j1m0ne’s blog

I haven’t covered anime/seiyuu radio shows in much depth of late, despite listening to a boatload of them to while away the hours at work. Laziness, I suppose. Kobayashi Yu seems to be everywhere lately…

A Recipe for World Destruction?

In one of the most bizarre pairings for an anime radio show ever, veteran Furuya Tohru (Amuro Ray in Gundam) will team up with Kobayashi Yu (Setsuna in Negima) to host World Destruction ~Sekai Hoso Iinkai~, which will start its run on July 3 on Animate.tv, a couple of days before the anime airs. Perhaps the producers are hoping that Kobayashi, known for her frequent outbursts on her own chaotic radio show Kobayashi Yu no Bunmei, will bring some life to the show. Why they didn’t choose Ono Daisuke or Yoshino Hiroyuki instead of Furuya I’ll never know.

Zettai Karen Children Radio - Hirano Too Busy?

The radio show is finally kicking off, but without Hirano Aya things look a bit odd. You’ve got two girls…and an oyaji? Hirano must be busy gearing up for her upcoming album release… we’ll find out next week if the Shirashi Ryoko, Tomatsu Haruka & Kosugi Jurota combination works. Kosugi already has experience with young girls, hosting Sake to Bara no Hibi with Nonaka Ai.

Kobaspa!

Kobayashi won a public vote by Anispa! listeners as the ‘Most Wanted Guest’ and she was given 45 minutes to make a complete arse of herself. This is the second time in the show’s history that they’ve changed the name of the show to massage the ego of the guest, the first being (Mizuki) Nanaspa!

Anyway, Kobayashi took over the show and turned it into a complete mess of random skits and mutterings, and also produced one of the most piercing shrieks ever heard on live radio (listen above). She also mock-interviewed the two regular hosts and forced them to explain why their unit name was ‘milk rings’ (explanation: Asano Masumi says it derives from one of her many bizarre nicknames, 乳輪声優 . 乳輪 itself means areola, 声優 being seiyuu so she just translated each kanji into English - 乳 is milk and 輪 is ring). It was entertaining stuff, but an awful experience for my ears.

Kojima Hideo Radio - HideRajiZ

Metal Gear Solid creator Kojima Hideo has been hosting his own radio show for quite some time, but it’s now undergone a rebranding from HIDECHAN! Radio to the more macho HideRajiZ, moving to Onsen in the process. The old show featured semi-regular appearances by the likes of Inoue Kikuko & Ohtsuka Akio (voice of Solid Snake) but Majima Junji (Ogami Soma in Kannazuki no Miko, Aoki Daisuke in Kojika) is now permanently employed as his assistant. I don’t really bother listening to HideRajiZ since I’m no MGS fan, but this week’s episode had Kobayashi Yu on as a guest, and she impressed Kojima with her pig and monkey imitations.

Kannagi Radio

The anime is only coming in October, but the radio show has already started broadcasting on an irregular schedule. For some reason, the host line-up is an equally bizarre combination of director Yamamoto Yutaka (the one who got fired after 4 episodes of Lucky Star), scriptwriter Kurata Hideyuki and seiyuu Tomatsu Haruka.

It’s usually the seiyuu who do the anime radio shows, so dunno what’s up with Kannagi’s case. Ego trip for the director? Yamamoto, more commonly known as Yamakan, spoke briefly about his sacking in the first episode albeit in a very joking manner and half of what he said was bleeped out. I’m pretty sure the XXXX OVA that they were talking about was Lucky Star…

I actually felt sorry for poor Tomatsu, the confused non-otaku forced to laugh along with the insults and nerdy jokes from Yamamoto & Kurata. We did at least learn that her current favourite manga is Hunter X Hunter (character: Killua), but she’s only been really getting into reading since she entered university earlier this year. Tomatsu’s knowledge of anime & manga is dreadfully poor, but she is currently reading Kannagi and had Full Metal Alchemist enthusiastically recommended to her by Kyoran Kazoku Nikki compatriots Kitamura Eri and Hanazawa Kana.

Radio xxxHOLiC Kei

I’m surprised that they’ve started up a radio show for xxxHOLiC at this stage, he end of the second season. But there is joy (for me) in hearing yet another unconventional pair-up, this time of Ohara Sayaka (Yuko) and Kikuchi Mika (Mokona). Mostly because I’m a Mikatard of course. The show only runs fortnightly, and I’m hopeful they’ll get Ito Shizuka on as a guest some time (Kojima Kazuko has been on).

The show’s content itself isn’t the most exciting thing you’ll ever hear, but Sayaka & Mika know each other well enough to avoid those awkward silences you tend to get on other radio shows. Ohara still failed in her quest to get Mika to call her ‘Saaya~~’ though. She kept protesting because Mika calls Fukuyama Jun ‘Jun-kun’ and Ito Shizuka ‘Shizuka-chan’ but still calls Ohara the more polite ‘Sayaka-san’. Sayaka protested, calling it ‘discrimination’ but Kikuchi insisted it was out of respect for someone she (& Makino Yui) thought of as on onee-sama. Oh, and listening to the second episode today I was reminded that Ohara speaks pretty good English, which was pretty cool.

I also tried Sekirei & Ikkitousen radio but they put me to sleep. Kyoran Kazoku Nikki’s radio show however, continues to be thoroughly entertaining.

Chiaki, Chiaki…sigh.

Oh, and this is probably completely unrelated, but having been on a bit of a Takahashi Chiaki kick of late I’ve been checking out some of her live performances with Kuribayashi Minami. I tend to call the two of them ero-obasan, especially Chiaki who reminds me of Koda Kumi…not sure that’s a good thing. Anyway, I was watching KATAOMOI (above) and Chiaki’s hip shaking is um…annoying T_T She looks like a pendulum swinging back and forth >_> rather than being hypnotized, I get a queasy feeling in my stomach. But she can sing though. I might as well mention here that Chiaki’s recorded a song with production team Elements Garden (Mizuki Nana, Chihara Minori) called Choshinsei-Supernova- in celebration of Dengeki Daioh’s recent renewal.

Two minor announcements - first of all, I will not be doing a summer anime preview (don’t think anyone will miss it anyway) because I’m not really interested in most of the shows this season. I might have a look at the seiyuu side (cast pics etc) if I feel up to it. Secondly, I’ll be away for the weekend so wish me luck on surviving three days without internet, heh. I’m going to use the time to catch up on some DS gaming - must finish Ninja Gaiden dammit plus I’m gonna give Summon Night & Lego Indiana Jones a go, heh. Will also attempt to see how long I last playing Breath Toiki wa Akaneiro (some visual novel that has Noto Mamiko & Inoue Marina in it) before my brain explodes [Hint: I find visual novels as interesting as watching paint dry].

Posted on June 20th, 2008 under misc, radio • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback