki & Kotobuki Minako, live video feed included.
-To make the girls feel welcome, Kanae stuck bright yellow stars all around the studio to keep with the theme of Super Noisy Nova (theme song of Sora no Manimani, which all three girls are in)
-Today’s special food was errrr orange juice, Mina-chan’s favourite. Incidentally Mina has had to imitate a glass of orange juice on the Sphere radio show before.
-The two Sphere girls taught Kanae the SNN hand movements from the PV and Aki then declared her 5th member of the group
-Btw, watch the SNN PV if you haven’t. Tomatsu swinging hips yay!
-The regular general knowledge segment pitched random questions previously asked on the show. Every time Kanae got one wrong, she had to take a stupid picture reminding her of what the correct answer was (see here for examples).
-The first one was ‘What do the letters BLT in a BLT sandwich stand for?’ Mina-chan apparently thinks it stands for Barbecue L(R)oyal Toast lolololol. Aki got it spot on (Bacon Lettuce Tomato in case you don’t eat sandwiches )
-Second: ‘Who is the subject of the line “Nakanunara nakasetemiyou hototogisu (鳴かぬなら 鳴かせてみせよう ほととぎす)” in the famous senryu that describes the three Sengoku daimyo. Well there was a 1/3 chance of getting it correct – it was one of Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi or Tokugawa Ieyasu. Aki answered Toyotomi, Minako chose Oda… and Aki was right again. And lol, Minako was about to recite the correct one for Oda but the other two screamed at her ‘It’s a live broadcast!!!!’ (hint: Oda’s line has the word ‘kill’ in it).
-Question 3: Spell ギター in English. Hilariously the first time Kanae got this wrong, Aki was the guest ^^; So obviously she learnt her lesson and spelled ‘guitar’ correctly, while Mina-chan thought it was ‘guiter’…
-Q4: How many prefectures are there in Japan? Answer is 47, both got it correct.
-Final question – ‘Which contains more Vitamin C? A lemon or an acerola?’ They both answered the latter and both were correct.
-Conclusion: Minako may still be in high school but she seems rather thick :\

In case you didn’t notice, I am on a total Toyosaki Aki + Ito Kanae kick right now – cuteness overload. I also realised that this edition of scribblings reads like terrible live twitter updates… actually, that’s what they’re meant to be. Oh well.

Ryoko + Kana no Amagami Coming Sweet #00

Radio show for the PS2 Amagami game hosted by Shintani Ryoko & Asumi Kana. Since this episode came just in time for the game’s release, most of the talk (with guest U-tan, the Amagami weblogmaster) centered around the gameplay mechanics and characters. They also spent a good chunk of time playing the game and yakking away, which was depressingly dull for the most part, before the corners kicked in.

Ryoko + Kana no Amagami Coming Sweet #01
-Oho, episode 1 was definitely much, much better since they got shot of the producers. Ah it was fun, love the Asumin + Ryoko pairing (they know each other well from Hidamari Sketch).
-A listener asked what type of male voice makes them go ‘meromero’. For Shintani it was a super low voice saying “Shintani-san, kimashita” & Asumin more or less agreed – ‘I like masculine voices’. Ryoko also likes ‘girls with Kansai-ben
-They seem to attract a lot of dumb Ryoko fanboy letters – ‘the happiest thing that has happened to me recently is being able to celebrate Shintani Ryoko’s birthday’ etc
-Apparently the most heartrending thing that has happened to Asumin is when she ‘wants to sneeze but can’t’. She did manage to get Ryoko to make a ‘one-sided love confession’ to her though (after she won the janken), which was LOL. I’m gonna mark this in my little black book of cheesy lines to use on shy girls – 目の前に(佳奈)がいるのに、目は合わせてくれない・・・私・・・ [Eventhough (insert name) right in front of me, why won't you look me in the eyes...I...]
-Lol @ Ryoko + Asumin’s attempts at trying to get ppl to buy the game by either sweet-talking them using cute loli voices (fail) or sadistically berating them (even more fail).
-It also happened to be Asumin’s father’s birthday. Ryoko does a mean impression of him!
-Apparently the sound of (Ryoko’s chara) Rihoko’s stomach growling in the game is really ad-libbed by her and not sound effects.
-There’s a corner that involves Ryoko attempting to sing stupid listener sent-in lyrics through her nose… like how some otaku twerp wrote ‘I sit in my room having a conversation with a picture of you, a controller in my hand…. etc’. There was one that was hilarious though – ‘I went to buy an oolong tea at the vending machine…. and 9 bottles came out’ (there was photographic evidence provided lmao).
-Ryoko wants to form a forever 25-years old club and complained that she’s an oba-chan (she’s 28)
-Another corner is where either girl gets blindfolded and a clip put on her nose, gets fed some random foodstuff and they have to guess what it is they’re eating. This time it was a cheese-filled sasa-kamaboko (a type of fish cake), but all I could hear Asumin say was ‘it tastes like vinyl’.

Pandora Hearts Radio #01
-Hosted by Minagawa Junko & Toriumi (no) Kosuke, they know each other from TeniPuri. Like most first episodes, they spent most of the time introducing the anime. It was at least useful for me anyway, since I planned on giving the anime a shot at the time (I’ve already watched it now, and uhhh… I’ll give it one more episode).
-They were talking about impossibly weird scary things appearing in the dark; MinaJun suggested a laughing doll but Toriumi said that was too normal and suggested ‘Ishida Akira passionately singing Death Metal songs’.
-They both love Kawasumi Ayako’s portrayal of Alice. MinaJun said ‘She’s cute!’… and they laughed recalling the show’s director requesting Ayako to make Alice more ‘ossan’-like.

Mikako@Payopayo #400

-Guest was Chiba Saeko, who gave Mikako a bunch of flowers to celebrate the 400 episode mark
-In 8 years of PayoPayo, Sae has guested on the show 7 times, with the first instance back on episode #52
-A few weeks prior to that (Takahashi) Mikako & Sae had arranged a lunch date at an all-you-can-eat bread store. Mikako then casually mentioned this to (Nanri) Yuuka on the set of (I believe) SoraKake – she then begged to tag along. Mikako calls her Nanri-chan [of tiaraway], Sae calls her plain ‘ol Yuuka.
-Sae’s family runs a yakiniku restaurant, which is quite well known in the seiyuu world. Mikako herself says she goes pretty often, adding that she probably sees Sae’s mother more often than she sees Sae. They joked that they should do a live radio recording in the store.
-There was a series of weird listener emails asking Sae about her taste in food – like what she likes to mix in her natto (answer: negi, kimchi or egg). And they ended up talking about food, sesame oil, sesame, ajinomoto etc etc.
-Another asked her about what sake Sae recommends – she doesn’t really like sake and prefers beer. She recalls that when she turned 20 (the legal drinking age in Japan) she felt ‘pressured’ to get into drinking and hence, tried just about every sake in the store and everytime she did she would fall asleep in the restaurant/bar.

Hagane no Renkinjutsushi: Radio FA Declaration #00
The real thing starts on 13 April, this is just a 5+min pre-airing special. Hosts are once again, the Elric brothers Paku Romi and Kugimiya Rie. Seems they’re still as raburabu as usual… so basically they didn’t really say much apart from a short intro the story, though Kugyu did reveal that the highlight of the recent Hagaren afureko was Paku Romi’s mother’s red bean rice. Which she took three plates of (2 as takeaway meals) – Paku told her she’d get fat that way. Lots and lots of giggling from both.

K-ON! radio – RajiOn #3 & #4

-In episode #3 the girls got sent a CD with a rock instrumental track on it, and they were instructed to ‘play’ the song on their instruments. In episode #4 they received band T-shirts with the K-on club logo on the front & pics of the instruments on the back (see above), and finally we got to hear the fruits of their labour with a short instrumental & really, it wasn’t that bad.

Anispa #255

-Guests today were N’s (Noto Mamiko, Goto Mai, Shimizu Kaori, Ueda Kana, Sato Rina) from Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu
-Masumin is stupid because she asked if the N in N’s stood for Noto (it’s for Nogizaka, obviously)
-Other possible names instead of N’s included Noto Mamiko & the Chibikko Sister or the Nabatame’s (as in Nabatame Hitomi)
-Masumin asked them if they had a special N’s greeting (they didn’t) and then asked ‘Who’s N’s Red? (as in sentai)’… they went with the colourPink – Rina, Blue – Kana, Green – Kaori, Yellow – Mai, Mamiko – White and no Red… so Naba was annointed N’s Red.
-But N’s don’t seem to be particularly cooperative, and they started arguing over song choices and Rina complained that she was the only one who wasn’t asked if there was any particular song she wanted to cover
-The N’s songs they played were so hideous that DROPS are like goddesses in comparison.. at least DROPS had at least 2 members that could sing (Shiraishi Ryoko & Kouda Mariko) but N’s have 0.

-Since it was Valentine’s day, they played a little game involving chocolates. The 6 girls (N’s + Masumin) would put a chocolate into a box for every of the following things they said yes to or agreed with.
:(number of) people who hate singing – 3
-Mamiko must be one of them
:people who wear only their underwear when it’s hot at home – 0
-I doubt any of the girls would admit to that anyway…
:people who actually fancy somebody like Washizaki – 0
-Kaori prefers – ‘active’ types, Kana – somebody like my dad or my brother, Rina – somebody who hates eating curry, Mai & Mamiko both managed to insult Washizaki by saying they liked all sorts of types (but not Take-chan type)
:people who have cried at least once in 2009 – 5
-So they were trying to find who it was that hadn’t cried and Masumin owned up – ‘because my tear glands are made of steel’. So it meant that all of N’s had cried this year – Kana says she tears up watching the news (lol) or stuff on TV about animals, Mai was also during TV doramas and the like, Rina says she cried at some live event because everyone else was crying, Mamiko says she cried watching some documentary… and Kaori said the reason she cried could not be mentioned on live radio. Hmmmmmmmmm….
:ever thought ‘God, this guy pisses me off!’ about someone close to you (ie staff, manager, colleagues) – 5
-they all laughed and said ‘there must be an angel amongst us!’ and predictably the first person they turned to was Noto Mamiko ^^; It was pretty obvious that Masumin, Kana & Kaori would be the first to say yes, given their collective short fuses. Kaori didn’t think that Mamiko was an angel (hoho) and she just giggled back so I guess the halo belongs to either Rina or Mai, neither would elaborate.
:people who haven’t cleaned their bedroom recently – 3
-Masumin gave it away by asking ‘how recent is recent?’ (6 months timeframe was given). But she (and Kaori) excused themselves by saying that they still lived at home with their parents, so somebody would clean it up anyway =_= Well… after a bit of probing, one of them is probably Mamiko – since she doesn’t let people visit her place, and when Masumin asked ‘Is it hard to walk around barefoot in your room?’, Mamiko answered ‘If you try hard, you probably can’.

Anispa #256

-Guest assistant today was Hayate no Gotoku! mangaka Hata Kenjiro. He’s a real fun guy and claims to be a regular Anispa listener.
-Takahashi Chiaki presents a corner (Yatterman-related) within the program & got Asano Masumi to guest. Chiaking talked a bit about her role in the live-action Yatterman movie (voice only) alongside the likes of Arashi’s Sakurai Sho, Fukuda Saki & Fukuda Kyoko.
-Then she proceeded to pepper Masumin with a series of ridiculous questions (how is your love life? how’s your relationship with Washizaki Takeshi?), done in the style of Omotchama ie all sentences ending in ~koron (watch Yatterman if you don’t understand).
-Hour 1’s special segment was Masumin & Take-chan visiting the set of a photoshoot with cosplayer Akamatsu Kanon on the invitation of her husband (mangaka Akamatsu Ken). Masumin is a big fan of hers, it seems, and she pointed out that she had even bought her a gift with her own money (as opposed to leeching off the Anispa producers)
-Kanon demonstrated her harp skills for the duo, which er… brought up an on-the-spot marriage proposal from Washizaki.
-Guest seiyuu in Hour 2 were Hayate seiyuu Shiraishi Ryoko (Hayate) & Ito Shizuka (Hinagiku), talking mainly about Hayate-related stuff. I’m gonna put Uryocchi instead of Shiraishi or Ryoko, because that’s what everyone calls her & it’s what I’m used to.

-The game today was that listeners would send in random questions/statements where one word was blanked-out, and the three girls would discuss what they thought was the answer to the question, making a rough guess at what the word in the blank was.
1. I’d be totally embarassed if (my) ___ was/were seen.
Masumin: Belly button
Uryocchi: The white of my eyes
Shizuka: Mumbled something about afureko
The word in the blank was: old photographs
Note: So in this case, it would seem like Masumin is embarassed if ‘old photographs of her belly button’ are seen.
2. The Hayate seiyuu that (is) the most ____ is (insert name).
Masumin: Definitely Ito Shizuka
Shizuka: Isn’t it Wakamoto Norio?
Uryocchi: I think Miyake Kenta…
The word in the blank was: The one I get along with best. They thought it was the ‘most erotic’, hence Masumin saying Ito Shizuka.
3. What do you think of Washizaki’s ______?
Masumin: Er, it’s kinda Showa era-ish?
Shizuka: I want to pinch (it) with my fingers?
Uryocchi: (It’s) not youthful enough…
The word in the blank was: The shape of his chin. Washizaki is well known for having a big chin… no idea what a Showa era-ish chin might look like, lol.
4. Of all the ____ I’ve ‘played’, the one I liked most was (insert word).
Uryocchi: Mario
Shizuka: Up? I like pushing the stuff ‘up’ there… [wtf]
Masumin: Tetris
The word in the blank was: Games, Masumin & Uryocchi were on the right track but as usual Ito Shizuka probably had something lewd on her mind. She later declared on her blog that 上ボタン連打大好き (I love to do a rapid-combo on the Up button)… I’ll leave it to you to interpret what an Up button is (hint: think body parts)
5. The ____ I am best at is (insert word). [一番得意な〇〇〇は何ですか？]
Masumin: I….like older men.
Uryocchi: I’m late.
Shizuka: Touching (おさわり).
The word in blank was: Exercise. Only Shizuka had her answer on target, too bad it made no sense… unless feeling somebody up is a form of exercise?
6. If you could give a value to your _____, how much would you say?
Shizuka: 100,000 yen?
Uryocchi: 30,000 yen?
Masumin: 20 yen.
The word in the blank was: Smile… so yeah, Masumin’s smile costs 20 yen. Washizaki said he’d pay the 30,000 yen for Uryocchi’s smile.
-Overall, pretty entertaining. I think Washizaki fancies Shiraishi Ryoko quite a bit, heh.

SoraKake Extra Show – Live Recording

-Special Akihabara UDX show on Valentine’s day with MAKO, Endo Aya & Makino Yui
-Endo Aya says that MAKO has never called her before (in response to Yui talking about MAKO’s ‘Moshimoshi MAKO dayo’ greeting)
-They said sometimes there can be as many as 28 cast members (mostly female) in the studio, and they end up talking about make-up & stuff like that.
-One of the games they played was to get all three to try to match up their answers… and they were rubbish at it =_= None of them matched & Yui was the only one who at least always in the majority.
1. Who do you think is the most popular of the three main girls?
Yui & MAKO: Akiha, Aya: Itsuki
2. Whose room would be the messiest?
Aya & Yui: Itsuki, MAKO: Honoka
3. Who looks sexiest in a Q-Tector suit?
Yui & MAKO: Itsuki, Aya: Akiha and the crowd agreed that Itsuki was #1 sexy
-The second game was so weird & disjointed I don’t even know what to make of it. Basically they had to write a story about Leopard, where each one of them would make up a sentence and pass it on to the next person. It ended up like this – Leopard received the Akiha cosplay uniform he/it had ordered a month ago and as he was changing into it, somebody or something peeked in and he/it started screaming … yeah, i don’t get it either.
-The 3 seiyuu played around with the GSC Akiha figure and the Imo-chan Nendoroid on stage.
-And since it was V-day, they threw chocolates into the crowd.

SoraKake 08
-MAKO’s mission was to make space-related puns (dajare) during the show and she’d get Apollo Chocolates as a treat.
-Her first attempt was so terrible I facepalmed. Chikyuu ga, chikyuusho (地球か、ちっきゅしょ) earned her a thumbs down from the producers.
-But she managed to get a few chocolates by saying the following – (I won’t explain them, translation would do no good because the puns are all wordplays that don’t work in English, needless to say they’re really stupid & annoying like most Japanese puns):
:Roketto o miroketto (ロケットを見ろけっと)
:Kasei de kasei de koi (火星でかせいでこい)
:Kinsei no kinsei kankaku wa zureteiru (金星のきんせい感覚はずれいてる)
:Watashi, kono kare to tsuki de deatte, tsukiatta (私、この彼と月で出合って、つきあった)
:Taiyou, omotai yo (太陽、重たいよ)
-Ok, I’ll translate the last one. ‘The sun, it’s oh so heavy’. See, it makes no sense.
-MAKO has bought a Kanji drill book (elementary school level) to help with her reading, but she only got 23 marks on one of the test exercises (pass mark: 40)
-The next mail was a Korean listener writing in asking for tips to learn kanji =_=
-A listener wrote in and said that his mother had listened to the radio show when he left it playing on his computer and she commented that ‘This girl is a bit dumb, isn’t she’

K-ON! Radio – Rajion #2
-So continuing on from the last episode, they put the girls in a room with a bunch of instruments and then janken’ed to decide who would play what… but eventually went with what their respective characters play. Toyosaki Aki was on the guitar, Hikasa Yoko got the bass, Sato Satomi on drums and Kotobuki Minako got the keys. Minako has played the piano before & Satomi the guitar but otherwise, they’ve had no musical experience. So they er… picked up their instruments and on 1,2 and 3… a hideous sound (like a cat landing on a piano) emanated from my speakers. But hey, it’s an original idea, and I (think I’ll) look forward to hearing if the four seiyuu can actually learn to play their instruments from scratch.

Other notes:

SoraKake Radio #4

-Guest is Makino Yui
-MAKO’s mission for this episode was to get Yui to say ‘SoraKake saikou!’ or ‘MAKO saikou’ or else she wouldn’t get any cake…
-but it was Yui’s birthday anyway so the staff got her a birthday cake, and MAKO sang Happy Birthday for her
-MAKO has Yui’s phone number but not her e-mail address
-When MAKO answers her mobile phone her greeting is always ‘Moshimoshi MAKO dayo’ which Yui says is weird
-SoraKake anime is 26 episodes, according to MAKO
-Do you read 鮭 (salmon) sake or shake? Half the staff thought either way. I say shake (or so says the menu of my favourite local Japanese restaurant).
-MAKO wants to see Makino Yui in a Q-Tector suit (which the SoraKake staff call the Erotector suit)
-I wonder how MAKO became a seiyuu, her kanji reading is probably as bad as mine
-One of the corners is where readers test the seiyuu’s space knowledge with keywords, ie what is Big Bang etc. Thank goodness Makino Yui was around, at least she could answer some of the questions

SoraKake Radio #5

-I guess the staff are trying to find best incentives to stop MAKO tripping over her words; this week’s mission – they dangled the carrot of 10 pieces of candy/snacks, with one being taken away for every gaffe.
-MAKO couldn’t even say either ‘Arigatou’ (Ariogato?) or ‘Omedeto’ (One…Ome..?), and she made three mistakes within 1 minute
-I think the staff were being extra horrible to MAKO and even made her read a mail that had a tongue twister ‘Nama banana’ (raw banana) just to try to get her to mess up
-MAKO is not only an airhead, but also a complete idiot. She had no idea who (Yuri) Gagarin was, so I’m not surprised she’d never heard of a honeycomb structure
-By the end she had tripped 7 times and earned 3 snacks – 2 umaibo & a bag of nuts. Boohoo, no pudding for poor MAKO :3

SoraKake Radio #6

-Guest is Yukana
-Yukana apparently likes to give people food when she thinks they look hungry… MAKO has been the recipient of Hokkaido caramels
-MAKO wants to see Yukana wear Kazane’s kimono, and Yukana says she would if MAKO wears her Akiha costume in return. MAKO says she’d wear anything, even Itsuki’s Q-Tector suit, just to see Yukana in the kimono. Yukana warned that her legs weren’t that long
-Yukana’s favourite SoraKake character is something called Natsume… who/what? I’m only up to ep 6 so I have no idea whether this person has appeared yet.
-Yukana says the one thing she shares in common with her character is her long hair.
-MAKO shares a lot of things in common with Akiha, like her cheerfulness and also her stupidity.
-MAKO is not yuri-kei, but has a strong flower-fetish.

SoraKake Radio #7
-The mission was to avoid saying three unknown NG keywords, with a reward of 3 pieces of sushi if she succeeded.
-MAKO revealed that she had trouble saying the word ‘Itsuki-chan’ during recordigns and kept getting the NG signal from the sound director

-She enjoyed cosplaying as Akiha at the event… I wish it was the Q-Tector suit =_=
-MAKO says that when (Kobayashi) Yu-chan called her a few days before, she answered with ‘Yes, what?’ and got scolded for not saying ‘Moshimoshi MAKO dayo’ (refer to radio #4)
-Exam results are out soon so please pray harder that MAKO will graduate from university, heh.
-She tried out the ’self-praise’ shiritori game that Leopard was doing in the anime, but predictably it ended pretty quickly when she said ‘Imagine’ (shiritori can’t end with ん)
-In the space knowledge quiz, MAKO couldn’t even spell ‘halo’, (h-e-l-l-o?) let alone explain what is is.
-She guessed that Urashima effect (time dilation) was the effect of ‘becoming an old man’ (go read the Urashima Taro story if you don’t get this). She was on the right track… I guess.
-By the end, MAKO had gotten 1 piece of sushi (for not saying ‘Mako wa baka dakara’), and lost 2 for tripping over her words and for saying ‘Yoku wakannai kedo’

*I really like MAKO as a radio host – despite being thicker than a slab of concrete (and getting teased endlessly about it by the producers) she’s sweet and good natured about it all. She’s like a real-life Akiha!

Mikako@Payopayo #392

-Guest was Kitamura Eri
-Eri recalls the first time she spoke to Mikako, she said ‘I’m a fan of Excel Saga!’ (Mikako was Mikako Hyatt) ‘I’ve watched all the CMs (with Excel Girls)!’, & other weird things like that
-Eri displays a typical gloomy otaku outlook, like she was sure that Mikako was freaked out and annoyed by her ‘lame’ personality that she didn’t dare to go near her for a while =_=
-Mikako says the first time she met Eri was at recordings for Simoun, where KitaEri’s character Amuria er… died in episode 1. The one thing Mikako remembered clearly was that KitaEri went up to Kuwashima Houko during a recording break and asked for her autograph, telling her that she was a huge fan of Noir ^^;;
-They discussed their tastes in music, KitaEri preferring technopop like I’ve Sound and Mikako favouring aiko & Bump of Chicken
-And somehow they veered off to discuss another one of KitaEri’s favourite gloomy topics, on whether she’ll still be a seiyuu this time next year. She declared ‘Agh!! I’m 22 this year, only 8 years away from (becoming) misoji [30-years old]!’ which was kinda an insult to Mikako who is 29 this year.
-And somehow they moved on to discuss spiders (fear of and the killing of them) and somehow KitaEri started singing a Spiderman song.

Marimite #5

-Guests were Shinohara Emi (Yoko-sama) & Toyoguchi Megumi (Sei-sama)
-They reminisced a bit about the experiences they shared over the past 6 years, like going for hanami etc
-At one point Meg was trying to talk with her mouth full that Emi had to tell her to swallow her food before speaking
-They also discussed about what they’d like Hibiki Reine to write about for future novels; suggested that they wanted to go back to the past to tell the former Roses’ (ie the nameless ones voiced by Mitsuishi Kotono, Takayama Minami & Katsuki Masako) stories. Both Meg and Emi would like the opportunity to say ‘Onee-sama’ it seems ^^;; I think it’s a nice idea too, I liked the little I saw of Sei-sama’s Onee-sama in the first season (during the Shiori arc)
-Drama section is FRAME OF MIND part 1, from volume 30 of the novels where Tsutako is the main character. The story featured is actually Roll of film, where the second-year students try to figure out who’s the owner of a roll of film with the name Takeshima Tsutako in katakana written on it (it’s not Tsutako’s). So um yeah, all the Shoko-Tsutako stuff gets pushed to the drama section instead of the anime.

xxxHOLiC & Tsubasa no Haru made Matenai! #3

-hosted by Fukuyama Jun, Ohara Sayaka & Namikawa Daisuke
-Namikawa does a hilarious imitation of Miyata Kouki, and Fukuyama (cruelly) said that it was like he was on helium
-This show was recorded at the start of 2009, so they were discussing otoshidama and how much they used to get – Fukuyama’s largest amount received was 10,000 yen from his grandfather. Ohara also said that her largest otoshidama amount was 10,000 yen, and Namikawa’s was 20,000 yen (at first he lied and said ‘a car’)
-Sayaka did give her parents otoshidama this year, though she refused to reveal the value (somewhere between the price of a holiday and a car, it seems)
-Fukuyama has bought his parents a TV, a fridge and a PC over the last year. While he himself doesn’t even have a connected phone at home, relying on his mobile phone.
-I think the xxx part of xxxHOLiC should refer to XXX rating – Fukuyama suggested that a listener was all ‘tsundere for Namikawa’ and was ‘probably stripped down to their shoes’… said listener is only 15 years old.
-Namikawa’s phone started ringing while he was reading a listener mail (it turned out to be a text message)
-A listener said he/she’d had the 2009 fortunes of the three seiyuu read, and a discussion over Sayaka’s love fortune somehow led to JunJun offering himself as ‘the one’ (Sayaka prefers Koyama Rikiya), and Namikawa blessed their future marriage.
-The first time Sayaka & Jun went drinking together they discovered they both turn really red when drunk.
-This was my first time listening to the show and it didn’t bore me, so I’ll be hunting down the rest of the episodes on Nico Nico soon…

Kitamura Eri no ChoRaji #100

-She didn’t seem particularly happy at the start, like she had a sore throat or something
-Eventhough she finally fulfilled a lifelong dream of hers, that is that she shook hands with Asumi Kana, who normally refuses to let KitaEri touch her on any part of her body – smart girl, Asumin!
-Every episode has a relay message from Washizaki Takeshi, but because it was the special #100 episode, the staff secretly got KitaEri’s beloved Mizuki Nana to deliver an additional special message. Predictably Eri was giggling like a little girl, I thought she was gonna burst into tears too. At least it gave her spirits a lift…
-…and she proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes talking about Nana. Oh dear.
-KitaEri couldn’t bring herself to ask Nana to marry her face-to-face ^^;
-A lot of talk about her role in Fresh Precure, including a dude who said he made sure he got up at 8.30am & watched the show while doing taigi naked… yeah. KitaEri fans are all weird like that.

Minakike Okaeri #5

-Minorin on holiday again, Kobayashi Yu guested this time as Sato Ryota from Kyo no 5 no 2
-Yu was being all weird again, saying that ‘I had a dream last night involving the two of you (Inoue Marina & Sato Rina) that I cannot talk about’ which led to Marina wondering whether it was a lewd dream or something similar
-As usual Yu got to show off her drawing skills by drawing erm… Rina and Marina, amoeba versions.

-This time they’re drawing Higashike manga (last season was Sensei + Ninomiya-kun), a story about the everyday lives of three brothers with the surname Higashi. (Minami is south, Higashi is east btw). Marina left it late and only drew the two pages the same day of the recording
-The three seiyuu draw the manga under the pseudonym UriPoTan. Uri comes from SatoU Rina, Po is short for Ponytail (Inoue Marina) and Tan is from Hara-tan ie ChiHara Minori.

K-On! Radio – Rajion #1

-Hosted by the four main seiyuu Toyosaki Aki, Hikasa Yoko, Sato Satomi & Kotobuki Minako
-I guess this is a pre-broadcast episode, cos all the 4 girls did was eat sweets. Though they did find out that they’re supposed to be forming a real K-on (light music) band [refer to manga]. I bet that like their characters, none of them can read or play music =_=
-Also, it’s kinda odd that all mails will have to be sent by traditional post instead of by e-mail as they usually do these days

So I’m hopeless at tech stuff myself too but with these are the methods I’ve been using for the last 4-5(?) years to get hold of radio shows, stuff I learnt from my own muddling experiences – maybe someone out there will find it useful. I do kinda assume that you’d have some basic knowledge of stuff like Greasemonkey scripts, how to work Nico Nico Douga and that you can comprehend basic Japanese (otherwise you wouldn’t bother to listen to radio shows, right?). I figure if a technophobe like me can understand things like this then you should too.

Programs I use: URLSnooper + HiDownload (cracked)
-Please don’t ask me where I got the cracked HiD (which eliminates the 30-day trial evaluation), google is your best friend :3

How to Download:

Load URLSnooper, start sniffing the network & then navigate to the page where the radio programme is located and click on the link to the desired show. You’ll see a bunch of mumbo-jumbo pop up in the URLSnooper window and it should be easy to spot the url of the file you want, usually something like [mms://blabla.com/s4m_1g.wma] or similar (see screenshot above).

Then just right click & copy the URL to clipboard, fire up HiDownload, click Add, input the URL and click OK – you’re ready to start downloading. This method has near 100% success rate as long as you target the right file.

Lantis-net is the simplest to get stuff from, hosted files always follow the same format and I don’t even need to bother to visit their site to get what I want every week. The same goes for MediaFactory.

Onsen.ag is a bit annoying since they started using Silverlight, which has been successful in crashing almost every browser I use except Internet Explorer. Most of the shows are uploaded on Nico Nico Douga though, so I usually get them off there instead of loading crappy Onsen and watching my CPU usage go up to 100%.

Edit: There’s a non-Silverlight page!

Animate.tv: Same as the usual method, except now you’ll need a Japanese proxy IP since we gaijin are all blocked. Just test to see which is the fastest one you can find off Samair, Proxy4Free or any other proxy site and dump it in the settings for HiDownload (Options/Proxy Server/mms). Preferrably try to download at not-so-congested times, Sunday 7am Japan time would be ideal Getting a decent proxy is down to luck I guess… also, don’t bother going near the Animate site on Mondays, which is Hetalia day.

Nico Nico Douga: Easiest & guaranteed method – just load the whole video using Opera browser then grab the file from the cache, usually located at C:\\Docs & Settings\[username]\AppData\Opera\Opera\Profile\cache4 – it’s usually either in flv or mp4 format.

If you use Firefox, then install one of the Greasemonkey scripts that enables you to pull downloads off the Niconico page itself (nicovideon or nicopon). I think they both still work, I don’t use Firefox anymore (using Google Chrome) so I can’t test them. NND is probably the most useful site for radio for me, and is sometimes the only way to get to hear the shows that air on mainstream stations like Radio Osaka & Tokyo FM.

Edit: Readers recommend NicoFox, which I haven’t tried myself.

Bunka Housou/JOQR: If you have the patience, you can listen to (and rip) live streams off Bunka Housou where a lot of the good shows like Tamura Yukari’s Itazura Kuro Usagi, Anispa, Comchart, Mizuki Nana’s Smile Gang and Horie Yui’s Tentama reside. For this you will need preferably Winamp (any other media player, ie WMP will do fine), Peercast and Streamripper [or any other stream ripper you use]. Once you’ve downloaded and installed all the programs, go to Peercast Yellow Pages, locate the JOQR(test) station, click play and start ripping away. Quality is often pretty poor, but this is what I turn to when I get impatient waiting for Japanese users to upload stuff to NND/Winny. I used this method a lot 3-4 years ago before Niconico got popular.

Youtube: Eh, I’m guessing maybe you may occasionally find stuff you want on Youtube, and the easiest way is to just stick the link in the box at one of the various media grabber sites, I use File2HD myself. Simple as ABC.

I suppose you could record shows off streams or something but I always download first and listen later, especially as my connection sucks too much to let me stream stuff without it turning into a stutterfest. Oh, and all these methods also apply to video files, obviously. Anyone else wanna share easier or more sophisticated methods to get at the radio shows? I’d love to know.

And the reason?

Because all us gaijin people have been flooding animate.tv’s servers to try to watch Hetalia to see if Koreans kiss somebody’s ass or whatever the controversy was all about again, overloading the server and crashing the website.

Yes, really. I have no idea whether there’s an region block in place or anything (there certainly wasn’t last night). According to a message posted on 2channel, on the newest episode of Sayonara Zetsubou Housou they were poking fun at the whole situation (overseas access is killing us!) and apologising to overseas listeners for not being able to access the show.

So yeah, I dunno how long this shit is gonna last but I hope it’s not permanent. The animate.tv website isn’t even working for me at the moment, not even with a Japanese proxy ip *shrug* Damn you people watching Hetalia spoiling it for us poor old seiyuu fans who just want to listen to radio shows! The only solutions are to download the programmes via proxy server (too damn slow, for me anyway) or listen to them on Nico Nico Douga (if anyone bothers to upload them).

以上。

SoraKake Radio #2

-I’ve never actually listened to MAKO hosting a radio show, but she seems pretty amusing (I like dancing, yay!). Her voice is so similar to Asumi Kana’s it’s scary.
-I’m not usually into these cutesy type seiyuu but omfg MAKO is just too cute (especially her laugh) – I think 95% of her listener mails said they loved her moe voice too.
-The aim this episode was to read 20 listener mails (edit: MAKO joked that she thought it’d be annoying for people to have to put up with her stumbling over 20 mails).
-I think she needs reading lessons, she kept stumbling over the kanji. でもかわいいから、許してあげる！
-MAKO is totally boke, she desperately needs a tsukkomi sidekick. I suggest Tamura Yukari.
-But hey, at least they didn’t pair her up with Nonaka Ai – that’d be moe overload (Imo-chan <3)
-Her favourite foods are uni (sea urchin), kazu no ko (herring roe) and kani (crab). She ate that combination for Christmas, apparently.
-MAKO says she talks to her cats at home – oh dear I’m getting Fukui ‘I can talk to trees’ Yukari vibes here… I mean, she even miaowed a couple of times to demonstrate catspeak.
-A listener wanted Fukuyama Jun to guest on the show… I want that too. There’s a special corner named after his perverted Leopard cube-thingy where listeners send in stories weird personality traits or strange happenings and MAKO evaluates them by giving out Leopard Points for weirdness.
-$%^$%&%^& Ali Project’s RaraHaha Whatever is such a hideous song^%$^ it makes me want to bang my head against a brick wall $%@#
-The chat with the Sunrise producer is boring as hell.
-MAKO wants to start the 小学生 (elementary schooler) club. Take that, Inoue Kikuko!
-Please read MAKO’s newly set-up blog !

Minakike Okaeri #1 & #2

-Chihara Minori wasn’t around when they recorded this pair of episodes back in December, she had to ‘make a trip’ somewhere (Taiwan tour?), but sent Fujioka the bear in her absence complete with pre-recorded messages. Sato Rina and Inoue Marina could press a button to make Fujioka talk, and they kept pressing it. And tried to eat him.
-I think Marina deliberately ran into the studio’s mics when she entered the room (ep #2), she sounded so happy when she declared herself a ‘dojikko’
-They played hanetsuki with the hagoita (see above, right) they got from a stupid riddle game provided by Minorin… Marina also insulted Minorin’s intelligence:
Rina : Minorin is so smart to have thought of this (game).
Marina : Oh I’m pretty sure they (the staff) just had her read it off a paper.
-Minorin Quiz! Rina & Marina obviously know… not a whole lot about Minorin =_=
#1 : What’s Minorin’s ambition for 2009?
Rina : (To have a) Minamike live at Tokyo Dome.
Marina : (To have) Minamike season 4.
Answer : To climb Mount Fuji.
#2 : What’s Minorin’s favourite animal?
Rina & Marina : (amidst hysterical laughter) Bolivia bug!
Answer : Dog
#3 : What is the food that Chihara Minori wants to eat right now?
Rina & Marina : Motsu ebi nabe (shrimp hotpot)
Answer : Yude ebi (boiled shrimp)
#4 : What is Minorin’s weakness?
Rina & Marina : None
Answer : None
-They were talking about further manga adventures of Sensei & Ninomiya-kun, and possible themes… Minorin suggested a BL theme, but the discussion then turned into a battle fantasy space adventure… or something.
-Marina also said she was discussing yuri & BL relationships in the recording studio (with Minorin + KitaEri).
-Marina wants KitaEri (Erize-sensei) to help out with the manga, which obviously makes sense – I prefer Eri’s art to Marina’s anyway.
-Sensei & Ninomiya-kun are definitely NOT appearing in Minami-ke Okaeri anime (Marina says so).

Marimite Radio #6 – New Season Special

-Guest was Ito Shizuka. This episode’s snack menu was pizza (from the Marimite Pizza Hut tie-up campaign) and champagne.
-Shizuka & Ueda Kana were discussing what they were going to do during the holidays. Shizuka says she wanted to go on an onsen trip with her mother who’s retiring soon, but she had a fight with her at the end of the year and they haven’t spoken to each other since. And Shizuka said she had actually turned down a trip to Guam with Toyoguchi Megumi to go on holiday with her mum…
-Kana went snowboarding in Hokkaido with Shimizu Kaori and Kuwatani Natsuko around the New Year holidays
-They reminisced about how they haven’t really changed over the 5+ years since the first season of Marimite.
-Shizuka’s No.1 aim for 2009 is to NOT have an argument with Kana (because she knows too many of her secrets). No.2 aim to act more like an adult. Last year’s plan was to stop drinking so much alcohol, but that was ‘impossible’.
-Kana says she didn’t drink much in 2008, and Shizuka said ‘You’re lying!!’ but Kana insists it was because drinking alcohol made her fat.
-The drama part of the episode was the second part of the Hitsuji ga Ippiki Saku Koete story from Variety Gift (volume 16), which focuses on Noriko. I’m not a huge fan of Noriko’s so I spaced out listening to it.. it won’t be in the anime anyway (thankfully).

Maria Holic Radio – Ame no Kisaki Hosobu #3

-Dur dur, anything with Kobayashi Yu in it is bound to be a complete mess.
-There is no chemistry here (but then Yu has no chemistry with anyone but herself), it’s like pairing up a gorilla with a hamster.
-Winter holiday reports: Sanada Asami spent her time lazing around under a kotatsu watching the nice scenery from her family home in Hakone.
-Kobayashi spent it eating tatemaki and hit her head somewhere, showing off a big bruise to Asa-nee,
Yu : I’m so honoured to have Asa-nee touch my bruise.
Asa-nee : (wails) OMG, I can feel it. Please get better soon…
-They were talking about stuff they were currently into, clothes etc:
Yu : Those earmuffs look good on you…
Asa : They’re called headphones. You’re wearing them too.
……
….
..
I give up right here, right now.

Akikan Radio – Melon. Najimi no Sparkling Kiss #1
-Hosted by Narita Sayaka & Toyosaki Aki… which is not good for my ears, because they both have naturally high-pitched voices. Eek.
-2:45-No, this is as even more painful than watching the anime. I’m bailing out.

Others I listened to but failed to find a single interesting thing to say about them: Asu no Yoichi Radio, Regios no Radiosu, Kurokami Radio. I think SoraKake radio should be fine for the occasional listen – not too often lest I melt from too much sugary MAKO. Marimite and Minakike were already on my radar anyway, but nothing else immediately appeals from the winter shows which suits me just fine since my schedule is already quite packed.

This has been all over internet news and message boards for the past few days – at first I didn’t think much of Kana’s supposedly offensive comments when I heard it on Marunage, but news spreads quickly over the internet & people start making a big fuss. When ’something a seiyuu said’ starts making the mainstream news sites… you know it’s time for a public apology.

The incident:
During the Marunage show that aired on 7th December, the two hosts (Ueda & Shimizu Kaori) were chatting away as they usually do when Kana brought up something that had happened to her/them recently. Basically Kana and Kaori were in a train minding their own business. Kana had put down her empty canned drink on the seat next to her, intending to dispose of it after she disembarked when a middle-aged man (oyaji) came over and more or less ‘told her off’ for leaving rubbish around.

That pissed Kana off and she started ranting about it on the radio, stating her now much quoted ‘このオヤジを社会的に抹殺したい’ ([I] want to socially erase this oyaji) and going on to discuss with Kaori ways to humiliate said old geezer because ‘it was his fault’ for embarassing them. For example, trying to attract attention by screaming and/or asking for ‘help’ from the station attendant/railway guards, or faking a call to the police telling them to wait at the next station because they had ‘run into a bit of trouble’. Generally, not very nice things to say on a mainstream radio station (Radio Kansai) programme, albeit at 1am in the morning.

The apology:
…after a week’s worth of criticism, the latest Marunage episode has the duo apologising for the comments that ‘may have made some people uncomfortable’, giving a less exaggerated account of the incident – that they had encountered a drunk man on the train who made unpleasant comments to them, and no matter how angry they felt at the moment, they should not have said what they said. And dragged out the old ‘まだまだ未熟ですが、ご声援いただければと思います’ (aka I’m still stupidly inexperienced and am very sorry, please don’t blacklist me!) plea.

The short clip of their comments was taken off Youtube by Radio Kansai, and all the weekly uploads of the show on Nico Nico Douga have been wiped out. Keep your mouth shut (or stop drinking before you record the show) girls, mmmkay?

Personally it was all bullshitting to me, given both Kana & Kaori’s tendencies to let their mouths run away, but I guess with anything & everything public figures in Japan say getting pulled apart (lol politicians) these days, it’s best not to make any un-PC comments.

Seen on Excite and Yahoo news.