Mizuki Nana, Toyoguchi Megumi etc to Go Kart Racing for 7 Hours?
I vaguely read about Mizuki Nana being involved in some sort of kart racing event a few months back but didn’t really bother to find out the details until now.
So, details: A bunch of seiyuu will be spending the 3rd of August in a 7-hour endurance 4-stroke kart race on Twin Ring Motegi in Tochigi. Looking at the entry list on the Motegi KART Taikyu Festival “K-TAI” website, there are four teams featuring various seiyuu and anime staffers. Funnily enough, all teams have Pokemon-related names – Robot Racing (RR) Sheimi, RR Rocket-dan; RR Pikachu and RR Regigigas.
The Pokemon anime sound director Mima Masafumi is in Team Robot Racing Rocket-dan, along with seiyuu Namikawa Daisuke & Miki Shinichiro as well as HALF H.P soundman Hirano Nobuhira, all involved in Pokemon in one way or the other.
I took a look at the girls’ team - Robot Racing Sheimi features the following people:
川上倫子 (Kawakami Tomoko’s name in kanji, she was in Pokemon)
間取美帆 (Matori Miho, an OLM staffer)
豊口めぐみ (Toyoguchi Megumi, was in Pokemon)
近藤奈々 (Kondo Nana, Mizuki Nana’s real name)
A little digging into the other Pokemon-themed teams reveals a bunch of amateur karters and OLM staff. OLM as in the animation studio Oriental Light and Magic, responsible for Pokemon and a bunch of other anime (Utawarerumono, Steel Angel Kurumi etc). That still didn’t solve the question of why Mizuki Nana is involved since I can’t recall her being related with Pokemon or OLM in any way…
A bit more digging reveals the full details – it’s Techno Sound-sponsored Pokemon-named karts! Mima Masafumi’s the president of Techno Sound, a sound production company that is involved with anime such as Gundam 00, Macross Frontier and World Destruction. Not to mention the NHK anime Allison & Lilia, which Mima happens to be sound-supervising – and who’s the lead seiyuu in Allison & Lillia? Yeah, Mizuki Nana. Turns out Mima heard that Nana was interested in cars/driving and invited her to take part. And she agreed, so that completed the girls’ team.
So we get pics of Nana (and the others) in racing gear, wooh. Turns out various members of the teams have been training for the event, most notably Miki-san, who is known to be a big racing fan.
This is the second year Techno Sound are participating in the K-TAI event (which started in 2000) - Namikawa and Miki were also involved last year. There’s also a special radio show featuring Mima, Toyoguchi, Kawakami and Miki where they talk about how they got into karting.
So there you are. The dirty details about why Mizuki Nana will be stuck in a kart for many hours on a hot Sunday on the 3rd August – probably not 7 hours in a row, I’m sure that as a team they’ll have to take turns or something. Hopefully she won’t suffocate in her helmet…
I’m actually more amused by the fact that they had to register the participants under their real names, which is why we ended up with Kondo Nana on the list ^^;
July 21st, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Lol after so many years..Kondo Nana is “back in town”. XD
Kinda cool though the fact that there’s a kart racing competition going on. Now I wish they would like film it up and make a DVD or something XD. Idiot like me will buy it solely to watch Kondo Nana racing hehehe…
July 21st, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Okay, so when the new Pokemon movie about Sheimi comes out, I’ll automatically think “Kondo Nana” XD
July 21st, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Man I miss karting. It was cheap and affordable back home. ><
Also you need a valid driver’s license for karting (at least back home that was the case, but I’m fairly certain this is true nearly everywhere), so that’s probably why Nana has to use her real name so that it matches up to her name on her driver’s license.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Nana “Kondo”, huh. Good you dig up the tidbits.
Lately I seem to become more of a Nana Mizuki fan than before. Here I am hoping to win an auction bid for one of her limited edition singles. But never mind that, did you see her on the cover of Weekly Ascii Magazine this week (週刊アスキー 7/29号)?
http://www.ascii.co.jp/books/magazines/wascii.shtml
I was like, what’s with the bad makeup? Or more like, I can’t believe I recognized her on the cover of this mainly computer-life magazine. What is she selling this time?
July 21st, 2008 at 11:28 pm
I can imagine Nana getting all hot and sweaty under all those layers of protective gear.
mmmmmmmmm
And Miki Shinichiro on the track? ALL BEWARE OF HIS DORIFITO!
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:04 am
*stalker mode on*
Is there any chance they will auction Nana’s used helmet? xD
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:23 am
@danie: Oh god…ewww…You wanted even the Nana’s helmet? Urgh…I will just take the clothes thanks XD
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Wow…cool, mizuki nana on the race…can’t wait to see whose gonna win on the 3rd august (laugh)
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
@townberry: I don’t see any difference whether it’s the clothes or the helmet… lol you ‘eww’ at the weirdest things.
—–
Nana~~<3
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:15 pm
You’re all weird >_< who wants stinky smelly helmets/clothes?
>houkoholic
I wasn’t aware karting needed licenses. Or maybe Malaysia is just lax with those kind of things ^^;
>piyo
She was selling…
herselfcomputers?July 22nd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
>j1m0ne
I should have read it more thoroughly, but I doubt she was selling computers, more like herself (through a nice interview or something) Maybe you can get the scans if any (hint hint)?
WAM mainly has a new bimbo (usually non-anime) every week. The last time I bought WAM though, that Toki wo Kakeru Shojo gal was the cover gal, which was a first.
http://www.kadokawa.co.jp/blog/tokikake/2006/08/post_69.php
http://www.ascii.co.jp/books/magazines/wascii/20060801.shtml
BTW, do you have any news on Tomoko Kawakami?
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:45 pm
LOL, Kondo Nana is back!
I hope Nana-chan wins. And I bet MIki Shinichirou is going to put the Fujiwara Toufu shop decal on his cart.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
[...] Nana and her karting escapades… Remember that karting thing I mentioned a few weeks ago? The final results are in and er well, the girls didn’t do that great did they? They ended up [...]
September 16th, 2008 at 12:29 am
[...] Pokeyman Another pic of Nana and team karting. Someone go buy that issue and scan [...]