Posts Tagged ‘mizuki nana’
Spring Anime First Looks, Part 1
Posted on: April 4, 2011
- In: News | Previews | Reviews
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It’s April, and the new anime season has begun. (Although, due to the continuing effects of the earthquake, several shows from the last season have not yet aired their conclusions.) Since there are so many new shows starting up this month, I decided to break up the “first looks” post into pieces. So here we go.
Boy meets girl... er, princess... er, dog?
Dog Days kicked off the season with a bang. Tsuzuki Masaki (writer), Kusakawa Keizou (director), and Seven Arcs (animation production) from the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series and movie teamed up with a first-rate voice cast for this highly-anticipated show. The opening song is done by one of Dom’s favorite singers, the character designs and art are strong, and all the pieces look to be in place. It remains to be seen if Tsuzuki and Kusakawa can tell a compelling story or if this just becomes an eye candy fluff piece.
For those of you who are veritably squealing in anticipation of more boy-butler action this summer, Kuroshitsuji II now has a streaming trailer that reintroduces you to the world of Black Butler. The trailer runs 3:37 and shows off a whole lot of the two main characters: young nobleman Alois Trancy and his (presumably demonic) butler, Claude Faustus. The general feel of the trailer is about what you’d expect from the sequel to Kuroshitsuji, with a mixture of dramatic angst and light horror starring hot young boys.
Kuroshitsuji II starts in July, but with the spring anime season starting up this week, it might get lost in the shuffle a bit. Personally, I’m keeping this on my radar in spite of my Y chromosome because Mizuki Nana plays the young Alois – houkoholic tells me that she plays a mean boy role, so I’ll at least give it a chance.
What happens when you take JAM Project and their old-school anime sensibilities away from the vaunted Super Robot Wars series? A whole lot of fan service rushes in to fill the vacuum. You get Mizuki Nana playing a busty fairy princess, and watch an opening sequence that’s so shamelessly fan service-oriented that one of the girls fondles herself and looks enviously at the other girls. Why, back in my day of playing Super Robot Wars, the opening song was called “Rocks” and consisted of a lot of shouting the words “SUPER ROBOT” over and over again. And we were happy with these things! Check after the jump for what I’m used to out of the Super Robot Wars series, and not this seiyuu idol stuff!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to play my newly arrived copy of Mugen no Frontier Exceed in a corner where no one can see me, so as to hide my shame.
Animelo Summer Live In Shanghai Brings Hope to Otaku Worldwide – Tuesday Tunes
Posted on: February 23, 2010
For lovers of anime music, the Animelo concert series led by JAM Project is like watching the Dream Team year after year, as all of the best . But having been there once for the 2008 concert, let me tell you that I have no urge to stand out in the August heat in Tokyo for one more minute in my life. It was a great concert, but unless it decides to move to a less humid time of year or a cooler climate, I’m not going back.
So, while their announcement of a November concert in Shanghai doesn’t affect me directly, it gives me hope that within a couple of years, we can see something like it in the US. It’d be a pretty tough sell to try and fly that many acts over the Pacific unless they’re 100% sure they’re going to sell out, but its very existence means that JAM Project’s international tour, which touched American shores at Otakon in 2008, was successful enough to make international ventures viable to Japanese promoters. So, I’m hoping that the Shanghai concert sells out overwhelmingly, and that in 2011 or 2012, the Animelo concerts will come to my neck of the woods. Hit the break to see some of the great performances and anime all-stars that have graced this concert series over the last six years.
Ladies rejoice, Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) is coming back this summer with an all-new cast of characters! Innovatively titled Kuroshitsuji II, the season will start airing in July and feature a new master-butler pair. Claude Faustus, played by Sakurai Takahiro, will be the titular butler, and Aloise Trancy, played by Mizuki Nana, will be the new master.
Even with the all-new cast of characters, it looks like the next Kuroshitsuji will be more of the same, as the “Faustus” name brings with it the same demonic undertones that came with the first series, and character designs from Toboso Yana cement the connection. So, if you want to see more picture-perfect butlers carrying out seemingly impossible tasks for their masters, you only have a few months to wait!
Image from Akiba Blog.
The latest Mizuki Nana single from the Nanoha movie, “Phantom Minds,” has hit #1 in the charts – but that really doesn’t mean much. As houkoholic at seiyuu3 points out, her 21st single isn’t even the #1 best-seller among Mizuki Nana singles. It’s just not a market where CDs sell, and the sales rose to the top of a weak field. So, not that impressive as a milestone, her 30,000+ attendance concert at Saitama Super Arena was more astounding.
But what this does give me is an excuse to provide you readers with more music from her latest single, as well as some of her more amazing insert songs from the Nanoha series.
Mizuki Nana may be the only anime seiyuu on the 60th Kouhaku program this week, but there are plenty of mainstream performers on the program who’ve lent their songs to anime programs and video games. I mean, Final Fantasy X-2 skyrocketed Koda Kumi’s career, and fans of her skimpy outfits and catchy dance tunes are thankful for it. This is a quick look at some of the Kouhaku performers and some of the songs you may not know about that ended up on anime soundtracks.
Note: the “you may not know about” excludes all of those Bleach and Naruto Shippuden themes that are floating around by popular acts.
Image from Risarule on pixiv.
Rosario + Vampire is a strange beast – it’s a manga I got into because the anime was so dumb, I had to see what redeeming qualities the manga had. Because, let’s be frank about this, the anime has pretty much nothing going for it, except the opening and ending themes are sung by Mizuki Nana. People kept telling me that the manga was better whenever I watched an execrable episode of the anime, and they were right – it’s definitely an improvement over the plotless blob of merchandising that called itself an anime, though I still have some reservations about it.
Today’s tunes are inspired by my love for Mizuki Nana as a singer, with a nod to Kouhaku Uta Gassen for acknowledging that Mizuki Nana isn’t just for otaku anymore – though they definitely make up a strong core of her audience. She sure has come a long way from her early appearances a decade ago, though. Let’s take a musical journey through the many genres, styles, and songs of my favorite Japanese singer!
Weekend News Catch-up: Mizuki Nana on Kouhaku, FUNimation licenses, and Vampire Knight
Posted on: November 23, 2009
Image from Insidears via Seiyuu3
It was a busy weekend in anime news, with the new year looming and the winter anime season on the horizon, as well as the New Moon release bringing the New York Times’ attention to the Vampire Knight manga. But the big news for me was Kouhaku Uta Gassen, which finally put out its list of performers and included my favorite singer in the anime business, Mizuki Nana. You can be sure that the Tuesday Tunes will be more from her selection! In the meantime, enjoy the other news.
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