Category Archives: Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

March 1, 2014

The IM@S Bonfire

By omo

If I was a mild IM@S fan before going to Japan to watch the IM@S movie and their live show, I am no longer such a thing. Arguably I could not have been a mild IM@S fan given somewhere between 20-50% of my motivation of going to Japan this time was to see these two things, which can appear as an irrational behavior in most normal contexts. I say fan’s gonna fan, right?

Thing is, when I first watched the IM@S anime not-so-long ago, it didn’t appear to me as some top-tier anime made to advertise the franchise. I thought it was competent, featuring sparks of brilliance but overall typical A-1 Pictures late-night anime fare. Well, that actually says a lot, given this became one of the first anime that Studio Trigger that we now know worked on?

Discussing with some friends about Sakuracon tonight, I found that the Seattle-based con managed roped in two relevant animators as this year’s guests: the always amusing Koji Masunari, and sakkan and designer Toshifumi Akai, as a part of Magi’s promo at the con. Immediately my eyes honed into their contributions to Anim@s. It’s just that state of mind. And it’s not just that–I whipped out episode 23 from Crunchyroll right there and then and watched it. Despite the jetlag (or because?). Despite that not 5 minutes ago I was about to go to bed because I was tired, and it’s almost 1 AM.

The funny thing is, the entire episode kept my attention. Just a few minutes before putting my sleep schedule out of whack, I was watching an arguably inferior anime. I was close to zoning out while watching the show, so it was a good time to stop for the night I thought. But nope, that IM@S bonfire lit under my butt keeps me warm and going. What started as a freaking seed has blossomed into something more, perhaps something a little bit scary now. We’ll see where this takes me.

Episode 23 of The Idolm@ster anime is probably the second most depressing episode, and it’s depressing in a “Lost in Translation” kind of way. It’s got the Masunari touch. The way the scenes show the upper body motion. The way Yukiho sits in the green room, meditating to the music. The way Haruka camps out in front of her computer in her room. I totally forgot Little Match Girl made its anime debut here, and it becomes juxtaposition and yet somewhat touching in a very different way to what was going on in Haruka’s mind. And this is because the Yukiho we all love to hate or hate to hate has come so far along.

Everything comes together in this nub of an episode where Haruka doesn’t fall to the ground. It’s both the cause and cure of insomnia.

PS. If I was more motivated I would’ve pulled out their individual pieces from the Backstage M@ster book and look at the paw prints Masunari put in there. Of course, what ended up happening was that I googled the book and it turned up a couple “unboxing” type videos where the youtuber just go through the book, and what I found was that there are now a print run of this book that doesn’t have the Ogi Star Memories add-on. And for fact-checking purposes I got my copy out of the shelf anyway. At any rate, beware. Don’t get that version, if you want to buy the most definitive print reference for Anim@s. Get the one that has the Ogi Star Memories (the obi will indicate so). I am pretty sure that particular doujinshi is still over $100 street price-wise. Maybe you can get it less if you shop around?

All the more amazing when I just found it lying on A-Button’s counter a week ago.

PPS. The full sheding from Yukari’s SSA show can be found here. He goes into way more details than I can remember, and I sat next to him for the 2/15 show anyway!

EDIT: See the comments, but also https://twitter.com/digikerot/status/440942124369190912 for the first and subsequent editions of the book.

4 comments | posted in Idolmaster, Modern Visual Culture, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

February 16, 2014

Thought-Dump Japan 2014 Part 1

By omo

So what kills blogging is not twitter, it’s a grueling schedule of a) line up early for goods/events/etc b) events c) post-event hangout d) post-even hangout pt 2. e) oh hey it’s 4am. f) repeat.

But I’ll take this time to write up some stuff. I hope to go to bed soon so should be short. Right.

Bunny berry pink penlight

Continue reading

2 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Introspectives, Off Topic, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

February 11, 2014

The Trip, 2014

By omo

I never got to wax much nostalgia about my trip last April when I went to see that PA Works show, along with Coorie and Tamayura. I traveled for about 10 days and did the otaku mecca thing, while focused on taking it easy, eating (and didn’t even do much of that beyond local recs) and hanging out. Watched a couple anime movies, at least. It was actually quite a blast, but I definitely could’ve done more if I was more organized or adventurous.

Makoto goes traveling on a Jitensha w

This year I’m going with a herd of other foreigners and in the span of about also 10 days, I would have hit up 2-3 theater greetings, probably will watch the same two anime movies like, in four different occasions (funny considering I could also watch Buddha 2 or the new Tiger & Bunny film that’ll get a theatrical run in a month), will attend a radio recording, plus at least five concerts. FIVE. Maybe more if I want to do that underground idol thing. So most likely this means I won’t have time to try my luck at Kancolle cafe, just a couple days for shopping, and who knows how many places I can go eat? I get the feeling those things will take care of themselves however.

Here’s the event list, at least the confirmed ones. A few are not yet and are marked TBD:

There are a ton of events that I wished I could attend, either because it runs against one of the other events, or because I can’t get the proper tickets (like WUG handshake sessions…or Yui Ogura handshake sessions…or Milk Lariat S conflict with KOTOKO…or Kanon 2014 conflict with IM@S with Yanagi Nagi live etc).

And that’s just events! There are tons of other stuff on the agenda, none perhaps less epic than the chronicles detailed here. But I will do my best with the whole enjoy Japan thing. Food, scenery, shopping, you name it. Definitely want to revisit A-Button and Garten once.

Anyway, if this blog stops updating the next 2 weeks, you know what’s up. Actually I will still be updating the non IM@S stuff here, so watch for that; but as you can see there’s not a whole lot of that.

4 comments | posted in Conventions and Concerts, Introspectives, Modern Visual Culture, Popular Culture, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

January 21, 2014

February 2014: True Anime Japan

By omo

This morning I woke up to the news about how AnimeJapan is trying to pitch to a billion different IPs and attract 100ks of visitors. And that is well. I mean putting aside the splinter years of ACE and all that dark history, I think when cons like JX and AX have 100k+ of visitors (turnstile), while Japan doesn’t quite have a con like that (ie., Comiket is not like that), it’s sort of an industry pride issue. I mean, they’re calling it “AnimeJapan” and that can’t be more obvious. AnimeUSA peeps should be like, hur hur hur.

You know they mean business when one slide says basically this:

Anime Japan

I think they’ll hit their 100k count handily. I just hope AnimeJapan retain ACE’s liberal policy of region-free live streams.

But forget about that. I want to write a real life tourism plug for Japan for February 2014. Why? Here’s the list of things I personally want to see (of varying amount of interests, granted):

  • Sapporo Snow Festival/Snow Miku Feestival (Feb. 5-11)
  • Yui Horie’s next live (touring)
  • Love Live @ SSA
  • Ray is touring
  • KOTOKO is touring
  • Mingosu is touring
  • There’s a full-blown Uchoten Kazoku event (fhana!!) (I even could have applied for a ticket w)
  • iM@S @SSA (but you know this)
  • …there’s a MariIro event? LOL
  • ChanYui “Charming Do” promo meet&greets
  • FictionJunction YUUKA lives (with other FJs), and later individual lives for her and Kajiura teams in Feb.
  • Sumipe event
  • Yanagi Nagi live event (FFFFFFFFFFF can’t go, conflicts orz)
  • JAM Project is touring
  • Sakura Taisen Paris team kayo show (FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF I would totally go to this if I can get tickets) (Aipon is even in this) (Feb. 13-16)
  • Sphere 5th anniversary events
  • May’n is touring
  • Aoi Eir is touring
  • Yukarin is touring (with 2-day SSA live)
  • Milk Lariat 6S (lots o anime idols)
  • Yuki Aoi commemorative event
  • Junko Iwao birthday live
  • Chiaki Ishikawa concert
  • Nakagawa Kanon live (Kaminomi event)
  • Sakakibara Yui live
  • Steins;Gate events
  • ….And a lot more I didn’t list.

Despite being the shortest month of the year, February 2014 has way too many good events. And I’m not even listing things like movie screenings (Mouretsu Pirates!) plus not even everything has been announced yet. Granted on a typical month, there are a ton of events going on at any given week, but this is just crazy.

If you had to go to Japan for events, this month is it! Really, I mean, it has something for everybody. And a lot of something for a select group.

Leave a comment | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Modern Visual Culture, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

December 23, 2013

Wrapping Up the Story You Didn’t Even Know: Animusic Tourney Ends

By omo

It’s pretty long, the Anime Music Tournament.

I ran a bracket. There was a winner. I actually want to give presents to not just the winner, but also the person who came in second, because the winner won by way too much due to the way the bracket is set up and the way, well, the bracket is set up on my end. It’s complicated but let’s just say congrats to not just the loot-winning person(s) but also the song that won it all.

It’s not as rock as their latest album, which features this piece to open things up. It’s also more about Koeda (and maybe Chelly too).

In that sense, the post-Nagi Yanagi era of supercell as studio album publishing entity has taken somewhat of a turn. It’s welcomed because it does feel kind of played out during their second full blown album in which that winning song came from. It speaks more to the strange way supercell went from indie to pro than their creative powers. Well, maybe it always does speak to ryo or supercell’s ability to make music, its melodic arrangements, those drawing sounds of strings that peaks with the vocals and punctuated with rhythmic piano. But since Nagi Yanagi has already release her own studio solo album even before Zigaexperientia came out, thinking back, Today Is a Beautiful Day simply came out too late? Is this just how it rolls for the tie-in driven, mixed media engine that is supercell?

I guess none of that matters, because in the Anime Music Tournament it sure didn’t feel like people were really deliberating on songs within their finer details. They just voted, because that’s all it matters.

In that sense, the tournament is kind of a sinkhole of information; a lot of it went in, but it didn’t seem to give a result that reflects the information provided. You learn more about the voters and the songs from merely the nomination exercise. There were of course some dark horses or outliers, but in a tournament with 256 entries I don’t think there were even 2.56 dark horses? Maybe just 3? or 2? Certainly none of the top 4 were ranked lower than 10 so it’s all really just a waste of time in that regard.

To take this with a more positive spin, the Animusic Tourney was a great opportunity to wax nostalgic of a certain MAL music club, it’s good to hear from voices who complained about how lame the tournament is, from people who I’ve not heard talking about anime music in a while. And that’s really the best thing I can walk away from, that we have a dorky music tournament to serve as the nails in the coffin of a chapter in one person’s life. But it takes a certain something to pull it off. Can supercell replicate their magic touch? Will Zzeroparticle cry to us playing Tenshi ni Fureta yo?

Anyways, here is the loot list for our winner:

  • A JAM Project album…probably one of their best-of.
  • Adolescence of Utena OST
  • K-ON Season 2 vol 2 BD (Region A?) (This is the best stuff, this.)
  • Madoka TV DVD (Region 1)
  • Kira Kira (All Ages)
  • Random trinkets and one clear folder because, why not.

The second place winner needs to contact me, but he or she will get a JAM Project album…probably another one of their best-of.

Yeah, not kidding, I just have dupe JAM Project albums coming out of wazoo for some reason.

2 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop