Anime News / First Impressions / Macross / Random Musings

Random Musings – Raindrops on Roses

  • I’ve been listening to the Macross Frontier soundtrack, and it’s every bit as wonderful as I hoped it’d be. I’m loving the tracks What ’bout my star (both versions), Big Boys (reminds me a lot of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme), and Innocent green. Oh and the Nyan Nyan song is as cute as ever. It’s going to be hard at the end of the year deciding whether this OST is better or the true tears one is – probably this because of all the vocal music (which isn’t to say that Yoko Kanno’s instrumentals aren’t great too). And that’s assuming the next Macross Frontier OST won’t be better.
  • I also managed to scrape together some time this weekend to watch a few episodes of the currently-running drama Zettai Kareshi. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it’s about a girl who gets a robot as her ideal boyfriend, and the love triangle and troubles that this leads to. That might sound silly, but it’s actually really entertaining. I was curious about this adaptation because I read the manga a long time ago, and though a lot of things have changed in the story, it’s still very very good. It has that same spark that I found in the Hana Yori Dango and Yamada Tarou Monogatari dramas – the perfect mix of comedy and romance drama. It can be very funny at times (especially the actor who plays Namikiri), and the romance and drama elements are slightly over the top – just the way I like it. I wish I were blogging it, but sadly I just can’t make the time commitment for a drama series right now (though I may try to next season or the season after that). On a side note, I had the theme song of this series, Okaeri by ayaka in my head all the way until today…when I started listening to the Macross Frontier soundtrack.
  • Also in the news, the official Mai-HiME/Otome website announced a new project. No details about it other than the name and character design of the new heroine, Mao (see the link). While I do wish Sunrise would develop more new original properties, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious what this one will be like, especially since S.ifr’s first episode was better than expected. Speaking of which, the second volume of S.ifr is due out July 25th.
    • CODE GEASS / First Impressions

    CODE GEASS R2 Matsuri Special

     

    Instead of episode nine, there was a CODE GEASS special aired this week featuring comedian Arino Shinya, idol Natsukawa Jun, comedy duo Sandwichman, comedy duo America Zarigani, and new voice actress Miyake Hitomi. The only thing really worth noting from this special is the preview for episodes nine and ten, and I’ve uploaded that above.
    Hit the jump for screencaps and impressions of the rest of the Akihabara special as well as some speculation about the preview.

    Macross / PV

    Sheryl Nome starring May’n Live R-Zero Appearance

    For all you Macross Frontier and Japanese music fans out there, Nakabayashi May (Sheryl’s voice in all the songs) made an appearance last night on TBS’s Live R-Zero program and sang Diamond Crevasse in its entirety. Even after listening to her CD ad nauseum, I still really like the song, so it was cool to hear the live version. She did a fairly good job with it too – much better than I’ve heard some more popular artists do (SMAP and Ayumi come to mind) anyway. My main complaint is that the audience and host Izumiya Shigeru didn’t really seem all that into it, and that kind of took away from the atmosphere. Then again, this is an anime song appearing on a normal music program, so it might be somewhat understandable. Regardless, the video is definitely still worth a watch, if for just the song alone. Hopefully it’ll be able to hold me over until the first Macross Frontier soundtrack is released next Wednesday (June 4th).