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「大橋高校文化祭 （中編）」 (Oohashi Koukou Bunkasai (Chuuhen))
“Ohashi High School Culture Festival (Middle Chapter)”
Episode at a Glance:
With preparations for the culture festival well underway, Taiga gives Ami a box of Macarons as a sign of good faith so that she’ll let her play the lead part in their pro wrestling show when her father comes by to watch.
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第09話 「拒絶 rejection」 (Kyozetsu)
While Ban, Momose, and Yua discuss the New Generation group suicide that involved the latter’s younger twin sister Mia and how everything points towards Takumi, word of the sixth incident comes in from Suwa.
…And causes a storm for that matter. A few days ago, Nakajima Megumi (中島 愛) of Macross Fronter/Ranka Lee fame got the attention of a lot of Nico Nico Douga viewers with the release of the video above — a choreographed dance to her new “Be MYSELF” song. While my initial reaction was that Megumi is coming off more and more like a real-life Ranka with her “cuteness appeal” (moe?), evidently that’s not the case with people who love trolling anything and everything in cyberspace. Mixed in with the supportive comments on Nico Nico were a lot of slanderous ones, which got out of hand to the point that Nico Nico’s management intervened and started removing comments themselves. This (ridiculous) incident even made headlines on some Japanese sites. The original video found here (account required) now has over 285,000 views and 28,000 comments, which probably makes it one of the fastest videos to achieve such popularity. As for the song itself, I heard it earlier from her Akihabara performance and didn’t think too much of it then, but it’s grown on me after listening to it for a while. Megumi also has another new song, “Tenshi ni Naritai” 「天使になりたい」 (lit. “I want to become an angel”), and both are available for sale on the iTunes store (Japan only). ~Kira*
-divine
…is still hoping to get a hold of some May’n and Nakajima Megumi duet performance videos.
Better late than never right? So oddly enough, Hyakko got new opening and ending sequences this week (episode nine), after only having a video collage of episode one clips for the opening up until now. The new ending sequence on the other hand is still a picture collage, but features newer and better artwork. Retaining the same opening song “Suppin Rock” 「スッピンロック」 by Ogawa Mana (小川 真奈) and ending song “Namida Namida Namida” 「涙 NAMIDA ナミダ」 by Hirano Aya (平野 綾), these new sequences are welcomed additions, but I find it really unusual to introduce them now when three-quarters of the series is already over. In any case, Hyakko features a wide-range of quirky and interesting characters, so if you haven’t checked it out and are looking for a light-hearted slice-of-life comedy this season, it’s a pretty good fit. Torako’s an absolute riot.
-divine
…felt the urge to say something about adding new OP/ED sequences this late in a series.
A video message from Miyano Mamoru popped up over at Nico Nico Douga (reposted above, with the original here), announcing the release of his second single, “…Kimi he” 「…君へ」. Mamoru then goes on to make a couple of personal announcements, with the first being that his 25 year old self is now married and the second being that he’s expecting a child with his new wife. In his nearly 15 minute long personal announcement full of drawn out emotional pauses, Mamoru is almost moved to tears on several occasions, which made the whole thing quite awkward for me to watch/listen to. This sentiment was further compounded when he revealed that he was diagnosed with the possibility of being infertile a little while ago. With Mamoru claiming that he absolutely loves children, this naturally came as a huge shock to him and also gave him doubts about being able to get married. As per his original announcement though, he was able to conceive a child after all — a miracle in his eyes. Evidently, this is a huge life-turning moment for Mamoru, enough so that he felt he owed it to his fans to make a formal announcement about it here and in written form as well.
With that said, he didn’t make mention of who his new wife is, but the fact that these two announcements come hand-in-hand made me question if the marriage came first or the pregnancy. Joking aside, Mamoru has shown a very emotional side of him that I had no idea about, in addition to revealing a lot of personal information (with the infertility taking tops in that regard). In my opinion, neither are easy things to tell the world when you consider how he’s putting himself out there and subject to public scrutiny. Infertility aside, I was under the impression that seiyuus (particularly female seiyuus) aren’t allowed to let their personal relationships slip into the limelight as it could be potentially bad PR. Perhaps marriages are seen differently, but a lot of fans still “cried” when Chiba Saeko announced that she got married. Luckily though, public reaction seems to be positive and supportive so far in Mamoru’s case, based on the Nico Nico Douga comments.
As many people are aware, Miyano Mamoru currently stars as Setsuna F. Seiei in Gundam 00 S2, Kiryuu Zero in Vampire Knight Guilty, Death the Kid in SOUL EATER, Fuwa Shou in Skip Beat!, and Kuro in KUROZUKA. His previous big roles include Yagami Light in Death Note and Suou Tamaki in Ouran High School Host Club. Despite his new outlook in life and how he seems intent on devoting it to his upcoming child, Mamoru tells everyone that he plans to continue doing his best in his roles as an actor. He’s become a huge name in the seiyuu world as of late (seen by his current starring roles), so there’s nothing left to do but wish him and his new family the best.
-divine
…learned that YouTube still has a 10 minute cap and wondering who Miyano Mamoru’s new wife is.
Japanese hip-hop duo HALCALI appeared on Music Fair last week along with SPEED, Perfume, and Lil’B, where they performed “Long Kiss Good Bye”, the seventh ending theme to Naruto Shippuuden. While I’m sure Naruto fans will have a more immediate attachment to the song, it sounds really good on its own due to the nice mix of Jpop and hip-hop. Despite not being a huge fan of rap, I find female asian hip-hop artists quite refreshing to listen to, especially with HALCALI’s style of music. Case in point, I’ve listened to this song to death already, but am not sick of it in the slightest yet. Prior to Music Fair, HALCALI also appeared on Girl Pop Factory, but has since added some simple choreography to their performance as seen above. If you’re interested in checking out the PV as well, I’ve uploaded a copy of it here. In any case, enjoy the video(s).
-divine
…in an ongoing effort to make use of the new HD YouTube.
As some people may already be aware, YouTube quietly added a new “HD-like” streaming format some time ago that is much better than the “high quality” version that’s publicly available. Two days ago, they added their new widescreen player to the site, which makes excellent use of this new format. To help illustrate the improvement, please see the video of the Gundam 00 S2 opening sequence above. The quality pretty much speaks for itself, but notice how sharp the text is at fullscreen — it even looks crisp when blown up to 1920×1200. Now compare this to the “high quality” version that came out long ago of the same video (which some people have this new HD-like version confused as):
Show High Quality version ▼
Similar to how the “high quality” format can be viewed by appending “&fmt=18” to the end of any video URL, this new HD-like format can be viewed by appending “&fmt=22“. However, there are some nuances, which I’ve noticed in my preliminary testing of this higher resolution/bitrate version.
More after the jump…
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Round three of the second week of shows.
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Here’s the second round of snapshots for series I took a peek at this past week.
