I love REALIZE, but less so BE NAKED – not my kind of music.

In an earlier post, I noted that Kitamura didn’t seem 100% pleased with the direction Lantis has chosen for her solo career. Which is understandable, given that they’ve essentially decided to send her down the pop-rock route when her own tastes in music lean towards r ‘n’ b, dance, denpa songs and Mizuki Nana. Not the greatest ingredients for success I guess, so maybe Lantis know what they’re on about.

Just touching a little more on her music tastes – KitaEri has a bit more freedom on her ChoRaji show and gets to choose a couple of her own tracks at times & I’ve discovered a couple of artists via her recommendations. I probably would never have checked out people like Aira Mitsuki or Nao’ymt of my own accord, given my non-involvement with the J-music scene of late. She still maintains her otaku leanings with Nana, Katamari Damacy music and Kalafina though.

Kitamura’s short-lived first bite of the solo career cherry came back in 2004 (at the age of 17) under Pony Canyon, where she released two singles – Before the Moment and Tsuyogari. I thought they both sucked, so I paid no attention. It was probably when she sang Yume Oboro for Touka Gettan that I began reconsidering her singing skills. Then came Rasen + the Seigura Hyakka Seiran CD and I was sold.

KitaEri estimates REALIZE to be her fourth single – たぶん４枚目になるニューシングル♪ were her exact words, but I’m not sure what she’s referring to as the third single though. Aoki Kioku from the Kowloon Treasure Juvenile PS2 game? Or Yume Oboro (which also had Ise Mariya & Hayami Saori on it)?

At least she’s not trying to cover up her past ^^; I’m not sure what she thinks when she watches things like the Before the Moment PV above.

Aoki Kioku is one of her lesser known songs but is worth a listen as it’s pretty close to the rock stuff she’s doing now.

It’d be a pretty good achievement if Kitamura manages to sell a thousand copies of REALIZE since it has no tie-ins and there’s very, very little promotion for it so far bar the odd anime radio plug. Guess Lantis doesn’t have high hopes for her, since it takes an age to find info about the single on their site.

So Kitamura should aim to:
1.Sell 1000 copies of REALIZE
which would hopefully lead to:
2.An official website
3.An album
4.Feature in Animelo in the future
I can dream, can’t I?

Note: The audio player plugin may not work if you’re using Firefox 3 and have Flash 9.0.124 installed [at least it doesn't work with mine. Doesn't work with Flash 10 either, no idea what's up with it. Works fine in Opera & IE though...]

My copy of REALIZE, along with a belated purchase of her Seto no Hanayome character CD, is stuck in the post office cos there was no one at home to sign for the package today *weep*sob*sniff* Oh well. At least I won’t have to open the packaging for either CD now.

More coherent thoughts on this tomorrow.

Shion’s Diary
30 December 2007

OMG OMG! I finally got to meet KitaEri, the voice behind the mega-sexy loli girl Rin, kyaaa!! A miracle has occured at Comic Market!!

7th April 2008

After four months of pestering KitaEri every single day, she finally agreed to a date, kyaaa!! But why are there two other idiots there T_T *sniff* Why does she show so much interest in people like Mizuki Nana, Inoue Marina & Chihara Minori, trying desperately to collect their phone numbers when she knows that they’ll never return her love? She could have someone like me!! Waaaaahhhh~~~

15th April
Dokidoki~~ I think my charms are finally working on her, kyaaa!! OK, deep breath! It’s do or die for me now, here’s my gattai confession!! Cross my fingers, I hope she reads this…

24th April

…(((( ;゜д゜)))アワワワ KitaEri invited me to be a guest on her radio show in two weeks’ time! I’m ready to vomit blood now. Pass me a bucket!

5th May

Kyaaa!! The big day is here!!! I can’t wait to see Eri in her apron get-up *dribble*drool* We had a meal before the show and I can’t stop thinking about her… cleavage! I’m going to use my newly-acquired Geass technique to make her fall in love with me, hahahaha!!

Success!!

6th May

I think Eri’s worked her own Geass on me too, suddenly I’m addicted to Monster Hunter…

KitaEri’s Diary
30 December 2007
I met this strange girl today at Comic Market called…Shion? We’ve exchanged a couple of mails, but this is the first time we’ve seen each other face to face. Boy, she’s a bit excitable isn’t she? But I don’t mind since she’s a personal friend of (Kadowaki) Maita and (Shindo) Kei. Hmm, she’s a bit of an otaku too…wait. Come to think of it, isn’t she a bit like me?

19th January 2008

Minorin let me take a picture with her!!! I want to vomit blood!

30th January
All alone with Marina…she doesn’t seem to like me getting too close to her though, sigh.

5th February
I’ve been ill all week, as has Marina. Did I get too close to her, and spread all my icky germs?

19th February
I got Minorin’s handphone number!!! Lalalalala~~~~

14th March
Way to go, another cutie’s handphone number collected! Tomatsu Haruka’s this time \[^o^]/

8th April

Ah, I went on a date with a bunch of other people and I met that Shion person again. Actually she’s pretty cute.

9th April
Another attempt to draw Marina closer to me fails miserably. I’m losing hope.

10th April
Minorin repels my advances too. Sigh, I’m getting desperate now.

15th April
Ooh, that Shion person wrote into my radio show and made a love confession. Since she seems to be in love with my moe Yui and Uchida voices, I’ll oblige her by doing them on the show. I’m starting to think she’s really cute now…

16th April

I went back to my mom’s place (to see my dear dog) and she gave me some advice: Darling, don’t be too picky or you’ll end up alone at 80 with nothing but your broken PSP to accompany you.

24th April
After a week of pondering, I decide to invite Shion onto my radio show.

5th May

The appointed day is here, but I’m pissed off. I lost one of my PSPs!! #$%^#@ Oh, Shion’s here in the studio now. What’s that funny pose she’s doing, she looks like Zero from Code Gea…..

Yes, my Lord!

6th May

I found my PSP!!! Shion must be my good luck charm! I’ll keep her around a bit, make her my pet and force her to play Monster Hunter with me.

And so, Shion and Eri lived happily ever after.

But yeah, anyone who listened to KitaEri’s Cho Raji episode from the 5th of May would probably have gotten the urge to tell them “Go rent a room already!!” Plenty of panting, plenty of raburabu talk and plenty of Code Geass chat.

The duo get on well for various reasons, but I guess the main thing that ties them together is their otakuism levels (i.e. very high). So being otaku themselves, they know what sort of service their fans like and yeah, pretending to be yuriyuri is part of it Also helps perhaps, that Shion is about as much of a mental case as KitaEri is. See above (and below).

Judging by the pic above, Shion likes (self) yaoi too? She’s also addicted to the Aquarian Age card game and regularly posts about it.

She worships Kenshin too, as well as Chiaki-sempai (the one from Nodame Cantabile).

I used to know Shion only as ‘the one who went to Disneyland with Shimizu Ai’, but thanks to KitaEri, I’ve discovered that hey! There’s somebody else apart from Eri who’s a bit of an otaku, has a few loose screws in the head and can imitate Goto Saori/Kadowaki Maii absolutely perfectly & loves going to Akiba. Shion needs more exposure!

Listen (Nico Nico Douga):
Cho Raji #61
Read:
Shion’s blog
KitaEri’s blog

Stalking

Remember last time when I said KitaEri made a ‘glowing’ (read: obsessed) report about attending Mizuki Nana’s Saitama live? Well, one of Nana-sama’s staff members told her about it, and Nana then recorded a message for KitaEri’s ChoRaji show (ep #48) and the radio staff played it back without Kitamura knowing in advance. Nana recalled how they first met during the Minami-ke recordings; KitaEri told her that she knew of Nana from watching Sister Princess (lol), and that she loved POWER GATE and so on. Kitamura sounded so happy I swear she was about to burst into tears.

Inoue Marina and Chihara Minori, the other two unfortunate victims of Kitamura’s obssessions continue to be plagued by her unwanted attention. Last week’s Minami-ke no Minakike radio show had Kitamura as a guest and she spent half the time taking photos of Minorin but none of poor unphotogenic, unloved Sato Rina XD

There was also a get-together for the Minami-ke seiyuu cast about 2 weeks ago and KitaEri spent most of the time hounding poor Marina, no doubt. In her blog Kitamura mentions that she was so excited to be with Marina that she couldn’t talk properly and that when the two of them were finally alone, she got Marina to sing her an acapella version of Beautiful Story. Hardly the most romantic choice, is it?

Live Karaoke

Listening to ChoRaji is never boring – it can turn up some of the most bizarre moments, like when Kitamura plays one of her own songs, or songs from anime series she’s been in. Thrice so far, she’s either sung along to the song on air or added her own ad-libs and imitations – the amazing thing is that it’s all done live.

Rasen is probably my favourite KitaEri song – it’s Shiranui Akeno’s (Seto no Hanayome) charasong. She already sounds awesome on record but if you fast forward to about 3:00 in the clip above, you can hear her randomly singing along to the song – pretty darn good 0_o


The two clips above are of KitaEri going crazy and imitating all the characters from the shows involved – the first is Katamichi Catchball from Potemayo (you can hear Hatsushiba, Pote, Guchuko, Nene etc) and the second is Hanamaru Sensation from Kodomo no Jikan (perfect imitation of Kadowaki Maii!). The echoing sounds she does in Katamichi are crazy -_- If there was any justice, she’d win Best Personality at next year’s Seiyuu Awards but of course it ain’t gonna happen.

Bought a new Mac

To add to her collection of toys which now includes a PS2, an XBOX360, at least two DSes, a PSP and a Wii. I always hear stories of how poor seiyuu are, so I wonder where the heck KitaEri gets all the money to support her exorbitant spending habits from :/

Building a harem

Despite displaying stalker tendencies, Minorin, Nana and Marina have yet to put a restraining order on KitaEri In an attempt to console herself for being unable to entice the trio to the dark side, Kitamura Eri is trying to assemble a harem of her own, although it’s made up of lesser-known seiyuu – she must’ve brainwashed them into worshipping her somehow XD She’s even passed on her methods of harassment to Ohara Momoko and Morinaga Rika (as seen above).

L-R: Ohara Momoko, KitaEri, Hirota Shion, Akiyama Kaoru
Ohara Momoko (Momo for short) is who KitaEri calls kakkoii/ikemen (i.e. she looks like a guy), and Kaoru is the another one who fulfills her meganekko fetish. And Shion…oh, Shion XD

Hirota Shion

One of KitaEri’s latest obsessions – Shion, or simply ‘Nu’ as she calls her. They first met at Winter Comiket last year as I mentioned here, but they seem to be getting on very well these days – Hirota has this fixation over Kitamura’s Yui (from Koharu Biyori) voice for some reason. For once, KitaEri has someone fapping over her instead of she herself fapping over somebody else. But the feeling’s probably mutual since Kitamura was talking about buying her an Utena (engagement) ring.

This picture of KitaEri’s…boobs was taken by Hirota. Er yeah, well Shion is a bit on the flat side. She protested that people (referring to KitaEri, Momo etc) shouldn’t laugh at her after touching her chest, and asked all of them to donate one (bra) size to her.

Anyway, Shion posted a blog entry dedicated to KitaEri the other day:
キタエリかわいいよキタエリ (KitaEri Kawaii yo KitaEri)
私のことが大好きなのがよく伝わってきた!! (I got the message that (you) love me!!)
あなたと合体したい!! (I want to gattai* with you!!)
あなたと合体したい!! (I want to gattai with you!!)
あああああむしろキタエリと合体したいいいぃいぃぃぃいい (Aaaaaah or should I say, I want to gattai with KitaEriiiiiiiiii)

キタエリ好きだよキタエリ (KitaEri suki dayo KitaEri)
…..
あああああああ萌えた萌えた (Aaaaaaah moeta moeta)
…….
ピーポーピーポーピーポー (Piipo x3 – ambulance sounds)
オカアサンアタシモウダメ (Dear mother, I am beyond saving)
*gattai usually refers to the act of mecha merging together.

Shindou Kei & Kadowaki Maii

The Kojika trio have formed a strong bond – Maita and Eri are like twins (Eri is obviously the evil one), and Shindo is the black sheep of the family.

The one that got away: Asumi Kana

So yeah, as I’ve mentioned before – on Buso Shinki Radio KitaEri asked Asumin to marry her (結婚しようよ！) and got a flat NO (嫌だ。) in return. Oh, the heartbreak.

And that’s it for another few months in KitaEri-land. See you next time!

There is some good news in the form of a revival of the Gurren Lagann radio show hosted by Kakihara Tetsuya and Inoue Marina, this time on Radio Osaka and also JOQR in the graveyard slot of 26:30 Saturdays. Who the hell stays up to listen to radio at that hour apart from insomniacs, I wonder. Apparently, the show is supposed to promote releases and merchandise but wait. They’re surely not gonna run a radio show that broadcasts on major AM stations just for the purpose of talking about new Kamina toys and Boota plushies? Expect some sort of major announcement in the future…..maybe.

Illnesses
Still, it seems Marina’s cold was so bad it landed her in bed for half of last week with a 40℃ fever, and only returned to work yesterday. I suspected she was sick anyway, what with her not having posted anything on her blog for 3-4 days. What with all the bad weather in China, Japan and the UK it sure makes me glad I live in a country where it’s baking hot all year ’round.

Funnily enough, Kitamura Eri was also sick last week. Now if you cast your mind back a few days ago, I posted about KitaEri’s mental breakdown over Inoue Marina. So the first thought that crossed my mind when I heard that KitaEri was ill too was It was the zenzai. And of course, observant 2channel posters also put 2+2 together – one of the duo must have spread their germs to the other. ‘Indirect kiss’, as someone called it.

Happy Birthday
Tomatsu Haruka is no longer 17-years old, hah. Her long blog post commemorating her 18th birthday was full of nostalgia, reflecting on her short life so far from birth right up until today. It actually made a very nice read, and I’d love to translate it except that I’m not even supposed to be typing these words now given that I’m sitting at my office table, supposedly typing up a report. Oops. Otanjobi omedeto, Tomato-tan!

Starcamp EP
Is officially out tomorrow but managed to survive an ultra early leak, oddly. I haven’t gotten around to listening to it yet, but NINKI numbers look surprisingly high. Nana-chan hasn’t ever had figures above 60 before IIRC. Still, she’s destined to only chart (optimistically) at No.3 or No.4 – maybe No.5 or 6 if Ohashi Takuya (Sukimaswitch frontman), TVXQ and Aoyama Thelma sell strong strongly on the back of their numerous TV appearances. KAT-TUN and Yuzu should easily grab the No.1 and No.2 spots respectively, or Japan has ended.

So while Marina’s eating zenzai, Kitamura’s busy taking photos of her with her inner monologue going:

マリーナ可愛いぉ(*´д｀*)ハァハァ (Marina’s soooo cute…pant, pant)

心の猛吐血、マリーナにバレてないでしょーか。 (I hope Marina doesn’t notice my heart’s severe blood loss)

(つд・｀ ) 　チラ (Flutter)

ドキドキ。 (Heart throbbing)

At this rate, OtaEri will need not only a blood transfusion but multiple organ transplants. It only happens with certain people though. She can have a perfectly uneventful, non-blood loss inducing lunch with Nakao Eri, who I hesitate to say, is not as cute as Marina. I wonder how Eri survives recordings for Minami-ke since Marina, Chihara Minori and Mizuki Nana are all there.

Kitamura Eri’s blood type is A. You can forward all blood donations to:

Kaleidoscope Inc.
〒152-8799
Meguro, Tokyo
Japan

And then there are the mad ones who wanted to be seiyuu since they were kids, working hard at achieving their dreams so that they could one day bring their favourite animated characters to life. This is the life story of such a person, who describes being a seiyuu as ‘a way of life’ (生き様) and something she feels privileged to do….

…..なんちゃって。(As if). Actually, that was originally the intro to the Kitamura Eri profile I wrote some 7 months ago which I ended up discarding because it sounded lame. Still, I ended up saving the whole thing just in case I found a chance to use it someday… so there you are ^^;;

Moving on, I feel that KitaEri generally doesn’t get enough coverage (on English language sites anyway) and since I appear to be one of her few religious followers…. I’ll do my best to cover what she’s up to once in a while, in the vain hope of converting others.

Seijin Shiki – Coming of Age

KitaEri turned 20 last August, so her coming-of-age ceremony (成人の日 falls on every second Monday in January) was this year. Unfortunately she spent most of the actual day at work as her 90-minute live ChoRaji radio program falls on Mondays, so she couldn’t wear a kimono – the pic from above was taken a few days later.

Kitamura also appeared with fellow Seijin Shiki-er Akesaka Satomi on Anispa the Saturday before Seijin no Hi. There they discussed turning 20, shared tips on how to act like an adult in strange situations and also promoted Koharu Biyori, the anime they’re actively involved with now. Kitamura complained that she looked old standing next to Ake-chan, with people telling her ‘I thought you were around 25 years old’.

To mark her ‘coming of age’, Kitamura has moved out of her parents’ house (Or maybe they kicked her out cos there was too much manga lying around…..) That got me thinking – which seiyuu still live at home with their families? Obviously, most of those who weren’t born in Tokyo live on their own – the likes of Shintani Ryoko, Chihara Minori, Asumi Kana etc. Ueda Kana lives with her younger sister, and Nakahara Mai & Saito Chiwa live with their cats. Of the Tokyo-born (or nearby areas) seiyuu, the likes of Kadowaki Maii, Nazuka Kaori and Goto Saori live on their own while the ones who still live at home include Inoue Marina, Kobayashi Yu and Takagaki Ayahi. Oh, and Nakagawa Shoko lives with her mother too.

Back on topic…..

OtaEri
Manga + Otaku Speech

Kitamura appears to spend much of her spare cash on manga and games – she has a PSP and two DS Lites. Some of that stuff above includes upcoming the manga of spring anime Amatsuki (she had a role in the drama CD), horror manga Satanister and Senki Senki Momotama by Chrono Nanae (Peacemaker Kurogane).

On ChoRaji and also on her blog, KitaEri employs frequent usage of otaku/2ch speak, though not quite on Shoko-tan-making-up-her-own-speech-levels. サーセン instead of すみません, all those silly 〃(*o´∪`)o〃 emoticons and real-life panting/fapping (ハアハア) are all in constant use. In real life, Eri tends to talk at the speed of a bullet train, is really, really LOUD and hyperactive (テンション高い in Japanese) and tends to confuse unsuspecting radio show hosts with her over-the-top mannerisms and general weirdness, causing everything to descend into chaos. Only people like Asumi Kana (her Buso Shinki Radio co-host) know how to handle her properly….

Kitamura also went to Winter Comic Market for a Kojika (Kodomo no Jikan) event, and ended up mingling around with other attendees including two seiyuu from the Idolmaster booth – Takahashi Chiaki and Imai Asami as seen above. She also lined up for yuri PC game Solfege’s signing event, bought the two ave;new albums and met seiyuu Hirota Shion (a good friend of Kadowaki Mai and Shimizu Ai) for the first time at the Comic High booth, although they’d spoken regularly over the phone prior to that….. Kitamura also apologised on her blog to anyone who was traumatised by her constantly screaming 買って下さい御主人様 (Please buy this, My Master) and おっとな～！ (Adult! – it’s a Kojika catchphrase) at random passers-by.

Seiyuu Obsessions

Strangely, Kitamura sort of worships Chihara Minori which is bizarre when you consider that KitaEri actually beat Minorin to the Gold Prize in the Pony Canyon Voice Artist & Singer auditions back in 2003 (as mentioned in the profile). There is an age gap of 7 years between the two of them… Still, it took 4 years before the duo got a chance to work together (in last year’s Ikkitousen: Dragon Destiny).

They can currently be heard in the Minami-ke series as classmates Chiaki and Uchida (as seen above). Incidentally Uchida is the only character in the series apart from the members of the two Minami families who has a full name (Uchida Yuka) – everyone else is only known by their first name (Keiko, Makoto) or surname (Fujioka, Hosaka).

And of course, there’s her fixation with Mizuki Nana – referring to her alternately as Nana-sama and God (神) and going into (´Д｀；)ハアハア mode everytime she talks about Nana-chan. ‘Vomiting blood’ (吐血) and ‘fainting in agony’ (悶絶) are terms Kitamura commonly uses to describe her feelings for objects of her affection i.e. 千秋声で ‘内田～’ と言ってもらえて、悶絶吐血をしてた。“When I got her[referring to Minorin] to say ‘Uchida~’ using Chiaki’s voice, I vomited blood and fainted in agony”. . . . . I’ll make a mental note to add those terms to my vocabulary.

Kitamura went with Morinaga Rika to the Saitama leg of Nana’s Live Formula tour, and met up with a bunch of other seiyuu in the VIP section (Fukuen Misato, Matsuki Miyu, Toyoguchi Megumi and Noto Mamiko were the names mentioned). KitaEri spent an episode of ChoRaji relating her experiences; about how they got lost on their way to their seats and about how she wished she was standing in the crowd with the rest of the fans so she could wave a penlight around. Kitamura also really likes Okui Masami and wants to one day, hold live shows as powerful and energetic as Makkun’s.

Potemayo!
Oh yes, and Kitamura is a fairly decent seiyuu too if you didn’t already know; very versatile – her voice tends to be pretty hard to ID at times – can you tell that Saya from Blood+, Rin from Kojika and Sunyao from Potemayo are voiced by the same person? Eri is good at imitations too – witness her versions of Kugimiya Rie’s Nene, Mudo, Hatsushiba & Guchuko from Potemayo during her guest appearance on MayoRadio (Cheers D, for the tip-off about this episode):

Random Stuff
1.Eri to Satomi no Hentai desuka?
A little mention for the Koharu Biyori radio show, which is this month’s Chara Radio special feature. KitaEri and Ake-chan were thinking of a word to fill the blank in the title of the show – ‘Eri & Satomi no ____ desuka?’ Kitamura suggested ‘oppai’ (boobs) which of course, Akesaka vetoed.
2.Kitamura’s allergic to cats but loves them anyway.
3.You can hear Eri as Cinnamon in the quirky Noramimi, a role that requires her to speak in a Kansai accent despite her telling the sound director she didn’t have a clue how to do one. So she’s getting speed lectures from another Eri – the Kobe-born Nakao Eri aka Nakaopro who voices Naomi in the show.
4.Final Fantasy>Dragon Quest, according to Kitamura. But like 98% of female seiyuu, she is obsessed with Monster Hunter.

Ah, the joys of being a KitaEri fan. It makes me feel better about (the possibility of) being called a female otaku when I look at her ^^;;