The Yard Sale
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.
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.
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.
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:
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):
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.
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:
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.
So Paranda describes what many seiota have been observing for the past, oh I don’t know, 5 years? I quote:
Seiyuu ended up being divided into two factions by fan opinions. The “jitsuryoku” camp contained seiyuu with true voice ability that get casted based on their own strength. The other camp contained seiyuu tainted with various unflattering speculation: they’re just idols, failed mainstream wannabes, casted from the couch (makura eigyou = pillow trade), they have a monotone voice (bouyomi), they’re only popular because of the agency’s monstrous PR power (gorioshi = Gorilla Push), and so on.
Within all of this bubbling resentment, the word “koebuta” ended up getting thrown around to describe fans that entered into the fandom because of the latter group. What it implies is that they like the idol aspects of seiyuu more than the voice acting.
The ones on the receiving end of the word took it in stride, and some even began calling themselves the term with pride, considering the detractors as elitist old farts. Besides there’s nothing wrong with liking seiyuu for other reasons so who cares?
I tried to leave a comment but his aging blogging software can’t handle the spam so it’s difficult. Besides, blogging the comment instead lets me rant on a little more.
(Let’s just say when I started blogging with this set of categories in 2008 or whatever, the category name “Seiyuu, Idol, Pop” existed, as is, for a reason. Also, all of this applies only tangentially to the other gender side of the fandom, although it isn’t too different. It’s a different can of worms I guess.)
/cracks fingers
The big picture in regards to seiota, at least as a reflection from marketing and fandom, is actually more complicated. Having seen in person more 90s seiyuu idol types in the past few years, it’s very clear that many seiyuu are general “personalities” in the entertainment industry sense of the term. People like Hisakawa Aya or Mitsuishi Kotono can fully be normal idols if they got the right break or if they won their respective gene lotteries; they carry themselves like showa idols. That’s because back then if you are a female and you work this business by acting or singing or whatever, there is just that one way to do things.
[As an aside, massive prop to the original 17yo because she’s able to continue to play the game.]
Today’s seiyuu idol is different than 90s style seiyu idol because what goes for “idol” has changed drastically. Think AKB48. A lot of people in the mainstream don’t think much of the average AKB48 girl, because they are basically simple, hard working entertainers, with as much talent as a girl next door. But that is just a perception–it’s not necessarily the reality of the situation. It’s both a matter of perceived talent (I think Ootsubo, TKTT, Ohashi and Ogura are all very talented entertainers and maybe even voice actors for example, FWIW) and the medium they express themselves, or play out their idol-job-ness-whatever. Today’s seiyuu idol is more down-to-earth, closer to the koebuta touch, but at the same time it shows off their weaknesses and quirks, because after all they are girls next door as far as charm goes. At the same time, because the demand for the overall package is higher, the talent doesn’t have to excel in the primary disciplines as long as she can make it count in other areas. And the more demanding you are on your idols while exploiting them in more facets via more media, more venues to produce the idol, odds are you will get idol talents who are well-rounded but may not excel in the core disciplines of anime voice acting. Well, it’s not to say they can’t do a good job–it’s just a matter of what fans perceive as good.
I mean for every Iwao Junko or Kouda Mariko you have a Satsuki Yukino or Mayumi Tanaka. To me the gap between those people as voice actors are pretty narrow, but some simply just got idol appeal so they got to go a step further career-wise. It’s just how things have always rolled.
Today’s seiyuu idol reflects today’s market reality. In the age of koebuta I don’t really think it is a problem, you know? It’s the same as saying there is nothing wrong with liking Hanazawa Kana or Hikasa Yoko as idols or singers. It’s the same with liking Tomatsu Haruka or Takagaki Ayahi as entertainers, because they are actually good at something, and voice acting is one of those more forgiving occupations where even if you can’t make the cut with RL acting (yeah sorry Kotobuki, you just can’t act), you can still do all right. And it is a great marketing vehicle for these people on the side.
But for the Hasshiis out there, well, good luck.
At the same time, there’s a lot of room for hard stats and context. I wrote what I did with what little that I do know. I think the way the voice acting industry plays out is part of that, as far as seiota factions go. It’s easy to be a certain type of seiota just because there are people, historically, who did it just on the side and you can follow them. But today’s mix media franchises and idol production systems complicate the picture. It’s okay to go all idol on a voice actress I guess, but it’s always a little bit weird to hear a Shindou Kei story or stumbling upon Shikaco’s gravure pics. Or deal with the Hirano Aya nonsense. And I guess that’s the hurdle we have to get over with. I also want to know how these seiyuu idols are typically cultivated. I guess part of that is how seiyuu schools do in terms of admissions and auditions, the pure seiota stuff.
Also, it’s a matter of technology too. Not many showa idols tweet. It’s like the one BIG thing I left out in my Madoka Rebellion write-up: the first 5 minutes of the screening was my favorite 5 minutes of the movie, as the seiyuu cast introduced themselves and the film to the oversea viewers. Giant AIPON OMG HNNNNNG. I bring this up also because thanks to high definition theatrical projection, and my 2nd row seat, I can see the bumps and skin imperfections on these girls with high zoom details. You ain’t gonna get that on your NTSC TV set back in 1989. Not even if you splurged for LD.
To answer Paranda’s question, if he is 60-40 then I’m probably like 90-10, but at the same time I enjoy all the koebuta stuff too, even if it’s to a lesser extent. I mean, HUGE AIPON OMG HNNNNG. The real difference is that I generally don’t like idols in the Momusu or AKB48 sense. I’m more about the White Album style of idols!
Bonus question: what the heck does this mean in the context of Million Live and Cinderella Girls? I mean, it’s like accidentally meta.