I consider myself to be a big fan of the singers on Nico Nico Douga, yet somehow I didn't find out about Clear and Nero's album "Second Impact" until two months after it came out... -_-;; Oh well, better late than never. I'm actually more of fan of Nero than Clear these days...Clear seems to be much more popular, though. D:

Anyways, here's a sampling of the songs from "Second Impact":


Also, it turns out that I managed to miss a single released by PointFive (.5), a group made up of 5 NND singers (Clear, Amu, Miichan, Dasoku, Asamaru...Let me know if I missed anyone). The title of the single is "Kimi Reflection". There's essentially just three songs there. I do like the song "Risky Game" (originally a Miku song, if you want to look it up).



One last thing I missed in August: Danceroid did a dance cover of the Uta no Prince-sama song...I thought all the dancers in Danceroid were girls? Well, it looks like fun anyhow. Both the cross-dressing and the dancing. xD I highly doubt I could ever find enough otakus to do group dancing, singing, or cosplaying, though...

Labels: clear, danceroid, kimi reflection, music, nero, nico nico douga, nicovideo, pointfive, second impact, singer, uta no prince-sama, utaite, utapri

That's how I've been feeling, at least up until about now. Having no 1st period did give me a little more time to sleep, though unfortunately the last few days my insomnia has returned and I've been tired all over again. Now that I have a presentation coming up for history class, various tests next week, and a small (but still annoying) project for literature, things are starting to go downhill. But at least I've been finding tiny things to entertain me lately.

I bumped into one of my friends after school the other day and we went over to her house for a while. I figured I'd do some homework, but when she suggested that we play some Super Smash Bros. Brawl, well, the paper and pencils went away and the Wii controls came out. It's been ages since I played it, and for some reason I find it as pleasurable as ever to kick, punch, slash, and blow up other people (or creatures, depending on the character). Guess I didn't have as many temper tantrums when I was younger because I satisfied all my violent urges while playing video games. It eventually got pretty chaotic while we were playing Brawl, though, because we set up a special game in it where all the players were:

- Clear (in other words, transparent, so we were pretty much invisible on stage)
- Flame-breathing
- Flowers on our heads (these flowers continuously make us suffer "damage")
- Super huge It was all I could do just to stay alive. I didn't even know where I was half the time and I died about every five seconds. My friend was quite good at the Special Brawl and survived to the very end.

While I was returning home from her house, I saw an interesting bumper sticker on someone's car. It read:

"Sarah Palin 2012 The world's going to end anyways"
...Well, if it wasn't going to end before, it certainly will now.

And then today something pretty funny happened at lunchtime. A girl was sitting on a bench, just minding her own business, and then two guys ran over. One of them showed her his school photos and said, "This is a scientific survey. We need your response. Are these stupid or sexy? She didn't say anything and went back to doing her homework. The guy holding the pictures said to the other guy, "See? Did you hear that? Sexy!" as they walked away.

There's one thing that really has NOT amused me recently, though, and that's the clubs at my school. Almost all of them have club meetings on Thursday at lunchtime. Since one of my friends already managed to convince me to join the business club she's in, and it meets on Thursday, I am now severely limited when it comes to the clubs I can join. Of course, I could still join the guitar club, gay/straight alliance, and French honor society like I wanted to, but how in the world could I go to all those meetings? Just attend one club meeting per month so I can go to every club? I think that's too much trouble. Thank goodness the photo club meets at brunch and the art club has meetings on Tuesdays, so at least I might be able to participate in those.

Anyways, I feel like sharing some of the music I've heard lately, so here's a recent VY1 song that I've liked a lot.

 

 Oh, and a singer on Nico Nico Douga recently covered the song. I can't decide whether I like the song better when it's sung by a Vocaloid or by a real person.

 

 Also, here's some songs from the band Supercell. I didn't find about "Perfect Day" until recently even though apparently the video was already out as early as March...Then again, I was never really actively following Supercell and only really listened to some of their older songs, such as the Miku songs Ryo composed years ago ("World is Mine", "Black Rock Shooter", and "Love is War") and "Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari" (ending theme to Bakemonogatari. Has anyone seen that anime? What did you think of it? I've been meaning to watch).

 

 Ryo used Miku again recently to make the song "Sekiranun Graffiti". I have no idea what Miku's doing flying around the sky and what's up with that Niagara Falls type thing, but here, enjoy the video anyways.

 

 By the way, I read somewhere that Nagi, Supercell's vocalist, was actually the Nico Nico Douga singer called "Gazelle". Is that true?

Labels: clubs, gazelle, music, nagi, nico nico douga, perfect day, sarah palin, sekiranun graffiti, super smash bros brawl, supercell, video games, vocaloid

I am just going on and on in my jealous rage, thinking of all the awesome live performances I missed, so just skip down to the post below this one if you want to read something that's actually more than just complaining (more specifically, the J-pop Summit festival (: )

Well, maybe not exactly at this moment - but it is happening August 27 and 28 in Japan. Animelo is a huge annual live concert that has many performers of anime songs. I seriously wish I could just go to Japan right now, but of course I have school. :\

Really want to see Kalafina, May'n, ELISA, Minori Chihara, and Nana Mizuki, who according to Wikipedia (feel free to laugh at me here) are performing at Animelo. Though I really think going last year would've been more epic because Marina (who is the singer of GirlsDeMo, the fictional band in Angel Beats) and Lia were there. They actually sound really good live, unlike some singers, unfortunately (for examples: listen to fripSide's 2010 live of Only My Railgun, and Nomico's live of Bad Apple)

Also, apparently there was something called Anisama in Shanghai (ARRRRGGGH and May'n toured Asia back in May, she stopped by Shanghai that time! If only I could trade places with my retired relatives!!!), and Ali Project, Yoko Ishida, May'n, and even Miku Hatsune (though of course it wasn't really...HER, if you know what I mean) were there.

Then there was Anime Expo back in July...Kalafina was there, and of course there was the "live" Vocaloid concert that I was eager to go to (they ran out of tickets, and my mom's foot is injured, so it wasn't really convenient :\ ). 2010's Anime Expo would've been awesome to attend, too, because May'n and Megumi Nakajima were there.

The final straw has got to be when I saw videos of the Nico Nico Daikaigi on Youtube. There was a concert in Taiwan back in May, and a bunch of the singers from Nico Nico Douga went - Dasoku, Pokota, Nero, Clear, Gero, che:Sakurai... (By the way, you should definitely look up che:Sakurai's Magnet duet. It's amazing how she can sing as...well, I won't spoil it for you :p ) All I can say now is FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF---


- Er, enjoy some gifs of the Bad Apple PV, I guess. I don't want to go to be completely angry. (note: I didn't make these)

Labels: anime expo, animelo, bad apple, concert, japan, japanese, may'n, nico nico daikaigi, nico nico douga, shanghai, singer, singing, taiwan

I'll start off by wishing Gakupo a happy 3rd birthday! For those who haven't heard of him, Gakupo (or Gackpoid, as he is otherwise called) is a Vocaloid from Internet Co. His voice was provided by the singer Gackt. Gakupo doesn't get anywhere near the amount of attention that Miku does, which is a mighty shame. Doesn't seem like that's going to change anytime soon, though. D:


Image by もち＠マイピクｵﾅｼｬｽ on Pixiv

Anyways, to the topic I've been meaning to write about. These days I've gotten into jpop/jrock again... It's mostly because I've been watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (which is the 2009 FMA anime; unlike the 2003 one, it follows the manga's plotline, I believe). I was reluctant to watch it because it was long (64 episodes drives me insane if the anime isn't really good) and because I wasn't sure whether I'd like it, but nowadays I'm finding that I do enjoy shounen anime (a little unexpected considering that I only read shoujo manga). Then again, I am a big fan of the Ao no Exorcist anime, and now I've discovered that FMA:B may soon become one of my favorite animes too. I actually watched sixteen episodes of FMA:B without stopping at one point, which for me is really rare behavior. Now I understand why the FMA animes got such high ratings on MyAnimeList.

Anyhow, though, I do like some of the music in this anime - more specifically, the first and second endings.

"Uso" by the band SID:



"Let it All Out" by Miho Fukuhara:



I started seeking out some of the other Japanese bands and singers I like, and managed to find my favorite version of the song "Hemisphere", which is the opening to the anime RahXephon (which I've never actually watched, but if you have, let me know what you think of it). I used to have MAKI's version on my playlist, but it got removed by whoever put it up, so I don't have it anymore.

"Hemisphere" by MAKI:



The more famous version, "Hemisphere" by Maaya Sakamoto (I like this one too, but I'm more used to hearing the MAKI one because I heard it first)



I've also gotten really into Yuki Kajiura's projects lately. Yuki Kajiura is a composer who is in charge of the singing groups FictionJunction and Kalafina. (FictionJunction did the song "Parallel Hearts" for Pandora Hearts, if that rings a bell. And Kalafina sang songs for Kuroshitsuji, Kara no Kyoukai, and Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica)

"Magia" by Kalafina:



This came out more than a month ago and I kept forgetting to mention it, but I saw some artist called Nem's Garden had released an album called Moratorium on the Oricon charts one time (Generasia's wiki has the Oricon rankings on it). I decided to look it up on Youtube and discovered that Nem's Garden is actually comprised of many of the singers on Nico Nico Douga, such as Dasoku, Clear, Nero, Miichan, Amu, Gero, Faneru, Jack, and Asamaru. Here's a video that includes a preview of each song. You can probably find most of the full versions of the songs on Youtube.



And just a few days ago, Clear sang another song.



Nowadays, though, my favorite NND singer has got to be Hanatan. (I'm still a big fan of Valshe, of course, and Nero as well, but Hanatan is just amazing.) Back in June she released an album. Here's a PV of a song she sang.

"Bamboo Leaf Boat" by Hanatan:



That isn't my favorite song of hers, though. I love her cover of Imitation, which is originally one of Miku Hatsune's songs:



And also her cover of Aitai, which is originally a GUMI song:



I gotta say, no matter how much I like Vocaloids, they can't compare to real voices. This is the original version of Aitai by GUMI. It's not bad, but I definitely prefer Hanatan's cover.



She has sung other songs, like "Palette", "Cendrillon", and "Romeo and Cinderella", which you can find on Youtube.

Labels: birthday, cover, fma, fullmetal alchemist, fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood, gackpoid, gakupo, hanatan, japanese, music, nico nico douga, vocaloid, yuki kajiura

Well, seeing as the more "popular" Vocaloids are from Japan, when someone tries to make them sing in English, it tends to be less than perfect. Sometimes I can understand some of what they're saying.
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Labels: bilingual, blogger, blogskins, english, japanese, kaito, language, layout, luka, megurine, nico nico douga, nicovideo, opinion, suggestions, vocaloid, vocaloids, youtube

For most of the past Saturday, I was swamped in Vocaloid. I already dip my toes in it most days of the week, but that day happened to have a lot more Vocaloid in it than usual. And it's all because of Stanford Splash that I've really gotten drenched.

One of my friends told me that there were Touhou and Vocaloid classes offered at Stanford Splash, Read more »

Labels: artist, classes, dye, japanese, kat-tun, live, luka megurine, magnet, mikumikudance, mmd, neverxover, nico nico douga, nicovideo, otaku, plagiarism, splash, stanford, touhou, vocaloid, yunomi

These past few days I've been watching the anime Angel Beats. It's already been a while since the anime came out - that was back around April to June 2010 - which is typical for me. I tend to watch older anime first and then gradually work my way up to more recent animes, so I guess I've been making pretty good progress if I'm able to watch some 2010 animes from time to time. (I think there still might be a couple of 2007 animes that I haven't watched yet, like Shattered Angels. Funny that its name is also about angels. :p)

Well, as is the case with me and most animes I've watched, I wasn't particularly intrigued by the beginning, but it got better as it went on (I felt that way about Durarara!! too). I'll try not to spoil it for those of you who have not seen it and might want to see it in the future.

I've heard it mentioned before that Yuri Nakamura, one of the protagonists of Angel Beats!, resembles Haruhi Suzumiya from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (otherwise called Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu).
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Labels: angel beats, anime, art, characters, chronological order, comparison, existence, haruhi suzumiya, life, meaning, my soul your beats, nico nico douga, pattern, proof, similar, song, time, yuri nakamura

I think that the song Soundless Voice is originally sung by the Vocaloid Len Kagamine, but this song is better known as being sung by Valshe, a Japanese singer who I believe debuted on Nico Nico Douga. I got into Valshe's music after hearing Soundless Voice.



I'm a big fan of her because she can sound female or male depending on how she sings. For instance, she sings the female (Luka) and male (Len) parts in Symmetric Target.



Anyways, here's more of her singing.













In Yume Sakura, Valshe does the male part (Len) while Choco does the female part (Rin).



And here is a song called Imitation Black, sung by Clear, Dasoku, and Valshe (Valshe does Len's part, she's the highest voice out of the three). It's mostly Clear that you hear in this song; I think he did a good job with this one.



Sorry, I'll stop video-spamming now (the videos weren't uploaded by me, anyhow D: ). I needed an outlet for my fangirling.

I really wish I had a larger voice range, I can only sing at medium-ish pitches (hard for me to go high or low, and I have to use a higher, quieter, weirder-sounding voice to hit higher notes; I think it's called a head voice?). And even then my voice doesn't sound like I thought it did (tried recording it with my cell phone and I am not pleased with the way my voice sounds x_x). I hope that I'll be able to expand my range by practicing at home in the shower, but somehow I get the feeling that my voice is going to be my like my height, something I wish I could change...but can't.

Labels: japan, japanese, kagamine, len kagamine, luka, luka megurine, megurine, music, nico nico douga, nicovideo, range, rin, rin kagamine, singer, songs, soundless voice, valshe, vocaloid, vocaloids, voice

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